Well, it's been an obscenely long time ... I was obviously temporarily insane when I thought things would calm down after school ended. Not to give excuses, but if you're interested in an update I've graduated, worked about five jobs, been in a show, gone to New York, done a ton of paperwork for college, been turned down by an agent for my novel and scheduled an appointment to get my wisdom teeth out! Yay!

This is kind of a high T, if you need a warning about that ... Also, much angst and sadness, and it's kind of a whirlwind of random emotions and storylines that have been tumbling around in my head all these weeks. But I'm rather fond of it, so hopefully it's good enough (and long enough) to make up for my extended absence.

Standard disclaimers apply. I own my Gigi playbill and COREY COTT'S SIGNATURE but that's about it. :D

The weight of mourning blankets the snow that's falling gently around the lodging house. The boys look unchanged — they don't have the same black garments and carefully-groomed hairstyles that she's grown to associate with funerals — but the loss is heavy in the air around them all the same.

No one talks as she passes, except Crutchie's low murmur that Jack is on the roof. He has a few of the younger boys on his lap, and he's stroking Romeo's hair gently. Exactly what Jack would be doing, if he could face them. She feels a swell of pride for Jack's second in command. If only it didn't take circumstances like this for her to see how mature he's become.

The rooms are dark as she climbs the stairs, and she wonders disconnectedly which one the body is in. She can practically see her breath, but for once she knows the chill in the lodging house is a blessing. She only hopes the boys will be okay sleeping so near the corpse of their friend.

Hard as it is to find her footing on the icy fire escape ladder, it's better than being inside. The feeling of death isn't so strong outside. But as she squints over the edge of the roof through the snow and focuses on Jack's hunched figure in the dark, she knows he hasn't escaped, even out here. The second he senses her he stumbles over and into her arms.

"Buttons is dead, " he whispers into her hair.

"I know."

She'd been there through most of the sickness that ravaged the lodging house for weeks on end, bringing medicine and extra food when she could. And the boys had pulled through, as they always did. All except one.

"We really thought he was gonna make it," he mumbles, breath warm against her neck. "He's always been so scrawny, but it seemed like he was gonna pull through. Then the boys came in to give him dinner tonight and–"

"Tell me about him," she interrupts, though it's only half to make Jack feel better. She'd never spoken to the kid — she'd only learned his name once he got sick, as a matter of fact — and now she feels horribly guilty about it. She wants to get to know him, if only through the stories of the other boys.

And she has always preferred stories to real life, anyway. Especially now.

"I mean, he was only here for a few months — since a little before the strike," Jack whispers. "But that don't mean — we're all family here."

"Of course you are," she says. She brushes a spot on the ground clear of snow and kneels, pulling Jack down beside her. "I know you loved him."

There's a strange expression on his face, like he wants to cry but can't quite find the energy, and she reaches out and takes his hand. It's ice-cold. "Did he?" The desperate question catches in his throat.

"I'm sure he did."

He falls silent, staring off unseeing into the distance. Up this close, she can see there are little crystals of ice scattered across his eyelashes.

"How'd he get his name?"

Jack snorts suddenly, and though the sound is such a surprise that she jumps, at least it isn't a sad one. "Because he showed up here that first day wearing a lady's coat with the fanciest damn buttons you could imagine."

She can picture the boys' reaction to that scene even now. "Do you still have it?"

"Yeah. We was gonna bury him in it."

She sighs at the reminder, and he slumps against her before resuming the story.

"The boys started bringing him back buttons after a few days passed an' he still wouldn't take the coat off."

Katherine frowns. "This was right before the strike? It was July!"

"You betcha. An' he came back from sellin' papes every day dripping with sweat and damn near ready to pass out. But he still wouldn't take it off." Jack frowns. "We found out later it was his mother's. But by that point he had a huge collection of all kinds of buttons under his pillow, an' so the name stuck even if the coat wasn't so funny anymore."

"I wish I'd have known," she says. "I could have found all sorts of buttons to give to him."

Jack shrugs, and really, she doesn't blame him. There isn't much left to say. It's too late to give him much of anything now.

