Nightshirt

"Chloe?" Sam called from the kitchen. "Are you ready for bed yet, sweetheart?"

"Yes ma’am," she answered. "Almost."

Sam looked up from her research to see her daughter heading into the bathroom. "Chloe, what are you wearing?"

"Umm… my pajamas."

"Come here please."

"I have to brush my teeth."

"Chloe."

The girl slowly trudged out of the bathroom. She wore an oversized gray tee shirt that hung well past her knees. She wrapped her arms around herself, obscuring the lettering on the front of the shirt. She stopped a few feet away from her mother. Sam reached out and turned Chloe gently toward her, pulling her arms away.

"Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity." Sam read. "Where did you get this?"

Chloe traced a vague pattern on the floor with her foot. "John," she said finally.

"He gave it to you?"

"Sort of."

"Chloe."

The little girl sighed. "I took it out of his backpack last week when he was here."

Sam stared at her. "Why would you do that, sweetheart?"

Chloe shrugged. "Because he wears it all the time."

Sam shook her head in bafflement. As she looked carefully at the loose seams and faded letters it was obvious that John had practically worn the shirt out. "If you knew how much he likes this shirt why did you take it?"

Chloe shrugged again. "It’s just…" She gave her mother a guilty, sideways look then turned away to mumble, "It smells like him."

"What?"

"Why can’t he stay here all the time?"

"Because he has a house of his own," Sam said. "Now go take that off and let me wash it. I’ll take it back to him tomorrow."

Chloe’s face crumpled in protest. "Just let me wear it tonight. Please?"

Despite her better judgement, Sam relented. "One night," she said. "Then I’m taking it back."

Chloe sighed. "Alright."

"Now give me a hug and go brush your teeth."

Chloe wrapped her arms around her mom’s neck. She’s right, Sam thought. It does smell like him.

******

"Morning."

Sam looked up from her desk to see John leaning on her doorframe.

"Oh, damn!" She frowned at him in consternation.

"But I haven’t done anything yet," he protested.

She had to laugh at his confused denial. "Sorry. I just left something at home." Something Chloe conveniently forgot to remind me of, she thought. "You wouldn’t by any chance be missing an old, gray FBI motto shirt, would you?"

"Actually, yeah. Did I leave it at your place when I was looking after Chloe?"

"Not exactly," she smiled. "It was appropriated by Chloe while you were looking after her. She’s turned it into a nightshirt. I’ll try to remember to bring it back tomorrow."

He laughed. "Don’t worry about it. If she wanted it enough to swipe it you might as well let her keep it."

"Those aren’t exactly the values I think I want to be instilling in my daughter, John."

"So, give her a good lecture," he grinned, "and let her keep it. It’s going to fall apart soon anyway. Oh," he said suddenly. "Reason I came by… Bailey’s briefing in fifteen minutes. Looks like we have a new nutcase up in Wisconsin." He scowled irritably. "If we actually have to fly up there I swear I’ll come down with pneumonia."

"Haven’t you missed enough work lately?" she teased. "If you come down with anything else this year you are not getting any more sympathy from me."

"Sympathy?" He put his hand over his heart and slumped against the doorframe, mortally wounded. "I was dying of the chicken pox and you think it was a play for sympathy?"

She gave him a patient, long-suffering look. He straightened abruptly and grinned.

"Okay. No sympathy. I’ll do my best not to get sick, get shot, or get hit by a bus. Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact," she said, handing him a stack of notebooks and evidence envelopes. "While you’re here you might as well make yourself useful." She picked up her coffee mug with one hand and began pushing him out the door with the other. As the walked together toward the briefing room she tried not to listen to his cheerfully inane and completely unreasonable theories about the new case. Failing at that, she tried not to laugh aloud. It was nice to have him back at work, she thought. She tried not to think of how there seemed to be something missing at the firehouse now that he wasn’t looking after Chloe anymore. Better to think about how they had missed him at the Bureau…