I do not own Containment or any of its characters
...
He can't let her go.
It's not fair that the first time he gets to hold her is also the last. And he can't let her go.
He has no idea how long he sits there. She's been still for awhile, and he knows he needs to get up, but he can't. He just sits there, holding her in his lap, one hand wrapped around her shoulder and the other still clutching her own hand to his chest. Her fingers are wrapped around his, and after all this time of imagining how it would feel, he just can't let her go. He doesn't move. He'll sit there all night or forever, it doesn't matter. He just can't let her go yet.
There's so much blood. She's covered in it. He's covered in it. He's pretty sure he's never seen so much blood in his life, and he's seen a lot of terrible things. It doesn't matter, though. He's not afraid of it.
She's still beautiful.
He doesn't take his eyes off her. He tries to remember everything about the shape of her face and her neck and the curve of her lips because he knows he doesn't have any other way. Not even a picture. He just wants to commit everything to memory because he knows he'll never get this feeling back. He'll never experience this again. And even if it's terrible, he still wants to remember it. He tries to remember the way she feels weighted in his arms and how her fingers feel wrapped around his own. He needs all of it.
He hears the door to the room click open, but he doesn't look up. He doesn't feel like he's physically able to look anywhere else besides her face. A few seconds pass before he finally hears Dr. Cannerts's voice.
"Quentin is asking questions… I didn't know what you wanted him to know, so I…"
Jake doesn't move. How did it happen that it's suddenly his responsibility to decide how much or how little Quentin gets to know?
"I can talk to him if you'd like. I just didn't know if-"
"I'll talk to him." Jake hears his voice, and it sounds foreign and weird to his ears. It's almost like he's unsure how it's possible that he's actually still able to form words when all of the air feels like it's been sucked out of his body. He keeps his eyes locked on Katie, counting every single second as something precious.
"Right." Dr. Cannerts sounds uncomfortable, and Jake can imagine him hovering by the doorway. "I'll get someone to clean up, and we can move the body in a few hours. I'll have someone else handle it, so you don't have to deal with it."
The body.
Dr. Cannerts is trying to be thoughtful, offering to have someone else deal with all of it so Jake doesn't have to put himself through it. Jake knows all of these things, so he realizes the anger he feels at the suggestion is incredibly misguided. He can't help it, though. He doesn't understand how this man can just talk about the situation, the body, like it's just one of the other hundreds of corpses that have come through this hospital via body bags or quarantine rooms in the past few weeks.
"I'll do it." He pushes the anger away because he knows it's pointless.
"I really don't think-"
"I'll do it." He repeats himself, grinding his back teeth a little because he just wants to be left alone. "I'll talk to Quentin, and then I'll… take care of her."
Dr. Cannerts obviously gets the hint because Jake hears him clear his throat. "Right. Well, I'll just…" A second later, he hears the door click closed again, and Jake lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding.
He feels like he's moving in slow motion, almost like his body is moving without his mind's permission. He manages to stand up without letting her go, and he moves the few steps back to her bed. It's a mess of blood and tangled blankets and sheets, but he forces himself to lay her down anyway. He closes his eyes as he straightens back up, gently pulling his hand away from hers and trying not to notice the stiffness that has already set in.
It takes an eternity before he's able to leave her.
His feet carry him blindly to the sanitation room, and he suddenly can't move quickly enough to get the hazmat suit off of his body. He peels it off and shoves it through the disposal shoot, and the second his face hits air again, it's like he suddenly can't breathe.
He runs to the nearest bathroom and barely makes it to the sink before he's throwing up. His first reaction should be panic. Any sign of illness is terrifying in the cordon, but he knows he's not sick. His body is just revolting against him, and he can't blame it. He throws up everything in his stomach and then continues dry heaving for several seconds afterward.
He's weak and out of breath, and he can barely lift his head to the mirror as he turns on the faucet. He looks like shit. He's pale, and his eyes are bloodshot and empty. He scoops some water into his mouth, trying to wash the taste of puke out, but it barely makes a difference. He also tries slapping water into his face, but there's no change. He still looks terrible.
At least the outside matches the inside.
He feels his knees giving out, and before he knows it, he's on the floor. He lies down instinctively, pressing his face against the cold tile. He doesn't think about germs or risk or anything. He just wants to lie there and not move for as long as he can. For forever maybe. He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. He tries to regulate his breaths, clear his chest some, do anything he can to make the pressure weighing down on him lift a little. He feels like something is crushing him, like his lungs are going to collapse or maybe like his heart is going to explode. He never wants to move.
