A/N: I am so sorry I made this. I really am. Still, hope you enjoy!
It's the small things, the tiny and not really out of the ordinary details, that first make Jake notice that Miss Peregrine is not as okay as she seem.
It starts with a general suspicion, a thought that maybe she had been acting a bit weird lately, that maybe something was wrong, and a questioned voiced in front of some of the other children when he had the chance.
"Do you think Miss P is okay? She's been acting a bit weird lately." He try to sound casual, knowing too well how easy it was to upset the other 'children' when discussing Miss Peregrine, their headmistress and mother-of-sort.
As soon as the words left his lips, all the other people in the room turned to look at him, starring as though he was an alien, or possibly suggesting that Miss Peregrine might be an alien.
"What do you mean? Miss Peregrine's been acting like she always do." Emma answered, barely bothering to take her eyes off the puzzle in front of them. It was 600 piece puzzle depicting a Zebra, and Jake was absolutely convinced that if Emma had had even the slightest interest in what he was saying she would have looked at him and not at the quite difficult puzzle on which no progress had been made in the last half-hour.
"I'm sure it's just because you doesn't know her that well." Olive offered kindly, putting another piece in place and giving him one of her characteristic smiles that immediately put Enoch in a bad mood. It was hard to believe a boy who didn't really seem to carry about anyone, himself included, could be so incredibly possessive sometimes, but there it was.
"There is nothing wrong with Miss P." Enoch said decidedly, sounding terrifying even with his thick Scottish accent leaking through, efficiently killing off the conversation before it had barely even begun .
Still, despite his friends reassurances, Jake was still not completely convinced that Miss Peregrine was alright, and the first 'incident' where he felt his concerns to be proven, only went further to prove that his friend were missing something.
They'd been out on the daily walk that Miss Peregrine always insisted they'd go on, even though she all the more rarely joined them, and as they were all filtered inside, he remembered he wanted to tell Miss Peregrine something, and began to look for her. After maybe five minutes, he found her standing off to the side and having a conversation with Millard, her back turned to Jake. Not thinking too much, he reached out to grab her elbow, hoping it would catch her attention.
The scream that left her lips as she felt Jake's hand against her arm was loud and terrified, scaring him as well and making him take a step back in surprise at the unexpected sound.
"Oh my gosh! , I am so sorry. I didn't know it was you." It had been a reflex, clearly, and she seemed as shocked as him, but he couldn't help but wonder who she thought he was. Who would scare her enough to scream just by touching her arm.
By now, Jake had almost forgotten he thought she wasn't okay to begin with, but that night when he revisited the sound of her shocked scream in his head, again and again, the suspicions came back to him.
The next so-called 'incident' happened while they were in the kitchen.
It was he, Emma and Bronwyn that'd been chosen for kitchen duty that day, and as he followed behind her into the kitchen, he can see her doubting on the threshold.
She stop, close her eyes and count. She is counting to maybe five or ten, acting as though she had to convince herself to enter the kitchen, but as soon she's done with her numbers she is back to normal, smiling slightly and taking control before anyone else could.
Jake had figured she was just annoyed over something and needed to regain her calm, but the thoughts telling him to dig deeper kept poking at it from the back of his brain, only getting more convincing as Miss Peregrine's Continued acting in ways that was most definitely strange.
Before they started cooking, Miss Peregrine had forced them to check that they had all the ingredients, yet as soon as Bronwyn took out the large kitchen knife to cut the carrots with, Miss Peregrine mumbled something about missing ingredients and left the room.
Obviously confused, Jake had decided to ask Bronwyn and Emma if they knew what it was all about, but weary as to not make Emma think that he was still trying to find proof that Miss Peregrine wasn't okay, which he, in truth, was.
"Hey, do any of you know where Miss P went?" He looked at the door, and then back at them, awaiting their response. Surely they must find it suspicious, too?
