Word Count: 10,593 (Total: 34,854)
Rating: T for language and some light sexual situations (all clothing stays on, but those who are squeamish about age gaps beware)
Date Submitted: 1/26/18
Chapter 4 – The Mother's Memories
"I don't know . . ." Raleigh says, with such doubt in his voice that Herc would have been quite annoyed had the comment been aimed at him.
Tendo—who was probably the one to alert him to Herc's condition, unless Jazmine did—is more objective. "I'm not asking for your opinion, Becket boy, just your experience."
"Okay, then, yes," Raleigh says. "I did have . . . disorientation. But it was virtually immediate. And once the hangover wore off it never happened again. I really don't see how you could draw a parallel—"
"Shut up, man," Tendo says. Raleigh opens his mouth to continue. "Ah. No. Bad Becket."
Raleigh closes his mouth and rolls his eyes.
Mako is looking through the observation window, obviously worried. Herc wishes he didn't look as weak and miserable as he feels, but he's certain he does. He's in isolation, for God's sake, like he's some kind of walking contagion. Even if he was the one to decide he should be there it's still humiliating, which only makes it that much worse. He hasn't left Australia, but he feels as though he's on Mars.
"I'm looking at everything right now," Tendo says after a minute. "He's special too, you know. The oldest surviving ranger, the longest enlistment . . ." He hesitates before adding, ". . . survived two copilots." He lowers his voice, and Herc can barely hear him when he says, "His psych evaluation said there might be problems because of his age. The implication then was his ability to drift with Chuck, but it may be that he's drifted so long, so often, for so many years that his brain can't keep everything separate as it ages."
Raleigh looks stricken. ". . . You mean an identity disorder?"
Tendo is solemn. "It isn't Herc we need to be wary of. It's his brother."
Raleigh straightens and frowns.
Mako looks between them. "Why his brother?"
Scott was fine for the longest time. Flawed, like anyone else, but a good man when it really mattered. The siren's call of celebrity, however, ruined him. Taken his flaws, inflated them to gargantuan proportions, and lit them up like a neon sign. His selfishness and possessiveness, in particular, took on edges of violence. The time they were nearly killed because of what Herc saw in the drift wasn't an event as much as that he witnessed his brother's consciousness change form in Headspace, in a way it never had before. And that change was so terrible it panicked Herc—not for his own sake, but for Chuck's. It was that sight that made Herc realize exactly how dangerous Scott had become, and he hadn't wanted Chuck to fall victim to that beast thinking he was safe with the uncle who once watched over him so well.
That was why Herc went to their CO with the knowledge of his brother's illicit activities which he had long ago gathered outside the drift. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the thing that would protect his son. And the mere fact that Scott knew that but been angry with Herc anyway only assured him that he did the right thing. He hadn't wanted his brother to die, but it was a possibility he'd accepted to ensure the security of his only child; he'd made that particular choice years back when he'd agreed to copilot with Scott. His brother had doubtless died hating him for making the choice—even though at one time he would never have questioned it—and the rage had returned to get its revenge.
Or something.
Raleigh doesn't know all of that, but he knows enough, and he shares it with Mako. It's embarrassing to have it aired out, but his brother was a terrible womanizer and Herc doesn't want her thinking she isn't at risk. Scott may have fixated on Jazmine and Jason for the moment, but that can switch over or extend to anyone or anything he decides he wants.
And it seems as though this time, there isn't a damn thing Herc can do about it.
After a few long and lonely days in a quasi-isolation—he's never actually locked in, but he doesn't trust what he might do anymore and so keeps mainly to himself—Herc looks up from his clasped hands and spots Raleigh standing at the observation window. Jazmine is with him.
Seeing her makes his chest feel hollow and his heart ache. He's missed her.
She gives him a warm smile and takes the few steps necessary to get to the door of his room. She opens it and pokes her head in. "May I?"
It takes him a minute to make his throat work properly. "Yeah." As she steps in, he asks, "Where's Jason?"
"Miss Mori is watching him." She obviously catches sight of his surprise. "Raleigh's drifted with her. My brother is a dumbass, but at the very least he would never place a child in harm's way if he suspected there was any chance of it happening."
Beyond the window, Raleigh rolls his eyes and then strolls out of sight.
