I wrote this on tumblr for the prompt " Scared of thunderstorms for Lao Shi and JakeRose's kids. Great grandpa tells the kids how their parents met" that was submitted to me I was taken by inspiration and wrote a much longer piece to the song "The Night We Met" by Lord Huron.
I have many drabbles inspired by prompts people have sent in if you're looking for more ADJL content from me or would like to submit your own prompt! You can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now! Enjoy the one-shot!
~TLL~
I am not the only traveler
Who has not repaid his debt
I've been searching for a trail to follow again
"Gramps! Gramps!"
Lao Shi bolted awake as his bedroom door flew open. In his own cot at the end of Lao Shi's bed, Fu Dog snorted. In the doorway, were the three children. Ten year old Cecilia, who looked the most like her mother, had five year old Julia and three year old Ash tucked under her arms. In the dark of the night, the thunder rumbled and the lighting flash, Lao Shi understood.
"Come here, come here," he urged and Cecilia led the charge, diving under the covers.
Lao Shi could tell that she was trying not to cry. He knew she felt that she was the oldest and she had to be strong; Lao Shi had known a boy like that too.
"Everyone in, come on," Cecilia said, pulling Ash up with her.
"Fu Dog too!" Julia cried and, obendiently as a real dog, Fu jumped onto the end of the bed, settling between the younger two siblings.
Ash, who didn't understand the terror, pet the dog. Julia, who only vaguely understood the dynamics of being scared, was happy to let herself be distracted by Fu. It was Cecilia, who had seen the worst, who had made the distress call that fall night three years ago, tucked herself up to Lao Shi and rested her head against him, crying out as the thunder boomed again.
"I've got you, my girl," Lao Shi said soothingly, holding her close. He wondered if he should call Susan and Jonathan.
"I can't forget, Gramps," Cecilia whispered, keeping her words away from her younger siblings. "Every time I hear the thunder or see the lightning I remember it all again."
Lao Shi didn't have the words to reassure her, although he wished he did. He wished he could take away all of her memories and his own. He wished that everything was different for his great-grandchildren.
"Let me tell you a story," Lao Shi offered. "I can't take it away but let's give you something better to think about."
"Is it a story about Mom and Dad?" Cecilia asked hopefully.
Julia's head perked up. She had only been three and Lao Shi didn't think she remembered them. Ash had only been two weeks and Lao Shi knew that when he grew, he would think of Susan and Jonathan as his parents. Only Cecilia would carry the burden of remembering for all of them. It made Lao Shi's heart very heavy indeed.
"Yes," Lao Shi promised. "It's a story about your parents."
But he wondered which one was the right one to tell.
Take me back to the night we met
And then I can tell myself
What the hell I'm supposed to do
The story, told forever after, was that the first time that Jake saw Rose, he forgot his own name. When he was younger, he would go red and deny it, but as he got older, he was able to laugh about it and, even on rare occasions, admit that it was exactly what had happened. They were teenagers, in a school hallway, and Rose had been standing at her locker. Spud and Trixie had been on either side of Jake, arguing over his head, but Jake couldn't ever remember what they'd been arguing about. It was unlikely that he'd even been paying attention in the first place.
Rose had shut the door of her locker and had laughed at something the girl next to her said. Jake had turned his head to look and that had been the end of him, before he'd even known her name.
Once he learnt her name, it was a torrent, a rollercoaster of feelings, a story that would be one to not only tell their children, but to put down in the history books. It had all felt exactly that momentous the first time that Jake had really kissed Rose, their noses bumping and their teeth scraping in their sheer desperation to be close to one another and share something so precious.
"Yeah, well, I'm going to marry her."
"Jake, kid, you're eighteen," Fu Dog said, very practically.
Lao Shi probably would have said the same thing, about any other eighteen year old couple, in any other circumstance.
Jake eyed his grandfather, waiting for the agreement with Fu and for Gramps to try him scare him off of Rose, again.
"Not soon, probably," Jake added, when the silence became too much for him. "But eventually, you know, when we get to an age where that's normal. 'Cause she's not going anywhere."
"So long as you wait until after the marriage for the children," Lao Shi said, looking at his grandchild and feeling the years. It was so hard for him to imagine that Jake was old enough to be talking about these milestones. He remembered when Susan had first brought Jonathan home and how he had felt old all of those decades ago.
