It rings. Once. Twice. Three time... "Fletch?" The voice on the other end sounds shocked. "Jamie? Jamie, hello? Are you there?"
"Yeah." Jamie has to force the words out. "Yeah, T. It's me. And I'm..I think I may be in trouble again."
Silence for a beat. A sigh. "When aren't you, short stuff? Alright. Tell me what's up now."
Jamie gives a nervous chuckle. "Well. Ah." She stares down at the folder she'd just taken out of bag, studying the symbol on it's cover a bit. "You ever heard of a symbol with a snake eatin' it's own tail?"
"No. No, I think that's a new one to me." Tierney answers. "But I've been tryin' to keep my head down and take it easy here lately, so that doesn't mean much. I can ask around about it. You safe enough for right now?"
"Yeah, pretty sure I am. Just...a little on edge. I'll call yah again later, maybe we can meet so I can explain. Just look into that symbol for me, please?"
"I'll get right on it and keep my phone close. Try to take a deep breath, kid, you sound pretty strung out."
Jamie promises she'll try to chill, and then hangs up in favor of finding her mother again. The car that's meant to pick them up appears with perfect timing, and Jamie braces herself. Now she has to face her grandmother.
...
Jamie's grandfather is the one that greets them. "Relax, my dears. Carol's on a business trip and won't return for a few days yet. Come out to the dining room, we'll worry about your bags later, breakfast is waiting."
Jamie can smell that. Waffles and sausage and eggs, it smells like heaven. They sit and begin eating, while her grandfather keeps the conversations steered towards lighter topics - gently asking about New York and the school and whether Jamie's made any new friends and then slowly leading up to the question of what Jamie's gifts are. Gifts. The word leaves his mouth so seemelessly, there's not a hint of anything in his voice or expression to suggest he's anything but curious.
She shows him her claws, and how the skin between her knuckles stitches itself back together after, and explains about her enhanced senses - the fact she can clearly smell pipe tobacco on him from halfway across the room. "You better hope grandma doesn't notice!" She teases.
He grins in delight. "That's marvelous! Impressive, very impressive! Oh, I only wish you hadn't felt the need to hide it all so long. They are such beautiful gifts to be given."
Jamie feels like crying at the sincerity in his voice. She comes over to wrap him in a hug. "I love you, grandpa."
"And I you, sweet girl." He presses a kiss to her temple. "Don't forget it."
...
They go to see the house and the diner but there isn't much left to check out. The house is still standing but everything inside is charred and hardly recognizable, and the diner itself is quite thoroughly burned to rubble.
"We'll get the house sorted at the least." Her grandfather assures gently, speaking mostly to Joan, who is sobbing quietly.. "I have enough in my own savings for that. As for the diner, well, I'm sure your mother can be persuaded.."
Jamie scoffs at the thought, but bites her tongue.
...
Blue eyes flutter open slow. They sweep the room a bit just lazily as one hand trails up to scrub itself over his face, a yawn slipping past his lips. He's adorable when he's sleepy.
Jamie clears her throat softly. "Hey."
Kelly starts but only just a bit; his eyes land on her and a smile spreads his lips. "Oh. Hey yourself."
"How're yah feelin'?"
"Could be worse. God, it's good to see you."
She takes his hand in her own and brings it up to her cheek so she can nuzzle against it a bit, mindful of the bandages on his arm. "S'good to see you too. I'm sorry. I should've called or somethin' I just..."
"It's okay. I was probably more worried than I should've been. Where've you been, though? It's been months."
She looks into his big blue eyes, so honest and full of kindness, and she just can't help herself. He'd insisted on remaining her friend even after the breakup and she owes him more than she'd given him since they first met even.
"That's a long story. But I think it's high time I did explain some stuff so..here goes nothin'."
.
He's laughing. She can't for the life of her understand why. But he's laughing his fool head off.
"I'm..sorry." He gasps out, trying to calm himself. "It's just...you really don't understand...oh my God."
"Don't understand what? What the hell are you laughin' at?"
"Darlin'...I knew!"
Silence. Jamie stares at him for a good, long minute, saying nothing. "What."
"I knew like a month into datin' you that you were a mutant!"
She hits him. (Not too hard. He's injured already, after all.) "Seriously, Kelly? You guessed it all on your own and just never bothered to bring it up, what's wrong with you?"
