The Almost Recovery

Something that Jack had been thinking about a lot in the past few weeks had been the idea of compromise. What people were willing to compromise, what they were willing to compromise for... Jack had never thought herself to be someone who compromised. And she didn't usually. She wouldn't do less of this to do more of that - she would do more of both. She didn't like giving things up and her balancing act had been more of addition without restraint.  

She had realized, however, that she did have a tendency to compromise herself. Becoming more feelings-oriented to connect to Chase. Looking past crimes that were undoubtedly wrong for Vito. Making herself vulnerable in such a way that made her a stranger to herself for Ari. Making herself into a domestic mess... maybe not for Max, but definitely because of him. And so while she rarely compromised her actions, she fell into a habit of compromising herself. Because of all the things she could give to people, that was all she knew truly how to give.

She had thought about comfort, and how people often compromised for comfort. They did what they had to do to get that comfort.

Jack didn't feel compromised with her Potter friend.

She chuckled at his words about domestic life. She shook her head, knowing the exact feeling, though she still wasn't decided on it. "Crocheting is a good way to forget about those revolutionary instincts, I suppose. Gardening, too."

She figured... She should go. She should leave him to his place, since it was his, and she was here for no... real good reason.

But Albus didn't let her. Instead, his fingers curled around her wrist and Jack Dyllan, the woman who rarely followed anyone's lead but her own, found herself sitting next to Albus, like equals, like friends.

Every word that came out of his mouth was a word she could not have imagined. She didn't know it was what she needed to hear until she did. She stared at him, entranced, realizing... She had spent so long feeling like he had asked too much of her, wanted her to be the savior when she couldn’t be. She had never considered a time in her life where he might be capable of the saving.

And an apology… An apology that addressed the night that tore them apart. And all of the days of silence that followed.

Let him?

She pulled her knees up to her chest, thinking, her wrists resting loosely on her knees, looking across the grass with what looked like an expression of concentration. Because with all of those layers of hurt and uncertainty gone, relieved from the weight in her shoulders, it only left…

“I…” The words died in her throat.

No, that wasn’t a sniffle. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

And another one.

It was a small, private cry. One that she could only share with him because he was the only one left. Her shoulders shook, even though there was supposedly a rule against it, and she dropped her forehead onto her arms. She took a deep breath and sat up, pushing her curled fingers against her lips, swallowing those feelings down. It was a quick, cathartic release, the traces of her loss. She exhaled and turned back to Albus. “I missed you.”

The voice that had been shaking died out completely, severed by…….a flood of emotion, it could be nothing else. Albus almost wouldn’t have believed it, except it was followed by the quietest of sniffles….and. And.

It wasn’t reality altering, world changing. Strangely enough, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to watch one of the strongest women he’d ever known exhale a tiny sob. The voices swelled, mild and almost soothing in the background, the unreal waves of sound washing over them like an embrace. The entire night had been like this, really- something almost separate, disjointed, throwing them off balance enough for it not to really register when significant moments fleeted by carelessly. A hug. A sob. An apology.

For all that it seemed natural, it wasn’t like it didn’t hurt. That little, muted, contained explosion of sound that was over before it really began, her hands knuckling against her mouth, her shoulders rattling like a wayward leaf blowing in the wind- all body language screaming of repression and redirection and the discomfort that only came with long-time, practiced refusal to deal with one’s own emotions (forget actually expressing them before someone else). It all hurt- reaching into almost inaccessible areas of Albus’ heart and squeezing- like when Lily had been sitting on the bet, staring dead-eyed at the coverlet, cigarettes falling all around her. It hurt……..but for all its intensity, it was a faint prick against the clarity of his thoughts. This…..he, wasn’t important right now.

Because she was looking at him right now- and for all their past interactions. Rain, guitars, burgers, jail cells. Conflict, friendship, revolution, heartbreak. Nothing had ever matched the way she was looking at him, right now in this very moment, when he asked her to let him stay.

