Word Count: 6,522 (Total: 24,261)

Rating: T for language and some light sexual situations (all clothing stays on, but those who are squeamish about age gaps beware)

Date Submitted: 1/19/18

Chapter 3 – The Disorderly Identity

Herc stops eating with Jazmine and Jason and goes back to feeding himself. Jazmine is obviously baffled by the switch and might be a bit hurt, but she respects his decision and leaves him alone thereafter. Herc considers it a small blessing that she doesn't ask why, even though she obviously wants to know.

He has to give credit to her intelligence. Other than cordial greetings whenever they encounter each other outdoors, she more or less withdraws from his life. She stops asking him to advise her on issues related to plumbing or other general home care concerns; the only thing she does is sneak onto the back porch when his back is turned while he's mowing the lawn—he still mows it for both of them—and leave him a glass of something to drink on her table. He accepts it as payment and leaves the empty glass on the table when he's done.

Loneliness sets in again, though, quicker than ever, and the suicidal thoughts come creeping back with the same speed. He considers getting a cat or a dog—he just won't let the dog out back and risk it tangling with Jason—but is in such despair that he isn't sure he can hold out until the animal passes on, no matter how old it is. He tries to wrap up his life, just in case, but can't think of a way to say goodbye to Jazmine without making her suspicious.

He also just doesn't want to say goodbye to her at all.

Through the building's dividing firewall, he hears Jason cry often. It generally starts off loud, but doesn't stay so for long; it recedes in ten or fifteen seconds, presumably because Jazmine collects him and takes him back to his bedroom at the far end of her unit. Herc can still hear it even then, but it's distant, and if he turns the television up just a few notches he can drown it out entirely.

He doesn't like doing that, though. It feels wrong, like he should be doing something to help.

It's weird.

He comes awake with a start. Eyes open in a vain search of his dark room, he listens for what woke him. A minute later, he hears it again.

Knocking. Authoritative. There's a voice as well, too muffled to make out, but it's similarly authoritative.

Herc gets to his feet and goes to the front door, alert. He peeks through the fisheye lens and sees someone in a police uniform. Lights from patrol cars are flashing in the background. So he opens the door and grimaces at the wash of cold, dry air against a body clad in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.

"I was sleeping," he informs the young man on his front stoop.

"Sorry to wake you, sir, but there's been an incident. I was wondering if you heard anything earlier."

Herc sighs. "I was sleeping."

"Yes, sir," is the admirably patient response. "I meant before that."

"No," he replies. "Everything was normal, as far as I can recall."

"And when did you go to bed last night?"

"Oh, twenty-two hundred. Twenty-three hundred, maybe. What time is it now?"

"Three a.m., sir."

Ugh.

Herc is an early riser and has been all his life, but he values his sleep more the older he gets. His brain isn't quite functioning properly. "Sorry, but what, exactly, are you asking me about?"

The young officer gestures at Jazmine's unit. "Someone from next door called our nonemergency line and told dispatch to send someone to pick up the body of an intruder. When we arrived, the body was on the front step."

Herc goes cold, finally fully awake. "Jazmine? Jason?"

"Are those the names of the residents? No one has answered the door yet. I don't suppose you have a key? Otherwise we'll have to break it down."

"Yeah, yeah, a mo . . ." Alarmed, Herc spins away and finds the keys to Jazmine's unit which she's never asked him to return. He supposes it only makes sense, since he's still the best person for anyone to contact if there is some emergency. It occurs to him that he should pull on a pair of shorts while he's at it, so he does. Getting the dark khaki board shorts on and zipped helps get his brain in gear.

He has the door to Jazmine's unit opened in a jiffy, and carefully occupies the doorway to block the police from rushing around him and possibly stumbling into some sort of trap. It's strange that the bar latch isn't in place, but it makes sense that she'd expect the police to want to speak to her—even though it seems obvious to Herc that she doesn't want to speak to them, if she left the body outside her front door—and made it possible for them to enter without destroying her door frame along with her door.

"Jazmine?"

The unit is dark and silent. Herc peers around the room, just in case. Everything seems to be in place, so he takes a slow step in.

"Mister Hansen," someone says behind him, "please step aside. The killer may still be around."

Herc snorts. It's not a matter of 'may'—he's sure the killer is still around.

"She hasn't acted unbalanced."

"She isn't. That's what makes her dangerous."

"'Dangerous' isn't a word I've found reason to associate with her."

"That's the point. Just don't make her think you mean her or her kid any harm and you'll be fine."

"Are you trying to scare me?"