But Quentin.
He has to get up, and he has to go tell Quentin. It's the last thing he wants to do, but he knows he has to. He knows that's what Katie would want. She wouldn't want Dr. Cannerts or anyone else telling him. She'd just want Jake, so that's what forces him off of the ground.
The storage wing feels so empty. When they first went on lockdown, he thought he would suffocate from how crowded it was. But now it's just a big room full of empty cots and only one body. Quentin's lying on his side, facing the opposite wall. Jake stands in the doorway for a second and tries to catch his breath. He knows he has to keep it together, no matter how badly he just wants to fall apart.
His feet feel like lead as he drags them across the room, but he forces himself to move until he can sit down on the empty cot behind Quentin. He doesn't say anything, just sits there wondering if Quentin's even awake. Part of him hopes he's not, but another part just wants to get this over with. Delaying it a few hours or even until morning isn't going to change anything. It doesn't take long, though, and Quentin rolls over and pushes himself into a sitting position. His eyes are red and puffy, and Jake can tell he's been crying.
"Nobody will tell me anything."
Jake swallows and tries to force a smile, but it fails miserably. Quentin just looks at him and then finally says, "Is she okay?"
Moving his head barely an inch side to side is one of the hardest things Jake's ever done in his life.
Quentin stares at him, and Jake watches his eyes get wet. He doesn't say anything for a long moment, and then he finally manages out a broken question. "Is she…"
He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to. Jake just nods because he has no other choice. He bites down hard on the back of his teeth, trying with everything he has to keep it together and not break down. Two tears slide down Quentin's cheeks, and he just stares at the ground, almost like he's in shock or something. Jake can't take it anymore.
"I'm so sorry."
He switches to the other cot until he's sitting right beside Quentin. He knows he's breaking every rule in the book, but he pulls him into a hug because he can't sit there and let him go through this alone. "I'm so sorry…"
He keeps repeating it over and over, and he doesn't even know what he's apologizing for. He's sorry for so many things that he can't even narrow it down. He's sorry that Quentin has to deal with this. He's sorry that he has to lose a mom and figure out how to go on with life. He's sorry that he couldn't do anything. He's sorry that he didn't save her, that he couldn't stop this from happening, and that he was helpless against all of it. He's just sorry.
Quentin's crying. Jake can feel him shaking slightly, but he doesn't say anything. He's got his face pressed into Jake's shoulder, and he's clutching the back of his shirt like he's afraid to let go. Jake keeps murmuring apologies and closes his eyes, trying to keep his own tears away. He feels like the lump in his throat is literally going to choke him, but he can't risk trying to swallow it because it might end with him sobbing. He can't do that right now. He has to be here for Quentin.
Because he knows how it feels.
He was eleven when his own mom died. He knew she was sick, but no one would ever tell him the whole truth. It happened fast, just a couple of months maybe. She tried to hide as much as she could from him, and he did his best to pretend like she was being successful. It was hard, though, and he didn't know if it was the right thing. He still doesn't know. He just knows how it feels, and that's why he doesn't care about the rules or the risks or anything while he hugs the kid in front of him.
There's a big part of him that just needs it, too, though. He doesn't want to go through it alone, either.
"Did she hurt a lot?" Quentin's voice sounds small and scared, and it's muffled from where he's still got his face hidden.
Jake doesn't know what to say. He wants to be honest, but he can't. He can't tell him that she was convulsing on the floor and choking on her own blood. But he doesn't want to lie, either, so he just says, "Dr. Cannerts gave her some medicine to help stop the pain."
Just forming a sentence takes every ounce of energy he has in him. He does it, though, because he has to keep it together. He tells himself that over and over in his head. He has to be okay so Quentin can be okay.
"Can I see her?"
Jake squeezes his eyes closed and tries to not freak out. Images of Katie flash through his head, though, and all he can see is the blood. There's no way he can let Quentin walk into that.
"Not right now."
Quentin lifts his head then, pulling away from the hug and looking straight at Jake. There are still tears on his cheeks, but he seems extremely determined. "I know what they look like when they die. I'm not scared."
"I know you're not." Jake swallows, but the lump just seems to grow. "It's just not safe right now… You can see her. Just not right now, okay?"
Quentin looks like he wants to argue, but after a couple of seconds, he nods. Then he sucks both of his lips in and puffs his cheeks. It's very obvious that he's trying to stop crying, but that's always so much easier said than done. He finally takes in a shaky breath and says, "I need to go to the bathroom."