Jazmine sits next to Herc on his bed and smiles again. Before he can stop it his arm slips around her waist and pulls her in to his hip with perhaps a little too strong a jerk. She's unprepared for it, so the gesture causes her to sort of flop across his lap, and for a moment she looks startled, but then she smiles once more, straightens, and lays her head on his shoulder.
He's nervous. But it's not a bad nervous—it's more a giddy, boyish nervous. A happy nervous. It reminds him of the way he felt in the early days of his dates with his wife, who was at the time merely his girlfriend; they got comfortable with each other quicker than most couples, but at the start Herc experienced the very same butterflies-in-stomach sensation so many others admitted to having. Accompanying the nervousness is an incongruous sense of peaceful relief.
She chose me.
He tries to push it away, because he doesn't want to get entangled in another relationship—certainly not in his brother's name—but it resists. In desperation, he asks, "Would you . . . tell me about him?"
"Him?" Jazmine echoes blankly. She lifts her head to look at him, then says, "Oh, my fiancé?"
"Yes." Hastily, he adds, "If it won't upset you." Maybe if he hears about her significant other it will drive home the fact that she's unavailable. Maybe there's still enough of the old Scott left in him to respect that and leave her and Jason alone.
She shrugs, gets to her feet, and goes to the door. She opens it just enough to lean out and grab a few items, which she brings back in with her. One is a binder so thick it has to be a photo album, the other is clearly a laptop case. "It doesn't bother me. I mean, it does hurt, but I like talking about him. It helps keep my memories clear."
He's puzzled. "How'd you know I'd ask?"
"After what happened," she says, "I called my brother. We've been talking for the past few days. I brought these because I wanted to consult with you."
"How reassuring."
"Nothing bad," she promises. "Everything good."
Herc questions that, but not aloud.
She sets her burdens on the little table he eats and does paperwork at and gestures for him to join her. As he does so, she hands him the photo album. "Here. Go ahead and look through this while I set up and find the videos. The videos will convey his personality better, but the pictures will give you time to study him."
Herc doesn't want to study the face of a young man dead before his time while Herc, whose life is half over now, somehow keeps surviving. But he pages slowly through the album anyway, and in silence finally introduces himself to Jazmine's fiancé and the father of the boy who has simultaneously eased and reinforced Herc's pain over the loss of his own son. Herc already feels he owes some measure of debt for the comfort he enjoyed, even if it did end up causing so much trouble; most of that trouble has very little to do with Jazmine or Jason, who were merely catalysts for something that was already there.
Jazmine's fiancé seemed to be the sort who smiled or laughed often and appeared completely normal but for the cap and aviator's sunglasses he apparently wore all the time. From what Herc can see of him, he was fit and handsome.
"Was he Australian?" Herc has assumed as much, but it's possible the kid was a transplant or wasn't local at all. Jazmine admitted that she goes to so much effort to teach Jason to speak with an Australian accent to help him fit in as he grows, but that could have been because Jazmine believes she won't be able to afford to leave the country until he's much older.
"Yes," she confirms, without glancing at him. "Bred, born, and raised."
"Is that your cap?"
She does look over then. "Huh? Oh. No, that was his."
Herc knows some things about America from the time he spent in the company of Americans while on one of the few brief overseas tours he served. Most of it is, naturally, linguistic idiosyncrasies, which the Americans had helpfully explained and which he had done in turn when one of them came to him with a question about Australian colloquialisms, but plenty of times he had picked up other information. For example, he knows that New York is the name of both a state and a large city within that state. He also knows that "Yankee" is a term some Americans use to identify others, but considering that all Americans are Yankees as far as Australians are concerned, he doesn't know the significance.
So, having been around for far too long to be embarrassed about asking questions, he says, "Then what are the New York Yankees?"
She blinks, then chuckles. "A baseball team."
Ah. "Baseball . . . That's the one that's like cricket, isn't it?"
"That's right. He didn't care—it was just part of his disguise. He wanted to keep a low profile, so I thought it'd be good cover if he seemed to be American. I came across that cap coincidentally and grabbed it."
