It feels as wrong to leave as it does to stay. So, Maura moves the blanket and the pillow from the foldout chair in the corner and sits down. She picks the book up to give Jack at least a semblance of privacy, staring down at the same set of pages and trying not to listen too hard to the sound of Jack's breaths as they mingle with the quiet woosh of the machine that is breathing for Blue.
Maybe she drifts a little, her mind tangling with what was, what is, and what will be (or what might not be), but she's pulled sharply back into the present by Jack's question.
"No," Maura says with a fierce certainty she doesn't quite feel. She hasn't been able to make herself ask Calla for the details of Tom's investigation, or go searching for her own answers in the deck of tarot cards she has slipped into her pocket. It doesn't matter. Even if Jack fell asleep on the wheel or somehow lost control of the car-- It's not his fault. He could never do anything to hurt Blue on purpose.
Blue might not-- Jack loves Blue. He's loved her since he was eight. More than a friend, and certainly differently than a sister. Maura loves Jack almost as much as she loves Blue. Almost. And if Blue-- If Jack--
It can't be anything but an accident. No one can be at fault.
Maura simply won't let it.
"Of course not." In a squeak of the easy-to-wipe-down rubbery fabric of the chair, and a creak of joints that have ached for days now, she sits up straighter, settles the book in her lap.
"When they transport her," Maura knows in her bones that the transport, at least, will happen, "Calla is going to give me a ride there. It's only two hours. You can ride with us. Calla was going to find some of Blue's books and bring them. She says people say it's good to read to people who are-- That they can hear us. Blue always liked listening to you read. I think it would be nice -- for her -- if you could do that."
Maybe if there's a purpose, Jack won't look quite so lost.
Would she say that no matter what the reality of the situation was? True, false, undetermined, a total mystery, would every possibility end in of course not? He thinks so. She's kind, she loves him, she wouldn't want to let him live with the guilt if it were true. She wouldn't want him to know.
Does he really want to know?
Delicate, like he's handling a crumbling leaf, he reaches out to move her arm enough to pull the blankets gently over it. It's cold in here, even through his shirt, he can feel the chill. He doesn't want her getting cold. She might be, and they just don't care enough to fix it. But he does.
He nods, finally. He'll ride with them. Bring some books he knows she likes. Bring some new ones, so she doesn't get bored hearing the same ones again. He's heard that, too. That if you read to them, people in a coma, they-
Oh, god.
That's when the reality hits. It's like someone reached out and seized him by the throat. Like they're bearing all their weight down on his chest. He's swallowing sound as best he can with middling success, but the tears are a foregone conclusion. The shaking, jolting spasms in his center are out of his control. The wall is broken, and it all comes tumbling out.
He wants to slip into the bed next to her, wrap himself around her, and sleep beside her until she wakes up.
Maybe part of him does. Maybe that's where all his sleep goes.
Perhaps Maura could have missed the muted sounds of Jack falling apart, or the slowly intensifying shudders running through his shoulders, if it wasn't for the quietness of the room or the fact that she's been waiting for it ever since he woke up.
Tears are the natural expression of grief. There is nothing wrong with grief, or giving into it. Hell, letting it all out is better than bottling it up. But, oh, how Maura wishes she could take this pain from him. What she wouldn't give to turn back time and take away the cause of it.
But she can do neither. So she does the only thing she can: She pushes up from her chair, dropping the book back on the seat behind her, and crosses the floor to his side. She wraps her arms around his trembling shoulders, pulling him close against herself so she can hold him while he cries.
Just like when he was a touch-starved kid who no one had loved long or hard enough. Except he isn't a child anymore, and this time, Maura's eyes burn with the same tears.
The last time she held him like this was the last time he and Blue broke up and Blue told him she never wanted to see him again. Enough vitriol in her voice that he believed her, like her heart could ever shut him out. And Maura will always take her daughter's side, team Blue 'til the end, but when she found Jack fighting tears in the backyard afterwards, she pulled him into her arms and held him until the flood gates broke and he cried in her arms. Like when he was a child.
Gentle and quiet, her mouth near his ear, she reminded him of the promise she made him many, many years ago. You are family, she told him, low but fierce, arms tightening around him. Whatever happens with Blue, wherever you go. I will always love you. Nothing can change that.
