Author's Note: Okay, so the genesis of this story came from the fact that I wanted to write (ek-hemmm, up-date) a story as a Christmas gift to all the lovely followers I've left hanging for like three months now as life has been kicking me in the butt. I had some writer's block until 4 am this morning when I was running before work and thinking about how the Jules episode of Season 5 was unfulfilling in that it didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know, nor answer any of our REAL questions about her past. This is a sort of an It's A Wonderful Life (haha! Christmas THEMED) piece of my interpretation of how the story she told about the RCMP officer might have fleshed out in conjunction with what a lot of others and I have speculated to have happened with her mom and her. I haven't been on this site that much for months, so I don't know if anyone's tackled this yet. Also, I'm lazy and have created my own head-cannon, so the names and back-stories of her four brothers remain the same as in my story Glasgow, although their ages are a lot closer together. And if you're wondering why I was running at 4 am, the more operant question is why I was working at 6 am on Christmas Eve.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint, Jane Eyre, or The Who.

Last Night in Alberta

Part 1

Teenage Julianna Callaghan fake sneezed as she cracked open the third can in the six-pack she'd pilfered from her father's copious beer stash. She smirked at her third successful act of 'destroying the evidence' of her indiscretion as she thought about her father's preference for cans over bottles: more economical, portable, quieter when he snuck them out to his tractor in the middle of the day to drown his sorrows, which he'd never let his guard down enough to share or reveal to his children, in solitude; despair is a weakness, sin to feel or spread to others.

As if they didn't all know.

About Any of it.

All of it.

The crop this year was sure to be far inferior to even the lowest of lows on the old Callaghan ledger.

Jules internally chastised herself for even worrying about someone hearing her in her act of rebellion out on the Callaghans' rickety old porch on this warm summer's night. Michael and Collin were away taking extra classes for University to avoid the world they all perpetually existed in in the Callaghan home now; Pat was probably out screwing some co-ed to deal with his 'pain,' while her father was up in his room 'recovering' from his latest mid-day date with the bottle. Sure, Seamus could have heard her shenanigans, but he was most likely sequestered in his room memorizing The Gospel according to John and thinking about new ways to extend his existence as a selective mute in preparation for what would predictably be a vow of silence.

Annoying and pathetic, all of them.

Well, she thought to herself with a jerk of her head to the side, not Seamus. Seamus had always been destined to be a sweet, quiet man who kept to himself and avoided all confrontation while he had the faith to keep the world in perspective. The events of the past year had only seemed to exacerbate those qualities.

And at least he was coping, found a way to exist and belong within himself and the environment around him. He was coping in a way that wouldn't be considered socially deviant like the other two lost souls whom now dared reside in this house rendered haunted.

Seamus would survive with a semblance of himself.

Seamus would live, not as a ghost, but as a man.

Jules herself knew that she just didn't fit in. Not in this broken family and certainly not in this small, cow-poke town. Maybe not even in this life all together.

There was, even in this dark time of perpetual night, always that potential, a potential for life. But this potential had to be force fed into existence through natural talent, hard work and overall sense of purpose, belonging. It was in this that she was lacking. The whole of this equation could never become greater than the sum of its parts simply because not all of those parts were available for utilization; thus, all were rendered useless.

Unrealized.

Unrealized potential. Wasted potential as her gym teacher, dictator, Mr. Darcy (Jules smirked yet again at herself at the thought of how the bald-headed bastard was definitely not debonair, but had the surly a-hole part down pat) always said to her when she was slacking in Phys. Ed. ever since he'd seen her perform a perfect back-flip while showing off and horsing around in some 'waste of potential' act in the school yard. Always said she could have been the next Mary Lou Retton if she just applied her natural talent.

Yeah, right.

As if she'd ever be able to translate one simple trick her brother Collin had taught her at eight years old, in a different time, a different era of their lives, into some life of athletic glory. It just didn't fit.

She wouldn't fit.

Couldn't fit. Not anymore.

She might have been 'wasting her potential,' but somehow she still didn't even fit in with those other kids labeled with the same moniker. She'd tried, gone to more of their sweat-hog, stoner parties than she could count. At some point she'd always found herself popping in The Who's rock opera songs on Who's Next, the trashed youth around her first rocking out to Won't Get Fooled Again followed by Baba O'Riley, never realizing the significance of either song in the context of their own lives.

And this is why she would never belong with them. At least she was consciously aware of her wasted existence. Knowledge and cognizance would always separate her from the self-detonating masses.

And yet she still didn't fit in anywhere else. Not since her Mother—

And thus with a life lacking in belonging, she'd felt her life lacked a purpose, direction. Well, not all direction. She saw, so often now, even when she wasn't consciously trying to think about that option, one direction. This was a direction far beyond the minor social deviance she'd been experimenting with as of late. It was one towards either total freedom or total loss depending on one's state of mind and perspective.

As she sipped the last dregs of that third beer, she thought about that assignment Mrs. Carter had made them do in English class: write an essay about what you would do if you only had five days left to live. While the rest of the class had taken the trite and expected direction of this morbid task and schemed ways in which they would amorphously and unimaginatively 'live life to the fullest,' Jules had taken an undeserved C for her only slightly sarcastic track on taking matters into her own hands, not letting some per-determined master of destiny dictate when she would expire—

-She looked down at the scare of a hesitation mark on the inside of her wrist. Weakness. Failure.

Contemplation was over-rated.

She shot-gunned the last three beers of the set.

Now deeming herself sufficiently inebriated, she lightly jingled her father's truck keys (which, of course, she'd swiped at the same time as the six-pack) and stood up to venture the short distance to the parked vehicle. She'd trained for this kind of heavy lifting. The stoner parties she'd been to had been her greatest matches.

Not more than five miles, or so she guessed in her slightly sloshed brain, out from the city of Medicine Hat limits, she swore to herself.

"Damn-it!" she shouted lightly, her first truly audible words in the past day.

A set of bright flashing and lights and a siren beckoned her to pull to the side of the road.

For some reason she couldn't resist the call of the law.

Additional Note: As you can see, this is probably going to be a two part-er. I just wanted to get this out to all of you tonight. Hope you enjoyed!

Merry Christmas!

-Eals