"You know," Jeb muses, "maybe I'm just finally losing it. Like maybe I'll wake up tomorrow in the psych ward somewhere and everything will make sense."
Val pokes her head out of the kitchen. "How do you figure?"
"Nothing makes sense anymore," he says, staring up at the ceiling. He's sprawled across the length of the couch, one leg falling off the edge, and to Jeb it feels more like falling off the edge of the world.
He likes constancy, and in the past year all the nice steady qualities of his world have disappeared, leaving him, all too often, to make things up as he goes.
He really, really doesn't like that.
"Like what?" She's gone back to cooking, and her voice drifts out to him, like an anchor to a world where people sit down to eat dinner, and are usually not interrupted by violence.
Living partially in Max's head, he decides, has really done a number on him.
"A teenage girl should not be able to take down a multinational corporation, for one thing," he begins.
Val laughs, then steps out of the kitchen for a moment, pointing at him with her spatula. "Max or no Max, this recession's been coming for a while. And Itexicon had this coming to them, mister."
"I know, Valentine," he says, and sits up just as she disappears into the kitchen again, evidently keeping a close eye on her cooking. "It's just... it doesn't make any sense."
"Straw that broke the camel's back, Jeb?"
He rolls his eyes, even though she can't see the gesture. "I'm familiar with the phrase, yeah." He sighs. "I miss my coworkers, I guess." Damn Val. If she weren't here -- if it were someone else he were talking to -- he'd never say such a thing.
Either she brings out the best in him, or the worst.
"Like who? You're still keeping up with most of them, I know that for a fact. Marian Janssen? You told me she went crazy."
Only at the end, Valentine. "Poor thing," he says softly, and thinks for a moment before admitting, "Roland ter Borcht, mostly." The only one Jeb hasn't been able to get back in contact with. "He was kind of strange--"
"Aren't we all?"
"--but essentially a good man," he finishes.
"Him? No shit? You remember he kept making passes at me at that Christmas party."
"The one where you spiked the punch?" Jeb grins and runs a hand through his hair.
"I did not," she says defensively. "Either way. He's a pervert and I, for one, am glad I didn't have to work with him."
"You don't know what you missed," Jeb tells her, and thinks for a moment of the ter Borcht he knew: fiery, but essentially good-hearted -- and a brilliant scientific mind. God bless the man, wherever he is now. "I'll bet you never kissed him," he says, knowingly teasing her.
"Oh my God," she says, rising to the bait as always. "Jeb, you didn't!" Val laughs, and he hears beeping as she sets a timer, then steps out into the room where he is. She sits down on the couch, as far away from him as possible.
He nods, grinning. "I did." This is a familiar game of theirs -- they haven't played it in years.
She punches him in the shoulder. "No, you didn't."
"Would I lie?" He puts on his best innocent face. God, this is so familiar-seeming.
"I never know." Val sighs dramatically. "Well... when was this?"
"After we broke up," he says, crossing his arms. Val, he does not say, do you really think I'd have cheated on you? With him? "And only once."
"Fine." Val seems so schoolgirlish -- how is it possible she's older than him? "You've piqued my interest. Go on."
This had been a tradition of theirs in college -- kiss-and-tell, just between the two of us, before they gave up and started officially dating each other -- so he sighs and rolls his eyes. "We were in the lab, and... I got permission to continue our experiments, and... he kissed me."
Except it had been so much more than that -- so much different from kissing a woman, ter Borcht's lips less yielding, his entire bearing more aggressive, pressing Jeb back against the counter.
"And?"
Jeb shrugs awkwardly. "We never talked about it again." They'd been colleagues, after all, back then -- and ter Borcht had always been the physically affectionate type, anyway. So it hadn't been hard for Jeb to convince himself that the whole kissing incident went back only to ter Borcht exuberantly expressing his joy at being able to continue his research.
And it isn't hard for Jeb to know that that conclusion is one hundred percent, grade A bullshit -- but it keeps the whole affair from distracting him too much, so in the end it serves its purpose.
"Why not?"
Jeb looks fixedly at his hands. He'd been too shy -- and too dedicated to his work -- to pursue a relationship with ter Borcht, or even to try and clear up what had happened between them -- but he still wonders what might have been. And it was possible that ter Borcht had wondered the same thing. "He had a breakdown, and he was institutionalized for a while, so... we didn't see each other again for years."
"I thought you were working with him last year."
It's more complex than that, Valentine.
He pushes his glasses back up on his nose.
"Itex needed him back," he says.
Marian had gotten ter Borcht released from the rehabilitation facility (that only Itex's influence had gotten him into in the first place) -- she'd claimed that for a man of ter Borcht's intelligence, light work would be healthier than staring at the walls. More conductive to recovery.
As if you could recover from a terminal case of flexible morality.
Being back at Itex had, instead of curing ter Borcht, almost killed him. His "treatment" had changed him -- the lithe, youthful man Jeb had known came back to Itex a stout, withdrawn, middle-aged man, still on heavy medication.
Itex was an intense working environment, even for someone in good mental health. The last time Jeb had seen ter Borcht, he'd looked pale and tired -- it was very clear that he'd seen better days.
"So they took him back."
"Essentially." Jeb nods. "And I haven't heard from him since... all that trouble with Max."
"You worried about him?" As always, she's blunt, cutting right to the chase, trying to find out how Jeb feels. It's a wonderful talent of hers.
It's why they broke up.
"Yes," Jeb says simply. "He's a brilliant man, and I hope he'll be able to keep... making scientific contributions."
Val laughs. "Still the same old Jeb -- so stiff and formal."
He blushes. "Well... I don't just worry about him," he stammers.
"Yeah? You worry about anyone else?"
"Your student." Jeb adjusts his glasses and recrosses his arms.
"Who -- Brigid? Why?" He knows Val considers the young Doctor Dwyer practically her daughter. Jeb hasn't met the young lady himself, but if Val likes her she must be worth it.
"We still listen to Max sometimes," he explains hesitantly, choosing his words one by one, "and... she... thinks Brigid is trying to steal Fang from her. I worry that... Brigid knows that."
"Yeah? I'll talk to them about it. Both of them."
He buries his face in his hands. "Thank you," he mumbles.
"Max is your daughter, Jeb," Val reminds him. "You should talk to her."
Jeb inhales slowly.
"She's my daughter," he says, "but I don't think I deserve to be her father."