Written in Sand
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Summary: It's three thirty in the afternoon, and his daughter is going to kill him. Jeff/Doctor, hints of femmeslash.
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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, and right now they REALLY don't like me.
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It's three-thirty in the afternoon, and his daughter is going to kill him.
Jeff doesn't know exactly how either of these facts relates to the other, but they both are – facts, as sure and certain and set in stone as facts get.
He knows, because from where he's sitting at the kitchen table, he can see the digital clock on the stove and the murderous tilt to Karen's features.
But apparently, his adored and beloved only offspring is going to make him wait, squirm a little longer in leaden silence.
It's been about an hour, maybe a little more, and it occurs to him that this all could have been avoided if Sasha had just taught Karen to knock first when she encountered a closed door.
Then it occurs to him that trying to shift the blame for this onto Sasha probably makes him absurdly selfish at best.
At worst, completely sick.
Which is nothing to what Karen probably thinks of him right now.
Not that he blames her; he can't honestly claim ignorance as to why the sight of her father undressing and kissing another man has her a little upset.
As Karen stalks past the table, he catches her eye, and slumps a little lower in her chair beneath her scathing glare.
It's funny; Jeff has spent his life avoiding conflict by any means necessary. As a child, he hid behind Mom. In his youth, behind Sasha. And now, in his adult years, behind his expertise in the art of hiding his head in the sand.
Conflict, he has always felt, accomplishes nothing and just makes his stomach hurt. And yet, here he is, for all intents and purposes preparing to poke at an angry grizzly bear with a short stick.
"Um, Karen," he ventures timidly.
The vodka bottle in one hand and the little thick-based tumbler in the other slam simultaneously down on the countertop. But she doesn't turn.
"What?"
"Can we talk about this?"
"You're screwing the doctor; what more do I need to know? And just for the record," she continues loudly, turning from the counter as he starts to speak, "if you even think about telling me that I should have knocked or something, I'll shove the whole bottle up your nose. Elli passed out, and hit her head on the desk, and sometimes the sight of your best friend lying on the floor, bleeding from a cut the size of your thumb, kind of makes it hard to think clearly and consider the possibility that consultation actually means booty call, especially when one of the guys is your married father!"
"I—I wasn't going to say that, Karen. I'm proud of you, staying to look after Elli like that."
"Yeah, well, someone had to," she mutters, reaching for her drink. "The doctor's too busy fucking my dad to notice that she hasn't been feeling well all week. For all I knew, he would have just left her there and gone for another round."
"Of course he wouldn't!" Anger flashes life before he can stop it. "Shout at me all you like, but Tim loves that girl like a little sister. He would never let her come to harm if he could do anything to stop it. He's a good doctor, and a good person. Please don't take it out on him because you can't stand the thought of your father being—"
"Do not try to pull that 'poor misunderstood victim of homophobia' shit with me!" Karen snarls. "This is about Mom."
"You know better than to jump to conclusions!"
Her grip tightens on the glass she's quickly emptying.
"Okay, what am I missing? No, don't tell me – you and Mom have talked about it, and she accepts the occasional roll in the hay with the doctor as part of the man she loves?"
Her gaze is pure ice, and he looks away. She doesn't relent, chasing and capturing his eyes.
"Well?"
He fidgets.
"W-well…"
"I didn't think so," she mutters, gulping down half the contents of her glass and making a face. This is why the good stuff is for celebration, and the cheap stuff is for emergencies. And hell yes, this constitutes an emergency. Just the thought of Mom's expression when she finds out is enough to make Karen reach for the bottle again.
She tenses at her father's hand on her shoulder, but maybe the vodka is already working, because she doesn't pull away.
"Listen, sweetie, life isn't always simple. You don't always fall in love with just one person."
"Yeah; and I guess you don't always have the balls to tell your family the truth until your daughter catches you with your pants down, either."
"There's no need to be crude, Karen," he chides gently, and her expression makes him duck to avoid the possibility of a vodka bottle to the head.
But only until he recalls that his Karen, so like her father, so like her mother for that matter, would never waste perfectly good alcohol in such an impulsive fashion.
"Don't tell me about crude," she snaps. "You're the one taking a doctor away from his job for hours in the middle of the day. 'Elli, cancel all my afternoon appointments, give Lillia some placebos if she drops by, I have to give Jeff here a full, private check-up.' Because, you know, that's real classy."
"I've already told you, he would never neglect his job, or the people of this town, for his own enjoyment!"
"I bet he would never break up a marriage, either."
The choice of words sends a sickening jolt through his stomach. It would be so easy to double over with pain and escape this conversation – Karen never likes to bother him while he's sick. Something tells him that she's a little disgusted with the altogether too convenient timing of his attacks, but hesitant to say anything out of familial loyalty.
Until today, at any rate.
"Karen, I want you to promise that you won't mention this to your mother."
She smiles, a humourless twist of the lips.
"I don't know, Dad; seems like it's slipped your mind. Are you sure you don't want me to take care of it for you in case you forget again?"
"I will tell your mother," he says quietly. "You have my word. But I just need a little time."
Her expression softens very slightly.
"Did this just start happening, or what?"
"It's…recent," he replies carefully, and less carefully at the shred of sympathy in her voice, he lets a tremendous smile sweep over his face. "The last eight months have been—"
"Eight months," Karen repeats flatly, once she's found her voice. "I wouldn't call that recent." She takes a long, shaky breath, and the intensity of her glare doubles. "It's been going on for eight months, and you never bothered to tell Mom?"