"Hey!" He rubs at his shoulder where her fist had connected with it. "Easy there! I thought about bringin' it up several times but I just never could figure how to start the conversation, you were clearly pretty intent on hiding it and I don't blame yah for that. I only realized it myself when we were ridin' that one day and the horses got spooked. You were thrown far enough that anyone else would've been some kinda hurt, but you were just fine."
Fair enough. No one else had been confronted with such startlingly overwhelming evidence of her mutation until recently. The incident Kelly's referring too had been a strange one revolving around a group of hunters that strayed a little too close to the land surrounding Kelly's ranch; they'd fired at a massive stag and the noise had spooked the horses she and Kelly had been riding. Kelly's horse was older and more easily calmed; Jamie's was younger and a little too skittish.
Jamie sighs. "Yeah. Ok. That makes sense. Any other bombs yah wanna drop on me while we're at it?"
A sheepish sort of half smile graces lips. "Well. Uh. Yeah, actually. I'm one too."
She just blinks at him, head tilted in that 'curious puppy' way.
"Literal animal whispering. I can talk to them and they me, impressively well with some of them. It's just kind of...un-spectacular by most peoples standards." He explains haltingly. "I don't stand out like you do."
"So that's why your father bought the ranch for you." She answers, realization dawning. "You don't just enjoy working it, you're the best suited person for it."
He nods. "Yeah, I guess that's the just of it. That's why we stopped raising the cattle and started raising sheep and boarding horses instead. I mean, I don't care one way or another about eatin' meat, s'just the circle of life I guess, but I'd get attached helpin' to raise 'em. Can't do it myself."
"Well. Ok then."
"Ok then."
There's a pause, short if a little awkward, and then Jamie grins. "Hey. D'yah trust me?"
His brows furrow a touch in curiosity but his answer comes quick and honest. "Always, beautiful."
She takes his hand and presses it to her cheek again, closes her eyes, blows out a breath, and hopes she'll be able to do this. "Try not to freak out, alright? Brace yourself a bit, this won't be exactly pleasant, but I know what I'm doing." Mostly. She'd practiced this some more with Dr. McCoy as an over-excited guinea pig during a few quiet sessions in the medlab, so she knows it wasn't a fluke the first few times. She just hasn't had to try and heal anything as widespread as the damage over poor Kelly's body. But even if she can't fix him up all the way it'll still be a help to him.
Kelly squeezes her hand. "Completely trust yah."
She starts to concentrate. Thinks of the bandages on his cheek and his arm and his shoulder and then thinks of all the times she'd been ill or hurt as a child before she could heal like she can now. Thinks of how badly she hates to see him like this. Make him better. Make him better. Make him better.
He gasps, a short, sharp intake of breath. His hand squeezes hers painful tight, and then he curses, low and sharp.
She holds on until her head starts to feel heavy and her hands start to shaking, and then decides she probably shouldn't be pushing it in public like this just for the sake of experimentation. She lets his hand go and waits the few moments it'll take to get her bearings again.
"J-Jamie." Kelly gasps.
The machines he'd been attached do are going a bit haywire; his heart rate is way up, which is to be expected.
Jamie opens her eyes and looks him over.
Oh. Well..shit. He looks...
He tears off one of the bandages on his arm, eyes wide. "You..you..oh my God." It's healed. Completely. Scarred, but there's no open wound, and it's a safe bet the rest of his body is just as well off now.
There's some kind of alarm triggered, probably by his heart rate and blood pressure as both are heavily elevated (albeit with excitement, not because there's anything wrong). He glances at the machines and then, to Jamie's shock, reaches out to pull her in close for a kiss. "You're an angel in blue jeans and I love the hell out of you James Fletcher," he shoves her towards the door, "now get the hell out of here before someone else realizes what the hell just happened, yah beautiful, reckless bitch."
She winks at him and does just as he'd suggested, slipping out the door of his room just a brigade of nurses slips in. They pay her no mind, as they've not yet got reason to. She walks down to the elevators, waits calmly for them to take her down, and then walks just as calmly out and towards her truck.
Damn. She actually did something right for once.
...
It's only half past two in the afternoon by the time she gets back to her grandparent's mansion.
Her mother looks startled. "You're pale as a ghost, are you feeling alright? Come here, let me..." The older woman darts over and presses a hand to Jamie's forehead fretfully.