Jake was not sharing in his grandfather's sentimental moment and was, instead, choking on his tongue. "Gramps, I can't have kids, do you know what kind of father I'd be? God, I still forget to brush my hair some mornings."
"This is why you're not ready to get married," Fu said sarcastically.
Lao Shi admitted that was true but he also admitted, to himself, that Jake was going to be a fantastic father, and he only hoped that he was around to see it.
And then I can tell myself
Not to ride along with you
I had all and then most of you
Jake married Rose when they were only twenty-two.
For most of the world, it was considered quite young, to those who knew the couple, they wondered down inside, what had really taken them so long. Not that it really mattered, in the scheme of it, where there was a Jake, there was a Rose, and where there was a Rose, there was a Jake. Any onlooker could tell that they were both were they were supposed to be when they were sitting next to one another, trading conversations in glances, communicating all the other needed to know in the touch of a hand.
The bride was beautiful, walking down an outdoor aisle in late spring. The flowers seemed to bloom along the ground as her skirts swept by, the breeze adding to the illusion as it gently fluffed her veil and long blonde curls. At the altar, Jake cried the moment he laid eyes on her. He was long past the teenager who would scoff away him emotions because it was masculine or cool to admit that he had them. When Jake looked at Rose, he could feel the enormity of their life together and all of the years that they were going to have. When Jake looked at Rose, he knew she was the thought he lived and died by. Their hands touched and their vows were said. The first time they kissed as husband and wife, the universe felt the rightfulness of the moment and the sun shone brighter and the grass was greener and as they made their way down the aisle, arms linked together, the flowers even smelled sweeter.
Lao Shi was finally able to dance with the bride when the sun was setting over their garden reception. Rose was absolutely stunning as she took his hands and let him lead and, even though she looked nothing like his late wife, Lao Shi had always thought that she and Rose would have gotten along wonderfully - they had the same spirit and the same fire. They had to, to fall in love and make a life with a dragon.
"Welcome to the family, Rose," Lao Shi said gravely, though they both knew that she had been considered one of the family for a very long time.
"Does this mean I can call you 'Gramps' too now?" she asked, mostly teasing,
But, she had been signing birthday cards and holiday cards along with Jake for years, both of them having immediately moved out of their family homes and into a cramped studio apartment together the moment they had been permitted to. Standing with her now, Lao Shi could visualize her loopy scrawl 'To Gramps Love Rose and' with Jake's chicken scratch at the bottom to prove that Rose hadn't done it all for him.
"That would make me very happy," Lao Shi said and was delighted when Rose kissed his cheek.
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Jake and Rose were no strangers to fear, to hardships, to doing the right thing even when it hurt. They had been tested more in the first years of their relationship than most couples were in a lifetime together. They had cried for one another, for themselves, for them as a unit. There were times of despair that would haunt a person but that melted away when they were together. It was right, then, that that they be gifted joy. It was right then, that when Rose confessed to Jake, in the middle of the night as they lay nose to nose, that she wanted a family so large that they couldn't all fit in one house, Jake had laughed and agreed and taken her into his arms. He, too, wanted little feet along the hardwood floor, a cacophony of little voices crying out 'DAD! COME WATCH!' as he walked through the door. He wanted sibling fights and backyard barbeques. He wanted to dance in an embarrassing way at his child's wedding. He wanted to feel the world move when he heard someone's very first breath.
Jake and Rose went to the water, taking a picnic basket, and sitting under the stars. It was the Fourth of July and Jake popped open a beer. He offered it to Rose but she gave away nothing when she told him that she wanted something else from the basket. Jake had good-naturedly reached for things, sorting through the snacks and drinks as she replied 'not that one' until he pulled out a candy that he hadn't seen in a very long time - a Baby Bottle Pop. Rose always told the story after laughing because Jake was focused on the retro candy and not why she might have given him that treat in particular. It took him offering a taste of it to her to even ask why she picked it up and, in a dry tone that everyone who had ever met hear could hear, she told him that it was more romantic than handing him a stick she'd peed on. There were no words to describe the joy on Jake's face when he understood and the fireworks they felt when he kissed her, touching the spot on her bare stomach where their first child would first kick, had nothing to do with the holiday.