Herc doesn't understand why the kid would have bothered, unless his family had been that uptight about him dating an American. Which is, honestly, an odd idea to Herc; he's never heard of anything like that except among obnoxiously over-patriotic bogans or the ridiculously wealthy. In any case, Jazmine's fiancé apparently wore the cap quite often even if he didn't care for it, since it's in every picture Herc looks at. The young man was in excellent physical condition, which makes perfect sense if he had been in the military or law enforcement, and his brown eyes—on the rare occasions that they can be seen over the rims of the sunglasses and beneath the shade of the cap's brim—were perpetually bright with good cheer as he looped an arm around Jazmine's shoulders or wrapped both arms around her and hugged her tightly.
Those qualities make the later pictures all the more meaningful—the way he cradled a newborn Jason with such care and gazed so intently at the baby's round pink face. He seemed to remain invested, for successive pictures document Jason's rapid growth but Jazmine's fiancé still laughed and smiled. He's in almost every picture, and it's clear that Jason recognized and loved him. In a few pictures Jazmine captured proof of her beloved's devotion, for even when he had been too tired to be good company he had nevertheless made sure to fall asleep with Jason in his arms. With his cap pulled down to block light and continue blocking full view of his face, of course.
"Looks like he was a good father," Herc says, then regrets it, because it's not his place to pass judgment on the kid—especially since he's dead.
Jazmine smiles slightly. "He was the best."
"He wore the cap indoors?"
"Not usually," she says with a glance at the album. "But all of those pictures I took either right after he arrived or right before he left my place. He'd get there and he'd be exhausted; if he had the energy he'd spend time with Jason before taking a nap, but if he didn't then he'd only be able to spend time with Jason before leaving. He wasn't very picturesque with his mouth hanging open, so those are part of my private collection. The nice ones made it into the album."
Herc frowns. "He slept?"
"His duties were very demanding, both physically and mentally, and he said he didn't sleep well on top of that because most of the time he didn't feel safe enough to sleep. When he did, he said it was only because he was with his father or me—he trusted us."
Herc is still puzzled. "He didn't live with you?"
She shakes her head. "No, I've pretty much always been in that duplex. I didn't need loads of space. He came and went—worked and lived with his father most days."
That's suspicious, and it annoys Herc. Jazmine is a good girl and Jason a treasure—they didn't deserve to have some selfish root rat wandering in and out of their lives while he knocked up a dozen other women. "That's a convenient story."
He shouldn't have opened his mouth. Jazmine's shoulders tighten and though she doesn't turn, her voice is a hiss when she says, "You didn't know him."
Herc, having stepped in it for the second time in as many minutes, promptly takes the out offered. "You're right, I didn't. It's none of my business."
She relaxes slightly and her voice quiets. "He texted me during the day, and almost every night he would either call me or we'd chat or vidcon online. We'd talk for hours sometimes. That's a lot of effort for a playboy to go to if he's merely trying to manage a harem."
Perhaps. Scott had successfully handled a number of women at once, though Herc is positive they had all known they were not his sole focus. They had been that sort of woman—the worst sort of jaeger flies who were only out for the fame of being attached to a jaeger pilot, for however long it would last. On the other hand, Scott had never been looking for a long-term relationship, so it worked out for all involved—the women got their prestige, and Scott always had a plus-one for the various dinners rangers were obligated to attend. "You and your baby deserve the best, that's all."
Jazmine smiles, and tilts her head to give him a glance. "He was the best, like I said. Even," she adds, "if he were a Don Juan, which I doubt. He was there for us financially, and as much as his job allowed personally."
"Then I'll have the wisdom to keep my mouth shut from now on," Herc assures her, despite his lingering misgivings. "Your happiness is what matters."
"Watch the videos," she tells him as she clicks open a media player. "Then you'll see."
Herc obediently abandons the photo album for the moment and focuses on a video that, from its less than stunning quality, was filmed with a mobile phone. It's of a hospital room, and though the background doesn't offer much more than that, the focus of the shot provides all the necessary context.
"I can't believe you're recording this," Jazmine's fiancé scolds, voice trembling. He's wearing his cap and sunglasses as usual. In his arms are the folds of a receiving blanket, and from time to time the pudgy face of an infant can be seen as either he or the baby moves the soft fabric around.
Herc feels his heart bottom out as he listens to the young man speak.
In the video, Jazmine laughs, then groans. "Haha— Ow . . . Don't make me laugh, dick. It hurts." After a moment of recovery, she replies, "If I didn't, we'd both regret it later. Since we didn't document the birth, this is the next best thing. Assuming I don't pass out from exhaustion."
Her fiancé snorts. "I notice this humiliates me and not you."
