not only did i write found family fic for an action movie, i wrote TWO of them. happy hanukkah, here's some rosh hashanah fic i guess?
title from cinematic orchestra's 'to build a home'.
"We could get married."
From the opposite end of the couch, Jack raises his eyebrows at Susan sharply.
They've been talking for a while now, on and off for the better part of a week, how to make the plan Susan brought forth work. It had been Susan's idea at first, but Jack had agreed almost immediately. They were pulling Sam out of school for a long weekend for Rosh HaShanah, since she had indicated wanting to celebrate with Susan (and Jack, who enjoyed the sense of joy and togetherness of actually celebrating holidays, even if they were Susan's holidays, not his). In the lead-up to the holiday, they'd been doing a lot of thinking, about moving forward into the new year, specifically what they could do for Sam, to make her feel more secure. To make her feel supported and happy.
Though things had been going well for them since that first school break, with Sam calling 'home' regularly, texting with Jack and asking homework questions of Susan, there was a sense of impermanence hanging over it all. They could tell her the spare room wasn't spare but rather hers all day long, but in the end the sense that Susan's home, with the pictures on the living room walls and homemade breakfasts and pair of adults who don't fight with each other constantly asking about her life and actually wanting the answer, it was all temporary.
The idea that Susan put forth that Jack had signed on with so fast, was a way to make things permanent. To prove to Sam that they were in this for the long haul, for however long she needed them, whether she was fifteen or thirty-five. Adoption.
Of course, it's a little more complex than that. You can't just decide you want to put your family down on paper and make it happen just like that. There's courts and official paperwork and important people who need to make important decisions, but they're committed to making it work. Of course, of those people, there is the most important decision maker about whether they're going to be able to adopt Sam. Sam herself. They plan to ask her when she gets home that day, which brings them to where they are now, a conversation in which Susan has essentially just proposed.
"Excuse me?" Jack's question is accompanied by a faint, bemused smile like he can't believe the odd joke Susan is making. Except Susan isn't joking.
"Look at us," she says, waving a hand around the room, indicating their present situation. They're sitting on the couch together, Susan's feet tucked under Jack's thigh, their shoes in a collective pile by the door, their room down the hall where they've given up half-hearted discussion of turning the office into another bedroom. "Aren't we basically already married?"
"I mean," Jack says, still with that bemused half-smile. "Except for all the dating and romance. That minor detail."
"Are you happy?" The question seems to be a non-sequitur, but the way Susan looks at him when she asks it says it's not just an absent thought. She has a point, a serious point. "Staying still, regular job with regular hours, evenings at home? Bringing Sam home weekends and breaks? The way life is for you now, do you want it to change?" She gives him a few seconds to think. "Because I don't. I'm happy. I don't want this to change, I don't want to move on to something better. This 8 my something better."
Something better, Jack thinks. He supposes somewhere he'd always banked on this not lasting. Their playing house would collapse and he would move on out the nearest highway. Susan would fall in love and build herself a real family. But hearing her say this now has forced him to confront what he wants. Not what he expects, not what makes sense in the traditional narrative of what family, what life is supposed to look like, but what he wants.
Are you happy?
He hadn't thought about that.
"Sure," he says quietly. "Let's get married. If that's what you want, then… Yeah. Let's get married."
"If either of us wants to date someone, if we want to… I don't know. But I'm ready for us to be a family, and to put that family first, and whatever else may come up… We'll figure it out."
For a moment Jack and Susan stare at each other. Then Susan collapses into laughter, sprawling forward and across Jack's legs. He's afraid for a moment that she'd been kidding the whole time until she speaks through a surge of chuckles.
"My mother," Susan gasps, "is going to be so confused. We're getting married."
Jack leans over a little and wraps an arm over her, feeling her laughter against his chest. He doesn't have a comparison realization, no mother to worry about the opinion of, no family to be confused by the lack of a wedding. No family until now, he thinks, smiling and hugging Susan a little tighter.
"We're getting married," he repeats back to her.
They're not in love, Jack thinks later, standing across the kitchen island from her as they make dinner together in companionable quiet, but they do love each other. Jack can't remember the last time he loved anyone like he loves Susan and Sam. He thinks he probably never has.
It's Jack's turn to pick up Sam from school this time. He sees in her face the part-smug, part-giddy look of a kid leaving school while everyone else stays in class, and snorts a puff of laughter. Sam barrels over like she always does, running into him with a brisque side-hug matched in brevity only by strength.
It's been gratifying to watch Sam's personality come out more and more around him and Susan. She'd been blunt with her sarcasm and forthright with her opinions from the jump, but later had come her art, her smile, what kind of music she likes. Weeks turned into months of weekends and holidays, and with time arrived a side of Sam that hugged them when she saw them, even after just a week, who quietly muttered commentary on animated movies when she saw a bit of artistic flair she especially admired.
Jack is mostly quiet on the drive, letting Sam fiddle with the radio and responding when she initiates conversation but otherwise remaining in his thoughts. He can't deny that he's nervous about the conversation he's going to have when they get home.