This time, she runs a hand over his hair and down his shoulder, the words choke her as she speaks them: "It's okay, Jack. It's okay. You get to-- I know it hurts so much. You don't have to-- It's okay. I've got you. I'm right here. I've got you."
Her eyes find the shape of the body in the bed in front of them, and the lack of anything resembling Blue hits her like a punch. Her arms tighten around Jack and the first sob fights its way free from her throat. It's low and primal and everything a mother is supposed to keep away from her children.
He winds his arms around her, hangs on to her shoulder blades, and feels like that kid again. Feels that same sensation of falling apart, of losing his grip on himself, of pure emotion escaping the wide-open gates, soaking her shirt with tears. Except this time, she's not resetting a break to heal correctly. They're not lancing a wound. This shattering isn't leading to anything better.
And then she splinters. It stops being clear who's holding who. Just two people torn open, sharing the same pain, losing the same most important person in their world. Echoing it back and forth like a microphone too close to the speakers. Two black holes that only keep from collapsing in on themselves because of the gravity of the other.
If he had to choose between going back in time and getting thrown out of a car all over again, the snapping of bones and the unforgiving pavement scraping off his skin, or this? He'd pick the car, a dozen times over.
Time passes, because it always does, and Jack continues to have no concept of exactly how much. It's like watching heatwaves radiating off of concrete in the summer, flexing and shifting, barely visible, impossible to nail down. By the time they've both run out of tears — for now, anyway — he's fucking exhausted again. Absolutely drained, and he can't be sure if that's from the accident, the medication, or what they just suffered through.
It doesn't matter. Whatever happens next is a blur. Maybe there are a few more tests, maybe there aren't. Maybe they suggest he stay a while longer, that doesn't matter either, because whoever fights the battle wins and he winds up in the back seat of their car for the two hour ride. Wordless again, leaning against the window, trying to will himself to sleep.
It doesn't really work.
He loses track of how much time they spend there, too. He was supposed to read, he knows, but he doesn't. He doesn't talk. He just sits himself down beside her bed, and waits for her to wake up. Expects her to, the entire time they're there. Expects her to so much, he doesn't want to leave. Five more minutes and it's bound to happen. Then five more, then five more.
It doesn't happen.
So he comes back again, and he waits again. The fourth time, he remembers to read.
Blue's body survives the transportation. The surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain is successful. When they disconnect the ventilator, her body breathes on its own. The swaths of bandages are unfurled from around her face and head. The bruising goes down and then it disappears completely until, to someone who doesn't know her, it almost looks like she is just asleep.
But she doesn't wake up and the significance of those small victories begin to diminish. Some of their luster lost in the far greater failure.
Outside of it all, the accident is officially declared a hit and run. Tom's report is very clear on the existence of a second vehicle. Exonerating Jack of all guilt.
No one at 300 Fox Way sees anything to contradict him.
(The first time they make the drive up, Calla holds a hand out to steady Jack on his way out of the car. The light touch should tell her everything Maura needs to know, but it doesn't. Calla tells Maura later that she can't tell if it's because the accident has been scrubbed from Jack's memory, or because something is blocking her. Either way, certainty is a pipe dream.)
In the hospital, Maura spends more time standing in the corridor just outside Blue's room listening to doctors speak in low tones, than she spends sitting at her daughter's side. There's sympathy in their voices, and then concerns. There are other facilities. Experimental treatment centers or glorified storage units. Perhaps she should consider-- The bills are already compounding on themselves and Maura feels like the world's shittiest mom every time she has to ask and how much would that cost?
The summer passes in a haze of two hour car rides and the smell of antiseptics. It becomes routine. The more often they go, the less able Maura finds herself to look at the body in the bed. Outside, the world keeps spinning on without them, and they're all three of them stuck within four walls with the never ending beeping of the machines.
One day, Maura stands in the corridor outside the hospital room and listens to the sound of Jack's voice as he dutifully reads another chapter to her daughter. There's nothing special about the day or the book. It's the same as countless of visits before it. But something in Maura's heart snaps and breaks.
When he steps out into the hallway, there's no trace of tears on Maura's cheeks, and she gives him a smile that's faded only in the way it has been since he first woke up after the accident.
