The world, despite Jake's best hopes, didn't stop. All he wanted to do was sit on the couch with his parents. He wanted to feel the peace of being a child again, with his mother's cooking and his father's off-key singing as he cleaned around the house. But, work was never done and suffering never seemed to end either.
Countries around the world were beginning to rebuild the governments and there were requests out from old elected officials for the dragons to come in and weigh in on future proceedings and they would decide what to do with magical creatures together. Jake knew it was his duty to go and that he was the one that had to have the conversation, even though Gramps was going to go with him. Gramps had bought him at least a two week stay but was over every day for them to make plans, see what they should bargain for, and what they thought the humans might try to do with them. It was exhausting but Jake sat there.
And, then there was Trixie.
Not every Huntsclan member had been inside of the Huntsquarters when Rose had gone in but, like the Huntsclan flags and every other artifact of theirs, they had spontaneously combusted, as if they had never existed in the first place. Trixie had been fighting one of them when it happened. She had been injured and Spud had to rush her to the hospital when he found her again.
And that was when the girl and the pain that Rose had told them to expect had become known.
Because Trixie had been pregnant, losing the baby. She hadn't known that she was carrying it and she hadn't been far enough along yet to tell the sex but Jake knew. He hadn't seen Spud or Trixie yet, Spud warning Jake that Trixie wasn't ready for visitors, and so he hadn't the chance to tell them. He had to but he was sure it would hurt. Like everything hurt.
"Jake!"
"I'm … I'm not listening at all, Gramps, sorry." Jake rubbed his face. "I'm trying but I feel … burdened. I feel like just sitting here on this couch is a burden."
"Go to my house," Gramps ordered, Fu tossing the keys to Jake. "Change of scenery. Mope on that couch for a while. Just get some fresh air. We will try again tomorrow."
Jake bounced the keys on his palm.
"I –"
"Take your skateboard," Fu suggested. "You're not trapped inside anymore! You can be human!"
Human. Right. Jake went to his room, picking up his skateboard from the corner where it had been left years ago. His room had been just as he left it too – drawers hanging open from how hurriedly he'd packed, a picture of his high school girlfriend stuck to the mirror, school assignments on his desk. Jake hadn't believed that he had experienced any inside changes, as Rose had called them, but he would not have recognized the eighteen-year-old kid who had fled this room and that eighteen-year-old kid wouldn't recognize him either. He was sure that there were untouched pots of hair dye in the desk even though he'd let go of the green in his hair when he'd run away. There was no point in maintaining it underground. He had grown hard on the inside. He had killed – as a hero but it was still death. The heartache of missing his family and the years of his youth that he'd given up had hardened him on the inside, as much as he'd wanted to believe otherwise. Rose had gotten it right when she'd said that he used to have more of a sense of humour. He used to laugh and enjoy and now he had to relearn how to do those things.
It was what she would have wanted for him. She had asked him to live and he was going to try to.
He carried his skateboard downstairs, checking in the kitchen where Gramps was sitting with Susan.
"Thanks, Gramps."
"Enjoy the time on your own," Gramps said. "Take as much as you need."
Jake wasn't sure he wanted time but he didn't want to be accused of not trying either. He took meandered over the cold sidewalks, in no rush to be anywhere but not really enjoying the time out of his house either. It hadn't snowed again since Rose had been gone, leaving the sidewalks salt-encrusted, icy in places, but clear. Jake couldn't help but think of how disappointed she would be. It was a new year, her time of rebirth, and it hadn't even snowed.
Jake let himself into the shop. Mom and Dad had kept it clean while he and Gramps had been gone but there was still a smell of neglect about it. In his memories, the shop was always full of smells coming from the back room. Fu usually had at least two potions brewing at a time, herbs drying, and old books with a fragrance all their own open and on the go. It didn't always make a pleasant smell but it was always a memorable scent.
Jake climbed the stairs and into Gramps' apartment. Same old furniture, newly cleaned, new food in the cupboards, but the same old view.
In Gramps' house, time really had stopped. He could imagine walking into the spare bedroom, crashing like he used to after long nights of dragon duties. He always had to come to Gramps first and give a mission report on what had happened and, sometimes, it was too much effort to try and get himself home. Jake walked down the hall and opened the door, quickly, as if he might actually catch a glimpse of who he used to be behind the door.
But there was nothing.
He heard the sound of the door to the apartment opening.
"Gramps? Fu?" Jake called out, hearing nothing but silence.