"I dunno. She sometimes leaves when we bring out the knives, but she'll come back." Emma commented, bringing forth a knife of her own and beginning to chop some salad. Just like when he asked if she thought she was okay when they were doing the puzzle, Emma was barely paying attention to him.
It was like she didn't want to even consider that something could be wrong.
"Yeah. Maybe she just doesn't like knives? They're sharp, Claire doesn't like them either." Bronwyn suggested innocently, and Jake held himself back from reminding her that Claire was (physically) six and a half years old, and no six year old liked knives.
By the time all the chopping and cutting was done, the headmistress returned to the kitchen, apologising for the delay and bringing with her an ingredient, that had most certainly not been on the list, but was later used when cooking the meal anyway. No one asked why it hadn't been on the list, assuming she forgot, but Jake couldn't help but wonder if maybe she had left it off the list on purpose.
He was sure she wasn't doing as okay as everyone thought, and he wanted to help her, but he didn't quite know how. The fact that no one else seemed to notice anything made him weary, and he was afraid that maybe he was just imagining, and Miss Peregrine was in reality fine.
Because of this insecurity, Jake finally decided to put his worries on ice, trying not to think too much about it until he had a more concrete reason to feel worried about Miss Peregrine's
health and state of mind. After all, just like the other told him, the things he used as evidence was easily explainable, and even if they weren't, he had hardly been living with them long enough to be able to determined what was normal and not.
At first, this seemed like an excellent decision. Jake felt a lot more relaxed and happy when he wasn't constantly worrying about Miss Peregrine, and she didn't seem so odd, either. He was almost convinced that he must have imagined it all, because her behaviour was so extremely normal that there couldn't have been anything wrong, but then one morning it was suddenly all back.
It started with that Enoch and Olive, who had kitchen duty that day in particular, had to prepare breakfast all by themselves when Miss Peregrine failed to show up to help them. Normally, she would have been waiting for them in the kitchen already when they came, and though no one said anything, letting the silence and worried glances at the door speak for themselves, they were all worried something was wrong when she didn't appear.
After that, the tension only got thicker, quickly spreading to the rest of the children in the house when Miss Peregrine didn't show up for the breakfast itself, either. By now Jake had catched on to what had happened, like everyone else, and all his doubts since before came rushing back to him at a neck breaking speed, screaming at him how much of idiot he'd been not to approach the headmistress already earlier.
Despite this, though, he kept on eating his breakfast, trying to make light conversation and going with the other's decision to casually try and pretend nothing was wrong for as long as possibly.
An hour after the meal was finished, table cleaned and dishes taken care of, the stairs creaked under the weight of soft footsteps, and everyone rushed out to great Miss Peregrine, knowing that there was noone else it could be and seeing an opportunity to finally still their worries.
Up till that point everyone but Jake was still stubbornly convinced there couldn't be anything wrong, because their never was, but the moment they lay eyes on their headmistress, they knew it was. It was undeniable, her normal perfect appearance and posture so broken that even Jake was taken back.
Instead of her normal dark blue dress, Miss Peregrine was wearing black pants and a huge white sweater that was too big on her small frame. Her hair was tangled and put up in a loose bun without being brushed or washed first, and she hadn't even bothered to put on any make up, eyes sore and red, underlined with dark shadows that made them look empty and lifeless.
If they hadn't know that it had to be her, there was no way they could have recognised their headmistress the way she looked at the moment. She never looked like that infront of her children.
Her arms hugged herself in a highly self-conscious way, and she refused to meet the eyes of any of her children with her dead gaze, looking away almost as if shameful of her current state.
"I think it's time for you to go on your daily walk." Was all she said, her voice hoarse and raspy, and despite the fact that none of the children wanted to do so, Enoch and Olive quickly shooed the younger children out the door, scared of leaving her but unwilling to disobey her order, finally leaving only Miss Peregrine, Emma and Jake left by themselves.