"I'm trying to warn you, sir. You seem to think she's harmless just because she hasn't flipped out on you over anything; I'm telling you she isn't, because failing to know that could put you in a bad place."

Raleigh said that Jazmine is dangerous, and while Herc still finds that somewhat hard to believe he's not so stupid as to dismiss it; obviously, Raleigh would know his own sister better than Herc could ever pretend. And then, again, there are Jazmine's own words.

"Mister Dillon was fine, except for the fact that he grew senile and kept trying to come into my home . . . then he started threatening to beat Jason if I wouldn't. I drew the line there . . . I couldn't risk him hurting Jason. Because if he had been able to, I would have killed him."

He glances over his shoulder at the police. "Jazmine's . . . touchy. I doubt there was more than one intruder, or there'd be more than one body. She knows me; she doesn't know any of you. I'll take the lead."

Aware they'll only argue with him if he stands there and not interested in explaining his training in both the RAAF and the PPDC, Herc moves deeper into the house. The police spread out into the sitting room and kitchen, but Herc heads right for the hallway. Jazmine would have answered him if she were in the front area, so that she didn't means she isn't. The police are forced behind him again as the space bottlenecks at the hallway, and they're restless as he slowly checks the few rooms along it.

When he opens the door to Jason's room, Herc looks around, then steps aside. "There's your crime scene." The room looks as though it's been dealt a glancing blow by a cyclone; all the light objects in the room are knocked over or tossed, and the little blankets on Jason's bed are twisted and draping over the bed's edge. They're indicating the window, which was smashed in and then later boarded up. There's no blood, which he thinks is strange, but he leaves that to the police to figure out and turns to the only room left—Jazmine's.

All his senses are on high alert. He's calm, but wary. The bedroom is more her lair than any other room in her unit, and carelessness could lead to trouble. Herc opens the door and blocks the doorway like usual. The room is absolutely black but for the lights from outside that leak around the edges of the blackout curtains over the windows. He reaches for the light switch. "I'm turning on the light, Jazmine."

When the light comes on it reveals Jazmine sitting on the bed, Jason lying close against her hip, with her feet tucked partway beneath her. Her eyes are closed, but her posture is alert; she's halfway to a position that would end with an attacking lunge. Her expression is deadly serious, but not angry, apparently.

"She doesn't seem to be angry."

"Her anger is calm. Quiet. I don't know whether she's just naturally like that or if it's that thing women do because it's not ladylike to show the ugly emotions. Our mother didn't believe in withholding feelings, but she did believe that there was a time and place, and that wouldn't be in front of you. Our father wasn't exactly more traditional, but the things he taught us included firm self-control. He was particularly hard on Jazmine, so those lessons are really embedded in her."

Herc ignores it, but does stay in the doorway. "You all right? Jason?"

"Fine," she says shortly. "Now get out of my house, and take them with you."

One of the police tries to duck under his arm, but Herc catches the eager kid and pushes him back, gentle but firm. "You stay out of that room."

"But someone is dead!"

"I don't give a good Goddamn," Herc replies. "Unless you want to be next in the tally, you stay out of that bloody room."

The cop looks from him to Jazmine, incredulous. "But I'm the police!"

"That really doesn't matter," Herc assures him. At least, Herc can't imagine that the police would get any special consideration.

"I still need a statement," an older man announces from down the hall. He didn't come into the house with Herc, so he must have followed later. If he isn't in charge of the scene, he acts as though he is.

Jazmine raises her voice to say, "My statement is that three hours after I put my son to bed I heard glass break and my son started crying. A few years back I caught a previous neighbor creeping around the outside of my house, testing my son's bedroom window, so I assumed that person or someone else was trying to abduct him. When I entered his room, I found him under the arm of a man who was halfway back out of the shattered window. I dealt with that man to protect my son's life. Then I boarded up my son's window, contacted the police to let them know there was a corpse in need of collecting, and dragged the body outside so I wouldn't have to be rudely disturbed. As I have been despite my effort, clearly."

The older man steps around his subordinate to see her, but doesn't attempt to enter the room. "You admit that you killed that man?"

"Children not found within the first twenty-four hours after abduction tend to be found in shallow graves in local parks four years after they're murdered," Jazmine answers. She opens her eyes and frowns at him. "That makes child abduction a violent crime. Since my son is too young and weak to defend his own life, and since I can't depend on the police to retrieve him before he's years dead, I took action."

"Then you admit that you killed him."

