AN: This may turn into a multi piece thing at some point I don't really know what I'm doing tbh.
She had met him one autumn when the state legislature was in session. Only a week before she had secured the mundane secretarial post within the legislative offices, much to her mother's complete disapproval, and she'd met him for the first time on a rainy Thursday afternoon. She had been a few months shy of her twenty-first birthday and not looking for any sort of relationship or commitment, and she could never have imagined what meeting him would mean for her. What it would lead her to do.
Jean had been walking upstairs with her arms full of papers and files, and he had bumped into her on his way down, something that on that particular day had irked her considerably.
"Watch it!" She practically growled at him, clutching her papers closer to her chest. Much to her surprise, he stopped.
"I'm very sorry, ma'am." He had said, coming up the stairs to stand inches from her.
"It's "miss" to you. Miss Graham," Jean had said a little tartly, watching as the corners of his mouth twitched a little. So help him if he laughed.
"Miss Graham, I am sorry." He bowed his head a little at her. Before she had the chance to move on and keep working, he continued speaking. "I wonder if you'd be able to help me with something, miss? I'm supposed to be meeting a friend at The Blackbird Cafe, but I can't remember where it is. Could you help?"
Jean glared at him for a second, hating the way he still looked as though he wanted to laugh at her. "Go down the street, take a left, then a right and you'll see the sign," she told him.
"You've been very helpful. Thank you." And he walked away from her.
Jean then began to see him frequently whenever the legislature was in session, noticing him walking in and out or talking to other legislators, and he always had a smile for her when their eyes met. It wasn't until an emergency session of the legislature was called a few months later that they spoke again, however. He stopped outside the little office where she spent her days with some envelopes in his arms for posting, smiling when he saw her sitting behind a desk.
"Imagine seeing you here." He commented, leaving a dozen envelopes on the countertop to her right.
Jean rolled her eyes at him. "I do work here too, you know. The odds of us running into each other are high."
"That was a joke." He said simply, sorting his envelopes into different piles.
Jean frowned at him but watched him for a few seconds longer, and when he said nothing more she went back to work. She expected that once he was finished he would clear out and leave her in peace, but instead he remained. He took a few small steps towards the window and stood looking out at the street outside, still staying completely silent.
"Is there somethin' else I can help you with, sir?" Jean asked, a faint note of frustration in her voice. She found it impossible to concentrate with someone standing in the room.
"Actually." He said, putting his hands in his trouser pockets. "I was wondering if you'd like to go to lunch with me?"
Jean's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and she thanked the heavens that he wasn't facing her to see how completely shocked she looked. She wasn't attracted to him, he wasn't at all like the other boys she'd dated growing up, and he had to be nearly twenty years older than her. She was struggling to understand why he'd want her of all people.
She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. "Sir, I don't even know your name," she said as sweetly as possible. She didn't want to completely break his spirit.
He turned his head in her direction, still smiling a little. "Atticus. Atticus Finch."
Jean tried not to smile. "Would you believe that you're the first Atticus I've met?"
Atticus cocked an eyebrow at her. "I dare say I am. So, Miss Graham, is that a yes?"
She hesitated for a second longer, staring him down from behind her desk until her resolve cracked. What harm exactly would it do to have lunch with an old bachelor who probably just needed his ego soothed?
"Anyone who takes me to lunch and pays gets to call me Jean." She said, standing from her desk and reaching for her jacket.
Immediately, Atticus was behind her and helping her into it. "I don't recall sayin' anything about paying."
With her back to him she allowed herself to smile. "Well then I guess it's Miss Graham to you."
oOoOoOo
She had gone to lunch with him that day four months ago and found she actually enjoyed herself. While she had thought it would be excruciating and the conversation would dry up within five minutes, she discovered it was enjoyable and that talking to him felt like the easiest thing in the world. He'd surprised her by actually being very witty and incredibly charming.
"You have spark," he'd said at one point during their lunch. Jean had evidently looked confused because he quickly kept talking. "You seem to have fire, a quiet courage. You have a lot of life."
"You can tell all that from just one lunch? You should read people's fortunes."
Atticus had laughed a little. "I only meant that you don't seem like a wallflower. You stand out from the crowd." He'd said, laying down his hand over hers.
He had charmed her Jean realised that she wanted to see him again, which was something she hadn't been counting on. Something about him had drawn her in.
They'd met again for lunch a few weeks later, and then a few weeks later after that, then took a stroll around the city where he had kissed her for the first time, and she had even convinced him to go dancing with her on her birthday. Soon he was coming to Montgomery every other weekend to see her, though he always gave the excuse of having business to see to with the legislature.