"You also need to go on a walk." She said, staring at the two remaining teenagers with her still lifeless gaze, her voice even and smooth without a single emotion in it. It was impossible to say what had happened to her, but the fact was that it had been enough to make her drop her perfect appearance in front of her children.
"We don't want to go...no...don't make us..." Emma's voice was cracking, tears gathering in her eyes as she looked at her headmistress, her mother, her everything. She didn't want to leave her like this.
" !" Her voice rose, almost a scream by now, anger flashing in her eyes and scarring the already terrified children by the door.
Jake grabbed Emma's arm, immediately having her latch onto him like it was the only thing keeping her alive. Seeing that they were connected, he quickly used the momentum to pulled the both of them out the door, acting as though he was intending to leave Miss Peregrine alone.
Only that wasn't what he was planning to do at all.
As soon as he got outside the door, he pushed the now crying Emma into Olive's comforting arms, wishing he could comfort her himself but feeling he had something more important to do.
He needed to help Miss Peregrine, because he hadn't done so earlier, when he first started seeing the signs that something was wrong, and now, now it was bad.
"I'll be back. Start walking." He quickly told Olive, the red haired immediately seeming to understand what he really ment, and quickly showed her objections.
"Jake, don't. Just...just give her some time alone, like she wanted" Olive's soft voice begged, pleading and hoping he'd reconsider, but he was set. He had to do this.
Ignoring the other girl calling for him, he went back inside, closing the door and praying to god that no one would try to follow, because there was no way Miss Peregrine would ever open up to them, especially not after her fall from grace.
She was suppose to represent something to all of them, had built up an image and an outer character that she wanted them to see her as, and which they did see her as. Opening up to them would mean utterly smashing that picture, and Jake guessed she wouldn't do that.
She wanted to keep the respect of her children. But Jake, Jake was new, and he hoped that it would give him the advantage he needed to help Miss Peregrine.
As he crept through the corridors, looking for where their distressed headmistress had disappeared to, he couldn't help but return to his earlier line of thoughts. He had known something was wrong. He had known it when he caught her generally acting a bit off, he had known it when he heard her scream, and he had definitely known it when she left the kitchen a soon as they brought out the knives.
But he'd done nothing. He'd instead let himself be lulled into believing he imagined it by the children who had gotten so used to things being okay that they couldn't and wouldn't see when it was not.
"Leave me alone!" Miss Peregrine's voice calls out, the sound echoing from the door to the living room, and at first, Jake thought she was speaking to him, somehow having found out he was in the house and wanted him to leave, but quickly discarded the theory, as she'd have to have a seventh sense of some sort to know that he was standing in the other end of the hallways.
Not that he didn't thinks he had a seventh sense of some sort, he just didn't think knowing people was there hiding meters away behind thick walls were it
Carefully, he approached the door to the living room, which had been left slightly open so he could take a look inside, hopefully without being seen himself.
Inside the room, Miss Peregrine was curled up on one of the couches in fetal position, the large white sweater she wore earlier discard on the floor and instead replaced by a simple black tank top that exposed both her arms and shoulders. She was clearly crying, her entire body shaking as she attempted to bring her legs closer to the her heaving chest, looking like a tiny baby who was being ignored by it's mother.
Jake had to bite his tongue hard to stay quiet as he looked her over, for the first time seeing her arms exposed and uncovered, and quickly discovering why she kept them covered. There are big scars running down from her shoulders all the way down to her elbows on both her arms, and there's a patch of burnt and discoloured skin just beneath her left elbow, that look frail, too sensitive to be touched like normal skin. From the elbows and down to the upper part of her wrist is a mish-mash of smaller scars and discoloured marks on both arms.
She look so horrible mistreated and abused and tortured when she lay there crying, scars exposed for the world to see. But what made it both better and worse was, that many of them were too faded and old to have been caused by Barron. Because of course his first idea, was that this was what Bayern did to the Ymbrynes he kidnapped-. But it couldn't. Scars caused by Barron would barely had healed, but these were obviously long since closed and recovered.