The snow has picked up, and even the lights and sounds of the city around them are muted by the flakes. Jack probably loves the silence, but he's been out here much longer than she has and she's already shaking violently from the cold. "We should go inside," she says, because even though it's not much warmer at least they'll be dry and out of this wind. "We'll freeze."

"If we stay here in the cold until we turn blue, maybe time will freeze too," he mumbles through chapped lips. It's a common theme with him, she's noticed, slowing down time. And it makes sense; of course it does. After watching his father waste away, after seeing his boys hungry and cold as the winter only gets harder, after this latest bout of sickness and death — it must be a comfort to imagine suspending everything before his life can deteriorate any further.

"It's still a long time till morning," she says reassuringly, the arm around his side squeezing tighter. Eight hours until dawn. Until the funeral. "Let time be frozen until then. But we really don't have to be, along with it."

He lets her lead him to the edge of the roof, to where the iron bars of the fire escape are screwed into the stone. She starts to descend, but Jack is still standing in place, just staring at the street below.

"The snow looks soft down there," he murmurs, almost to himself.

She shoots him a look of alarm. "It's not, I promise you. It's seven stories down, Jack!"

"I know that," he says scathingly. "I ain't thinking o' jumping, if that's why you're lookin' at me like that. But I can't pretend–"

"You can't pretend that you haven't thought about it before," she finishes, her expression somewhere between a glare and a sob.

He wraps his hand around hers, tries to smile at her reassuringly, but she only stares him down harder. "I'd never do that to you, Ace. Never. I remember with my old man, what a miserable thing it was to do. Like cheatin'."

"Jack–"

"But I ain't gonna pretend it sounds all bad, either. I was raised a Catholic, mostly, an' they say if you kill yourself you don't get to heaven. But maybe you ain't damned to hell, either. Maybe it's just quiet."

"Like purgatory?"

"Like nothing. Emptiness. An ending." He sighs and follows her down onto the ladder, placing his feet carefully above her. She watches him without blinking.

"But if everything ended, you wouldn't have family. You wouldn't have friends. Or me."

He shakes his head. "I ain't sayin' it's perfect. I'm just sayin' you couldn't lose 'em, either."

She hates it, but it makes sense. "Okay, let's go inside now." She tries to steady her voice, but it's high-pitched and scared anyway.

"Seriously Ace, it's okay. Just forget I said anything." They've both perched on the platform of the fire escape by now (only three stories up), and he bends over to push the window open. Then he slides through and offers her his hand. She tries to take it, but her fingers are so cold they don't close tightly, and she stumbles.

They don't linger upstairs, heading straight for the boys huddled around the fire. She hopes it's only in her head that the temperature is dropping in here as well, but somehow, she doesn't think that's the case. The boys all look up as they enter and sit down, staring at them expectantly. For what, she isn't sure: an uplifting speech? A promise that there will be no more sickness? But Jack just shakes his head, eyes downcast.

Romeo crawls to him immediately and settles in his lap. Specs subtly shifts so he's leaning against Katherine's shoulder. Even Race rolls on his side so that he's facing the newcomers, and suddenly, it seems a little warmer with all of them together in the dark. But if she continues to ignore the worsening storm outside she's going to be stuck here all night, and she has to bring the money for the funeral in the morning.

"I'm really sorry, but I have to be going," she says softly, gently leaning Specs back against the couch again. "The weather's getting bad."

Jack doesn't answer, just continues to gaze into the fire. It's Crutchie who glances at her skeptically and starts to push himself to his feet, sending Mush rolling to the floor in the process. "You sure, Plums?" he asks in concern. "It looks pretty rough out there."

"And it's only going to get worse," she counters. "I'll be okay."

"Well then, we'll walk you out," he says, pausing to drag Jack upward by his sleeve on his way to the door. Romeo traipses after them, his thumb creeping toward his mouth. He looks tired, but she's not sure any of them will sleep tonight.

"Well, goodbye," she murmurs, talking to the three of them but staring only at Jack. He shrugs in acknowledgement of her farewell, but beyond that, doesn't respond. She meets Crutchie's eyes, and he looks worried as well.

