Jenlisa Oneshots

as long as i have you, i'm home (part 2)

Jennie had gotten two hours for lunch, something that rarely if ever happened. So, she decided to get tacos from her and Lisa's favorite food truck and surprise Lisa at work.

They were spending less and less time together, and the time they did spend together, Jennie felt like she was doing backflips and cartwheels to try and engage Lisa in a conversation that Lisa seemed very disinterested in having.

But Jennie was trying. She was sure that she was. She did try to talk and come home at a good hour. She tried.

So, she bought the tacos and stopped at a coffee shop one of her friends from undergrad ran to make Lisa a special cup of coffee, and then found her way to the brick building that housed the counseling office Lisa worked at.

Jennie started finding the bitter irony of Lisa's profession recently. Lisa spent her days counseling newlyweds and people who'd been married for twenty years, helping them connect and find common ground. But whenever Jennie came home to connect and find common ground, Lisa didn't come to the table. She didn't engage or discuss. She shut down.

Not today, though. With tacos and Lisa's favorite kind of coffee, double espresso with heated milk and a dash of cinnamon, Jennie was ready to connect. She was desperate to.

She smiled at the secretary who only recognized her because of the wedding photo Lisa kept on her desk and not because she came around often enough for familiarity. She paused outside of Lisa's office, seeing the sign on the door that she was in a session. With a sigh, Jennie sank into the chair right next to Lisa's door and waited.

When she picked up the sounds of conversation within the office, she realized the door was cracked.

"You're going to have to tell him what you need, Grace. He can't read your mind, no matter how much you want him to. If you can't say it, maybe the next time you get frustrated, write it down. Sometimes it's easier to read things aloud than to voice a hurt on the spot," Lisa suggested, swallowing down the hypocrisy and keeping a smile on her face.

"I just want him to stop shutting down and shutting me out. Anytime I try to talk, it's like I'm talking to a wall."

Jennie kept in the huff of agreement. She felt the same way. And to hear her wife so profoundly understand this random couple's issue and help them made Jennie upset. Irrationally so, but upset nonetheless, which led her to think that Lisa could do with a dose of her own medicine.

"I imagine there's a reason he doesn't feel able to voice his feelings," Lisa replied. "That's not a reason for him to get away with not sharing, but there's a reason behind everything."

"What's your reason? Do you even have one?" Grace asked.

"Grace," Lisa interjected, not wanting Kevin to feel cornered. "Kevin, what does it feel like when Grace asks you something that might be vulnerable?"

"I... I'm not used to conflict. I didn't grow up that way. I guess it makes me nervous," Kevin answered.

"So the fact that my parents were divorced by the time I was a teenager makes me better equipped to deal with conflict?" Grace threw out.

"That's not what I said," Kevin mumbled.

"Grace, your parents' divorce was extremely difficult to watch, I'm sure," Lisa interrupted.

"Of course it was. How can two people who love each other that much fall apart?"

"I would imagine it felt unfathomable," Lisa hummed. "Kevin, do you think your parents had a happy marriage?"