Jamie rolls her eyes. "You know Dr. McCoy says I'm kind of always running a higher temp than everyone else, right?"
"Oh. Right. Well, are you feeling sick, I mean..?"
"No, Ma. I'm ok. Think I just need some sleep." She hides behind a short curtain of hair, a little sheepish. "I got a little impulsive earlier."
Her mother studies her, brows furrowed. And then her eyes widen as realization dawns. "Oh. You tried to..how'd it go?"
"Somethin' tells me Kelly won't be cooped up in that awful hospital room for too much longer."
Her mother softens, pressing a kiss to Jamie's forehead. "That's my sweet girl."
...
It's nearing a week they've been there when Carol Elizabeth finally calls her husband to inform him she'll be home the next morning. Upon arriving at the Fletcher mansion, she looks Jamie over, turns up her nose, and passes her right up.
"Joan!" She sashays over to her daughter instead. "Oh, my darling, come, you look exhausted, lets go fix some tea and we'll talk about things."
Joan hesitates, stealing a glance at Jamie.
"I'm good, Ma. Probably gonna wander off again for a bit if that's alright."
"Well..alright. Just try not to be gone all day."
"I won't. Grandma and I have some things to talk about too, actually."
Her grandmother's eyebrows raise, but she says nothing. Joan plants a kiss on Jamie's cheek and sends her off.
...
"T!" Jamie spots her friend, seated comfortably at the bar of a roadside diner several miles from the town Jamie's grandparents live in.
"There yah are, Short Stuff! I was startin' to think yah weren't gonna show." Tierny Doran grins as she pats the seat next to her. "And oh..my God, you cut your hair. Jesus, girl, any shorter and you'd look like a twelve year old boy."
Jamie rolls her eyes, huffing. "The hair. Always the hair, why does everyone have a problem with the hair? Screw you, anyway!"
Tierney laughs as she reaches out to tussle the short mop of brunette waves in question. "Awww, learn to take a joke, kid."
The waitress comes over to ask Jamie if she wants anything; T tells her to order a burger, and she does.
"So..not that it ain't good to see yah, T, but I got other shit to worry about, too. You manage to find anything out about...?"
"I called a few of my girls, but if any of them know something, they ain't talkin'." Tierney shrugs. "Which isn't surprising. We got good reason to keep our heads buried in the sand lately, but that's another story altogether. But there's a guy I know, met with him last night. He's got some debts he's tryin' to pay back, makes him easy to persuade. He didn't seem to know too much, but he did know the name you're lookin' for is Ouroboros. That's what the symbol is according to him. I don't know, I'd never heard of it before, but I guess there's some sort of shadow organization that's been usin' it for ages. Only other thing he could tell me, though, was that you're probably not in any danger. If they want you for something, they'll want you to come to them willingly, so they'll play nice for now."
Well that doesn't make her feel too much better, but it does help her relax a little bit. Jamie blows out a breath as the waitress comes over with her food. "Well. This'll be fun, then."
"Hey, I'm always a phone call away if yah need me."
"Thanks, T."
.
The air is chilly but there's no wind by the time they leave the diner and the day is a beautiful one. T offers Jamie a cigarette, and they stand outside near her car for a while, staring up at a cloudless sky.
"You think you could get away with sneakin' out for a bit tonight?" T asks.
"Huh. Maybe. Why, what's up?"
"They miss yah up at the Warehouse."
Jamie laughs. "Yeah, I kinda miss them, too. Awww, I don't know, though. I promised my Ma..."
"Just one night? Tell her you're hangin' out with friends or somethin'."
"She's never even liked any of the friends I have up here, T."
"Yeah, but she never stopped you before, either."
That's..a fair point.
"Eh. Maybe."
...
"You're grandfather wants to take me out for dinner, I guess he wants to talk about something. Will you be alright here with your grandmother?" Joan seems fretful.
"Course I will, Ma. I might go see some friends tonight, actually." Jamie tries to be casual.
"Friends? Which friends?"
"Oh. Just..T. She's gonna have a bonfire. Or somethin'."
"Awful cold for that."
"Doesn't bother me."
Joan sighs. "Call me, and don't be out too late. I think you and I need to talk, with everything that's been going on, I know it's been hard on you and my attitude hasn't helped. You're my daughter and I know you've been trying to be better, I'm proud of you for that."