Gingerly, Jazmine lifts the hem of her shirt. Fresh gauze has been wrapped around her ribs to pin down a gauze pad positioned over her liver. Blood hasn't reached the top layer, but Herc can see pink. It's a miracle that her baby wasn't hit; if she'd been any farther along, it might not have turned out so well.

"I stopped him in defense of my son," she says. "I killed him in defense of myself and my baby."

The man looks at the subordinate Herc stopped. "Medic."

"Oh, is one of your men hurt?" Jazmine asks as she tugs her shirt hem back into place. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Please do go be with him, and have a good night. Everything is under control here."

As though she hadn't spoken, the man says to her, "You need to come with me, Miss . . .?"

She ignores his probe for her name. "Actually, as the person who knows me the best, I can safely say that I don't need to go anywhere with you. I do, however, need to stay right here with my son so that after his traumatic experience he can feel safe while he sleeps."

"Someone else can watch him."

Even Herc finds the callous statement appalling and offensive—the man must have been a bachelor all his life, to not understand or care that a frightened child is best left with his parents—so he's not at all surprised by or critical of Jazmine's snap of, "I would never leave my son in the care of strangers."

"Surely you have a husband? A family?"

She snorts, derisive. "My husband gave his life to save others. As for family, sure—I suppose I can ring up my brother. It'll only take him twenty-four hours to fly in from Anchorage, barring weather delays. Not that my son has ever met him before, seeing as he was God knows where playing with steel and concrete and rebar for the past five years. And I admit they're strangers to my son as well, but perhaps I can try calling my extended family to visit from where they live. In France."

"Your husband's family?"

"All dead."

Before the kaiju, it would have been a strange circumstance. But millions of people along the Pacific rim had died in one way or another because of them, and most families had been decimated. Dead spouses, children, parents, cousins . . . It's entirely possible that Jazmine has no one to turn to who isn't thousands of miles away.

Herc sees the police commander—or whoever he is—isn't going to let up, and the situation is only going to escalate into a high-stress shouting match that will upset Jason, who's so far still sleeping. He sees only one way to diffuse the conflict. "I'll watch him."

Jazmine considers him, then says, "If you don't mind."

"He knows me," Herc reminds her, "but you should wake him and let him know you're going."

Jason is extremely unhappy to learn of his mother's departure. He cries and tries to grab at her, but she lifts him away and hands him to Herc. Then she's out the door with the police. Herc attempts to soothe him, but it takes Jason a long time to do anything other than wail and bleat for his mother's return. It's only when Herc has one of the investigating police grab Jason's diaper bag for him—after a thorough search, naturally—and takes bag and boy to his own unit that the quieter and darker surroundings help Jason regain his calm.

"There now," Herc soothes as he sets the bag on the floor near his bed. "It's a little better here, isn't it?"

"Mummy . . ." Jason whimpers.

"Mummy will be back soon," Herc promises. "She has to talk to the police for a bit."

Unlike Jazmine, Herc has secured his door so that it will need to be broken down if the police want any sort of statement from him before Jazmine can return and take Jason back. And if they do, he's going to give them an earbashing they'll remember. In the meantime, he sits on his bed with Jason, lays the toddler next to his pillow, and then gets himself settled. He pulls the covers up over himself and makes sure they're not too close to Jason, who's clad in a soft, snug onesie that will definitely keep him warm for a climate-controlled night; Herc is sure Jason is old and strong enough that suffocation isn't a major concern, but he doesn't want to risk it.

Herc has no television in his bedroom and the charge cord for his phone isn't long enough to reach the bed, so there's no way to distract Jason until the toddler tires and falls asleep. Jason whimpers and fusses for his mother, then gives a single cry of, "Daddy!" before he turns to Herc and reaches out.

Herc has promised to watch over Jason, so he can't hide from the designation. But he doesn't reassure the boy, either. He just puts up with the child's tears, and after two hours Jason finally drifts off. Herc turns his back to the lightening sky beyond his window and, exhausted, falls asleep himself.

The police do want to speak to him again, it turns out. Herc, who hasn't seen or heard a thing from Jazmine in nearly thirty-six hours, has already lost his patience with them before they even knock on his door.

"This is obviously self-defence," he snaps when they begin asking his opinion of Jazmine's sanity. That's not what they call it, of course, but Herc's been around for much too long to let verbal fluff get in his way. "I don't get why the hell you're so damned sure she started it."

"She killed a man, Mister Hansen," the woman across from him says. "If she'd left him alive, this might be over by now."