He hoped, for an endless second as he walked down the short hall, that it was Rose. That there had been another trick up her sleeve and she had figured out how to survive. But, there was Spud, pulling his headphones out of his ears, standing in the kitchen.
"Hey, Haley said I'd find you here."
"What's up? How's Trixie?"
"Dealing. We're dealing. She's with her mom tonight. Apparently, my face was too much for her. This is what the Huntsgirl meant, right? When she talked about suffering?"
"We better hope so. I can't imagine what's left to go through."
"Yeah." Spud drummed his fingers on the table top. "You made me a promise and I'm here to collect."
"A promise? For what?"
Spud held up a small baggie, several joints inside. "Rolled them before I came over. You said I'd get to sit on a couch and smoke weed again."
"I love you, Spud."
"I love you too, man."
It really did feel like high school as he and Spud collapsed on the couch, sharing a lighter between them. It was like Trixie was going to come in any minute, having drawn the short stick for the munchies run, and taking the spot on the end of the couch next to Spud. Except Trixie wasn't coming. She was in the hospital; she would be fine but she wasn't going to be the same again. It was depressing but he kept smoking until nothing seemed as depressing as it had when he had sat down. He let go of anything holding him back, letting himself float away, the easy presence of Spud keeping him just grounded enough to not lose himself in the recent past and the sound of Rose's voice that always echoed in the back of his mind.
(-.-)
Jake sorted more old clothes into a bin for donation. It was something, at least, that he could do and felt like he could handle. He was going to be staying with his parents' for the foreseeable future. The thought of moving out and getting his own apartment, which had filled most of his waking hours from the age he was sixteen to when the world fell, no longer held an allure. He wanted to be home and he knew that they wanted him there.
There was a knock at his door.
"Come in."
Haley shut the door behind her, flopping down on the bed that still had the same red comforter on it.
"Hey, what's up?"
"I'm getting ready to go back to school," she said. "Jake, what are you going to do now that you're back?"
"Gramps and I have to sort out this government thing and then … it'll depend on that. We might have to learn how to hide the magical community in plain sight all over again if they go Huntsclan on us. If they don't and we can live out in the open, well, that'll be the biggest change of all."
"But, you're going to stay, right?"
"Right. Why?"
"I heard Gramps tell Mom, about the Huntsgirl."
"Rose," Jake corrected her. "Her name was Rose."
"All right. I just worried about you. Did you really love her?"
"Yeah. Not that I … was ever able to tell her. You tell Conrad you loved him back?"
"How do you know about him!? I haven't even introduced him to Mom and Dad yet!"
"Brother's intuition."
"Meaning you were spying on me."
"Indirectly," Jake said.
"I didn't," Haley said. "Tell him. I didn't know if I was ready."
"I didn't think I was ready either but then I didn't have any time left." Jake glanced up at the rose that Rose had created from him; it had still been alive, on his bedside table where he'd left it, the day that he'd returned to Magic Town.
He had stood in the square next to Gramps, the day after the Huntsquarters had fallen. It was the duty and he'd forced himself to go, even though he was the most miserable he'd ever been. He had urged them all to stay inside, that the dragons were going to start work with the human government as soon as possible to find a place for them in the new world order, but that they could promise nothing if the creatures left Magic Town.
Then, Jake had gone back to the house that he had shared with Gramps to pack up his things. He packed up his room of the few belongings, hiding the rose in a bowl so that nothing would happen to it. He had done all that he could do before to get rid of it and now all he wanted to do was protect it. Who knew if it would reform, now that she was gone?
He had checked the cell but nothing remained of her bubbles or her Christmas decorations, or even the snow that he'd brought inside for her. It was empty, impersonal. The only thing that remained of her was the mess that her blankets were in and the prisoner's uniform on the floor. She hadn't been tidy.
Jake had turned to go quickly, unable to face the memory of her, and then he'd spotted the wine stains on the floor. The night that was supposed to be about letting go and having fun and, instead, it had turned into simply letting go. He'd knelt on the floor and touched the wine stains like they were sacred.
"It's different," Haley insisted, pulling Jake back into the present. "I have time with him. The peace is back and I can't tell him something that I'm not sure of."
"No, you can't," Jake agreed. "But, you can make the decision to open yourself up to feeling that way. That was the part that I couldn't do and maybe things would have been different if I had at least thought about the possibility of it."
He understood why he hadn't been able to do it but he hated his past self for not being able to. What had he missed out on? What could they have been?
"I guess so," Haley said, but then she quickly changed the subject, "Have you seen Trixie yet?"