Lao Shi heard what, he was sure in his old age and wisdom, was the sanitized, cute version, but only after being invited to family dinner at Jonathan's and Susan's house. When the dessert was cleared and Haley couldn't even complain about her thesis anymore, Jake cleared his throat.
"We have an announcement."
The last announcement had been their wedding and, as one, he and Fu Dog turned their heads. Lao Shi could already tell, from the beaming look on Jake's face, what it was going to be, but he still had his breath. He remembered hearing those words from his wife, from his daughter, and now his granddaughter-in-law, and though the years made his very bones hurt, he was grateful to be able to experience it all, and he hoped that he would be able to meet this child. He was not as young as he used to be.
"We're going to have a baby!" Rose blurted, her cheeks pink and her excitement palpable.
Susan screamed, as Lao Shi knew she would. They were all swept into a family hug, everyone's voices overlapping one another as people wondered about due dates and genders and when did they find out and was there a story.
"I still think of him as the kid who couldn't find his tail," Fu Dog said, his voice watery, because Fu Dog was definitely the more emotional one.
This time, Lao Shi had to agree. So many times over the years had he looked at his grandson and granddaughter and wondered how they had grown up so quickly. Amongst the hubbub, he went to Jake's side and gently touched his elbow. Immediately, Jake leant down.
"What do you think, Gramps?" he asked. "Boy or girl?"
"I think that I'm very proud of you and that no matter what, they are very lucky to have you as their father."
Jake took Lao Shi's hand, the squeeze saying more than words ever could as they looked at one another and shared the moment.
"But when do you find out if it's a boy or a girl?" Haley asked. "Are you going to find out?"
The moment was broken by Haley's shrill question.
"Gramps," Jake said, "You still have to vote: boy or girl?"
Haunted by the ghost of you
Oh, take me back to the night we met
There was something so stark about waiting rooms. About the possibility and impossibility of it all. Everything and nothing was real, sitting amongst other families in the states of disbelief and their array of questions. There was anxiety when a doctor arrived, relief and terror when they called someone else's name. It was a place that Jake didn't know well and he didn't know what to do now that he was here. He was barely thirty and he had two healthy daughters, sleeping peacefully at his mother's house, because Rose had stopped him in the middle of the park today to tell him that she was in labour and their first son was going to come. Like with the birth of all children, the world carried on spinning as Cecilia and Julia were taken to their grandmothers. It felt almost like routine now, three children in seven years, with Rose determined to have at least three more in the next seven, as they walked into the hospital. Jake knew how Doctor Jiang would shake their hands. Doctor Jiang's hands were safe hands. They were the hands that had delivered both daughters, who had held the wand so they could hear the heartbeats of all of their children, who had written down genders to be stuffed into an envelope so that Jake and Rose could be surprised by the colour of the icing when Susan made cupcakes.
It wasn't right when Rose became light-headed. It wasn't right when there was blood. It wasn't right when Doctor Jiang had grasped him arm and explained that they had to take Rose down to surgery and there was a chance that they could only save one of them. Doctor Jiang had said that everyone was going to do everything to make sure that both of them came back to Jake and that their family didn't have to suffer but Jake appreciated the fact that there were no lies. At the very least, he could start preparing, but he didn't know how to prepare. He didn't know what to do. It was all of these words that Jake had spilled over the phone, in the hushed limbo of the waiting room, and Lao Shi had promised to come.
"I couldn't call anyone else, Gramps," Jake said, when Lao Shi sat down next to him. "I needed you."
"You have me," Lao Shi said, "and it's going to be all right."
"Long?" a doctor that was not Doctor Jiang was standing in the doorway. "Family of Rose Long."
"I can't breathe."
Lao Shi took Jake by the elbow and together they walked to the doctor.
"Come with me."
"I'm her husband," Jake said as they followed the doctor into a private spot. "I'm … I'm the father."
"I'm Doctor Avery. I was the surgeon on Rose's case and I want to let you know that both Rose and your son survived the surgery."
Jake fell to his knees.
"But?" Lao Shi asked.
"Your son was full-term and was able to be delivered quickly via C-Section. We have him under watch in the NICU but there is no reason to think, at this time, that he won't be fine."
"Thank you," Jake whispered. "Rose?"
"She'll be waking up from anesthesia shortly," Doctor Avery said, "and while we do expect a full recovery, it's important that you understand that in order to save her life, we had to perform a hysterectomy."