"It isn't that simple!" he protests.
"I don't know; seems pretty simple to me. It's the difference between keeping her in the dark until you decide you've had your fun and you're good now, and giving her all the facts she needs to make an informed choice about whether or not she's interested in being your other one and only."
"I'm trying to keep my family together!"
"You could start by being faithful to your wife. You know, that forsaking all others bit they throw into the marriage vows. Believe it or not, it's not just there to sound cool."
"Do you have any idea what it's like, Karen?" he whispers thickly. She'll probably go through the roof at the sight of tears, but holding them back is a lost cause. "Knowing that you've finally found who it is you're meant to be with, and it's not who you thought?"
"Some idea," she replies, cold and flat, arms crossed. But thinking about that doesn't give her some great understanding for how Dad is feeling; it just reminds her that she and Mom aren't the only ones being screwed over by the legendary selfishness of the unfairer sex.
A week ago, she wanted to break something at the thought of that sweet, budding romance, developing step by tentative step. Now, she'd probably hack off her own arm to spare Elli the pain of finding out that it's over almost before it began.
She might hack off one arm to stop those big, gorgeous brown eyes from filling with hurt and disbelief, but she'd hack off both arms – once she figured out how to hold a knife with her foot – before she'd let her best friend get stuck being second best.
"Then you can understand why I can't just—" As the bells above the Supermarket's carefully locked front door jangle merrily, he freezes. "Karen, please. Not a word to your mother."
"Not if you tell her first," Karen shrugs, capping the vodka bottle and shoving it away.
"I need to go lie down," Jeff mutters, pushing up from his chair and staggering weakly toward the doorway.
"Still not feeling well?"
One hand on the doorframe, he droops even further. His wife's voice is tinged with concern, and he doesn't even need to look to know that she's frowning, the eyes that he fell in love with, long before he knew what love was, warm with sympathy.
Sasha, meanwhile, is looking rapidly between Jeff's doubled over posture and the vodka bottle a few feet from Karen.
"Did the collection agencies call again?"
"Nope," Karen replies cheerfully. "Dad's just been telling me about all the new friends he's been making over at the Clinic."
"Ah." Sasha's voice is ice in an instant, her eyes fixed piercingly on Jeff. "Your father's told you about the doctor, then."
Any reaction Karen hoped to draw with her news is accomplished, and then some. She and Jeff are both up, she from her chair and he from the doorway, and talking, trying to shout their questions over one another. Sasha merely smiles wearily.
"Come on, Karen. Do you think I could live with the man for twenty-seven years and not notice something?"
"Honey, why didn't you say anything?" Jeff demands piteously.
"Would it have stopped you?" Her question met with a heavy silence and a dejectedly drooping husband, she smiles grimly. "If you planned to stop when I asked, you would have told me right away."
Karen makes an impatient noise.
"So, is this, like, common knowledge? Am I the only one in town who didn't know?" A thought hits her with the force of a Mack truck. "Does Elli know?"
Jeff winces. Karen's mouth quirks slightly in gloomy satisfaction, and Sasha, expressionless, answers.
"As far as I know, no one else knows, including Elli." She bites the inside of her lip lightly. "Poor thing."
Karen rolls her eyes.
"If you hadn't noticed, Mom, you're kind of in the same boat."
"I'd noticed, thank-you, Sweetie."
"And you're still here because…?" the young woman demands with an exaggeratedly expectant gesture.
Jeff, startled and angry, pushes off from the doorframe.
"Now, wait a minute, Karen—"
"I'm still here," Sasha interrupts loudly, freezing her husband with a look, "because I don't have a choice. Should I leave town, move to the city, work for minimum wage in a typing pool? Bring you along and put you to work too because I'll never be able to afford schooling for you? Or leave you here to deal with the scandal?" Silence. "And what about the store? Do you honestly think your father would see the season out without being elbowed into bankruptcy?"
"Who cares?!" Karen barks, setting the entire room quivering with one thump at the tabletop.
By now, Jeff is waving frantically, trying to inject himself back into the conversation. But this isn't the first time his wife and daughter have held long discussions about him, in front of him, as though he isn't there. Finally, after three failed efforts, he settles grumpily into a chair to wait it out.
And unexpectedly, Sasha comes to his aid.
"I imagine your father cares."
"Yeah, because he cared so much about upsetting you."
"Do you want to leave, Karen?" she asks quietly, and he sits up a little straighter.
A long moment passes. Finally...
"No," Karen finally mutters.
Sasha sends her daughter a humourless smile.
"It isn't easy to stop loving someone because you think you should, is it?"
Karen, between her guilty blush and the tears gathering at her lashes, is mightily glad she saved the rest of the vodka, until her mother snatches away the bottle and drains it in one gulp.
Meanwhile, Jeff is guilping, choking around the tightness in his throat and in his chest at Sasha's utterly worn out sigh, Sasha rubbing her eyes exhaustedly, drooping weakly in her chair, Sasha, who has never ben weak and comforted him at her own father's funeral. He's trying, trying, trying to force the words out, tell her that he loves her more than anything and always will, that he loves Karen so much it hurts, that he never meant to hurt them by loving someone else, that he needs them both, like air.
"I need to go lie down," he finally mutters weakly, and goes.
And nothing is resolved.
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End Notes: This is why I don't write angst. It has an overwhelming tendency to sprout a huge "W" on the front. Anyway, written because I've heard a lot about this pairing recently, yet all discussion seemed to gloss over the minor issue of Jeff's wife and daughter.