"No. She texted me and asked me to go in for visiting hours today so that's where I'll be headed this afternoon."
Haley rested her head against her pillows. "I'm glad you're back."
"Me too."
"I would hear Mom and Dad talking, about how bad it was, about how they didn't think you'd make it. You got hurt, a few years ago and the Huntsclan news showed that clip of you and the Huntsgirl on repeat for what felt like years. They thought you died."
"I didn't, Haley, and you don't ever have to worry about me. I made it through and I'm going to keep doing that."
"I hope you're right," she said.
"I got to leave for visiting hours. Love you, I'll be back in a bit."
"Gramps said he's coming by at seven for your meeting!" Haley called after him but Jake pretended not to hear.
He caught a bus over to the hospital, following the instructions that Trixie had texted to her room.
"Jakey!" she said as he walked in the room. "Hey!"
"Hey," Jake said. "How are you feeling?"
"Annoyed," Trixie said, sounding the same as ever. "I want out of here but they said I need at least two more days and then I should be fine to leave."
"That's not so long," Spud said, in a tired voice, as though he'd been reminding Trixie of this for a long time. He probably had been.
"I want to go home," Trixie said, "but my doctor is kind of a hard-ass. She won't let me argue it."
"An immovable object meets an unstoppable force," Jake said, settling into the seat next to her.
"That was what going up against the Clan felt like," Trixie said, "but you did it."
"We won but it's not as if I did it single-handedly. I know Spud told you what happened."
"He did," Trixie said, "I jut wanted to hear from you that it was true."
"It's true," Jake said, "and she told me something about you, a while ago, and it's probably going to hurt for me to say it but I can't know without you knowing too."
Trixie and Spud glanced at each other and their hands folded together as one, which just made Jake's heart hurt. It wasn't fair and he hoped that it would fade soon. They deserved to be happy.
"She knew this was going to happen. She didn't know how or when or I know she would have tried to stop it but she did tell me that the baby would have been a girl."
They were quiet for a minute and then Trixie sighed.
"I don't what to say to that so let's … let's talk about something else," she said.
"Sure," Jake agreed. "Done any wedding planning yet?"
"Spud's been doing it off and on for the past couple of years –"
"– You've been helping!" Spud cried.
"He's such a mushy groom."
Jake relaxed into the uncomfortable hospital chair as much as he possibly could. This was what he had been wanting, normalcy, with his best friends. High school was gone and they'd both cut their hair and grown into themselves while he was gone, but they were still the trio that they had always been. Trixie's and Spud's relationship wasn't affecting how they felt when they were together and friends.
"I heard you and Spud lit up without me! First smoke post apocalypse and I'm in the hospital!"
"There will be other times," Jake promised. "We couldn't exactly smuggle a joint in here for you."
"It could get me kicked out and then I could go home," Trixie said.
Spud shook his head. "Nope, you have to get all healed first. I'm not letting you boss me around because your insert-body-part-here hurts."
"I wouldn't!"
"You would."
Jake spent the afternoon, catching up on things that weren't appropriate for Dragon's Wing reports. They didn't talk about why Trixie was in the hospital and they didn't ask any questions about Rose. They were friends. It was just them. It was all that there needed to be until the clock hit six-thirty.
"Gramps needs me at seven. We have to finalize our plans for the new human government. He'll be pissed if I'm late."
"Some things never change," Trixie said with a grin.
"Surprisingly," Spud said, "he's not a nightmare to live with."
"Nah, the nightmare to live with his Fu," Jake said. "All right, I'll see you guys later."
Jake stepped into the elevator with two nurses, thinking that it was going down but, instead, he went three floors up. The doors opened and they stepped off silently but, just before the doors closed, Jake heard something.
A chime.
He jammed his hand between the doors and stepped off onto the floor. Rose had been dead for nine days and he knew that people heard the sounds of their lost ones after they'd gone, sometimes for years after they'd died. But, Jake had to know if it was his brain, manufacturing the sound of the chime her magical bubbles made or … Or, what? There was no or what. There were no survivors from the Huntsquarters ruins. There hadn't even been any bodies. Everything had been incinerated, vanished, as if the Huntsclan had never even existed at all. Rose was branded with the Huntsmark. Things had to have ended the same way for her, even though it killed Jake to think about it.
Still, he moved through the hall, going quickly lest someone realize that he didn't belong there. He checked into every room as he went by but in every bed, there was someone that wasn't her. Jake didn't know what he thought was going to happen. He didn't even know what floor he was on. He turned into one of the last rooms.