And…..that. That- the confusion, the slowly dawning hope, the wonder, the relief in her gaze. That made him hurt too.

(And a tiny part of him, one that would forever dwell on past memories no matter how far on he’d moved- wondered. Wondered if, before he’d raised the l-word and damned them both to hell, if he’d looked at her the same way the night she’d pulled him out of the rain too.)

Of course, he couldn’t sit there, silent and non-responsive and wondering forever. Not when Jack Dyllan had finally let the drawbridge down over the moat that cut her off from all emotional vulnerability (or was it her vulnerability being guarded?). Or…..could he? Albus wasn’t a dunce at social situations. Unlike most males, he wasn’t rendered open-mouthed and awkward and gibbering when called upon to comfort someone. He should probably be deliberating on whether he should hug her again. Or pat her on the shoulder, or say something soothing, or something snarky to detract from the situation.

But he didn’t quite feel the need to. Stupidly enough, it felt like he’d said whatever had needed to be heard already and he could bungle everything up thoroughly from this moment onward but Jack would still be……happy. Or something, he didn’t know. He could do anything at all, say anything or nothing……and still be a comfort.

Because she was letting him stay.

“I missed you too.” He said, and f*ck the inappropriateness of the situation- he wanted to smile, so he did. A small upward curve of the lips, a softening of the eyes. And then, because snark was as good an option as any other, “Careful there, you might dehydrate yourself. Very little where that came from.”

Maybe his idiotic past self did know exactly what he was doing, Albus mused, even as they sat silently under the yawning black night, the quiet infiltrated by the murmur of the sea. Said past self had barged straight through with his flawed ideas of nobility and morality, prattling about love, determined that Jack would be the one to fix him somehow. Of course he’d been wrong in that, and had to ultimately put himself back together. But in the end, tonight…….Jack sat by him shoulder-to-shoulder, somehow inexplicably, fully content with his presence. With him, just him, nothing more or less, like no other person in his long history and score of resentments had ever been before.

He was adequate, just there, without talent or a mask or a surname to blame.

And Albus was happy.

In that brief overlapping silence, Jack was confined to the thoughts that rattled inside her own thick (as she had been told) skull. Jack, for someone who had probably garnered more of a muscle reputation than a smarts one, had many thoughts, all the time, all day long. Her speciality, however, was summoning forth the most practical and efficient one when it was needed, letting it slice through emotional uncertainty and fearful doubt so she could move on to the part she was best at, the action.

But her years as a class clown compromised that, and so sometimes the thought that came forward was less helpful than she would have liked.

Did you just cry?

Oh my god, gross.

So she tried not to laugh once the tears were gone, because she hated that cliche more than anything else - okay, not more than anything else, reader, but come on. She's emotional rn tbh.

That reminder of the e-word was enough to steel her, and the breaths coming into her lungs now were fortifying ones that allowed The Time That Jack Dyllan Cried to steadily become a thing of the past.

Albus' concession that he missed her too was the perfect binding on whatever new element they had just established for themselves. There was a balance that they had always been on the cusp of, but now that all those other things were dispelled, still there but no longer unjustly contained, she felt like something had changed that could potentially be permanent. Some sort of new start.

This had to be her last new start. At some point, they stopped giving out the licenses.

You know. They.

He spoke and she felt a familiar smirk unfold on her face, her head tilting to reveal the devilish grin in her eyes, sparkling for him. "I'll have to borrow some from you then, O Great Fountain of Emotion."

And here was the moment where she took a big breath, admitted she should probably be home and it was impolite to keep him waiting, and they would part ways, this time to embarrassed to hug, and both would leave feeling good but ultimately, what would it come to? Because they both had obligations, and they both had their side of the conflict, and neither had the time. So they wouldn't see each other until a chance encounter brought them together, but too much time would have passed, so it would be a little more distant again. And it would all start over.

So when that moment arrived, Jack waved it good bye and gave it a kick on its way out for good measure, adjusting her shoulders to get more comfortable. "Alright. So what exactly have I missed?"