He wanted to know who had put these scars upon her body, scarring her for life with marks that showed all too well on her pale skin, but getting his curiosity satisfied was less important than to get her out of the state she was currently in, so he held back his curiosity-
"Leave me alone…please!" It was barely heard, a mumble in between desperate sobs as she rolled over on her other side, turning her back towards Jake, who couldn't silence himself quick enough when he saw the way it looked.
He gasped, and Miss Peregrine froze, clearly having heard the sound.
"Emma? Is that you?" Her voice was trembling, fearful, and she carefully pulled herself into sitting position, swaying slightly as she got up, but positioning herself so that she was leaning against the back of the sofa, patiently waiting for an answer even though Jake could see she was all but relaxed.
Knowing very well that she hadn't wanted him to be there, Jake didn't dare to answer. Slowly, he tried to back away from the door, but because he didn't see where he was going her tripped on some toys the twins had left out and crashed into the wall, bringing several photos with him as he sunk to the floor and causing enough noise that it would definitely send Miss Peregrine running whatever the state she was in.
"EMMA?!" Suddenly terrified, Miss Peregrine did indeed come running out the doors, a little of her usual behaviour back in the way she acted, but she quickly came to a dead stop as she found no Emma, but just Jake, and her terror seemed to grow ten times as he gave her an apologetic smile.
"Emma went on a walk. I forgot my jacket." He said sheepishly, repeating the weak lie he had decided to stick to earlier, but knowing she wasn't buying it. Standing even closer than before, his eyes focusing on the scars that covered her arms. They looked even worse up close, and again he wondered what happened.
"I told you to go" There is no anger in her voice, not even irritation. Any energy the thought of Emma had sparked in her was gone.
"Miss Peregrine." He quickly scrambled to his feet, intending to following her even though she had clearly decided to ignore him. He couldn't let her go, not with the picture of her crying face, the scarred surface of her arms and her back in his mind.
She needed help, whether she was going to accept it or not.
As she walked inside the living room, Jake's step echoing behind her, she suddenly stopped. Sighing, she bent down, picking up the sweater and putting it back on so that he could no longer see the countless scars running down her arms and back.
"What do you want, ? I don't believe your jacket is in here." She snapped, sitting down on the couch with an almost pained facial expression, new tears welling up in her eyes. "And I do believe I asked you to go, too."
If I had had any doubt about what he was about to do before, he was no at a point of no return. It was it or nothing.
"But I don't want to go, I want to help you! I can understand you won't let the others, they've been with you for so long and you never showed them this side, but I haven't. Please." Hurriedly, getting more and more fearful of the fact that Miss Peregrine might try to forcefully remove him from the house, at least for a while, he threw out all the arguments he had. He was barely bothered with getting them to sound convincing, but more with just getting her to listen at all. "Whatever it is, nightmares or what not, I'm sure it'll be okay. I had all kinds of problems after my grandpa died, but it turned out alright."
Too late, he realise mentioning Abe Portman's passing had been a bad decision, because she bowed her head down and place it in her palms, slowly rocking back and forth as she closed her eyes with more tears making their way down her face.
Jake supposed that when you can pause time, people passing is a hard concept to handle.
"Don't try to make this better, Mister Portman. I've dealt with Horace and Enoch's horrific nightmares for years. I should be able to deal with all nightmares." There is venom in her choking voice, poisonous bitterness, more directed at herself than the boy standing in the other end of the room, even though it was obvious she did not appreciate the compassion.
Carefully, Jake decided to sit down beside her. It was obvious she'd given up on getting him to leave, and though she said the opposite it seemed she had accepted him as her comforter, and was ready to open up a little. Why else would she have mentioned that she should be able to deal with nightmares?
"You had a nightmare?" He asked, hoping he was right, and at the same time trying to understand how someone could be reduced to such a mess by a single nightmare. "You can tell me about it if you want. If you think it'll help."