Jake nods, and Quentin takes off. It's obvious that he just wants to be alone, probably to break down completely. Jake doesn't judge him. He understands completely, and the second Quentin disappears into the hallway, Jake lets out the hugest breath he didn't even know he was holding. His chest immediately starts working overtime trying to keep up the lack of oxygen, and he falls back against the cot and digs the heels of both hands into his eyes.
He's never felt like this in his entire life. He feels like there's nothing inside of him except pressure. For a second, he's worried that he might actually be having a heart attack, but he can't be bothered enough to do anything about it if he is. It's so weird. He feels the worst pain of his entire existence and total numbness at the same time. Katie's comment about the treatment making her feel both better and not flashes through his mind, and hearing her voice in his head makes his breathing shudder.
He just wants to wake up. He wants this to be a bad nightmare, and he just wants to wake up. He doesn't know how anything's going to be okay, and he's never been so terrified in his entire life. He's both in shock and totally conscious of everything that's happening, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do or how he's supposed to ever do anything again. He just lies there, both hands covering his eyes. He can't do anything else- can't move or think or even breathe. If he tries to do anything, he's a hundred percent positive that he'll fail miserably. So he just stays where he is and tries to not totally lose it.
He doesn't move until he hears footsteps, and he knows Quentin's back. And as badly as he wants to just fall apart and let everything out, he just holds it back and forces himself back into a sitting position. Quentin doesn't sit down. He just stands there awkwardly and watches the ground for a few seconds. His eyes are still really red, but he's not crying. He looks like he wants to say something but is maybe too nervous.
"What's up?" Jake forces his mouth to move and form words. He tries to keep his voice as neutral as possible because if he lets even the slightest emotion out, he's not going to be able to stop any of it.
Quentin doesn't say anything. He's still just staring at the floor, his eyes fluttering nervously. Jake gives him time, though. He waits several long moments before Quentin finally lifts his head and barely whispers, "Did you stay there with her?"
Jake nods, trying his best to hold it all together. "Yeah." He swallows and tries to clear his throat a little. "Yeah, I stayed."
"So she didn't have to be alone?"
"She wasn't alone, buddy."
Quentin's eyes fill up with tears again, and he gives a shaky little nod. Jake doesn't know what he's supposed to do. He doesn't even know how to handle himself, much less what to do with Quentin. He needs Katie there to tell him what to do. He needs her to tell him how he's supposed to handle this and what Quentin needs right now and how he's supposed to comfort him even a little.
As hard as he fights it, he feels his own tears threatening to break through, and even though he does his best to keep them away, he feels his eyes sting and then eventually tear up. It's a lost cause after that, and he's crying before he can stop himself. He knows it's the wrong thing to do right now. He knows he shouldn't be crying in front of Quentin and that he's just making things worse, but he can't help it. He can't help anything. He's never felt more helpless before in his life.
He drops his head into his hands, elbows on his knees in some last ditch effort to hide the fact that he's falling apart. It doesn't work, of course, and when he feels Quentin sit down beside him and place a slightly shaky hand on his shoulder, he just gives up. He's never understood heartbreak before and always just found it to be hyperbolic and ridiculous. But he understands it now. His heart feels like it's being ripped right in half, like somebody is literally squeezing the life out of him.
"I'm glad you were with her." Quentin's voice is right beside his ear, and he's so quiet. "She wouldn't want to be by herself…"
Jake can't take it anymore. He can't sit here crying when this kid's mother just died. He needs to deal with his own grief, but he doesn't need to do it in front of her son. He has to get it together or get out. He tries to hold his breath and force the tears to stop, but it doesn't work. He can't get himself under control, so he just needs to get out. When he stands up, though, Quentin's almost panicked voice stops him.
"Are you leaving?"
Jake catches his breath enough to shake his head. "No. No, I just need to…" He doesn't know. Need to what? Scream? Cry? Punch something? Hug something? He doesn't know.
"But you're coming back?" Quentin sounds so small and so scared, and if Jake thought his heart couldn't possibly hurt even more, he was wrong. He knows he's not doing the right thing, but he can't help it.
"I'm coming back." He wipes at his eyes and chances a quick glance at Quentin. "I promise."
Quentin looks worried and confused, but he nods anyway. Jake needs out now. He barely even makes it to the door and into the hallway before he loses it completely. The tears just overpower him, and he can't even see as he walks aimlessly through the halls toward some unknown destination.