"I doubt that," he replies. "You just haven't figured out how she managed to do it, given the size difference between the two of them." Herc had been asked to identify the corpse, if he could, but he had refused to leave the house while he looked after Jason. Within an hour of that call, they'd brought him a picture to look at. It had been of the man's face, but there had been enough of his shoulders visible at the bottom of the image that Herc had gotten a good idea of how big he was. Without Raleigh's warning—and without already knowing how damn devious Beckets were in battle—he'd be questioning it as well. "But mothers do amazing things for their kids."

"That's a myth."

"The sheer extent of it is exaggerated, perhaps," Herc counters, "but an adult woman desperate to save her child from an adult man? He'd be dead. And he is." Even his wife, for all her lack of specialized training, had come close to hospitalizing an off-duty store clerk who'd found Chuck alone in an aisle; aware of the risk she was taking she'd slipped alone into a badly crowded aisle nearby for something, and when she heard a man's voice speaking kindly to Chuck she immediately assumed the worst. Instead of asking questions, she attacked. It had taken three other women—two uniformed store employees and the man's own wife, who happened to be there—to vouch for his good intentions before she calmed down and apologized.

She certainly possessed an aggressive streak, but Herc can count on one hand the number of times it had extended beyond verbal aggression. And at no time except that one had she gone straight from being calm to being potentially murderous. Herc doesn't doubt that, with no one to intervene, a woman with the background Jazmine supposedly has could kill a man of any size. Without a weapon in hand, all she would have to do is find a way to get a hold of his head and twist . . . and from little what Herc's seen and been told, that is exactly what she did.

The police get up to leave, obviously unsatisfied. At the door, the female officer stops and turns back to him. "Child services can take the boy, Mister Hansen. He's not your responsibility."

Oh yes he is. More so than she could ever possibly imagine. Which means that if they want Jason, they'll pry him from Herc's cold, dead fingers.

Outwardly, however, Herc merely frowns. "You'll have to take that up with his mother. I'm not handing him to anyone without her permission."

Jazmine finally knocks on his back door—so that he knows it's her—late, late at night. Despite the hour, she looks alert and somewhat annoyed, the latter of which Herc entirely understands. Still, there are dark marks under her eyes and she's clad in the same thin nightwear Herc had seen her in two days ago.

"Jesus Christ," he blurts. "They didn't even let you get a change of clothes?"

"No," she replies, either missing or ignoring the rhetoric of the question. She peers past him. "He asleep?"

"Yeah." He steps aside to let her in. "My room. Second on the left." He watches her head for the hall as he shuts the door, thinks, then locks the door and follows her. Her unit isn't secure, what with the window being broken and the police making the occasional visit to do more unnecessary exploration. She's safer and will get better rest in his unit. "You all right?"

"Eh?"

There's no bloodstain on her clothes, but he says anyway, "Your wound."

"Oh. It's healing. The cops took me to the hospital and the resident on call was highly critical of the stitch job I did as well as how I put my baby 'in danger' by not rushing to the hospital in a panic. I told him I wasn't trying to win an award, that it was my body and my baby, and that he was welcome to fuck himself at the next available opportunity. That's as exciting as that got."

Jazmine is clearly relieved to see Jason. She sits on the bed at his feet and just gazes at him for a bit. It's as she's reaching for him that Herc says softly, "Leave him. You should both stay here at least for tonight."

She looks over at him. "I couldn't. You've already done so much."

"Stay."

She turns away with a frown. Herc realizes she's exhausted and will obey if he insists for long enough, so he adds, "I'll sleep in the sitting room."

She whips around to stare, open-mouthed and appalled. "No! I'm not going to make you give up your bed!"

"Nor would I let you," he counters. "Which means I must be volunteering to give it up for tonight. Right now, it's safer and especially quieter than your side." She's clearly not convinced, but he knows how to land the last punch. "Look, you should leave Jason here so that he can get unbroken sleep. But he's been asking for you, so you should be here so he can see you when he wakes up. And since I can tell you could do with some unbroken sleep yourself, you may as well stay too."

With that, he turns and walks out, tugging the door closed after himself. He grabs a blanket from the hall closet and settles in the recliner that he probably really should replace but can't bring himself to because it's molded to the shape of his body and thus pretty comfortable. He falls asleep much easier than in the past two days, calmed by the knowledge that Jazmine and Jason are both safe and sound. With him.

