Chapter Text
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The transfer was easy – especially with a glowing letter of recommendation from Captain Baratheon and from all of the cases Jon had worked primary on – and they found a house they both loved just as easy. It was all falling into place without too many issues and it began to lead Jon to believe that maybe he and Sansa were supposed to do this. They moved about thirty-five minutes away and it wasn’t exactly the middle-of-nowhere but it would be considered rural. Things were spread out, for sure, and not as expensive. They bought a house that sat on a couple of acres of land and that was obviously something they could have never afforded in the city. The town itself was small and looked like it came straight out of a Hallmark movie so needless to say, Jon quickly learned that he wouldn’t be overworked in the police department.
It was what he wanted though and he was so thankful that he was married to a woman who both understood and supported that. Being a homicide detective, he had seen more than enough and yes, he was good at what he did but at the same time, how much more was he expected to see? He met his wife at a crime scene after she walked upon a body. The FBI had just helped him and Jaime with capturing a person who was murdering kids just as he and Sansa had a baby. He was more than ready to be a little bored.
Living thirty-five minutes away made going back to the city not exactly convenient but it was doable. Sansa’s family all still lived there and there was no way they were going to let their daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter/niece just move away. They made the drive to the Snow home just enough times to not be annoying or unwelcome and they, in return, drove into the city a couple of times a month. Sansa was still active in her other baby, The Ros Wallace Center, but with the move, she had handed the day-to-day operations over to a small board that she had personally hand-selected and who she trusted to continue her work when she wasn’t there.
Jon knew how lucky he was to have a wife who would just move away from absolutely everything because it was what he needed to do. Maybe Sansa was so willing to make such a change for him because she knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing if this was something she needed to do.
He had a new partner at the police station – a younger guy like him, Pyp, but also like him, he had already been a detective for almost a decade. Pyp was married to Dancy and together, they had, no kidding, triplets. Sansa and Dancy were already getting together and forming a friendship and the triplets were six so they were older than Ros, who wasn’t even three yet, but it was good for their daughter to be around other kids and start her socializing. Pyp and Dancy had both lived in the city when they were younger and Pyp had even started his career at a different precinct than Jon but when they found out Dancy was pregnant with three babies – instead of just one – they made the decision to move somewhere quieter and safer. And again, like Jon, by then, the move had seemed necessary for Pyp for his own mind.
Jon drove up the driveway of his and Sansa’s house – their long driveway since their house was set far back from the road. It was a two-lane country road that they had to be careful with when it came to Ros and the two dogs because there were no sidewalks or guardrails or even shoulders. It was just road and then grass. Just another thing they had to get used to. Their house was an older house – a white clapboard farmhouse – that had kept most of its charm from when it was built in the early 1900s but had been updated. There were four bedrooms – the master bedroom on the first floor – and the three other bedrooms upstairs. He and Sansa hadn’t discussed it but both knew they wanted another child, or children, after Ros. It was definitely a house they could grow into.
After pulling into the garage and closing the door behind him, he set the car’s alarm and opened the door into the laundry room. Immediately, Ghost and Lady were there, crowding him, almost knocking him over as they greeted him.
“Whoa. Hey, guys, what’s going on?” Jon made sure he gave them equal attention.
“They’re mad at me!” Sansa called out from the kitchen.
“What’d you do?” He asked, stepping from the laundry room.
Sansa was at the oven, watching the timer count down and she looked at him with her mouth open. “Why do you think I did something? Why don’t you ask those two if they were running around and decided to roll themselves in something so foul-smelling, I almost gagged while hosing them off outside?”
Jon grinned. “What was it?” He went to her and gave her a kiss hello. Five o’clock and home for dinner after a day of work, investigating some spray paint tagged on the back of the 7-11. Another year of this, he might go absolutely insane but for now, it was just what he needed.
“I tried to figure it out. I think it was a decomposing… something.” Sansa wrinkled her nose.
He just kept grinning and kissed her again. That was definitely never a problem they had in the city. He didn’t ask about Ros. Currently, their daughter was going through a phase and he would go to her in a second. “How was your day?” He asked.
The oven beeped and slipping on her oven mitts, Sansa then pulled out the baking sheet pan. Parmesan-coated chicken, green beans and potatoes. Jon’s stomach grumbled as soon as he both smelt and saw it. When he looked away from the dinner, he noted that her smile was fading.
“Marei called me today and we were talking for a bit,” she let him know.