When he can't walk anymore, he finally just drops his head against the wall and lets himself sob. He can't stop or clear his head or anything. All he can do is just stand there crying against the wall, trying not to think of all the hours he's spent in these halls just doing nothing. Just laughing and talking and getting to know the most amazing person he's ever met in his entire life. He can't think about it.
But of course, he does think about it.
Everything is still too fresh. They were here just a few days ago, laughing and joking while they tried to dodge the kids for a few minutes. It seems like an eternity ago, not just three days. Time is so weird in here. Two and a half weeks feels like a lifetime, but it's not. It's just a short amount of time. A cruelly short amount of time. And… He can't breathe.
He sits down, knowing that his legs aren't going to hold him much longer, and he just cries. He feels hopeless and useless, and there's nothing he can do about any of it. He feels like he's in shock, like there's no way that any of this can be happening. None of it feels like real life, and he just wants to pinch himself really, really hard and wake up. But of course he doesn't wake up because he's not asleep. All of this is real, and he really is just as hopeless and useless as he feels.
He's vaguely aware of the footsteps that are coming toward him, but he doesn't really register it until he seems someone standing in front of him. It's Nurse Helen. She stops, and he knows what he must look like. He can't do anything about it. It's not like he can hide the fact that he's crying on the floor of a hospital hallway. He doesn't even care.
"I'm sorry." She sounds quiet and nervous, and he can't even really look at her.
He just nods, not sure what he's supposed to say or how he's supposed to respond. He's not sure he's even in a position to receive condolences or whatever this is supposed to be. He doesn't even know how he's supposed to be reacting, but he's also not sure that there are any set guidelines on how he's supposed to feel. It doesn't matter. None of it matters.
"Does Quentin…" Helen's voice trails off, and Jake just nods, answering her unasked question. Yes, Quentin knows. "I wanted to check on him if that's okay."
She still sounds nervous, and Jake's still in shock that people are suddenly asking his permission for matters involving Quentin. It's not right. He shouldn't be in charge. Katie should be in charge, and she's the only one that should be giving permission for anything involving Quentin. But she's not here, so now people are asking him. And he doesn't know how to feel about that.
He nods, though, mostly because he doesn't have the strength to do anything else. "Yeah…" It's all he can mutter, and Helen looks at him with something between sadness and pity before she nods her own head and disappears down the hallway.
He's glad to be left alone.
… … …
He's watched her sleep more times than he's willing to admit.
He hasn't slept more than a couple of hours at a time ever since the cordon went up, but he has spent an obscene amount of time watching her sleep. It sounds creepy, and maybe it is, but he doesn't care. It never gets fully dark in their room because the hall lights are always on. He thought it would bother him at first, but once he realized he couldn't sleep there anyway, he started to appreciate the constant soft light, even at night.
It only took a few days before their cots ended up next to each other. Most of the kids were gone, and the few that were left had commandeered a corner where they could joke and play and whisper about stuff that grownups definitely weren't supposed to hear or know about. Little did they know, the grownups were more than happy to give them their space because it allowed for some (very slight) peace and quiet.
To be fair, four to six feet went out the window pretty quickly. A couple of feet was more than enough to give them space and allow for their own whispering. They spent every night like that. Katie would half-heartedly yell at the kids to be quiet and go to sleep every few minutes and then turn right back to whatever quiet conversation they were having at the moment. Most of the conversations weren't that serious. They joked around a lot, teasing and perfecting the art of playful flirting. Occasionally, they would turn more serious, though, especially if either of them had had a particularly rough day. But that was the thing. It wouldn't matter how rough or terrible his day had been… Coming back and getting to lie down with her and just talk could always make him feel better.
Eventually, the kids would fall asleep, and Katie would, too. That's when he would just spend hours watching her and memorizing how her eyelashes looked against her cheeks. She always looked so calm and so peaceful, and he could just get lost in it. Those were the moments when being inside the cordon didn't seem like some horrible prison sentence. It didn't really seem that bad at all because he could just clear his mind and focus on something beautiful.
He's pretty sure he started falling in love with her like that. It didn't take long at all before he moved from just watching her to letting his mind wander. He would think about a future when there wasn't forced space between them, where they aren't confined to two separate cots with a handful of eleven year old kids sleeping a few feet away. He could think about what it would be like to really sleep next to her, when he could touch her and play with her hair and actually wake up beside her.
He should have known better.
