when your demons return

Jack leaned against the door, pals flat against the surface as her eyelids flickered closed. That had been frightening and she had not even been able to see the full routine of the boggart. The very idea of seeing what would happen to Sunny or Max was enough to rattle her. She really did not want to see what the dark crevices of her mind would do to them in its agitated state. She was just glad to have gotten the boggart out of the way.

She slowly opened her eyes to see Sunny peaking out from her huddled position. The little girl turned around and wrapped her arms around her knees, looking up at her aunt. She placed her chin on top of her knee and offered a bracing smile to her aunt. Jack smiled a small smile, infinitely glad that Sunny was around and in her life. The little girl won her heart more and more every day.

Her attention was drawn when Max approached, but he stepped close to the door, pressing his ear against the only barrier protecting them from their fears. She closed her eyes, attempting to steady her breath so he could check for any danger. He relaxed and turned to her, and she let her shoulders droop, relieved that they had some measure of peace for now.

He touched her shoulder and she looked up at him. Part of her roared at her to rally her strength and shrug him off, and regain her sense of emotional superiority. But she was exhausted and she honestly did not want to pretend. This was her home, and this was her family. She did not want to fake it with them.

So she didn't fight him. And she especially did not fight as he drew her in to a tight embrace. It took her a moment, but she managed to slip her arms up his back and tighten her grip, resting her forehead against his shoulder. She swallowed and nodded, saying, "Thank you."

He withdrew and turned away, giving Jack the privacy she needed to sit up and put herself back together the best she could. She straightened up and squared he shoulders. She lolled her head over to look at Max and Sunny. She felt a flourish of warmth in her chest and stood up, stepping forward to stand next to Max. A hand fluttered to his shoulder as she smiled down at Sunny. "Hey, Sunny. What would you say to a sleepover in the office?"

Sunny gasped, looking to Max, and then back to Jack. "Let's do it!"

Max felt a hand resting on his shoulder and couldn't help but be comforted by it's presence. The pair stood next to each other, looking down at Sunny, the little girl who had become the biggest link holding them together. Even though Sunny was related to Jack by blood and had only known Max for a relatively short period of time, they both loved her. That much was unquestionable. It was only as Max stood beside Jack that he really realized how much he cared for both of them. The fear that had moved through his veins pumped not only for himself, but for the two girls. Seeing either hurt would be unthinkable.

Max smiled softly at Sunny's response to the suggestion. How perfect her mind was.. The interaction with the boggart had shaken Max more than he wanted to admit but this six-year-old was clearly stronger than he was. Her glowing smile helped him snap out of the bad memories and helped him snap back to semi-normal.

In all of the commotion Max had forgotten that Jack had just caught them red-handed in her office. The one place that she had kept off limits to them in the entire house. Max felt suddenly guilty and had a strong urge to push the scrapbook that Sunny had abandoned under the desk. He now recognized where he knew the face of the redhead boggart from. Many of the photos featured her- smiling, laughing, in candid with odd expressions. If a girl who Jack had obviously once been close to was now her greatest fear, Max wasn't sure he was ready to know what had happened.

"Sounds good to me. Do you happen to have any blankets stowed away in here, Jack?"

With the excitement of the boggart, Jack had forgotten to incite a line of query as to why her roommate and younger kin had been in the one room she had asked them to keep out of. The room had many high shelves of storage where she kept what she did not want her friends to have access too. It was the objects she would rather not have to see on a regular basis. Had she not been so preoccupied by the notion that the two people she lived most closely to had just been exposed to two of her deepest secrets, she might have been more curious about their presence in the cramped little room.

She let out a sigh, relaxing her tense and tried body. She smiled lightly to Sunny and then looked up at Max, fluttering a hand to her brow is a frazzled matter. "Right - blankets. Yes, I have some in here. Pillows too." She reached up and opened the storage cabinets, pulling down a stack of blankets and two pillows. There were only two pillows, so Jack set them down and with a wave of wand managed to grow them out, causing them to expand in length and pure fluffiness. This was the upside to being a halfway house for teen runaways and out-of-work werewolves - plenty of pillows and blankets.