Jean was falling for him she knew, but compared to the boys she had dated in the past, he was too much of a gentleman. The boys she had dated before had not been gentlemen, and she had come to expect and almost enjoy a certain roughness from her men. She had slept with three of her past boyfriends, dodging pregnancies every time and making her feel like she was invincible, and learned very quickly that she enjoyed sex. To her it was the one exciting thing in her otherwise boring life. It made her feel alive, if not a bit cheap and objectified. All three times she had come away feeling like she had just been used and tossed aside, but she had enjoyed each and every second, something her mother had long ago told her wasn't befitting of a lady.
"You must expect that you'll have to do things for your husband, Jean. Things that are wrong and dirty and downright shameful. But you most certainly don't expect to receive any...any...pleasure...of your own," her mother had said with her cheeks flaming.
But Jean learned at the age of seventeen that her mother was wrong, so very wrong. She wasn't afraid of sex like so many other girls her age, and most of her boyfriends had been thrilled to hear her say it, but she had never encountered a gentleman like Atticus Finch before. Yes, Atticus would hold her hand, he would wrap his arm around her waist, he might even kiss her if he fancied, but she doubted he was the type of man who would come to her bed before putting a ring on her finger.
But she wanted him.
With her past boyfriends it had been all too easy to persuade them, but she respected Atticus too much to put him in a situation he wasn't comfortable with. He was the type of man who wanted to do things by the book. He'd court her for a respectable amount of time, propose, have an engagement of a respectable length, get married and sleep together on their wedding night. She respected him too much to make him sacrifice his values and beliefs.
But, oh, she wanted him.
oOoOoOo
Seven months into their relationship they slept together for the first time.
They hadn't planned on it, but when Atticus came to Montgomery for an extended weekend, it just happened. Her parents had been out, and it turned out that he didn't need as much coercion as she thought.
"Are you sure about this?" He'd asked, his breathing slow and steady.
"Yes. Are you?"
He'd answered her with a kiss and they had quickly ended up in bed. They slept together, and for Jean it was better than she could ever remember. She wasn't thinking about the possible consequences of her actions, thinking that she had dodged a pregnancy three times before. All she could focus on was how good it felt having Atticus in her bed, on the feeling of his fingers, his arms, the muscles in his back. She wasn't thinking, and neither did she care. She couldn't make herself feel guilty about something that felt so good.
But she was soon forced to face the cold hard reality of what she had done.
When she was late the first time she didn't worry. She'd never been a regular person, so there was probably no reason to be alarmed. It happened all the time for all sorts of reasons. She didn't need to be worried, it was all fine.
When she was late the second time she knew she couldn't ignore it. Jean knew that this time she was facing the consequences, this time she hadn't got away with it. When she then began to get sick, there was no doubt remaining in her mind. She was pregnant.
Jean spent days wracking her mind. What was she supposed to do? Like practically every other girl she knew, she'd heard the stories of girls who got pregnant and were sent away in shame, or worse sent to special "hospitals" and basically forgotten about until the baby was born.
She'd also heard the stories of just what went on in those places once the doors were closed. Hell would freeze over before she allowed herself to be dragged off there.
For days she felt physically sick, both with the pregnancy and with just how much she was worrying over what she was going to do. She couldn't sleep, and she could barely eat, something her mother had quickly picked up on.
"Are you ill, Jean? You've barely touched your dinner," Louise had said sharply over dinner one evening.
"I'm fine, Mama." Jean had answered, going as far as to give her mother a smile for good measure.
"You've got bags under your eyes, too. Are you sleepin' alright? Has somethin' happened with that Atticus?" Her mother pressed on, her question causing Jean's stomach to clench horribly.
"I said I'm fine, Mama!" Jean said forcefully, her grip on her fork tightening. She couldn't let her mother suspect what she was hiding or she'd have her on the first train to one of those hospitals.
"Jean," her father said warningly.
"I'm sorry," she answered in barely more than a whisper, feeling the urge to cry quickly consume her. She had to figure something out and fast.
She knew there were doctors who could get rid of it for a price, but where would she even begin to look for one? And how would she get to one without her strictly religious parents finding out? Jean didn't even want to think about how her parents would react if they discovered she had let a doctor perform an illegal abortion on her. If only there was some way of getting rid of the damned thing herself.
And then it came to her. She needed to find her mother's knitting needles.
Jean didn't know how she hadn't thought of it sooner. Days of misery could have been avoided if she'd only had the gumption to think clearly and think of knitting needles. It was simple. She knew what she had to do, and as soon as she could get a moment where her parents weren't around, she could finally get everything back to normal. It was that simple!