She look at him, with red rimmed and tear-filled eyes she glanced at him. There is open vulnerability in those eyes, and she nodded, almost absentmindedly.
"Yes." She croak out, but doesn't elaborate, as if some preserved sliver of pride was still finding her too proud to admit her issues to the seventeen year old boy beside her.
He nodded, too. "Go on. You can tell me anything, and I promise I won't tell the others."
He cleared his throat, trying to figure out what to say. Thinking of his own irresponsible parents back home, who always would make him someone else's burden, and how much he loved them despite everything, he thought he might have an answer of some kind for her. "I don't know. I guess it's just...everyone expect you to love your family, so it feels like it's a sin not to, even though they could possibly deserve it. Because too many people have a family that is not worth hating, and therefor they can't understand when they do deserve it."
He barely know what he is saying, but his gaze and his hand travel to her arm, squeezing it, fingers tracing the scars that ran up it's entire length through the thin fabric of the sweater. Normal he wouldn't even have considered doing something like that, but having her confide in him had somehow erased everything she put between them.
Suddenly he understood why she never let her children access this side of her.
"If anyone hurt you, you shouldn't trust them. You shouldn't forgive them. It's wrong. And if they've made themselves worthy of it, then you should have the right to dislike them." He felt like a useless comfort, like he wasn't making any difference at all, but when he looked at Miss Peregrine's face it told him something else.
She was looking at him with incredible concentration, sharp focus in her hawk-like eyes. She was looking at him in a way that almost convinced she was back to normal, now.
After a minute, maybe two, she stopped looking at him, and instead, she laughed. It was loud and scary and not at all light-hearted like a normal laughter.
"Look at me! Is this what I've become? Taking life advice from a seventeen year old and being traumatized by nightmares... You don't even know what he did, my brother." First, she seemed like she was back to normal, again, but then there was something else. Something dangerous and maybe crazy. "You want to know what he did, the man you want me to apply these advice to?"
Jake swallowed, for the very first time actually scared of Miss Peregrine. It was just the way she looked at him, it almost made him ´think she'd hurt him if he didn't listen "O-of course" He felt like he should smile, however wrong that may seem, and as such her forced himself to show her the most authentic smile he could muster.
"Oh my...I...god what am I doing?" Suddenly she's swapped back to her old demeanor, and she seemed honestly shaken with her own behaviour. "This why don't talk about Jack! He turn you crazy! Crazy, terrifying, wrong...you need to stop, Alma!" She wasn't even acknowledging him at this point, her hands flying up to her head and burying in her thick black curls as she grab at her scull, trying to force herself back to her senses.
"Miss Peregrine….what did your brother do?" He had to know, now. Because as badly as he wanted to run away from the entire scene before him and forget he ever asked what was wrong , he needed to know what this man did, that broke a woman like Miss Peregrine bad enough that the memory alone turned her into a mental patient
"He...he hurt me, and Myron, our other brother, restlessly." The first part is easy to guess, he's seen the scars, but she seem to calm down herself through saying it, repeating things she knew to be true and grounding herself. "But he also created...everything. Literally all of this is his fault. Barron and his friends, it...it was his experiment, they were his friends, but he left them to do it alone, must have known what would happen… pure luck it wasn't me they put in that cage, but miss Hawk…" Tears are escaping her eyes, one of her hand moving from her head to her mouth, trying to silence the truths and the sobs, but failing on both accounts.
Now it was Jake's time to stare, intense and a lot more than what was polite, because what she said had been such a shock to him that manners was the least of his concerns.
Her brother had started the immortality project.
She might as well had said that she was the sister of the devil, it would not have made Jake feel any different than he did when he heard this piece of news, feeling sick to his stomach and almost wanting to throw up at the mere thought of all the horrible deeds that he had done in his insane search for true immortality.
Miss Peregrine's brother had started the madness.