"Hi, visiting hours are almost over," the nurse inside said cheerfully.
"Oh, that's all right. I was just –"
Breathless. Thoughtless. Unable to move. Because there she was, laying on the bed.
"That's my ... my Rose," Jake said. "She's alive!"
"Rose?" the nurse said skeptically, pursing her lips. "Sir, do you know this woman?"
"Yes," Jake said, his mind scrambling. They wouldn't just tell anyone her medical condition. "She's my wife."
"Your wife?" the nurse said.
"Her name is Rose Dawson-Long," Jake said, feeling like he had something. "She's twenty-six years old. The old burn scars are from a fire when she was a teenager; her parents died that night. She was the only one who escaped. She was walking home from a New Year's party – I had to work – and then the Clan fell. I called everyone but no one seemed to know where she was. No hospital at all and I thought she'd died."
Jake covered his mouth with his hand, struggling for a deep proper breath. He felt the tears in his eyes, staring down at Rose, with her eyes closed, her hands and arms bandaged and laying at her side.
"Please," he said, "what's happened to her? Is she going to be all right?"
"We don't know what happened to her," the nurse said. "She was left in our ambulance bay on the morning of the second. She sustained serious damage to her hands, arms, and chest. There may be some nerve damage in her hands and she'll require physical therapy once they heal, if she ever comes out of her coma."
"Do you know if she will?"
"You'll have to speak to a doctor about that," the nurse said, "I can only give you the facts of the chart."
"Can I sit with her?" Jake asked. "Please? I know you said visiting hours were almost over but …"
"I'm going to have to call the police," the nurse said, "they're going to want to know that you're telling the truth. She's listed as a Jane Doe, for now."
"Rose," Jake said, sitting in the chair next to her. "Rose, I'm here and, somehow, you're still here. So, please, come back to me."
He rested his hand against her leg, watching her face as the nurse left to make her phone call. Rose's face didn't move, her eyes didn't flicker, but Jake knew, deep down, that she had to be in there. She didn't defeat death again to lay in a bed, in a coma, for the rest of her life. She was here for a reason. She was here because she had earnt her second chance and she was going to use it to live.
But, first, Jake had to get her out of here, before anyone removed the bandage on her arm and saw the Huntsmark in the midst of her scars and new wounds.
He lifted his phone to his ear. "Fu, hey, it's me. Listen, I need your help."
He was going to take Rose home.
(-.-)
Jake watched from the doorway as Fu finished hooking up the last monitor. Rose was lying in his childhood bedroom, it having been converted to a temporary hospital room. He had needed to keep her closer. Gramps had been concerned, once again, that she would wake up and not know who she was and they would be back to square one. She could wake up and think it was after Kara's and Sara's attack. Basically, she could still be a danger. Jake could deal with square one, as long as she woke up.
It was Fu that had been on his side, recognizing the need to keep her close for her own safety as well as the safety of everyone else. She wasn't supposed to exist anymore; the Huntsclan was supposed to be gone. They were now hiding her from the government, from prosecution for the acts that she had committed as the Huntsgirl.
His parents had not been overly excited about housing her and Haley had almost opened her mouth the oppose but when Gramps had suggested that he take Rose to the shop instead and put her in the spare room, Mom had very quickly figured out that Jake would be following Rose and decided that she could stay in the house. Jake had restrained her to the bed once more and, now, there was nothing left to do but wait.
They kept her warm and comfortable. Fu, with the aid magical healers, inserted human IVs and administered magical medicine. There was nothing that Fu, or anyone, could do to wake her from the coma.
"Either she'll wake up when she's ready or she won't wake up at all," Fu said. "There's no way that we can tell and no way that we can force her out of it. Sorry, kid, but we've done all we can. We have to wait on her now."
But that was the hardest part. Jake stayed by her bedside the majority of the day, under the guise of working at the desk in his room. He laid out potential plans for governments, made lists of the leaders that were campaigning for election post-Huntsclan. He looked over reports from dragons and magical creatures from other countries so that they were all presenting a united front and hopes for the magical creatures globally. Jake really did try and accomplish some things during the day but mostly he just talked at Rose.
He told how he'd missed her, he told her that he was glad that she was here, he told her of the places that they would travel when she woke up. She'd wake up free, beholden to no master, and Jake was worried that she would run from him, gone away to experience the life that she'd never had. A bond like theirs was real, though, and Jake had to believe that she would wake up and know him, she would wake up and remember their kiss, she would wake up and they would be okay. Period. End of story. Happily ever after.