Jamie presses a kiss to the older woman's cheek. "I promise I'll call, and that I'll be home. I love you, Ma. Go enjoy dinner with Grandpa!"
...
"...well now, I don't care what the circumstances are, I need him on this new project, so you'll just have to tell the police to mind their own business, unless they have a warrant which I highly doubt. For pity's sake, what am I even paying you for if you can't..." Carol Elizabeth spits fire at one of her poor attorneys, who's no doubt been doing his best and doesn't deserve the verbal onslaught of abuse.
She doesn't need to hear about her grandmother's sleazy corporate escapades. She knows what kinda stuff the old witch has been up to. Rolling her eyes as the conversation drones on, Jamie closes the door pointedly loud, clearing her throat as she does so.
Her grandmother stops talking abruptly and aims a scowl in Jamie's direction. "Oh what do you want?"
"You may want to hang up first."
"i beg your pardon?"
Jamie stalks across the room and tosses a series of pictures down onto the old mahogany desk her grandmother is sitting behind.
Carol Elizabeth stares down at them, stone faced, and brings her phone back to her ear. "Don't call me again unless you have some good news for me." She hangs up and brings her hands up to rest her chin on them. "Alright. I'd ask where you got these from but something tells me that's not going to be the important part of this conversation, so we'll skip it. What do you want?"
"Nothing elaborate. Just money enough to rebuild the diner."
The old woman's brows furrow in genuine confusion. "I could buy you a yacht. Or a cabin somewhere, you could go skiing whenever you please. Or perhaps a nice, long vacation once you graduate! You could wander off backpacking through Europe for the next five years without needing to worry about a thing! My company is worth millions more than all the property in that backwoods little town combined and all you want is to rebuild that rinky-dink little diner?"
"Alright. Listen good , because I'm only gonna explain this once." Jamie leans over the desk, half growling. "Ma and I never gave a shit about your fortune. You can take it to your grave in stacks and be buried with it for all that either of us gives a rats ass. All I want is for you to buzz off and leave Ma the hell alone. So here's the deal." She shoves a particular photo at her grandmother - it shows the old woman in a rather compromising position with the man who snuck in to sabotage the diner's fire extinguishers. "You give my Ma enough money to build her life back up in that backwoods little town that she happens to love. To make sure everyone feels like they won the game, I'll change my last name to my father's the day I turn eighteen, and you can go back to pretending I don't exist. If you refuse, I show these pictures to poor grandpa. We all know what a pile of human garbage you are but I doubt he'll be happy if confronted with this." She gathers the pictures back up just as her grandmother tries to swipe them away. "Oh, no. I need the insurance you won't even think of pulling a stunt like this again. We got a deal or not, old woman?"
Silence. A staring contest ensues; Jamie tucks the pictures away in her jacket for safe keeping and crosses her arms. Carol Elizabeth heaves a heavy, tired sigh and reaches for a drawer of her...
Oh.
It's a gun she pulls out. An old, long barreled pistol, the handle plated with ivory and monogrammed. Carol Elizabeth points it right at her grandaughter. "You know, with a will strong as yours it's really a pity this is what it's come to. You could've made it so much farther in life."
Jamie just blinks at the pistol. Oh, right. Her grandmother doesn't know, which makes the whole situation almost comical, but before Jamie can open her mouth there's a bang. The bullet tears through the left side of her chest. All goes blank.
..."I'm going to need your help again." Carol Elizabeth's voice is muffled, sounding oddly distant. She seems to be on the phone again. "Yes, yes, I know it's the third time, it couldn't be helped. I'll pay you double but you must be here..."
She can feel the bullet. Knows exactly where it had lodged itself because it's working it's way free and her heart had just restarted itself. Oh. Shit. Her heart had stopped. Her heart had stopped. Oh shit, oh wow, how even...?
She works her way into a sitting position. Her grandmother has her back turned and is still on the phone, arguing with someone. Jamie looks down and stares in morbid fascination as her shoulder spits the bullet back out; it tumbles down to bounce off her leg and hit the floor, splattering a small amount of blood on the rug next to her.
"Son of a bitch."
Carol Elizabeth turns slowly, brows furrowed. "What..what in the name of...?"
Jamie climbs to her feet, voice low and gruff. "That one hurt. That one really hurt." Wild Thing breaks free of her mental cage and races to the surface; stalks toward the old woman slow and deliberately menacing.
