somewhere out there

somewhere out there;
After Janet testifies, Luke asks her to meet him on the roof of the federal building. It's where they've talked a time or two when they want to get away from the crowd. He didn't get a chance to speak with her with the state she was in afterward. He'd let Holden comfort her and Bryan get her out of the courtroom safely but there are things he wants to say. It feels too cold to him to let this massive event in her life pass and not do something.

"You're my guiding light, you know," he finally blurts out. "You and Madeline."

"You don't have to say that." Janet is still wiping tears from her eyes.

"I mean it." Luke shakes his head. "You've always been able to set me straight. You fight for justice as hard as I do, maybe even more... You don't let anything stop you from doing the right thing. And you've always been willing to tell me when I'm being an asshole. You're the kind of person I'm fighting for. Sometimes you're the person I want to be."

Janet's smart and driven and a half-dozen other things Luke sees in himself. But she's also someone who can be a normal human being, who can love passionately even though she's been hurt so many times before, who has a chance at settling down with a husband and kids someday. He wishes he had that normalcy. He wishes he had it with her, but he knows he's not there yet. The work is what he needs to do, and she deserves more than that. Maybe if their daughter had been born things would be different, but losing her only affirmed to him that there are more criminals he needs to stop.

She swallows down an unexpected lump in her throat. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He lets his tension out in a slow breath. "I'm going to say something and I want you to turn me down."

"What's that?"

"That I'll always be here for you." Luke shoves his hands in his pockets. "I want you to be happy with Holden and I hope that he puts a ring on your finger someday. But if he doesn't, I don't want to see you spending your life alone waiting for something he's not gonna give you. If it comes to that, you don't have to be alone."

Janet understands what he means, which is why she doesn't admonish him for it. She's been privately worried that things with Holden will never change, and that while she'll wait forever for him, she'll end up waiting so long that her life passes her by. He's telling her that not because he wants to get back with her but because he wants her to know that all her hopes aren't pinned on one person. He'll be there if she needs a shoulder to cry on.

"Thanks, Luke." A small smile and then a joke cracked to move them off the subject. "I'm still not inviting you to the wedding."

He laughs despite himself. "I wasn't expecting you to. I'm pretty sure he'd try and kill me."

"Holden's not that type. He didn't even want to kill Seaton for trying to strangle me." Janet looks off at the skyline. It's been different being with someone who doesn't show his emotions and trying to see what she means to him as opposed to Luke who was always very clear that he wanted her, even if it got him in trouble. "He might punch you, though," she adds.

"He wouldn't be the first person who's wanted to." Luke chuckles. "I'm glad we've figured this out. The being friends again thing," he admits. "I was worried that we wouldn't."

"We kind of had to. We work together."

"No, we didn't. We could've found a way to keep things professional." He shakes his head; they've done it before, particularly when the breakup got ugly. This is different. There's a respect there for each other where it's almost like they were never together at all. "We really worked on our relationship this time. And I appreciate that... Knowing that we really had something. I guess it just took fighting with each other to figure it out."

"It took looking at ourselves in the mirror." Janet replies. They've fought before and never come to the realizations they did two years ago. It was getting a reality check from the baby that had forced them to look at more than they ever did. "I'm sorry that you did so much to make things better, and it still didn't work out between us."

"What did I tell you before? It's not your fault," Luke corrects. "I don't regret a single thing I did. I miss you. I miss you every fucking day. But I'm proud of the man I was then and I know we're both better off where we are."

There's a long pause between them. There will probably never be a finite end to this conversation. There's too much time and emotion between them, and they've spent just as much time being a couple as they have just being friends. They have to relearn how to look at each other without seeing all the emotional entanglements. But they're getting there in moments like this. In Luke taking a few minutes to tell her he cares rather than just letting her go home and sit with her fears.

"If you need anything," he says. "I know you've got Holden and we'll leave Bryan with you until the trial's over. But if you think you need to call me... you can call me. Any time."

"Thank you. I just appreciate you being here. I wasn't sure he was going to be able to get away from work. Or that he'd even want to, honestly." Janet can admit that now that she's been proven wrong. As deeply as Holden cares about her and wants her to feel safe she hadn't been sure sitting in a courtroom watching her testify wouldn't seem like she was asking for too much or that his work wouldn't take priority. "I think I'm going to take a couple days," she continues. "I want to see how this ends. Make sure Vincent gets put away. But I need a day or two to come off this. To just be okay for a while."

"I get it. I can text you if anything important happens." He nods. "This conversation isn't even that important. I just wanted you to know... Even after everything, even despite all the shit your life has put you through, you've been good for me. I don't think I'd be here without you."

He never wants her to doubt her value again. Janet understands that message, and she nods quietly before she carefully crosses to him so that they can head downstairs. Luke says nothing before he pulls her into a gentle hug. The worst is over but he's looking at this as a new beginning.