A week passed and she didn't wake up.
Trixie came home from the hospital and Jake helped her and Spud organize the apartment that they were going to share. He carried furniture with one hand and held his cell phone with the other, in case anyone called with a change in Rose's condition. He helped his mother with dinner, just like he had wanted to do while he was gone. He interrupted Haley's homework and phone calls to her boyfriend. He let his life go on but he felt just as trapped as he had in Magic Town. He didn't want to leave the house, even though now he could. He would never forgive himself if he was gone when she woke or if she died, honestly and truly this time, he wouldn't forgive himself if he hadn't been by her side.
Another week passed.
There had been no change in Rose but there was a great change coming over the house. Chinese New Year was just a day away and there were lanterns and paper cuttings all over the house, more crackers than they could ever want on the counters, door couplets posted on the entryway. His mother had been busy in the kitchen, preparing the same dishes that she did every year. Jake and Haley joined her, Dad doing his best to stay out of the way since he had ruined more than one thing in the past, entertaining himself by decorating and making sure that it was obvious anywhere that it was the year of the Rat.
"Are Spud and Trixie coming this year?" Mom asked.
"Yeah, Trixie said that she wasn't going to let anything stand between her and your pork dumplings," Jake said. "What about you, Haley? Inviting anyone?"
"No because Fu's going to be here and I'm not really in the mood to explain the talking dog. Oh, and it looks like we're holding someone in your bedroom for medical experiments. This family is just a lot," Haley said. "So, no, friends are only allowed over on normal nights."
"Haley," Mom said, "We're going to have no oranges left if you keep eating them like that!"
"Gramps eats them like they're Skittles," Haley said defensively. "I have to get eat them while they're here!"
"They're oranges! There's more where that came from!"
"Then, why can't I eat them?"
"Because I don't have time to go and get more."
"I probably do. Or Jake."
"Haley!"
Jake grinned to himself, measuring out the marinade for the chicken, happy to be eavesdropping and not involved.
"Hey, Jake," Haley said, "want an orange slice?"
"Not getting involved."
"They're really good."
Jake didn't even have to look at his mother's face. "No way."
She laughed and offered one to Mom, who took it between her teeth. It was an almost perfect moment, weighted down only by the thought of Rose upstairs, locked in her own mind, missing it all.
Jake went up to visit her before bed.
"I told you what Chinese New Year was like in my house," Jake said, resting against the wall, her feet inches from his thigh. "I think that you'd really like to be part of the feast tomorrow. It's no Huntsclan gourmet chef but you'd probably like it better. I think you'd know that it was made by love and years of experience with the same dishes. I know you'd appreciate the tradition and I can imagine you asking a hundred questions, just like you do. Gramps or Mom would go to answer and then Dad would pipe up. He's done so much reading and research that sometimes I think he forgets that he's not actually Chinese. He likes to show off. I think you'd get along with him because you're both always wanting to know more."
Jake sighed and stared at her still features.
"I think you're in there. I think you knew I was in that hospital and you got my attention with that sound. I know you want to live, Rose, you said you did, and I want you to live to. I want you to come back to me because I have something I want to say to you and those days I thought that you were really gone, all I could think about was the last time I saw you. I wish I had said it. I know that you knew I felt it but I wish I had known. I wish I hadn't been so afraid but you're intimidating, even as Rose Dawson. In a different way from the Huntsgirl. You were open and I didn't even realize that I'd been closed."
Jake rubbed her leg, hoping that she could hear him. Hoping that she would open her eyes and be able to respond to anything he said.
"All right. I'll see you in the morning for physical therapy."
Jake pushed himself off the bed and kissed her forehead.
He walked out, like he did every night, with hope that the morning would be different. If he lost her again now, after regaining her, he knew that he would never recover.
So, one chapter left, guys!
If you like my writing, I've had another ADJL story in the works. I've had it said to me that this fandom is dead and there's no purpose in writing this story and … I don't think that's true (and also it's really rude to say). I see those of you who review and favourite and, honestly, I'm writing these now because these are the stories that have been occupying me. I would have written them anyway but I am so glad that you are here for me to share them with! Anyway, point is, when Gods & Monsters is over, Operation Defect will take over its Thursday spot!
Thanks for reading and enjoying with me and I'll see you next chapter!
Let me know what you think of the chapter and don't forget that you can find me on a tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now!
~TLL~