"How?" Her grandmother stumbles back.
"Surprise. Takes more than a bullet to kill a Wild Thing."
"Alright. Alright, fine. I'll..I'll give you whatever you want." Her grandmother's back hits the wall. She smells of fear now. Absolutely reeks of it, actually.
Wild Thing takes the old woman by the collar of her dainty blouse, pulling her down so they're face to face. "Yeah. I know yah will. Write the check, old woman. Now." She shoves her towards the desk.
With shaking hands Carol Elizabeth pulls out her check book and a pen and begins writing. "H-how much...?"
"Surprise me." Jamie growls between gritted teeth. Her blood heats up as she eyes the gun now sitting on the desk. She can hear her heart pounding in her ears. The old woman was going to kill her. Her grandmother had just tried to kill her. Wild Thing suddenly wants nothing more than to reach out and tear the old woman's head off, nasty mean old bitch how could she be so cold, does pack mean nothing to her what kind of woman does something like this?
Carol Elizabeth hands the check over; Jamie snatches it away with hands that are trembling with rage now. The old woman's so skinny, so frail, Wild Thing wouldn't even break a sweat...
Jesus. No, no, no, she needs to... She tucks the check away for safekeeping and staggers out of the room. She can't think. Her blood is boiling, boiling, boiling, she feels on fire with the rage, she wants to, she needs to...
It's getting late enough. Completely forgetting her earlier promise to her mother, she gets in the car her grandfather had happily given her use of, and drives.
.
Yeah, yah got me, leave a message, yah know the drill.
Beeep.
Jamie, it's your mother, you promised you'd call, are you alright? It's getting late. I love you.
.
She sort of loses pockets of time. She doesn't remember speeding down the back roads she knows so well. She does sort of remembers arriving at the Warehouse, and Hunters enthusiastic greeting. Remembers trying to push Wild Thing back as T holds out a large flask full of moonshine.
"You sounded pretty strung out again when yah called me earlier, so I got yah a special kinda pick-me-up. I know yah just asked for a pocket of high and I ain't usually in the business of handin' anything else off to a teenager but hell, you sure as hell ain't like any other kid I know, anyway."
She can't hold Wild Thing back. She can't, the animal, it wants something, something she can't give it, something... Dear God she'd just been shot, her heart stopped but she's not dead. What kind of freak doesn't die from that? Not that she wants to be dead. But she should be.
She was supposed to call her mother, but her hands tremble and she reaches for the flask instead, shoots the stuff like a pro and chugs a beer to wash it down.
Then everything is a blur again for a while, her throat burns from the stupidly strong alcohol, then she's in a cage and Wild Thing takes damn near full control. Bones break. None of them belong to her. The crowd roars. Wild Thing, Wild Thing, Wild Thing. More mooneshine, more beer, another fight. She has no idea how many times she rinses and repeats.
What time is it? 2 a.m., Tierney tells her.
She's drunk.
Then it's her and Hunter in a storage closet doing...well.
She's really drunk.
Oh shit. Somewhere in there she does remember, Ma.
Oh God. Mom.
I'm sorry.
...
Music blares. Loud, oh shit, why so loud? Wait a minute. That songs familiar - oh.
Jamie curses as her eyes shoot open. The room is flooded with sunlight, painful bright, and she's..laying on the floor. Where is she...
"You know, you're gonna have to pick that phone up eventually." T's voice carries across the house, tone casual.
It's T's house, Jamie realizes. That's right. She sort of remembers T bringing her here, along with Hunter and a bunch of other older guys, they'd kept drinking long after the Warehouse would've shut down for the night.
Jamie shoots to a sitting position, cursing again. "What time is it?"
Hunter's still asleep just next to her, shirtless; he barely stirs. His back is covered in angry red scratches, his neck in round little love-bite bruises, some that look like she'd actually bit him. Had Jamie done that?
No. Wild Thing had.
T strolls into the room from her kitchen, hands tucked into her pockets. "Noon. You and the rest of these losers kept me up until like 5:30 this mornin'." She explains, trying to be playful, but she won't really look at Jamie and seems almost..skittish. "I've got some eggs and bacon ready in the kitchen if yah think yah can stomach it."
"Noon. Awww..." Jamie shoots to her feet. "Where's my jacket?"
"Over here."