Before they make the drive home, Maura takes him to one of the many pizza places in town for a rare treat. (Blue used to bring home pizza leftovers from her job at Nino's. Each slice tastes like a memory of her, and it's all Maura can do to choke down each bite.)
She waits until they're nearly finished. Until the check sits on the corner of the table (for whenever they're ready), and Jack is finishing up his last slice.
"Jack," she says, low and careful. "I think you should stop coming up here. The semester is starting soon. You should be moving into your dorm and making new friends. Not--"
Reading book after book to a girl who might never wake up.
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no subject
Maybe she drifts a little, her mind tangling with what was, what is, and what will be (or what might not be), but she's pulled sharply back into the present by Jack's question.
"No," Maura says with a fierce certainty she doesn't quite feel. She hasn't been able to make herself ask Calla for the details of Tom's investigation, or go searching for her own answers in the deck of tarot cards she has slipped into her pocket. It doesn't matter. Even if Jack fell asleep on the wheel or somehow lost control of the car-- It's not his fault. He could never do anything to hurt Blue on purpose.
Blue might not--
Jack loves Blue. He's loved her since he was eight. More than a friend, and certainly differently than a sister.
Maura loves Jack almost as much as she loves Blue.
Almost.
And if Blue--
If Jack--
It can't be anything but an accident.
No one can be at fault.
Maura simply won't let it.
"Of course not." In a squeak of the easy-to-wipe-down rubbery fabric of the chair, and a creak of joints that have ached for days now, she sits up straighter, settles the book in her lap.
"When they transport her," Maura knows in her bones that the transport, at least, will happen, "Calla is going to give me a ride there. It's only two hours. You can ride with us. Calla was going to find some of Blue's books and bring them. She says people say it's good to read to people who are-- That they can hear us. Blue always liked listening to you read. I think it would be nice -- for her -- if you could do that."
Maybe if there's a purpose, Jack won't look quite so lost.
no subject
Does he really want to know?
Delicate, like he's handling a crumbling leaf, he reaches out to move her arm enough to pull the blankets gently over it. It's cold in here, even through his shirt, he can feel the chill. He doesn't want her getting cold. She might be, and they just don't care enough to fix it. But he does.
He nods, finally. He'll ride with them. Bring some books he knows she likes. Bring some new ones, so she doesn't get bored hearing the same ones again. He's heard that, too. That if you read to them, people in a coma, they-
Oh, god.
That's when the reality hits. It's like someone reached out and seized him by the throat. Like they're bearing all their weight down on his chest. He's swallowing sound as best he can with middling success, but the tears are a foregone conclusion. The shaking, jolting spasms in his center are out of his control. The wall is broken, and it all comes tumbling out.
He wants to slip into the bed next to her, wrap himself around her, and sleep beside her until she wakes up.
Maybe part of him does. Maybe that's where all his sleep goes.
no subject
Tears are the natural expression of grief. There is nothing wrong with grief, or giving into it. Hell, letting it all out is better than bottling it up. But, oh, how Maura wishes she could take this pain from him. What she wouldn't give to turn back time and take away the cause of it.
But she can do neither. So she does the only thing she can: She pushes up from her chair, dropping the book back on the seat behind her, and crosses the floor to his side. She wraps her arms around his trembling shoulders, pulling him close against herself so she can hold him while he cries.
Just like when he was a touch-starved kid who no one had loved long or hard enough. Except he isn't a child anymore, and this time, Maura's eyes burn with the same tears.
The last time she held him like this was the last time he and Blue broke up and Blue told him she never wanted to see him again. Enough vitriol in her voice that he believed her, like her heart could ever shut him out. And Maura will always take her daughter's side, team Blue 'til the end, but when she found Jack fighting tears in the backyard afterwards, she pulled him into her arms and held him until the flood gates broke and he cried in her arms. Like when he was a child.
Gentle and quiet, her mouth near his ear, she reminded him of the promise she made him many, many years ago. You are family, she told him, low but fierce, arms tightening around him. Whatever happens with Blue, wherever you go. I will always love you. Nothing can change that.
This time, she runs a hand over his hair and down his shoulder, the words choke her as she speaks them: "It's okay, Jack. It's okay. You get to-- I know it hurts so much. You don't have to-- It's okay. I've got you. I'm right here. I've got you."