Sunny seemed to have picked up on Max's worries, because she looked up at him, smiled, and pushed her leg out. Her toe bumped the scrapbook and it slid under the desk just in time before her aunt turned back and tossed the pillows against the wall, throwing the blankets at her feet. Sunny collapsed onto the ground and began piling blankets on top of her. She looked up at the two adults and commanded, "Sit!"

But Jack's mind was distant from this room. She stared at the door, a bit hollow as she imagined the fact that the boggart lied just behind the slab of wood. It was just behind the door...

Of course she had extra blankets. In addition to the hoard of pets that always ran through the house, there were often extra guests that Jack decided to take in. Sometimes Max wasn't even sure if she knew the kids that came in and stayed, it felt like they were somehow showing up out of the blue. And for some reason this constant appearance and disappearance of house guests no longer phased Max. Was it possible that he was almost starting to get used to life with Jack and Sunny? Impossible.

"Sit!" Max sat. He stole one of the pillows from Sunny's stash and put it behind his back for comfort as he leaned against the wall. He looked up to Jack and gave her a smile. The look faded as soon as he saw the worried expression on her face. He could see the way her eyes flickered back to the office door and he knew it would be almost impossible to forget about what waited in wait just beyond the wood frame. Max's smile remained as a mask for the worry he shared with Jack. But did he have any choice but to smile? With Sunny here it wasn't really about his feelings anymore. He had to at least act normal for the six-year-old.

Max patted the ground next to him, signaling Jack to take a seat.

Jack could hear Max commanding Sunny to sit, which she was sure meant her little niece was going to be bent on causing mischief, and it was this that convinced her to turn around and face her small family, trying to wash away any traces of the deep placed worry that had settled onto her features. For a nineteen year old girl, she had pretty visible worry lines. And if she went to a doctor, she'd find she had the stomach lining of a sixty five year old war veteran. But she was intent on putting this out of her mind so she could tend to Sunny.

She was surprised to see Sunny was obeying pretty well. She soon found out why - Sunny had withdrawn a muggle gameboy from her pocket and was now contentedly rolling over zombies with huge, deadly-decorated monster trucks. Jack felt a weary smile tug onto her face and her eyes flicked to Max as he drew her attention. She nodded and moved forward, turning and folding her legs under her so she sat between Sunny and Max. With her eyes still on her game, Sunny laid down, placing her head on Jack's thigh. Jack sighed and leaned her head against the wall. She lolled her head over to look at Max and sighed. "Thank you."

Jack sat next to him and Max felt a small sense of relief that she had not completely denied his company (this had happened before). Soon after Sunny snuggled up against Jack and Max had the chance to marvel at how normal it felt to be next to them. It had only been months but Max felt like he belonged to their small group, a strange yet pleasant sensation. The whispered 'thank you' caught Max by surprise and for a long moment he didn't know how to respond. He was grateful for her thanks and felt a strange rush of affection towards her but knew he didn't deserve it. He hadn't helped at all. Probably hindered. The way he reacted to the boggart was actually quite embarrassing and made him look weaker than she already thought him.

So instead of responding he smiled softly and with a small nod of acknowledgement he changed the subject. "How do you think it got in? I thought we did a pretty good job of spirit-proofing this place." There had been a day, after a long night of tossing and turning from Jack, that the pair had gone through the house and enchanted it with an extraordinary number of protective enchantments. Max wasn't even sure some of the stuff they put up was legal. The boggart getting in would have been purposeful, not a mistake.

Sunny was happily playing her  little game, and Jack could definitely tell - by the feel of the girl's slowing breaths - that Sunny would be falling asleep soon. The girl was usually accustomed to refusing to fall asleep until well past her early bedtime. But the excitement of the boggart and the fearful turn the appearance of her father had thrown her had pretty much all but ensured that the little girl would be passing out early tonight. Jack rested her hand on Sunny's little elbow, gently stroking it with her thumb.