"Thanks. Sorry, T, but I gotta bail, my Ma's gonna murder me, I swear."
"Fair 'nough. Take it easy with that car of yours, kid, it looks expensive and hell, I don't know how you made it here in the thing last night."
"Wait. Shit. You let me.. you let me drive?" Jamie raises an eyebrow, incredulous. She'd been in her grandfather's car. He'd been trusting enough not to ask questions, either.
T scowls. "Uh, were you with yourself last night? I wasn't about to get in your way with how hard yah were hittin' 'em in that cage. Yah near bit my head off when I half tried. I ain't gonna lie, kid, yah had a look in yahr eyes...was makin' me nervous as hell."
"Shit. Uh, sorry, yeah, I..wasn't myself last night. I just...sorry." Her phone had started ringing again but her thoughts are hazy, her fingers fumble it and she rejects the call on accident. She stares down at the screen. Thirty five missed calls...from her grandfather.
Her mother called just once, and didn't appear to have bothered again.
...
"Oh my God Mom," Jamie sprints into the living room, hearing her mother's voice, "I'm so sorry I don't know what I was thinkin', don't even have an excuse, I just...Ma?"
The older woman is curled up calm and quiet in the love seat at the far end of the room. She's got a phone to her ear. "Never mind." She tells whoever is on the other end. "She's home, anyway."
Jamie can't hear what he says, but she can tell that it's Logan on the other end, and he's sounds as pissed off as Joan does calm.
"Yes, well, feel free to tell her that yourself."
"Ma?" Jamie presses. "Where's grandpa? I know he was trying to call, I've just been..I was with T and some friends of hers. That's all."
Her mother only sighs, and continues talking to Logan. "I'll call you when I get up to Alberta." She hangs up, gets to her feet, crosses the room to face Jamie. She seems...she's too calm. "You're grandfather's got everything handled here. He told me last night that the cabin up in Alberta has been cleaned out and refurbished, he'd planned to vacation there with your grandmother but thinks I could use the getaway."
"Oh. S'ppose he's right. So..so that's where you'll be?"
"For a little while, you'll be returning to school, of course. I had thought to forget about all that and just take you with me but it's become quite clear that's not the way to go."
"Ma." Jamie feels tears welling up. She's such a mess she just wants a hug and is right on the verge of just begging for it but her mother sounds so cold. "I can explain. I should've in the first place, when Tash and I were taken I -"
Her mother closes her eyes and shakes her head. "Stop. I don't care about any of that right now. Your grandmother said you ran off in a hurry last night, that you weren't yourself, Jamie... I'm going to ask you to just tell the truth one last time. What were you up to yesterday? Were you on something? You can tell me. Logan has a history of..."
"Wait, what? Like - like drugs?" Jamie snorts. "Is that what the old bitch implied? Oh God, Mom come with me, there's somethin' I need to..."
"Jamie, don't, that's enough. I know you and your grandmother don't get along but the line has to be drawn somewhere."
"I was at the Warehouse last night. That's all, I was..."
"That's all? As if skulking around a place like that is normal behavior for a teenager? I can't do this, Jamie. You're scaring me and I'm so tired. I'm sending you back down to school, I've already informed Logan and Ororo of what you've possibly been up to, you'll find them a lot less forgiving. It's for your own good. Whatever you were up to with these friends of yours here, it ends now."
"I'm not on drugs, Ma! Won't yah listen? The truth is -"
"We're well past time for that, Jamie, I gave you plenty of chances." Joan comes forward and presses a kiss to her daughters cheek, a single tear running down hers. "I love you. Listen to Logan and Ororo. I'll join you there when I don't feel like I'm going to lose my own mind anymore."
With that, she leaves.
Jamie collapses. Pulls her knees to her chest, and just cries.
...
By the next day she knows just what to do.
First she takes the check her grandmother had written out, snaps a picture of it with her phone, and places it at the bottom of the suitcase containing Joan's clothes. She then sends the picture to the number on the business card the Ouroboros lady had given her. Job finished.
It isn't hard to sneak back out to her grandfather's car. Miraculously, there's not a scratch on the thing. She reaches for the glove compartment; a massive wad of bills falls out. Money. A lot of it. Just the promise of the possibility of her showing up at the Warehouse had been enough to draw a massive crowd. She's gonna miss the place.