Nothing in his life ever works out the way he plans. He rarely makes plans in his life because they never end up happening the way he wants them to. So he should have known better than to let himself fantasize about some hypothetical future that was always going to be far too good for him. But he was stupid, and he let his imagination get away from him. And now here he is…
She just looks like she's asleep.
He's cleaned her up, washed all of the blood off of her face and put a clean shirt on her. And now he's just staring at her like he's done so many times before, and she just looks like she's sleeping. Her skin's a little off-color, a little more yellow than it should be, and her nose is still red. But other than that, all signs of the virus are gone. She looks calm and peaceful and like she could be dreaming about something beautiful. She's beautiful.
He doesn't cry. He just sits beside her bed and watches her while he runs a finger lightly down her cheek and over her neck like he's wanted to do so many times before. Why didn't he? He can't understand now why he didn't just take all the opportunities that were right there in front of him. This damn virus and all of its warnings and rules and fuck…
He should have touched her while he still had the chance.
Why didn't he touch her? Why didn't he kiss her or hug her or even hold her hand? She wasn't sick, he wasn't sick, but they just blindly followed the damn rules. And for what? To lose every opportunity they had? To end like this?
"It's not fair." He hears his voice and is surprised that he can even speak. "This isn't fair…"
He runs his hand over her hair, really feeling it for the first time ever. He's smelled it so many times and thought about how soft it must be, and he was right. It feels exactly like he imagined it would, and he closes his eyes for a second as he runs the strands between his fingers. It's something else that he needs to memorize. He needs to memorize all of it.
He won't get another chance.
There are so many things he wants to say to her, and he knows it's dumb because she can't hear him. All those things are just other examples of missed opportunities that he'll never get back.
"You're so beautiful…"
He lifts her hand and slowly brings it to his lips. It's probably not the safest move, but he doesn't care. The virus is supposed to be dead, and he doesn't care about the other risks. He just wants to be with her. He kisses her hand, letting his lips linger against her skin for several long moments.
"You're perfect."
He moves her hand slightly and holds it against his own cheek. His eyes slip shut, and he leans into it, trying to imagine what it would feel like for real. He'll never get the chance to find out.
"I love you." He opens his eyes and brings her hand back to his lips. He tightens his grasp on it a little as the tightness in his chest starts building again. "I love you so much… And I'm so sorry…" He hears his voice break at the same time that the tears come back. "I'm so sorry… Katie…"
His voice sounds as broken as he feels. He should have saved her, protected her, fixed her. And he didn't. He couldn't do any of that, and she's dead. She's dead because he couldn't keep her alive. And now they have nothing. No future. No life together. Nothing.
And he's just so sorry.
… … …
He wakes up still holding her hand, and he realizes that, ironically, this is the first night in over two weeks that he's slept more than two hours. He's got one hand still wrapped around hers and the other on her hip, under his head that's resting there. And for the briefest of moments, he doesn't remember right away. For one split second, he feels like he's waking up to a dream instead of a nightmare.
But then he remembers.
He pulls himself back to reality and forces himself to move. He feels tired and empty as he walks back up to the storage wing and heads down the hallway to the makeshift bedroom. He's surprised to see that Quentin actually seems to be sleeping. He doesn't want to wake him up because waking up means facing all of this head on, and he knows how badly that feels. So instead of disturbing him, Jake just sits down on his own cot and stares aimlessly around the room. He doesn't look to the spot beside him where Katie should be. He doesn't look at the small pile of clothes she has stacked beside her cot or at her purse or at the book that's still resting upside down and open to the page she stopped on a few days ago. He doesn't look at any of that because he might be sick if he does.
He watches the clock, and another hour passes before Quentin finally starts waking up. Jake watches him roll over and rub at his eyes and then just lie there for another five minutes before he starts squirming and rubs at his eyes again. He sits up slowly, frowning and looking confused. Jake's usually long gone by the time anyone else wakes up, so he's not used to the rituals, but he watches Quentin this morning and can practically see when the confusion turns to realization. And he knows he remembers.
Quentin doesn't say anything for a few minutes, just sits there and stares across the room at Jake who has no idea what to say or do. So they just both sit there looking at each other until Quentin finally says, "You said you were coming back."
Jake knows what promise he made. Technically, he didn't say when he'd be back, but he doesn't point this out. He knows that he should have come back, but he couldn't. He wasn't in the right place to come back here last night. But he still knows he basically broke his promise.
"I know. I'm sorry." And he is. He just didn't know what else to do.