It's funny. An automatic gun in his face and Jack wouldn't so much as flinch. The thought of asking a girl he'd come to love dearly if she wanted to legally be his daughter and little shocks of adrenaline begin sparking in his body.
Sam, being a smart kid, picks up on his anxiety. She slows her chatter as the ride continues, until the last ten minutes pass wordlessly, lack of conversation underscored by the dimmed volume radio playing across the car speakers when they pull up in front of what Jack is increasingly thinking of as their house rather than Susan's house, he makes a move to exit the vehicle but is stopped before he can so much as open the door by Sam's hand gripping his forearm.
"Reacher," she says, her voice low and uncertain like Jack hasn't heard it sound since her first visit that first break. "If something's gone wrong, please just tell me. Please don't let me walk in there like everything is fine and it's all still the same if it's not."
Jack winces. He's never been good at other people, but he's been working on it, been reforming his communication skills and trying to do better, to be better. Apparently it hasn't worked, at least not well enough for his nerves to not be misinterpreted, frightening Sam in the process. He closes his eyes tight for a moment, no more, lest he freak her out further, then puts his most reassuring face on.
"Everything is fine, Sam," he says, smiling slightly, the way it feels natural to smile. Forcing a full-blown grin would definitely scare her. "Nothing bad's happened. We want to talk to you but it's nothing bad. You don't have to be scared."
Sam doesn't look entirely convinced by this, but nods anyway and follows him out of the car and up to the house. When they get inside, shoes left in the hall, and encounter Susan in the living room, Sam doesn't waste a moment.
"Reacher's being weird and he won't tell me what's going on," she says, standing in the doorway with her arms folded and shoulders up. Susan turns a glare on the man in question.
"Jack."
"What, I didn't- Listen. Sit down, Sam, Susan and I have something to ask you."
The girl sits on an armchair, eyebrows knitted together and lips pursed so hard they've blanched. Susan motions Jack over and he sits down next to her. Their thighs press together and it takes all the restraint Jack has not to reach over and take Susan's hand, grip her fingers in his for support.
"It's Rosh HaShanah," Susan says slowly, and Jack feels her shift slightly closer still. "And we were talking about what to get you, and we… We didn't know what to do, so we…" Susan looks at Jack, then back to Sam, then reaches down below the coffee table, removing a folder. "You don't have to take it, you don't have to agree, but… Happy New Year, sweetheart."
Sam takes the folder and opens it with shaking hands, eyes scanning the pages inside. Jack lets go of his restraint and grabs Susan's hand. She squeezes back, hard, needing it just as much as he does.
"Adoption petition," Sam says, hoarse. "You… What?"
"It's our gift to you," Susan says, and Jack is impressed. His voice would not sound that steady if he tried to speak right now. "To you and to our whole family."
Sam doesn't seem to be paying attention to what Susan is saying. Her eyes come up off the page and fix on Jack. Her entire expression is one of disbelief, utter confusion, almost denial.
"You…" The word runs out of breath halfway through, ghosting vowels over trembling lips. "Let me get this right. You almost died protecting me because you thought I might be your kid, and then it turned out I wasn't and you were off the hook! And you want to- You were off the hook, I wasn't your daughter, and now you want to throw that get out of jail free card away? And you." Sam's attention moves to Susan now, her eyebrows somehow furrowing tighter. "And you. You never even thought I was yours and you…"
"No," Susan interrupts gently. "I never thought you were mine. I look at you now, though, Sam, and I know you're mine."
Sam's on her feet now, folder hanging limply from one hand.
"I dreamed," she says, low and damp, "about this. I dreamed my whole life that my mom would get her shit together and start putting me first, that my dad would come home and we'd be a real family. I gave up on that after a while, and I dreamed some perfect foster family would decide I was their little girl and they wanted to keep me forever. I spent so long dreaming about this and… you're just going to give it to me? As a New Year present?" She shakes her head, trying to make sense of it. "This can't be real. These things don't happen."
Jack stands up, facing her, and puts his hands up placatingly. "If you don't want this," he says, trying to mask the fear in his voice. She deserves to make this choice on her own, without worrying about making him and Susan happy. "If this isn't what you want, we don't have to do it. It's a gift, an offer, but you don't have to take it."
"Are you kidding me? " Sam asks, and she sounds like she's just barely holding onto her composure. "God, of course I want it, there's nothing I want more."
Hardly giving him the chance to respond, Sam, true to form, runs into his chest, squeezing tight, the folder with the papers in it pressed between her hand and his back. A glance to the side and an owlish look of surprise and mild alarm at Susan has her shaking her head, smiling and clearly laughing at him internally. He makes a face at her, and motions her over, then resettles his hand between Sam's shoulder blades, patting her lightly. Susan gets up off the couch and joins them in the middle of the living room floor, making a clustered trio with Sam at the center. Jack can feel Susan's arms wrap all the way around Sam to him, her hand familiar on his shoulder.
"We're really doing this, huh," Sam mutters, voice muffled a little by the fabric of Jack's t-shirt.
Jack looks over Sam's- his daughter's head at Susan and they share a smile. It might not make sense, and it might not look like a family is supposed to, but it's theirs, and he can't think of anything he'd rather be doing than stepping forward into a new year with them.