Pilot: Richard and Jill; Wants Versus Needs

The last thing Richard Carter needed was the death of his dream. So it is no wonder that Richard is adrift after his felony homicide pardon kills any chance at a career in the FBI. But the woman he loves, the one he risked and willingly gave up all to save has miraculously chosen him to be her life mate. That should be enough for any man. Yet unreasoning depression has seized him. Unable to hold a job and increasingly dysfunctional as a husband, he is becoming the last thing his young wife needs.

His dream may be dead, but not Jill’s. Stubbornly determined, she makes the best of their circumstances, encouraging and supporting her husband even as she works as a graduate assistant and prepares to enter a prestigious doctoral program. Looking at it dispassionately, a promising career in academia is ahead of her if she disentangles herself from the damaged soldier she has married. That, however, is not who Jill is.

She has another dream. Having been abandoned by her quarreling parents, and raised by a loving maiden aunt, she is determined to heal Richard’s psychic wounds and have a fully-functioning family. If their marriage fails, as it seems to be on the way to doing despite their deep love for each other, it won’t be because Jill gives up.

Richard is not so sure. He may be an emotional basket case, but he is not so self-absorbed that he doesn’t see the burden he has become for Jill. Now, he fears that he is dragging Jill down to his “nothing life” and keeping her from attaining her dreams. Knowing how intelligent she is, he is sure that she is hiding her resentment because she fears his emotional collapse should she leave him. He even suspects that she has married him and is staying with him out of gratitude for his having saved her life. As depressing as the thought is, he thinks that she will probably come to her senses and leave him, something she would be better off doing.

Despite their increasingly dysfunctional physical relationship, they are still deeply in love with each other. Jill is rock-solid in her commitment to Richard, not from pity or gratitude, but because she needs him. She is literally Richard's lifeline, but he loves her enough to let her go.

This is how things stand when Richard commits himself to a stranger who turns to him for help in finding her missing baby. As his amateur sleuthing draws him deeper into the case, Jill fears and resents the woman’s hold on him even as she recognizes that the case has pulled him momentarily from his depression. Despite the new-found purpose he has found, she senses impending disaster when his efforts fail, but is powerless to prevent him from pursuing what has become an obsession for him.


At the end of the second story, Jill does what Jill does. She sees clearly that choices have to be made. It has become a case of needs versus wants. She weighs options and chooses the path that will give them the best shot at gaining what they both need rather than what either one of them wants. After all, they are one flesh.