Marei was one of the girls Sansa had gotten to know while she was researching and writing her thesis for her Master’s Degree and while, through the Ros Wallace Center, Sansa was able to help other girls – getting them off the streets and finding them jobs and safe housing – Marei was one she could never “save”. Sansa did her best to help as much as she could though there was only so much she could do. Marei had a drug habit that she had had for years and it was only getting worse and in order to pay for her drugs, she sold herself. It was a cycle that no one but Marei could get her out of.
When they lived in the city, Sansa would go downtown to visit her all of the time, bring her food and just check on her. Whenever she got arrested, Jon would get a head’s up and he would go and bail her out. But they could only do so much for Marei when she had to be the one to help herself.
“Do you have to go back into the city?” Jon guessed. He went to the cabinet to get the dishes to start setting the table.
Sansa shook her head. “I talked to Doreah and Genna and they’re going to go check on her.”
Jon didn’t know what to say so he didn’t say anything. He just reached a hand out and rubbed it up and down her back and Sansa looked at him, giving him a watery smile. He kissed her temple. After setting the table, he finally went off to go find Ros. The little girl was going through a very intense hide-and-seek phase at the moment and thank God for baby gates because if Sansa didn’t set them up, it would take her forever to find Ros in their now much-larger place.
“Hmmmm. Where, oh where, could Rosie be?” Jon mused out loud as he wandered over into the dining room. Sure enough, his question was responded with a smothered giggle. “Hmmm.” He flipped the light switch so the fixture over the table turned on. “It doesn’t look like she’s in here.” He began moving through to go into the front hall. “Rosie, where are you?” Another giggle. “I give up. Can you come out?” He called up the stairs as if she was up there. He turned when he heard the giggle again and Ros was crawling out from under the dining room table.
“Here I am!” Ros exclaimed with her hands over her head.
“There you are!” Jon grinned and went to swoop her up in his arms.
“I haven’t asked about your day yet,” Sansa said as they all sat down at the table in the kitchen to start on their dinner. “How was your day?”
“Boring,” Jon smiled and that made Sansa smile, too.
…
The rest of the night was spent eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner, giving Ros a bath and putting her to bed, Jon and Sansa sitting on the couch in the family room, watching a movie on Hulu, letting Lady and Ghost out one more time, before heading into their own bedroom. People out here tended to not lock their front doors most of the time but Jon and Sansa weren’t like that and Jon made sure the house was locked up tight. Maybe, after living here for a few more years, they would forget to lock the doors one of these nights.
…
They slept the whole night through without Jon’s cell phone ringing. Since moving here, Jon’s cell phone no longer rang in the middle of the night, needing him at a new crime scene. He did wake up to a new text message from Jaime.
“My new partner brought me coffee with almond milk in it. Fuck you for leaving me.”
…
“Jon. Pyp.” Sitting in their cubicles, both men lifted their heads when they heard their names and their Captain, Denys Mallister, was standing in the doorway to his office, gesturing for both men to come to him.
Jon liked his new Captain. He was older. He probably should have retired a few years ago but he stayed on, still sharp and sound of mind, and he admitted he wouldn’t know what the Hell he would do in his retirement. He had been a police officer for so long, it really was all he knew. When Jon had applied for a position within his department, Mallister had been more than happy to have him. If Pyp was any indication, the man was used to officers in his department, transplanting themselves here from the city. He hadn’t said anything and Jon hadn’t asked but he believed that the man might have come from a much larger precinct sometime years earlier.
Mallister ushered both men into his office and closed the door behind them. Even then, he still talked in a lowered voice. “You’re going here,” he held out a piece of paper for Pyp to take. “There’s two uniformed cops out there right now and a paramedic, waiting for you. Keep it quiet. We still don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
Pyp looked down to where they were going before back to the Captain. “What do you think we’re dealing with?”
Jon leaned in to see where they were going. The Witch’s Circle. “What the Hell is that?”
“It’s an old, abandoned house deep in the woods behind the high school. Locals gave it that nickname a long time ago. We go out there a couple times a week to chase kids out of there. Smoking pot, drinking, that kind of thing,” Mallister informed him.
“Occult ceremonies,” Pyp added.
Jon looked at him and then to Mallister with raised eyebrows. “Seriously?”
He and Jaime had dealt with one or two occult cases in the city – people who claimed to be devil worshippers who had murdered for human sacrifices. If he was a betting man, he never would have placed a bet on the occult being out here.
Mallister gave a single nod to Jon’s question. “There’s a body, badly burned, in that house. Go out there and see what you can see before this thing busts wide open.”
Jon and Pyp nodded and left the office, going back to their cubicles for their guns and badges. They didn’t say anything but they exchanged looks as they headed out of the building. They could move anywhere in the world. Apparently, these things happened everywhere.
Unfortunately.
…