It's hard to say if it's the papery rustle of stiff hospital sheets or the faint greeting that alerts Maura to the fact that Jack is (finally) awake. The cards pause between her fingers and her chest squeezes tight around her heart.
Relief wages a war against something darker. Something angry and dark and resentful that Maura wants no part of now or ever. Biologically, Blue is hers, carried right below her heart for nine months and held in that same heart ever since. But Jack is family too. Ever since that first dinner when a brush of Calla's fingers revealed more than he ever told them of where he came from and what kind of people his biological family were.
It's not a surprise that Jack doesn't remember what happened. (It's like the morning after a break up or a death in the family, that moment between sleep and waking where you can't remember how the world has been torn apart. Before the pain slips back in like a knife, when everything feels normal until you remember it won't feel normal ever again.) But it's disappointing. Maura would've hoped she wouldn't have to be the one to remind him.
"You're awake," she says, voice soft and quiet like the hum of the air-conditioning. Maura sets the deck of cards down and wraps the better person she wants to be around herself like a blanket. Wraps the warm and fond love she's felt for Jack as long as she can remember on top of that as she pushes to her feet. She moves slowly, like her body was in the car with them, her joints stiff and aching.
"You're okay," she reassures him, her hand finding his, careful not to jostle his IV line. It doesn't matter how many days she has spent in quiet vigil at the hospital (and she can't put a number to them anyway), the right words haven't appeared yet.
"Try not to move too much. You're pretty banged up." Her thumb rubs along the base of his thumb, slow and reassuring.
The artificial bubble of semi-normal is going to burst and she wishes she could give him another couple of pain-free moments. But the best she can do is be here for him as the memories flood back in.
no subject
Relief wages a war against something darker. Something angry and dark and resentful that Maura wants no part of now or ever. Biologically, Blue is hers, carried right below her heart for nine months and held in that same heart ever since. But Jack is family too. Ever since that first dinner when a brush of Calla's fingers revealed more than he ever told them of where he came from and what kind of people his biological family were.
It's not a surprise that Jack doesn't remember what happened. (It's like the morning after a break up or a death in the family, that moment between sleep and waking where you can't remember how the world has been torn apart. Before the pain slips back in like a knife, when everything feels normal until you remember it won't feel normal ever again.) But it's disappointing. Maura would've hoped she wouldn't have to be the one to remind him.
"You're awake," she says, voice soft and quiet like the hum of the air-conditioning. Maura sets the deck of cards down and wraps the better person she wants to be around herself like a blanket. Wraps the warm and fond love she's felt for Jack as long as she can remember on top of that as she pushes to her feet. She moves slowly, like her body was in the car with them, her joints stiff and aching.
"You're okay," she reassures him, her hand finding his, careful not to jostle his IV line. It doesn't matter how many days she has spent in quiet vigil at the hospital (and she can't put a number to them anyway), the right words haven't appeared yet.
"Try not to move too much. You're pretty banged up." Her thumb rubs along the base of his thumb, slow and reassuring.
The artificial bubble of semi-normal is going to burst and she wishes she could give him another couple of pain-free moments. But the best she can do is be here for him as the memories flood back in.
"There was an accident. Do you remember?"