The next morning, Jazmine picks through his meager bachelor's stock of foodstuff and, in the way it seems chefs manage to do, is able to make breakfast for three. Herc is awakened by the glorious scent of it and discovers Jason atop the blanket, tucked into the crook of his arm, apparently without him ever feeling it happen. He gets a big good-morning grin from the toddler—the first since Jazmine went away with the police—and can't help smiling in return. They entertain each other quietly until Jazmine emerges from the kitchen to collect them. But she sees them before she speaks, so she stops and watches for a few minutes.

"That's so cute it's obnoxious," she sighs happily. "I really do hate to break up your boy time, but breakfast is ready now."

She picks Jason up, much to the toddler's dismay, and carts him into the kitchen, where she's moved his high chair for the meal. Herc wads the blanket in beside his thigh, rights the recliner, and stretches as he gets to his feet. A wide yawn follows as he meanders to the table.

"Ah," Jazmine chides as he grabs the back of the nearest chair. "Wash your hands." She's already wiping Jason's down, with experience helping her to easily outmaneuver the uncooperative boy.

Being an adult, Herc is less rebellious. "Oh, right . . ." He detours to the sink and obediently cleans up. "Good of you to say that before I sat down, or my knees might have refused to get back up."

She pauses and turns, smiling. "Come now, a young man such as yourself already has knee problems?"

He snorts and settles into his chosen chair. "Sorry, no young men here."

"Give me a break," she scolds. "You aren't old." She hesitates. "Actually, how old are you?"

"Forty-six."

Her jaw drops. "What?! I thought you were, like, in your late thirties!"

Herc can't imagine how she's come to that conclusion. He isn't vain—he knows he looks every year of his age and maybe a few beyond it. "I wish."

She flails her arms. "Oh, whatever! The point stands! Men only start getting old after they hit retirement."

"If that's the case, I am old."

"Retirement age." She gets to her feet and retrieves two plates. The small one she places in front of Jason, the bigger one she sets in front of Herc. She then bends down, hugs Herc in a kindly and platonic way, then admits devilishly, "In the interest of being completely and brutally honest, I'd fuck ya."

It's eight o'clock in the morning. He's about to eat breakfast. Considering how incredibly not suggestive Jazmine's words are when combined with her behavior and tone of voice, there's no reason whatsoever for Herc's body to respond the way it does. His embarrassment is acute, so he covers it up with, "How comforting."

"Hey!"

It really is not only unfair to say, but a lie as well. It's more than comforting—it's hugely flattering. To his knowledge, Jazmine knows little about his income or past with the PPDC—though she may have been able to guess, if she knows Raleigh's history well enough—so she's presumably not after him for money or fame. And they've spoken about a variety of topics, so he knows that she's neither shallow nor dismissive of his own intelligence. She's also not ugly or desperate, and while Herc doesn't want to get tangled up in a romantic relationship, he can't deny that he sees her as a woman. If he had less self-control or drank more, it probably wouldn't take much to convince him to hop into bed with her.

He's leery, however, of getting involved with someone so much younger than him. There's a generational divide, mainly—not as great as it could be, since they do listen to each other, and not only having a son but having his son as a jaeger copilot means Herc's familiar with the newer fads and slang terminology Jazmine occasionally throws out. Even more problematic is that she's already lost someone dear, and ever since Chuck died Herc hasn't trusted his will to live; he doesn't want to hurt her any worse than he already would by abandoning their young but oddly solid friendship.

Fortunately, Jazmine notices nothing more than the casual flirting the exchange started off as, so when she lets him go to retrieve her own plate Herc takes the opportunity to scoot his chair a little farther under the table to better conceal his condition. Unfortunately, his condition barely improves as the meal progresses.

Jazmine is in some sort of hurry. She eats quickly, barely pausing to ask, "Could I impose upon you to look after Jason again today so I can clean up my place and make a call to get that window replaced? I understand if you can't, but it'll be easier if he isn't underfoot."

Herc clearly remembers just how badly Chuck, at the same age, always wanted to be a part of whatever his parents were doing. It was endearing but intrusive, so it takes no effort to empathize with the request. "Sure. Do you need a loan for the window or anything?" At her frown, he adds, "No offense, but I thought your money might be tied up in your work or something, and I have some spare cash."

She shakes her head. "Thank you, but no. I'm okay."

"A real loan," he offers, "interest-free, but granted with the expectation of repayment." Not that he'd ever worry if there was none, but he figures that will make Jazmine more comfortable with the idea.

She shakes her head again. "Really, I'm fine. I've actually . . . come into a bit of money recently."

He shouldn't be, but Herc is curious. "Oh?"

"Consolation prize."

Oh.

". . . Oh," is Herc's eloquent response.