"Take him with you," he murmurs suddenly, only to be treated with a wild look of alarm from Jack. At least they got a reaction from him, Katherine can't help but think.

"I can't leave you boys right now," he says, tripping over the words in his haste to get them out. "I ain't goin' nowhere—"

Crutchie shakes his head sadly and nudges Romeo back toward the fireplace with the end of his crutch. "You're no good to us if ya catch your death from pneumonia, Jack. At least thaw out in the shower for a little bit. Just think of how warm that'll be."

"Ace," Jack appeals to her desperately. "It ain't right."

She eyes him for a moment, from his wild eyes to his frost-covered hair to his thin frame, trembling with a combination of cold and exhaustion. "No, Crutchie's right," she says finally, securing a grip on his hand. "We can come right back." But she knows if she can manage to get him into bed first, he'll sleep straight through until morning. And God, does he need it. It's unlikely that it will help the boys to see their leader so broken up, anyway. They need calm, and comfort. And Crutchie is clearly more than capable of providing just that.

She only wishes she could take them all home with her to get warm. But she doubts they'd be any more receptive to leaving Buttons than Jack is, anyway.

"Try to sleep," she murmurs to the growing crowd of boys gathered around the door, pulling her hat down further over her ears. She's really starting to regret running out the door without her mittens earlier. With a sigh, she starts to make her way slowly down the street, tugging Jack behind her.

He drags his feet almost the entire way to her house, like the child he might have been under different circumstances. But when they turn the corner and her apartment building comes into view, with smoke coming out of the furnace that is miraculously working for once, he clearly decides this isn't such a bad idea after all. She almost has to run to catch up, and they slide the last few feet to her door.

"Key," he forces out through chattering teeth, his voice nearly lost in the wind. She can hardly get her fingers to close around the metal, and he drops it twice before fitting it successfully into the lock. They stumble through the door, slamming it shut behind them, and Katherine waits for the warmth to rush over them. It doesn't. Evidently the furnace isn't working as well as it looked like it was. Either that, or they're just too damn cold to feel it.

She squirms out of her coat, practically dripping wet thanks to the snow, and throws it over the back of her desk chair. When she turns back around she realizes that Jack is still standing in the doorway, silently shivering and watching her with red eyes.

"Shower," she says, pointing down the hall. "Before you get sick too."

"Ain't you gonna go first?" he asks, looking like he wants to argue. But she shakes her head.

"I'm fine." If only her voice didn't shake like that.

He snorts weakly but wanders into the bathroom anyway.

She tries to put some coffee on while she waits, but her hands are still struggling to grip and she fumbles with the pot. Instead she sheds the outermost layers of her dress, as those are the most soaked with snow. After hanging them over her closet door in the hopes that they'll dry before morning, she goes to the closet to take out an extra towel. Once she hears the water start she opens the door and sets it on the sink for Jack.

And then, before she can change her mind, she steps out of her damp chemise and into the shower behind him.

"Holy shit, Ace!" Jack jumps about a mile and whirls around, shoulders hunching in an undeniably defensive way. She shrugs, even though she knows he isn't looking at her, and tries desperately to control her blushing anyway.

"You were right," she mumbles. "I wasn't fine. I was really, really cold."

"Wow. Uh … Okay."

He moves quickly away to give her access to the stream of water, conveniently putting distance between them as well. She stares at the ceiling, him at the floor, and for a moment she worries that this was a Very Bad Idea. But the warm water feels so good, rapidly bringing some measure of sensation back into her fingers and toes, and if nothing else, today has taught her that life can be devastatingly short.

So she sticks her head under the water for awhile, only coming out when she finally has to breathe. Then she picks up the soap and turns to Jack.

She starts out with the simple intention of washing the dirt and sickness and loss from his back, but it's not long before she's tracing the scars that line his skin. She's only seen them once, and clearly not (she blushes) the full extent of them, but they seem so familiar already.

"Don't," Jack murmurs. He twists around a little and catches her arm, pushing it away before turning back to the wall. His ears are bright red.