"But you did save her life?" Jake said.
Nothing else would matter if Rose was not saved. Lao Shi knew that Jake would try. He would try for the community he swore to protect, he would try for his family, and most of all, he would try for his children. Susan hadn't been nearly as young as Cecilia, Julie, or even Ash were when she had lost her mother, but Lao Shi knew that it had haunted Susan, and he didn't want that for his great-grandchildren.
"Yes," Doctor Avery promised, "We saved their lives."
When the night was full of terrors
And your eyes were filled with tears
When you had not touched me yet
When the tales are told, it was always a normal night that blossomed into something else. It was the most mundane of times when lives were changed and it was always hoped to be for the better or, even best yet, that life was left alone. Perhaps it was just a flash of lightning. If it was not a flash of lightning, perhaps it was a symbol, not an omen. The torrents of rain didn't have to be foreboding - it could just be weather. The crash of thunder didn't have to be a catalyst for fear, but, rather, a reason to stay up late with two daughters and bring them cocoa. It was what Jake did when the sky became grey and the storm started rolling in. Rose had just been allowed home and she was propped up in bed, Cecilia and Julia on either side of her, although being careful. They had been warned so many times that Mommy was sick and it was heartwarming, they way they would take turns kissing Rose's temples and telling her they were 'Feel better wishes!'. Ash was sleeping in a small cot in the corner of Jake's and Rose's room and once his daughters had their cocoa and Jake had checked on Rose, Jake watched his son. Ash was the only one who looked like Jake. Julia looked like a better blend of Jake and Rose, whereas Cecilia was her mother, through and through. Jake didn't think it fair that he wasn't there for Ash's first breath, for the cutting of the cord, for the placing of the baby on Rose's bare chest, where they would kiss over his little head. It was what had been done for all for his daughters and it was overwhelming that, despite all of their plans, it wouldn't happen again. Jake watched Rose help Julia with her mug and it didn't matter. They would adopt. They would have a surrogate. They would foster until their hair was grey and their joints gave out, just to have the house filled with children's laughter in the way they had dreamt.
The thunder roared; the window panes shook. Cecilia whimpered.
"It's okay," Jake told her. "It's okay."
It was still okay when Julia went up to bed. It was okay when Ash was taken from the little bed in his parents' room to his nursery next door. It was still okay when Cecilia refused to go to bed, wanting to stay up a little longer.
"Just one more story, Mommy," she begged. She begged like she knew, but but no one else did.
"It's late," Rose said, "and Dad says off to bed and we have to listen to Dad, right?"
"Yeah," Cecilia said, but she was reluctant about it.
Jake swung Cecilia up in his arms. "Come on, tell Mom you love her."
"I love you, Mommy!"
Jake bowed Cecilia down so that Rose could give her a goodnight kiss and then he swung her up, up so high it felt like her feet were going to touch the Cecilia.
"I love you too, Daddy."
"I love you," both of her parents had said.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Those were the words that Cecilia repeated to herself ever after. The last words she had ever said to them, that they had ever traded back, on the last night when thunder was thunder and lightning was lightning for her, for her family. But, not for the world. For the world, at the time she was hiding with her siblings, teaching a five year old how to convince a one week old to suck on her finger so he wouldn't cry, at the time she was sneaking down the stairs, wondering what the word 'fuck' meant but not realizing the depth of it until decades later, at the time the her little fingers and the soles of her tiny feet were covered in blood as she reached for the phone, at that time, for the world, it was just a storm.
Lao Shi had been on the way back from an artifact trade show when the storm hit. His wings were not as good in the torrential downpour as they once might have been. He pushed himself harder than he had in many years because he didn't want to be here when the lightning struck, when the skies became dangerous. His little apartment was light brightly and was warm, Fu holding down the fort as he yapped on the phone to a little Pomeranian from British Columbia. Lao Shi shook out his dragon wings in the kitchen, splashing rain water everywhere. At the time his phone rang, he almost didn't answer it.
"Hello?"
"Gramps, you have to come. And you have to call Aunt Haley, because the other kids are hiding and she needs to get them so they don't see."
"Cecilia?" Lao Shi asked.
At the time, it was eleven at night.
"Gramps, you have to come. It's scary and I need you. I didn't know who else to call. Please."
"Cecilia, let me talk to Mom or Dad, okay?"