She snorts and gets to her feet to take her plate to the sink. "A pittance. The money he left me is much more than that. I grant that under other circumstances I may have gotten a little more, but we weren't married and because of his background I didn't want his name on Jason's birth records. Not before everything was over and he didn't have to come and go, at least. He signed for me to receive the money, apparently, but without proof that I was more than a grieving friend I guess they weren't willing to pay what a widow I spoke to told me she got."

There's a rock in Herc's stomach. He can guess, but he asks anyway, "What was the difference?"

She sighs. "I got three digits. She got five."

Herc cringes inside. It's a lot of money to miss out on.

"It's my fault," she says as she washes her dishes. Herc thinks the dishes are a pretense, because she sounds sad and angry at the same time. He suspects she doesn't want to chance crying in front of him. "Jason's safety is too important for me to risk it just to get money, even if it's money that would make his life a little more comfortable. I won't pretend I'm sitting pretty," she vows, "but I'm not poor. Financially, we're not in a position I'd prefer to be in, but we're not going to starve to death or anything. We're fine." She finishes with the dishes and dries her hands with a tea towel, then turns to him and smiles. It seems a little hollow to Herc. "I appreciate the offer, though, and I'll definitely keep it in mind. I wouldn't accept if it were just about me, but since Jason's involved I won't take it off the table."

Herc nods. There's nothing more to say.

"All right!" she announces with forced cheer. "Onward and upward!" She crosses to Jason's high chair and gives him a kiss on the head. "You stay here with Mister Hansen for a while longer," she purrs, altering her accent to a more Australian inflection the way she always does when she addresses the boy. It's inappropriately appealing to Herc, who's still waiting for his groin area to make itself presentable again.

Jason looks concerned. "Mummy, don't go!"

"It's all right," Jazmine croons. "Mummy's just going over to our house for a bit. I won't be far." She gives Herc a more real smile as she says with her usual American accent, "Thanks. I'll be back for lunch and supper."

He watches her leave, fighting a bafflingly powerful urge to follow her and drag her back into his unit so he can do some unsavory things to her. He has no idea where it's come from.

One second after the back door closes, Herc loses the fight. He gets to his feet and gives chase.

Jazmine is halfway across their joint back porch, and the sound of the door has clearly alerted her to his presence. She pauses and turns to him as she gestures at the steady rain that's falling beyond the awning. "Busting out the dividing wall was a good ide—"

He grabs her and kisses her. He's a little rougher than intended, but he's sure it gets his message across all the same. And if the kiss doesn't, surely the erection pressing against her swelling abdomen does.

It's insane, the way part of him wants to ravish her. Especially considering what she's just been through in the past week. Chuck's drift phantom—that little bit of Chuck that will be in Herc's head for the rest of his life, however long that lasts—is terribly amused by Herc's loss of control.

Herc is definitely not.

He yanks away from Jazmine. It's perhaps somewhat melodramatic, but it has the desired effect of shaking him from his focus on her mouth and body. He turns away slightly, humiliated by his lapse. "S-Sorry." He can't remember the last time he stuttered because of his own shame. "Jesus . . ."

He doesn't dare look, but in his periphery he can see that Jazmine is studying him. Her gaze is intent. Calm. Apparently not the calm anger Raleigh warned him about, however. She doesn't seem to be anxious, but she isn't dismissing anything, either.

"You can be angry," he tells her. "You should be angry."

"I would be if I were," she replies. "But at worst, I'm merely annoyed. I don't like disruptions. I trust you," she adds, "but this is getting to a point where I'm questioning that. I like you, though, and I don't want to lose your friendship. We need to talk. Later."

He shakes his head. He definitely doesn't want to talk about it. Ever.

"Tomorrow," she tells him, either not noticing or, more likely, refusing to accept his refusal. "Or whenever I don't have to worry anymore about this bullshit." She jerks her head at her unit. "See you at lunch."

With that, Herc gets away with sexually molesting his neighbor.

He stands alone on the back porch for a while, staring at the brickwork that comprises the back wall of the duplex. Just staring, without even doing something productive like thinking. About anything. It's Jason's crying that reminds him of his day's duty. When he finally notices what he's doing he knows immediately that it's drift yen—a bad habit common to almost every tenured jaeger pilot ever, presumed by J-science to be the brain's attempt to drift without the assistance of technology. The 'why' of it is still unknown, but there are plenty of theories, including a yearning for the unity that had been created by past successful drifts. Herc's been doing it periodically for a little more than a decade, but it never bothered him until Chuck died. It could explain things.