Heaving a sigh, she pockets the money. She thinks about tucking the pictures of her grandmother being unfaithful in there instead, but thinks better of it. She'd gotten enough money out of the old woman to fix the diner up.
It's not Jamie's problem from there.
...
Logan's still off taking care of his 'feral-man-cat-head-hunting' mission, and Jamie's thankful for that. Ororo's the one who comes to get her from the airport, and though she seems warier of Jamie now, she doesn't lecture her. Jamie, in turn, resolves to be as respectful as she knows how to be, which mostly just involves her using the words 'yes ma'am' excessively and keeping her mouth shut otherwise.
They aren't at the Mansion for long before Ororo brings Jamie down to her office; she'd set up a face-to-face chat with Anna at the sassy southerner's request. The Weather Witch leaves the office and closes the door, allowing Jamie privacy.
"Logan's not around on your end, is he?" Jamie asks before the other girl can even say anything.
"Nah, he run off and left me here in the hotel room, said he wanted to check somethin' out, Lawd only knows what - yah know, Ah'd swear, yah look like someone just drowned yah puppy." Anna scoffs. "Cheer up, sweetpea! I bet Jake and Tash have been missin' the hell outta you, and it's almost Christmas!"
"Yeah, and Ma left to go hide out in some dusty old ski lodge by herself."
Anna clucks her tongue. "Sounds like time away is just what she needs. Gotta think of what's good for her too, yah know."
Jamie stares at the screen in silence, not really looking at Anna. Not ignoring her either, just busy thinking.
"So where were yah the other night?" Anna questions. "Logan called 'Ro fit to be tied 'cause yah'd run off and disappeared on yahr Ma for somethin' like thirteen hours. Must've been quite a party."
The hint of a smirk graces Jamie's lips. "Hell yeah, it was. I was..."
"Awww c'mon, sweetpea, yah know Ah don't judge."
"I was at the Warehouse. Friend brought me some of her favorite poison, guess I hit it a little too hard. Not a mistake I'll make again."
"Awww, sure yah will, s'the name of the game at yahr age, ain't it?" Anna waves it off. "Mean, disappearin' on yahr Ma like that, now that's not a move Ah'd reccomend makin' again, Ah guess, but yah're allowed to be a kid yah know."
Jamie shrugs. "Yeah, I guess."
"So what were yah tryin' to forget?"
Jamie raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"Ah know what it takes to get someone with healin' like yours drunk." Anna answers, tone oddly casual. "Logan clears out half a shelf at any given liquor store when he wants to get wasted, and that's usually when he's got somethin' he wants to forget. And he's old and gettin' kinda slower. Ah know you had to be hittin' it hard. So what happened?"
"Well, I don't know if I should... I mean it's a long story."
"Yeah, and clearly whatever it is, yah're in way over yahr head."
"You don't give up too easy, do yah?"
"Never. Talk to meh and Ah'll tell yah where I've got a couple smokes stashed in my room, Ah know yah like those just as much as Logan does."
Jamie contemplates her friend for a minute, deliberating. "And you don't tell anyone else what I said for now, especially Logan."
"Deal." Anna answers readily. "Now spill already!"
Jamie spills.
.
"You know, Ah have heard and seen some pretty messed up stuff but Ah gotta hand it to yah sweetpea, that's ten different kinds of 'what the fuck?'. Yah're grandma's got some issues."
"Understatement of the century." Jamie rakes a hand through her hair. "So..that's about it. Creepy shadow agency, people spying on me, Grandma's a greedy murderous nutjob, house I grew up in is completely destroyed, my Ma thinks I'm on drugs even though I'm totally not, and to top it off, T's not answering my phone calls. But... I'm not dead. So...I got that going for me." She thinks on it all for a minute and huffs, burying her face in her hands. "Ugh, I'm actually starting to wish for the alternative."
"Don't." Anna cuts in quickly. "Alive is good. You're safe at the mansion. Behave yourself and just do your usual thing for now and tell me as soon as these Ouroboros people contact you again. Until they do there's no use worrying about it, right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess not."
There's the sound of a door opening in the background on Anna's end. She swears sharply. "Wolvie's back, gotta go. Don't answer if he calls you, he ain't got nothin' good to say and you don't need the extra negativity right now."
"Thanks Anna!"
"Anytime, sweetpea."
Jamie slumps back in her seat, blowing out a relieved breath. Well. At least somebody's on my side.
