Story Notes: AU wherein same genderm marriage is legal in the entire U.S.

A To Z: In Sickness and Health

What do you call a person that can't get either a woman or a man to spend the rest of their lives with them. A person who's been divorced twice? What kind of schmuck does that make me? Will it make me?

I'm standing here at the window, in our kitchen, that overlooks the tree "cabin" my husband built for our nieces and nephews. It was a few months after we moved into this house. When we had time. I don't know what I'm gonna tell the kids. Maybe my sisters can sort of set them up for me before I have to explain why they can't come to their Uncles' to play anymore.

I'm supposed to be packing. That's what you do when you're separating and taking the El straight to divorce court. Although these days they try and detour you through at least one mandatory counseling session and arbitration. This is the day we agreed on. All neatly arranged. When you've got the juice that I've got now, and you say I'm working in the field, all anyone ever does is nod. It's not like I'm not wired for purpose. I've got both of the cells. The one that's exclusively for calls from my deep cover team members. Although it's a sleek black extremely slim number, so as not to ruin the line of my suits, it is essentially the "red" phone. They can reach me any hour of the day or night.

When it rings, I know that an assignment has gone wrong and one of my people is in deep shit. It rarely rings 'cause I do my best to prepare them from the jump, but sometimes things happen. I understand that better than anyone, that's why when they were looking for someone to head an elite undercover unit, I got the call. My people respect me because they know I've been there. And I can prepare them like very few people can. I know the fear, the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, the absolute conviction that you've gone crazy.

The second phone is for the logistics and administrative side of what I do now. And of course my PDA and pagers for back-up. So today "in the field" means my husband and I have agreed that this particular day is the best day for me to pack my crap and move out of the house I've shared with him for five years. Afterall, I'm the one with family in town. I could stay with them. And what hell that would be. The explanations. The blaming. Because my husband is perfect so this must be my fault. Not ready for that. My unit's got a safe-house. I might crash there. Until I can get my shit together. Figuratively. Not doing so well with the literal right now. I even forgot to bring boxes.

He meticulously plans and prepares for just about every scenario. He should have known I would forget boxes. He should have known that I wouldn't be able to do this without him.

End of Part One