Herc hopes it does. It would make his behavior easier to understand, and by extension easier to deal with.

"Okay, so, what's going on?" Jazmine asks while she paces the sitting room. Jason has refused to go to bed without her, so she's been forced to carry him around and comfort him for the past hour. Herc doesn't like it at all, because she's even more pregnant than before he stopped eating in her unit and it doesn't seem like a good idea for a pregnant woman to be carrying a squirmy toddler on top of her more delicate unborn child, but Jazmine seems fine with it, so he keeps his mouth shut. Surely she knows better than he does how much she can handle and how much of Jason's fidgeting is acceptable.

"I don't know," he admits.

She scoffs lightly. "That's impossible."

"No, not really," he informs her.

"Explain."

"Can't. If I'm right, it's related to classified equipment. If I'm wrong, I have no other ideas."

She pauses and gives him a look.

He snorts. "You think I like spontaneously assaulting the sister of someone I know well enough to know I don't want to cross him?"

"Seeing as he's half a planet away from where you're sitting, my self-absorbed brother is definitely not the person you should be worrying about not crossing."

Herc doesn't have to be intimidated to be wary. He meets her gaze evenly, but is ready to launch from his recliner and out of her range of attack. "I can't talk about it. At least not until I make a call and get confirmation that what I'm thinking happened can happen. If so, I'll tell you everything."

"And if you're told that it isn't possible? Then what? Am I supposed to happily accept that since you don't know what's causing it, you can't stop it, so every time I get too close to you I run the risk of being assaulted for the third time?"

It's his turn to scoff. "Of course not."

"Well, you aren't giving me a lot of information to draw conclusions from."

"I told you, woman, I don't—know!"

Jazmine isn't pleased. She looks down at him, her amber eyes cold and calculating. Finally, she says, "I'll be watching you. Be very careful. Do anything I don't like and you'll regret it."

"Anything you don't like? Like what?"

She leans toward him. "I don't know."

Herc throws his hands up, patience worn through. "For fuck's sake!"

"The level of my retaliation will depend on the severity of your infraction," she offers.

"Oh, like that's any more helpful."

"More so than you've been," she counters. "Good night." She goes to the back door, opens it, pauses, then turns to him and says ever so politely, "Thank you for watching Jason today."

He waves his hand dismissively, offended and maybe a touch petulant. Nothing she said was unreasonable, exactly, but was clearly meant to strike back at him for his lack of openness. It's annoying because he's been totally honest with her, but she's too nosy to just put up with it for a bit longer.

But she shouldn't have to put up with it, he reminds himself sternly. She's a human being, not a pet or a houseplant—she's not wrong to expect to receive respect as long as she shows it herself, and she has. He's the one who's randomly treating her as though she's not entitled to know about something that's most definitely affecting her ability to live a normal life. She's completely entitled to know whether the man who's living in the unit beside hers might turn his creepy attention to her innocent child.

Which is what she's wondering, he decides. Quite some time ago, she made it clear verbally that Jason is the most important person in her life. And just a week ago she killed a man for trying to abduct the boy. If she ever catches Herc doing anything to Jason that might be remotely construed as harmful, physically or psychologically, it's likely Herc's corpse will be the next one the cops are collecting from her doorstep.

. . . It's good to be sure of one thing, anyway.

Jason cries almost incessantly for the next four days. Herc still hates hearing it, not because it's annoying but because, like before, he feels like he isn't doing his job. Except that he isn't really responsible for Jason in any way; being a babysitter, paid or not, to a child that isn't his is anything but a lifelong obligation. He can quit anytime or be 'fired,' and each has now occurred.

Nevertheless, it's become necessary to actively fight the insidious tendrils of some deep-seated urge to go do something about 'his son's' distress when Jason's crying becomes loud enough while he's being moved that Herc can hear him calling for his father. Herc has to remind himself over and over, using the brutal blunt-force trauma of memories barely six months old, that his son—Charles Hansen, Chuck, little Chip, not Jason Lapierre or Becket or whatever—is absolutely and unquestionably dead. Blown to a million irradiated bits that doubtless fed any number of deep-sea dwellers at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. At just twenty-one years of age.

Twenty-two. Whichever.

Too young either way. Too young.

He can tell by how quiet Jason's crying is that Jazmine is keeping the toddler in the rooms at the far end of her unit so he doesn't disrupt Herc's daily life. But she's getting frantic. She doesn't shout at or strike Jason, Herc believes, but she curses at her computer while working, is short with her clients on the phone, and is impatient with her cooking. On one occasion, he hears glass shatter. Jazmine curses in French in so vicious a way that it's clear it's something she did and not another break-in. From time to time, Herc thinks he can hear her crying, too.

