I know nobody writes fanfiction based on Kate Atkinson books (if they do, and I've just missed it, PLEASE tell me) but I love her writing, and I love Jackson and Louise so very much. I love the programme Case Histories but I felt like the scene where Jellybean dies wasn't very well translated from book to screen, so this is a one-shot following on from the chapter of One Good Turn where Louise goes home and finds Archie holding Jellybean's dead body.

Jellybeans

It'd be the last time she held him. She pressed her face deep into his neck, ran her forefinger down his spine in the way that had once made him moan with satisfaction. He was still slightly warm, and smelled faintly sweet. It was only right that he should smell sweet, really, it suited his name. He'd had such a sweet temperament, too, up until the last few weeks, when he was in such pain that he couldn't bear her to touch him.

The candles Archie had lit were still dancing in the gloom; she hadn't the heart to extinguish them. His shoulders had shaken as he'd held him, and the cat in turn had shaken in his arms, so that it seemed that Jellybean was having a fit rather than lying dead. She hadn't given a damn about her mother's death – the woman who'd given birth to her, held her hand to guide her across the street, cried at her graduation – but she was falling apart at the concept of waking up in the night and finding her feet cold because her cat wasn't lying with her.

The doorbell rang. On impulse, she'd called Jackson and said "My cat's dead", her voice crackling, and she could almost hear his thought process. She was verging on cheery talking about her mum dying, but when it's the cat–

"Brought you a present," he said, offering her a Marks and Spencer carrier bag when she finally found the strength to let go of the cat.

She stepped back silently to allow him entry, and he smiled and stepped into her hallway. His fingers brushed hers as she took the bag. She wondered what he thought of her house, with its scruffy furniture, the teenage boy's hoodies littered around the ground floor; he'd been here only once before, when he'd knocked her mother's ashes onto the floor. His house was lovely, those French doors which he opened so that dusky evening light spilled into his front room.

"Where's Archie?" he asked.

"Upstairs." She gestured to the dining room table. He seemed miraculously unperturbed by the body of the cat lying beside him, wrapped in an old jumper of Louise's. I thought he'd want to smell you. "He wanted a shower. He said he could still feel– Thank you, for coming, Jackson."

He looked a bit taken aback. She wasn't sure if it was her emotion which scared him, or the lack of sarcasm.

"You must think I'm psychotic."

"The cat meant a lot to you." He didn't say it like it was a question.

She opened the bag he'd presented her with and found a bag of jellybeans. She couldn't help herself, the sobs rose in her throat and her tears dribbled into her dead cat's fur. Pitiful, Louise. You've scared him away for life now. The need for Jackson Brodie's love was outweighed by the knawing pain of losing the one creature in the world who'd known all of her secrets.

She realised she was still wearing her work clothes. She understood why Archie had needed to shower; it felt like her shirt was grubby, contaminated with death. And we're all so frightened of death. Once upon a time Jackson had looked almost presentable, coming to work each day cleanly shaven, and occasionally with matching socks (not that she'd kept a record) but she felt over-dressed now, sitting across from a man in jeans.

"I need to– I need to get these off."

"Course." Tenderness, mingled with the natural gruff tone. "I'll wait."

She went upstairs, stripped her coral blouse from her shoulders. There was a clump of dark cat hair stuck to her bra. She sobbed into the blouse crumpled between her fingers, wondering why she hadn't just changed into jeans before he arrived – there'd been at least twenty minutes between the end of the call and the ring of the doorbell, twenty minutes wasted away with grief – and how much of a fool he must think her.

"Mum, is someone here?"

She pulled on her pyjamas, buried her feet into her slippers. You can't sink any lower in his estimations. "Yeah, it's Jackson."

Archie's voice sounded subdued through the wooden door. "I thought we were going to bury him."

Shaken with tears and lack of sleep, she thought for several seconds that Archie was suggesting they bury Jackson. Louise normally prided herself on the fact that she was dependent on nobody, and yet tonight– "Sorry, I just needed someone."

"Do we have a spade somewhere?"

"The garage."

"Needs to be six feet deep, right?"

"Oh, love." Hadn't called him love in years. "It's dark."

She needed more than to hear him, she needed to hold him. She opened the door and he pushed his head into her chest like a child does, because he was still a child, really. He'd inherited independence from his mother, and strength and bloody-mindedness, but he depended on her, just as she wanted to depend on Jackson somewhere deep down.

"He'll be cold, Mum."

"We'll bury him in my jacket. He'll still be able to smell me that way."

He cried into her and she cried into him. His hair was still damp from the shower, and smelled faintly of her summer fruits shampoo. She rocked him as she had done when he was about the length of her forearm, and he snivelled into her pyjama top like he was reverting entirely to babyhood.

Soon, too soon, they broke apart in mutual discomfit at the sudden closeness, and Louise gestured to the staircase.

Jackson was in the kitchen stirring three mugs. "Hot chocolate."

"You didn't need to."

Of course, he did bloody need to. How many favours did he owe her? How many times had she covered for him instead of throwing him to the wolves, regardless of much he'd pissed her off? This was only repaying the tip of the iceberg. And yet she was certain he'd never been as grateful for any of the things she'd done for him as she was for this, for the warm mug pressed into her cold fingers, for the way he guided her gently to the dining room table.

"We're burying him in the garden," Archie said.

Jackson looked at Louise, and Louise looked at her mug. Jackson could have made any excuse, the dark or the cold or the drizzling rain, but he met Archie's gaze – he had such vivid, intelligent eyes, her son – and smiled his customary lopsided smile, a kind and faraway smile. "You find a spade, and I'll get the torch from the car."

Outside, once Jackson had dug the hole, with Archie hovering beside him waving the torch, he lowered the bundle of cat into the earth. Louise bent down in the grass and reached down to touch Jellybean, to ruffle the fur between his ears one last time. Archie crouched down too, turned off the torch. Sweet soil below, and bitter sweat from Jackson's skin.

"I love you," she whispered, and in the darkness she heard Jackson turn slightly, uncertain if she was talking to the cat or– I don't know either.

His hand touched the small of her back, cautiously, and then when she leant towards him he held her waist and let her rest her head on his shoulder. It didn't matter, that she was in her pyjamas, that he was soaked through with rain and sweat, that they bickered constantly, that it couldn't ever work out, not really. Those things didn't matter.

They said love made you strong, but in Louise's opinion it made you weak. It corkscrewed into your heart and you couldn't get it out again, not without ripping your heart to pieces. And yet maybe Jackson could. Or maybe, at least, he could limit the damage, he could bandage her up and hold her hand and support her with his own love until she could love again herself.

"Here," he said, pressing something into her hand. She thought for a moment, a gloriously strange moment, that he'd given her cat droppings, but she heard the packet rustle and she realised what they were. Oh, Jackson Brodie.

She sprinkled jellybeans into the grave like she'd sprinkled soil onto her mother's coffin. "Goodnight, Jellybean."

Love was the hardest thing. Don't let anyone ever tell you different.

"Oh," Archie exclaimed softly.

She found his hand in the darkness, "What?"

"I thought that was a red one, but it tastes like green."

Louise felt Jackson's shoulder shift as he smirked in the darkness, and she pulled her Archie into her and smiled too.

XxXxX

Please review if you enjoyed this (or if you didn't; constructive criticism is also appreciated), and PLEASE someone, write a Case Histories fanfiction and I will love you forever.