"Of course I disagreed with him, hated his traitorous ideas. But what could I do? He was always bigger and stronger than me. The only weapon I had was to warn the ymbryne council and hope they'd stop him in time." She glanced at him, giving him an almost shameful look and not quite meeting his eyes, tears still overflowing hers. "It wasn't enough, and it wasn't soon enough. It all unfolded anyway, and Jack got away just barely, heading off to god knows where. And here I am, trying to make up for his mistakes."
She sighed, leaning back into the sofa, seemingly out of things to tell him at last, but not out of tears to shed. It felt like an eternity had passed since Jacob's first question, since he asked her to open up to him, and Jacob realised that all the things she had told him during this time was probably over a decade of pent up feelings and less than happy memories that she hadn't had any outlet for. It pained him to think that she had been left alone with this for so long. Still, there was something in what she was saying that was making him angry, that was itchy and annoying for his brain to comprehend.
"That's why you're an Ymbryne? Because your brother was bad guy? I thought you cared about your children!" He didn't meant to scream at MIss Peregrin, he would never do that, but he was feeling more and more disturbed by what she said for each passing moment, and it was getting to him. The other children saw Miss Peregrine as their mother, and as an immortal and undefeatable being.
He had thought Miss Peregrine saw them as her children,as someone she loved and cared for, not just a heavy and unwanted responsibility, like anyone else would.
Miss Peregrine barely looked at him, her bare feet apparently much more interesting than him, and he just saw it as further confirmation that she actually didn't care at all-
Quickly, he make his way onto his feet, anger present in his every move. He had been sitting there and pitying this woman for so long, wishing away all the pain and suffering she had endured, but now...he thought she deserved it, if not more. "If you don't love them, then why did you take upon yourself to protect them? They love you like a mother!"
He didn't expect Miss Peregrine would react in any particular manner, except perhaps become ashamed, but as he rose and turned to leave, he found himself being dragged back, unable to leave.
Miss Peregrine was holding onto his wrist.
She was says nothing, just stares at him, her mouth fashioned into a deep, displeased frown.
"Let me go! I'm leaving!" He exclaimed, trying to pull away but only finding her claw- like nails digging into his skin, the previously rather loose grip tightening. Though he would never admit it he couldn't help but feel a bit scared, and what she said next didn't exactly make him feel better.
"Say that again!" Miss Peregrine hissed, her voice razor sharp, her grip on his wrist gradually tightening and eyes filled with pure, white flame rage. "Tell me I don't care about my children and that I'm only doing this for myself!"
He couldn't. he couldn't tell her she didn't care about her children because of course she did he could see it in her eyes. She had gotten angry, furious even, and through her actions and her reactions she had showed him, that she did care. That her children was her everything and she would never let anyone claim anything else.
"We don't. We know you love us." Suddenly, there was a third voice speaking. It was fluffy and feather-light and all too familiar. It was Emma.
Standing in the doorway, watching her boyfriend and mother-of-sort, was the girl that was lighter than air. She looked absolutely miserable, her fingers playing with the fabric of her thin summer dress as she stared at Jacob and Miss Peregrine. For a short moment, Jacob met her eyes, and there was nothing but pure hate and disgust.
Of all the persons she could have walked in on him fighting with, she walked in on him fighting the person that was closest to her heart, the one person he knew she would always chose over him every time.
"Emma I didn't…" Jacob tried to explain, but the words died on his lips. There was no saying how much Emma had or hadn't heard of his and Miss Peregrine's conversation, and to be quite honest he was starting to regret his own words, too. "I'm sorry." He didn't meet the eyes of either of the other two persons in the room, and he wondered who it was he was really apologising to, Emma or Miss Peregrine.
"Don't bother. If your going to accuse our Ymbryne of not caring you might as well leave already!" She is barely refraining from shouting, crossing the room and placing herself next to Miss Peregrine, half sitting on her lap and half on the cushions of the couch. Burying her head in Miss Peregrine's neck and she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, she looked like a particularly stubborn and possessive child protecting her mother from strangers.
