Goodbye
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Tragedy/Drama/Angst
Summary: However much Jack has seen it, he can't get used to it. Warning: Spoilers, Language, Major Character Death.
Author's Note: Nothing is okay and everything hurts. *Gross sobbing*
Disclaimer: I don't own L.A. Noire. It belongs to Rockstar Games and Team Bondi.
[-]
Goodbye.
Jack stares at the sewer grate blankly. Elsa sobs in the background. Herschel is silent.
The war gave him plenty of new experiences, the worst of which being the suddenness of death. The man you were just shooting the breeze with now has his brains spilling out of a hole in the side of his head. The medic who offered you a cigarette at break earlier doesn't have a face anymore after getting caught in an explosion.
Here one moment, gone the next.
One minute, Cole is staring up at them, and his eyes are calm and accepting.
The next, he's gone.
And however much Jack has seen it, he can't get used to it.
Goodbye.
[-]
Goodbye.
The picture on the table next to the coffin is of Cole in his patrol uniform, probably taken when he first became a police officer. It's a good picture, he looks good, but Jack's mind superimposes Cole's face right before the water came thundering down the tunnel.
"Goodbye."
He starts to feel a little sick after Elsa storms out. Part of it is probably because of what she and Herschel said, part of it is probably because of Cole's face in his mind, and another part is probably because Roy Earle is a piece of absolute shit and those crocodile tears and that 'good friend' line would be enough to make anyone who knew him nauseous. Jack notices out of the corner of his eye that he's not the only one who takes issue with it; there are a couple of other men in the room who look significantly irritated during Earle's speech.
But Jack sticks around even when that sick feeling gets worse, shakes hands with Marie Phelps (who looks heartbroken in spite of everything) and offers a small, side smile and a few gentle words to Cole's daughters. He sees Cole's features strongly in the older girl and it makes his stomach wrench.
Goodbye.
[-]
Goodbye.
Contrary to popular belief, Jack did not hate Cole Phelps, not even in Okinawa when things were going to hell in a hand-basket.
What he had hated was Cole's unbending dedication to the rules and his orders when the best results would have been achieved by following his own judgment. He'd hated Cole's irritating tendency to assert that orders from above were always correct and always to be followed to the letter. So much heartache and hardship could have been avoided if he'd been more malleable.
He had not hated Cole; he had been frustrated by him.
Cole hadn't deserved what he'd gotten. He had deserved a foot or two up his ass for cheating on his wife, deserved to be knocked down a peg or two every now and then to keep that desperation to succeed and advance in check, but he had not deserved death. Not with two kids that needed him, not with a city that he had done so much good for as a police officer. There are men in this city that deserve that fate far, far more than he ever did.
This is why Jack takes a degree of pleasure in watching and helping Petersen rake Monroe over the coals for the Suburban Redevelopment Fund fiasco. He tries to focus on Monroe and accept that the trade-off is going to be Monroe and the late Harlan Fontaine taking the rap and the others getting off scot-free, but it's difficult.
Two families are dead.
Courtney is dead.
Most of their company is dead.
Cole is dead.
And they're getting away with it. They're not being held responsible, and it's driving Jack crazy.
Goodbye.
[-]
Goodbye.
It haunts him.
It haunts him like Okinawa haunts him, haunts him like having to kill Ira Hogeboom in the sewers haunts him.
Cole's face is ever-present, and those words echo in his ears, and Jack considers how close he came to being in Cole's place because he wanted to boost him up first but Cole said "You're wounded, Jack! Let me help!" and he helped him up anyway and then there was just no way that they could have gotten him up before the water came-
"Goodbye."
It rolls on and on like a film reel on loop. It wakes Jack at night and it keeps him up into the long hours of the night.
What could he have done differently? The only thing that comes to mind, apart from letting Cole go first, was hanging down and letting him grab his legs so that they could both be hauled up together.
What good does this do you? Jack asks himself as he stares at the sky through the blinders over his bedroom window. What does this change? Nothing. The past is the past. The odds of you being in precisely this situation again are slim. There is virtually no point in lingering on this.
And however contentious his and Cole's relationship had been, he knew that Cole would not want him to stay stuck on this forever, would not want the sound of rushing water to make Jack uneasy and the sound of someone bidding a friend a pleasant 'Goodbye!' in the street to make him flinch.
"Accept the bad," Jack mutters to himself. "And remember the good. Accept what you can't change, and move on."
Goodbye.
Goodbye, Cole.
-End