Jack looked up at Max's question and sighed, leaning her head back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling. "Someone helped it in, for sure. They threw a trunk through the window. Who knows why - I don't know how they got into the yard, but it was definitely someone trying to mess with... probably with me, I'm not going to lie." She dropped her head and turned, looking at him, before remembering he had witnessed the whole incident. She dropped her eyes and said, "I'll talk to my friends in Law Enforcement, get a few special spells we can use." She sucked in her lips, feeling a little awkward.

"Yeah, that would probably be a good idea."

Max sat quietly, watching the rise and fall of Sunny's little shoulders. Her breathing was getting visably slower and Max was greatful that she would have the luxury of sleep soon. Sunny's presence calmed him and he too began to relax slightly, the tension easing out of his shoulders. Max leaned over to the other side of the small office and grabbed a big blanket that he draped over Sunny and the legs of the two adults. If they were going to sleep the night they might as well get comfortable. Max wanted to say something desperately - some sort of explanation of his dementor. But the silence was so calming that he hardly dared distrupt it.

Eventually, he couldn't resist speaking again. "Jack?" he began, "What ever did happen to Sunny's parents?" He spoke quietly and calmly, as to not alert the young girl who lay beside them. By now she looked far enough gone that Max doubted she heard what he was saying but he still wanted to be sure. Sunny's boggart had gotten him thinking and he now realized that he had never actually heard how the tiny girl had come to live with her aunt. He and Jack never really seemed to talk about their lives too much beyond the occationl reference to a sibling or a parent. It was strange how little Max actually knew about Jack Dyllans life, while still knowing what her pet peeves were and how she took her coffee.

As they once again lapsed into silence, Jack leaned the top of her head against the wall, letting her eyelids slide halfway down over the glassy orbs, as though preparing to sleep, even though she was wide awake. She had heard some sort of proverb before - The man who does not prepare his field for rain, even in a drought, finds he cannot accept the miracle of rain. Though she could only be more awake if an electrical shock went through her body, she longed for the grace of sleep. Perhaps when she awoke, the demons would be gone. She was preparing for rain that seemed unwilling to arrive.

She was stirred to attention by Max's low voice, speaking of Sunny. To confirm that the girl was indeed asleep, Jack tilted her head to look at her, before allowing a gentle hand to sweep the girl's red bangs from her face - she was out like a light. Jack shook her head, assuring Max, "Nothing tragic. My brother just hooked up with this muggle chick he barely knew while we were on vacation, and she had Sunny. Skye, Sunny's mum, only just tracked Riley down. And they're attempting to do right by their family names by becoming a functioning couple. Since they seem to hate each other's guts, though, it hasn't been working out. She was living away from them with my parents, but Riley was broke and needed to move in. To lessen the financial burden, they sent her to me."

Max listened to Jack's story and couldn't help but feel a bit sad at her words. His own parents had divorced many years ago but had never been hostile towards each other. They remained on speaking terms for the sake of the younger children, even exchanging small gifts around the holidays as a formality. It was something he was grateful for - not that they were separated but that they were able to make it work enough that it didn't hurt Maisie and Aaron. And they were fifteen and sixteen. Sunny was only six.

"She's lucky to have you, you know." Max mused, his tone serious. He looked over to Jack and said "You're a good influence on her. Well, not exactly good -" he allowed himself a little smile "- but you know, a loving one." Max could hear his words and understood how poorly he was articulating himself. "I can see how much you care for her and I know she can too. And that's all she needs."

Max looked down at Sunny's small sleeping form and a warmth filled his chest. He loved her too. Almost as much as Jack and for much less reason. It made no sense but the little girl had completely stolen his heart. He was wrapped around her finger and didn't seem to mind. She was more like family to him than some people he shared blood with.