Her eyes find the shape of the body in the bed in front of them, and the lack of anything resembling Blue hits her like a punch. Her arms tighten around Jack and the first sob fights its way free from her throat. It's low and primal and everything a mother is supposed to keep away from her children.
no subject
And then she splinters. It stops being clear who's holding who. Just two people torn open, sharing the same pain, losing the same most important person in their world. Echoing it back and forth like a microphone too close to the speakers. Two black holes that only keep from collapsing in on themselves because of the gravity of the other.
If he had to choose between going back in time and getting thrown out of a car all over again, the snapping of bones and the unforgiving pavement scraping off his skin, or this? He'd pick the car, a dozen times over.
Time passes, because it always does, and Jack continues to have no concept of exactly how much. It's like watching heatwaves radiating off of concrete in the summer, flexing and shifting, barely visible, impossible to nail down. By the time they've both run out of tears — for now, anyway — he's fucking exhausted again. Absolutely drained, and he can't be sure if that's from the accident, the medication, or what they just suffered through.
It doesn't matter. Whatever happens next is a blur. Maybe there are a few more tests, maybe there aren't. Maybe they suggest he stay a while longer, that doesn't matter either, because whoever fights the battle wins and he winds up in the back seat of their car for the two hour ride. Wordless again, leaning against the window, trying to will himself to sleep.
It doesn't really work.
He loses track of how much time they spend there, too. He was supposed to read, he knows, but he doesn't. He doesn't talk. He just sits himself down beside her bed, and waits for her to wake up. Expects her to, the entire time they're there. Expects her to so much, he doesn't want to leave. Five more minutes and it's bound to happen. Then five more, then five more.
It doesn't happen.
So he comes back again, and he waits again. The fourth time, he remembers to read.
no subject
Small ones that nonetheless feel significant.
Blue's body survives the transportation. The surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain is successful. When they disconnect the ventilator, her body breathes on its own. The swaths of bandages are unfurled from around her face and head. The bruising goes down and then it disappears completely until, to someone who doesn't know her, it almost looks like she is just asleep.
But she doesn't wake up and the significance of those small victories begin to diminish. Some of their luster lost in the far greater failure.
Outside of it all, the accident is officially declared a hit and run. Tom's report is very clear on the existence of a second vehicle. Exonerating Jack of all guilt.
No one at 300 Fox Way sees anything to contradict him.
(The first time they make the drive up, Calla holds a hand out to steady Jack on his way out of the car. The light touch should tell her everything Maura needs to know, but it doesn't. Calla tells Maura later that she can't tell if it's because the accident has been scrubbed from Jack's memory, or because something is blocking her. Either way, certainty is a pipe dream.)
In the hospital, Maura spends more time standing in the corridor just outside Blue's room listening to doctors speak in low tones, than she spends sitting at her daughter's side. There's sympathy in their voices, and then concerns. There are other facilities. Experimental treatment centers or glorified storage units. Perhaps she should consider-- The bills are already compounding on themselves and Maura feels like the world's shittiest mom every time she has to ask and how much would that cost?
The summer passes in a haze of two hour car rides and the smell of antiseptics. It becomes routine. The more often they go, the less able Maura finds herself to look at the body in the bed. Outside, the world keeps spinning on without them, and they're all three of them stuck within four walls with the never ending beeping of the machines.
One day, Maura stands in the corridor outside the hospital room and listens to the sound of Jack's voice as he dutifully reads another chapter to her daughter. There's nothing special about the day or the book. It's the same as countless of visits before it. But something in Maura's heart snaps and breaks.
When he steps out into the hallway, there's no trace of tears on Maura's cheeks, and she gives him a smile that's faded only in the way it has been since he first woke up after the accident.
Before they make the drive home, Maura takes him to one of the many pizza places in town for a rare treat. (Blue used to bring home pizza leftovers from her job at Nino's. Each slice tastes like a memory of her, and it's all Maura can do to choke down each bite.)
She waits until they're nearly finished. Until the check sits on the corner of the table (for whenever they're ready), and Jack is finishing up his last slice.
"Jack," she says, low and careful. "I think you should stop coming up here. The semester is starting soon. You should be moving into your dorm and making new friends. Not--"
Reading book after book to a girl who might never wake up.