"I can't," Cecilia said, with a child's frankness that would chill the world forever after. "They're dead."
Oh, take me back to the night we met
I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Sometimes, the simplest things become the worst things. A phone call to a granddaughter. A dragon taking flight. A doorknob, in the middle of the night.
Lao Shi sent Haley into the nursery room. Ash and Julia were there, crying as Haley scooped them into her scaly arms and rushing them to Susan's. Lao Shi hadn't the heart to tell Haley of the phone conversation. He hadn't the will to speak it, lest it make it true. He had said there was an emergency. That he needed to get Cecilia and Haley had to get her niece and nephew and guard them until Lao Shi called. Haley hadn't understood but, for perhaps the very first time in her life, she knew enough not to ask questions.
Lao Shi had left it to himself to open the front door and pull Cecilia into his chest. She didn't cry as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her long blonde hair looking like behead, her blue eyes dazed, her hands bright red. Lao Shi hid her face in his dragon's shoulder as he darted into the living room, where there was Jake. Jake, bloodied, eyes at the ceiling, one hand a dragon's claw, killed before he could transform. Rose, at the entrance to the hallway, blocking the way to the children's room, her stitches pulled and a bullet wound in her forehead.
Lao Shi could never prove what happened. The police could never solve it. He knew, deep down, that it was not magical. He had asked Cecilia once, and only once, and she had said that the door had opened and Daddy, who had been carrying her up the stairs, had put her down. He had told her to go to her room but she hadn't. She had been scared of the lightning and was waiting for him to come back. Until she heard him say "what the fuck". It was such a bad sounding word that it had made her scared and her parents had always told her that when it was an emergency, when she was that scared, that she should go into Ash's room, to the body of the hippo, where a secret door was hidden, where they would go and stay safe, until Mom and Dad came to get them. Cecilia hadn't thought it was an emergency, not that kind, until the thunder was inside of her house. When the thunder was in the house and Mommy was screaming Daddy's real name, Cecilia went to Julia. Julia was sleeping under her Care Bear comforter, the blankets pulled all the way up to her nose, when Cecilia took her hand. Cecila had to pull the sides of the crib down to get Ash. She was very, very, very, careful with Ash, she was sure to tell Lao Shi, because Mommy and Daddy had already told her so many times with Julia, how to be careful with a little baby's neck. She didn't hear her mother scream that night but in the nightmares that came in the years after, she would swear that she did.
It was an unfairness in the universe, an unbalance that could never be rightened. In a world where everything was just and people got what they deserve, a villain who gave herself to a hero, a hero who sacrificed his love for her happiness, would find the world bright when they came back together. A besotted man who proposed on her twentieth birthday when they were out for ice-cream cones who find himself growing old with the love of his life. A blushing bride who enjoyed the day but was thinking of the future and her grandchildren would get to meet them. In a world where everything was right, two people who did everything they could to do everything right, would meet the world that they deserve.
They would meet their ends in old age rather than a startle of blood.
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
"Gramps? Gramps?"
Lao Shi was startled back to the present, thinking that in the darkness, he could see it all happening at once. He could see himself attending Rose's and Jake's wedding at the same time that he could see himself attending Rose's and Jake's funeral. He could see his grandson at the age of fourteen with the blush of first love on his cheeks never dreaming that the blush of his first love would be the blush of his last love.
"Cecilia," Lao Shi said.
Together, they turned and watched. Ash was sleeping against Fu's stomach and Julia was nearly there herself. With the company around them, the storm didn't hold any fears. For them, thunder was allowed to be thunder and lightning was allowed to be lightning. There was no worry that when they left the bedroom, there would be blood on the stairs, brain on the area rug that was a wedding gift. They would grow up asking Cecilia why she moved to a place where there were no hurricanes and asking what their parents sounded like. At ten, all of that seemed very far off, but Lao Shi knew it all happened separately and at once. He wished that he could preserve his family, keep them all in the week where Ash was born, when the puzzle fit together, and everything made sense.
"I miss them." She would eventually be the only one who held onto true pieces of them, the only one who could pass down real memories. One day, none of that would matter either but, for a very, very long time, that would matter very much.
"I miss them too," Lao Shi said, because, sometimes, the simplest words were the ones that were needed.
Haunted by the ghost of you
Take me back to the night we met