"You lied." Quentin sounds more resentful than hurt, and Jake just blinks. It shouldn't bother him the way that it does, but he doesn't like that tone. He doesn't like being a liar, either.
He doesn't know what to say, so he just apologizes again. "I'm sorry." It feels like all he's been doing lately, and he's not sure he'll ever be able to stop.
"You don't have to lie." Quentin sounds really uncharacteristically hostile, and it's scary. "You don't have be around me if you don't want to. I know you were only pretending to be nice to me, so my mom would like you."
Jake actually feels like someone slaps him. He opens and closes his mouth several times before he manages to get out a sentence. "Quentin, that is not true. At all."
The glare he gets in response feels like another slap.
"I'm sorry I let you down last night. I should have come back here, and I didn't. But I wasn't pretending to like you. That's not true."
Quentin's glare falters for a second, but then he puts it right back. "I'm not stupid. Every guy who likes my mom acts like he likes me, too. It doesn't make it real."
Jake didn't think he could feel worse, but he does. He feels like crying all over again, which is ridiculous because who cries over an eleven year old hurting their feelings? But damn, it really bothers him. He doesn't want Quentin to be mad at him or hate him or any of that. He doesn't even know how he's supposed to deal with that when Quentin is literally all he has left.
"I want to see her." Quentin still sounds angry, but he also sounds determined, like he's willing to put up a fight if Jake tries to hold him off again.
But he doesn't try that. Instead, he just swallows and nods, trying not to let his own hurt show on his face. "Okay. Yeah, you can see her."
Quentin looks surprised. The glare disappears for a second, and he stands up immediately. He slips his feet into the shoes by his cot and then looks at Jake expectantly. It's not friendly by any means, but it's not as hateful as his previous face.
They don't speak as they walk down to the quarantine wing together. Jake lets them in and then leads the way down the short hallway to the room where Katie still is. It's all cleaned up, and Katie's still lying there on the bed where Jake left her earlier this morning. Quentin stops before they get to the door, and Jake instinctively puts a hand on his shoulder.
"If you don't want to go in, you don't have to."
Quentin shrugs him off, though, and his worried face turns to annoyed. "I said I wanted to."
Jake nods, trying not to be bothered by the snappy tone. Instead, he just uses the access key in his pocket to open the door. He pushes it open and holds it so Quentin can go in. It takes a few seconds of hesitation, but eventually he moves into the room. He glances up at Jake, but all the hostility is gone from his face. He's obviously scared, despite his protests.
"It's fine." Jake nods and forces the most encouraging look he can muster. "I'll wait out here for you."
Quentin blinks and then bites down on his lip and nods. Jake feels terrible, and he feels sick again as he gently lets the door close and leans against it. He doesn't look through the window because it feels like he's intruding. He needs to give them privacy, to give Quentin whatever time he needs to say goodbye.
He doesn't know how long he stands there, but he just waits. He looks around at the other rooms, wondering about the people inside- what their stories are, who they're leaving behind. He hasn't let himself think about those things before. He looks up at the ceiling that was full of stars just a few short hours ago. They're all gone now. Just like everything else. It's all gone.
When he finally feels the door start to move behind him, he straightens up. He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for more human contact, even though he still pretty much just wants to curl up into a ball far away from everyone and everything. Quentin comes out of the room, and Jake hates how there's absolutely nothing he can do to make any of it any better. Quentin looks miserable. There are tear streaks across his face, and his eyes look red and hopeless.
He looks up at Jake with the most painful look and just says, "I'm sorry."
Jake shakes his head, refusing to let this happen. He's not going to let anything make Quentin even more upset than he already is. He puts a hand on top of his head and squeezes it a little bit. "You don't have to be sorry."
"This really sucks…" He sounds so young and lost, and it makes Jake feel even worse.
"I know… I know. It really does."
Quentin's eyes fill up again, and then he just wraps both of his arms around Jake's waist and hugs him. Jake hugs him back instinctively, letting the one hand that was already on his head stay there while the other gently rubs his back.
He doesn't know what he's supposed to do tomorrow or next week or even in the next five minutes. He just knows that he has to take care of this kid. No matter what. It doesn't matter how the responsibility fell into his lap. This has to be his priority. Quentin has to be his priority. He has to get him out of here. He has to get him away from this hospital and this cordon and this completely living nightmare. He couldn't save Katie, but he can do this.
He will do this.
... ... ...
A/N: I might continue this, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!