Even with all that, Herc has essentially made his sitting room his bedroom. Part of the reason for it is that his bed smells like Jazmine, which makes him want her in every conceivable way, but he can't bring himself to get the sheets off it and give them a wash because then her scent would be gone and its comforting properties would be lost, and he might actually feel lonely enough to kill himself. So he sleeps in his recliner, which isn't the best idea he's ever had since its form-fitting shape is offset by the mostly squashed cushioning, but working out the stiffness it causes gives him something to do during the day. He also feels he's closer to Jazmine that way, not only physically but emotionally. It may be indirect, but he's still offering as much support as he can for being more or less banished from her life.

He wishes he could do more. For both of them.

There's a knock on the back door. Herc dreads answering it, but does anyway.

Jazmine is clearly exhausted. The dark smudges under her eyes, which had initially left her after she was reunited with her son and allowed to sleep, have returned darker than before. Her shoulders are rounded and she's trembling. She looks as though she hasn't eaten since she left Herc's unit. Red marks on her cheeks prove she's been crying as he suspected.

It concerns Herc. Even if, as an adult, she can handle a few days of hunger and sleeplessness, she happens to also be pregnant. His wife had never mistreated herself yet still had a close call; he worries what Jazmine's poor physical and mental conditions are doing to not only her, but also the baby.

Jason is no better off, but his problem seems half dealt with. Herc realizes why when the toddler reaches for him. "Daddy!"

He recoils, alarmed. The last thing his unstable head needs is for a little boy he's half thinking of as a son to clearly and directly identify him as a father for a second time.

"Please," Jazmine begs. "Please. He won't stop crying. Please hold him."

He's reluctant to accept Jason, but Jazmine and Jason both need him desperately. So he extends his arms. Once the toddler is with him, all of them are quiet. Jazmine is visibly relieved. Jason curls close against Herc's chest and begins to suck his own thumb. Herc just holds him and rests his cheek against the boy's head. It's an eerily familiar feeling—too easy to recall to be a memory as old as it should be.

Mine mine mine.

My son.

Herc tries to shake the thoughts away and replace them with images of Chuck. Of his real son.

They fight back.

MINE MINE MINE.

MY SON.

It's scary. He knows he's losing his mind, if it isn't already gone. He tries to give Jason back to Jazmine before he hurts the child, but his arms won't work. It feels as though someone is pressing on them, but apparently not so hard that Jason is harmed, since the toddler doesn't cry. Panic sets in.

MINE MINE MINE!

MY SON!

Then it's gone.

He gasps.

". . . Herc? . . . Herc?"

He focuses on Jazmine, who looks very concerned. "Take him, please," he croaks, and is finally able to get his arms to function.

She accepts Jason, even though he begins to fuss again. Despite her weariness, her amber eyes have gained an edge of sharpness. Watchfulness. "Herc, you aren't okay."

He's shaking now. All over. "No, I'm not. Something's . . . I'm not safe. Get out. Don't come here again."

She takes a step back and turns a little, placing herself between him and Jason. "Should I call someone for you? My brother, or . . .?"

She's smart and a good mother, to take him seriously and not be afraid of offending him with her caution. He feels a burst of affection for her, too strong to be called simple 'like.' "Go."

She does.

Once alone, he regains some control of himself. But the loneliness comes back too, worse than ever. He retreats to the corner of the unit that's farthest from Jazmine and Jason, finds his mobile, and places a call to the only person he can think of who might know what the hell is going on with him. Because he suspects the worst.

To Be Continued in . . . Chapter 4 – The Mother's Memories

Herc wants to ask what the hell is going on, but the video isn't over and he can't bring himself to interrupt it. Careful to avoid anything on television that might relate to the PPDC, he hasn't heard his son's voice for months; though Chuck's drift phantom is in his head, it hasn't 'spoken' a word since Chuck died. Herc knows it's something he caused to happen, but he hasn't wanted to fix it. So he stays quiet, and just watches and listens. He sees Chuck's joy become shadowed.

"I wish . . . I wish my dad was here."

It's a one-two punch to the heart and gut. Herc, too, wishes he'd been there, and doesn't understand how so much could have happened that he just wasn't made privy to. He'd never imagined the drift could allow something of such import to go unnoticed.

If you find this fic to be somewhat fine, please take the time to drop me a line!

~RN (LS)