But it wasn't simple.
She had found her mother's needles on a Friday afternoon and stood in the bathroom with her hands shaking so badly she kept dropping them. She knew what she needed to do, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She steadied her hand over and over but couldn't make herself follow through. Not because she held and love for what was growing inside her, but because she was scared for herself and what might happen if something went wrong. She was scared of the pain she knew it would cause, scared of the possibility there might be so much blood she could bleed out. She couldn't do it.
Jean collapsed onto the bathroom floor and let herself shake with sobs, crying so forcefully she was sure she would stop breathing. She was scared. She was petrified. If she didn't get rid of this baby, then very soon her mother would find out and she'd be sent away. She'd lose her job, her friends, Atticus. Lord knows she wouldn't be able to return to Montgomery once people discovered what had happened, her mother would see to that. Her one and only option was to get rid of the damn baby!
Three days later she had a new plan. All she needed to do was steal her father's gin.
Finding the gin was easy seeing as her father was borderline alcoholic, but the opportunity to be alone was harder to come by. Her parents never seemed to leave the house. She waited and waited and waited, nearly going stir crazy with how long it took to be alone, and then finally, finally, they left one Saturday evening for some benefactor or dance or whatever.
Jean had feigned a headache in order to stay at home, and once she heard the front door shut she raced to the bathroom upstairs. She filled the bath, retrieved the bottle of gin from where she had hidden it behind the sink, and lay back in the roasting water. The gin tasted repulsive but she forced herself to drink three quarters of the bottle, and she sat in the bath for close to an hour, the water being practically freezing when she pulled herself out.
She felt light. She felt as though a fifty ton burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Everything would be ok now. Everything would go back to normal and no one needed to know about any of it. All she had to do was wait.
Nothing happened.
Jean was at her wits end. She had been so sure it would work. She had been so sure that gin and a hot bath were the solution to her problem. She had been so sure. She had counted on it working and it hadn't. She was still pregnant and running out of time to do anything about it. She felt more alone than ever.
On a Wednesday afternoon she tried again. While her mother was taking a nap she stole more of her father's gin and crept quietly to the bathroom, repeating the same process as before, only this time she made sure to drink the whole bottle. It burned her throat and numerous times she thought it was going to come back up, but she persevered. She had to get rid of this baby.
Nothing happened this time either.
It was after the second failed attempt that Jean contemplated taking her own life. It was beginning to look like her only way out. If hot baths and gin didn't work, then knitting needles probably wouldn't either, and if her parents discovered her pregnancy her life wouldn't be worth living anyway. Jean also thought her mother could probably live easier with a daughter that took her own life rather than a daughter who had a bastard child. She decided to have one more hot bath, and if that didn't work then she would slit her wrists.
She repeated the same process again, bringing every bottle of gin she could find to the bathroom. She got in the water and drank. And drank. And drank. Her head was beginning to go light after a time, but still she kept raising the bottle to her lips, almost automatically. She kept on drinking, not even stopping when she heard the front door open and close, only expecting it to be her mother coming back from wherever she had done.
But the voice that spoke wasn't her mother. It was Atticus. She'd forgotten he'd said he'd be coming to see her.
"Jean?" She could hear him calling for her downstairs. "Your mother said you'd be here."
With her mind hazy from alcohol, she didn't think twice about answering him. " 'mup 'ere," she slurred out, not expecting him to hear her.
She heard him climb the stairs and walk down the hallway. "Jean?"
" 'min 'ere!" She called out louder, and let her head loll back against the back of the bath.
Atticus hesitated outside the bathroom door for a second, obviously having an internal debate with himself about if he should go in, but after a second she saw the bathroom door swing open.
"Jean? Are you ill...oh!" He turned to leave again.
She hadn't seen him since finding out she was pregnant, and once she did she was sitting in the bath horribly, stone cold sober. What would he say?
"Atticus." She called out to him, lifting her wet arm out of the water.
"Are you drunk?" Atticus asked, his eyes jumping from her, to the gin bottles at the side of the bath, and back to her again.
Jean suddenly felt very cold. "Atticus, I'm sorry," she practically whimpered, quickly finding that she was crying. Oh God, it was all just too much.
"What are you sorry for? There's no law against drinking in the bath." Atticus replied, smiling a little at her and walking over to kneel and take her outstretched hand.
"No." Jean was shaking her head firmly. "Atticus...that night...I'm pregnant. I'm tryin' to...to..." she couldn't finish the sentence. Her arm went slack and dropped from his grip. The last thing she saw was a kaleidoscope of colours: the pure white of Atticus' face, the scarlet red of the bathwater, and then black.