She wraps her arms around his waist instead, instantly becoming hyper-aware of her chest against his back. Judging by the way he stiffens, he does too. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts. It helps — a little.

"I love all of you," she whispers.

He sighs in frustration. "You were never supposed to–"

"To what?" How stupid can he be to still think he needs to lock up all this suffering inside him and never share it with anyone? "To know you had scars? I know what the Refuge is like, Jack. I'm not so naive to think you could escape that unscathed."

"Hell, I didn't even want you to know I was in the Refuge," he insists, still missing the point entirely.

"Well, I do."

"Yeah, but–"

She rests her forehead against his shoulder blade, exasperated. "But nothing. It does not matter to me. And besides–" she glances up at him, but she still can't see his face "–what were you going to do once we got married?"

Finally — finally — he turns around. She keeps her eyes locked on his face. His expression is serious, but there's a playful undertone now. "Oh? An' who said anything about gettin' married, huh?"

"Well, no one." She raises an eyebrow challengingly. "But I think — and I know I'm not an expert, but bear with me here — but I think this might be a step in that direction."

The corners of his mouth turn up in a brief grin before he forces them down again. "You sure about that, Ace?" he asks in a husky voice. His face is suddenly very close to hers.

"For sure," she whispers, and then she closes the distance between them.

The kiss is alien, different somehow from all the others. She's not controlling it anymore, and she doesn't think he is either. Between the heightened emotions and exhaustion they're both practically overcome with, she's honestly surprised they're still on their feet. But one thing's for sure — the sudden feeling of the entire length of his body pressed against hers is making her dizzy now. One of her hands rises to tangle in his hair, and the other cradles his neck. His haven't moved from where they initially grasped at her waist.

Then he takes a step forward and deepens the kiss, and she stiffens.

It isn't some last-minute attempt at self-preservation. For once, her mother's voice doesn't ring critically in her ear. In fact, right now, she feels that by now she's prepared to give up any old-fashioned ideals of virtue where Jack is concerned, propriety be damned (and it basically already is, anyway). But she would never take advantage of him when he's feeling this low. Even if he is the experienced one between the two of them.

And, if she's completely honest — though she swore her opinion of him would never change — his scars scare her. To have the harsh lines of his breaking point etched into the very skin she knows she wants to feel against her own would be to have a power over him she wouldn't know what to do with.

So sure, her feelings won't change. But she wants to be sure that all he's feeling is her.

So she pulls away, and though he curls in on himself again, there's a faint smile on his flushed face this time. He doesn't turn away, but suddenly she does.

"For the record," she says, staring pointedly at the wall, "I'd rather have met you and lose you somewhere down the road than to have never met you at all."

"I know, Ace." His voice is hoarse.

"And I'm sure there is a heaven out there, and Buttons and your father and my mother and sister are all there waiting for us. Regardless of what anyone says."

It seems he doesn't have a response for that, but before she can blink he's in her arms again. They stand there, motionless, for a long time.

"I love you," he whispers finally against her shoulder. She breathes it back into his hair.

He laughs at how quickly she wraps a towel around herself as soon as she turns the water off (even though he covers himself equally as fast with the one she hands him), but they both know things are different out here in the real world. She doesn't know which one she's pretending in, but she is certain of the one she prefers. If only she could stay there with him forever, unchanging and at peace.

Unfortunately, they can't make time stop. They both know this all too well. But they can stay here, suspended in their own little pocket of it, until the morning sun brings back the problems they couldn't bear to face in the dark.

Well, when Marcelle asked for a story about Buttons, this probably wasn't what she had in mind ... and I am so very sorry about that. Oops. (Would now be a bad time to admit that I was considering Crutchie instead? But I need him at their wedding, so he's safe for now ...)

Fun fact: I was originally going to break it up into multiple chapters, but I thought this long ramble-y mess made more sense with the title. Agree (or disagree)?

Also, if you are or know of the lovely tumblr friend who requested an angsty story, please let me know so I can credit you with my motivation? Hopefully you were prepared for this ...

And as always, reviews are confidence-boosters, especially right now.

Much love,
KnightNight