In a way, that's what she was. She was protecting Miss Peregrine from the man that she thought did her injustice.
"Emma…" Miss Peregrine whispered quietly, referring to the stubborn lighter-than-air girl by her first name instead of 'Miss Bloom'. She was worried, Jake could see that, holding the girl tight as she could. "Emma, dear, A...Jake didn't do anything wrong, please calm down. He merely misinterpreted my words."
Hanging onto her every word as he wait to see if she is going to try and help him, or if she is going to destroy any of his chances at future relations with Emma, Jake doesn't miss the fact that she start to say another name, and he blush. Emma hadn't told him much about her and her grandfather and the fact that he knew that she had done this for Abe as well, made him feel like he was intruding on something very personal.
"What did she tell you?" Emma's face, red and raw with teary eyes were staring at him, still halfway up in Miss Peregrine's lap, demanding and answer. The hate in her eyes hasn't faded but she's giving him the benefit of the doubt. Slowly he glanced at Miss Peregrine, to whom he had promised that he would not tell the others what she told him, but he knew 'I can't tell you, I promised Miss P I wouldn't' wouldn't cut it and might just get Miss Peregrine in trouble with the young girl, too.
Miss Peregrine's eyes are begging, big and watery and terrified, and she frantically shaking her head in attempt to convince him not to tell Emma, but he isn't listening.
"She told me about her nightmare she had, and her brother, and… and how he started the immortality project. She said she was still trying to pay for his sins, and I thought this…" He gestured around him, at the room and at its occupants. "Was just because she felt guilty for what her brother had done." When Jake finish, he can immediately feel the regret settling in his guts, but he doesn't know who's face it is that give him the most regret, Miss Peregrine's shameful one or Emma's shocked one. Miss Peregrine hadn't wanted them to know, but he told them anyway, without even thinking of if they would be able to handle it or not.
The silence that follow Jake's statement seem to drag on into eternity, everyone froze as if someone pressed play and went on a prolonged toilet break, waiting for someone to press play again even though it didn't seem as though someone was going to.
"You should have told us." Finally, it was Emma, still clinging to Miss Peregrine like an over-sized baby, who broke the silence. "You should have told us you weren't alright. We'd help you. We know how hard flashbacks are to deal with, you shouldn't try to go through that on your own, even if you're an Ymbryne."
She's looking at Miss Peregrine, now, no longer burrowing in her neck but gazing into her eyes with her own steady gaze. Jacob can't see her eyes from where he's at, but he nods along with the words, agreeing all the same because what she says is so true. Still, he doesn't say anything, because he's already told Miss Peregrine everything he had to say, and now it was Emma's turn.
Perhaps it was Emma she needed all along.
Miss Peregrine is listening to Emma's words, and then, she's smiling. It's big and beautiful and even though her eyes are watery, her hair a mess and her clothes ugly and ill fitting, she's never looked more beautiful, nor has she ever looked happier.
For a second, Jake wished he could capture this moment forever, make a photo out of it. Then, he remember he still got his phone in his pocket, and he pull it up, pointing it at the sofa and praying there is still any battery left.
When the click sound goes off, he can't help but smile, too, and when Emma and Miss Peregrine look at him in confusion he shrugs and hide it behind his back. This photo was for him, and him only.
"Will you be alright now?" Once the phone is no longer a distraction, Emma ask, brows furrow and her lips pressed into a thin line. She was happy that Miss Peregrine smiled, but she didn't dare to believe just yet,
Alma laugh, the seriousness on her charges face too much for her to keep any kind of sober attitude. "I will be." She said confidently, her voice still hoarse but the honesty in the words undeniable.
She hadn't been okay, didn't think she could be okay. Jake and Emma had proved her wrong and now, it felt like she just might be okay after all.