Herc doesn't know what he should feel, though the discovery explains so much of what he's gone through ever since moving into the duplex. That voice . . .
"I've already been suitably humiliated," she counters. "I just had total strangers gawking at my privates."
"But they're pretty privates!"
That voice is his son's voice.
"You've seen that many in your young life, have you?"
"More than my fair share, and not by choice. There are downsides to my job."
Jazmine laughs again, but shortly. "You're an idiot."
"Keep saying that, and one day I'm going to believe it."
Just . . . shock. Herc feels nothing else, his mind still and empty of anything but a sense of disbelief.
Chuck had gone behind his back, found a girlfriend, gotten her pregnant, attended the birth, and managed to bury all of that in the drift in such a way that he paid it no attention. Achieving that required a lack of some measure of guilt, since a guilty mind would focus on the topic in question. Or perhaps Herc mistook any memories that involved Jazmine as being leftovers from Scott because he had assumed he knew everything his son was up to. And as for not recognizing her, well, Herc had been trying to forget about those memories that he knew weren't his for a long time—before Chuck had died. Dismissing random memories of some girl he definitely didn't know at the time would have been an easy and completely forgettable event.
In the video, Chuck looks down at the baby he's holding—at Jason—and chokes softly. He frees one hand to wipe away the tears running over his cheeks.
Jazmine makes a noise of disgust and says, "You are so fucking adorable!"
He glares, but it lacks real heat. "I better not find this on the internet."
"Fuck no!" is the vehement vow. "Like hell I'm letting the world see you like this! You're mine, you sweet bastard, and I don't share."
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 hadn't been privy to. He'd never imagined the drift could allow something of such import to go unnoticed.
Or maybe it hadn't, and Herc had just avoided it because the flashes of such memories would have made him assume they were his and not something he wanted to revisit during a drop. Because in that case it would have meant seeing his wife again, then seeing the event that killed her again when that memory was triggered as a result.
He can accept the latter possibility more, as it makes far more sense.
"I told you to tell him," is Jazmine's gentle rebuke.
"I know, I know," Chuck acknowledges, miserable. "But . . . I'm nineteen. If he knew about this it'd only stack more stress on top of what he's already staggering under. He'd think he fucked up. And the fact is, we know we're fine. This was an accident, but it wasn't us being stupid."
"Barring 'having any sort of sex out of wedlock' being considered stupid," she points out. "You will tell him soon, right?"
Chuck nods. "Yeah. If he doesn't learn on his own, with the drift and all. I want him to meet you, and I know he'd want to be close to Jason. I just need to figure out how to convince him that I can handle this. If I don't do it right we'll end up arguing, like usual."
It helps to hear that Chuck didn't tell Herc because he wanted to be prepared to explain himself and avoid an argument, not because he hadn't believed his father would tolerate his indiscretion.
Jazmine snorts. "I'd like you to convince me, you know."
He responds with a wounded look. "I said I'd take care of you."
She sighs. "There's more to it than financial support, idiot."
Chuck tightens his hold on baby Jason, but doesn't shout. "I know. And I'll be there. Perhaps not as often as we might like, but once Dad knows maybe you can come live with us—"
"And expose Jason to the cults?" Jazmine interrupts, her voice a whip-crack of aggression.
Chuck closes his mouth.
"I don't abide by that 'I might die, so please have my baby' thing," she snaps. "I heard that enough from the boys in school, or from girls repeating what boys had told them. It's a manipulation tactic, plain and simple. It's also rude, if true, because it ends in abandonment. But this is different. I still don't think it's a good idea, but I'll do it for you. But since I am doing it, I'm going to take it all the way. And I'm telling you right now—I didn't carry this baby for nine months, endure morning sickness and bloating and mood swings, and give birth to him just to watch über-religious twats use him in a ritual sacrifice to the universal unknowns that they fear so.
"You are a target," she reminds him. "Your father is a target. If anyone finds out Jason is your son, he will be a target. I know you don't want that."
Defeated, Chuck nods.
"We can make arrangements," she adds, "but we'll have to be careful. You and your father would have to disguise yourselves every time."
"Da won't like that," Chuck muses, using for Herc the form of address that was at its height when Chuck was still in single digits. It was a subtle leftover from the trauma of Scissure's attack which Chuck had always been embarrassed by, and the fact that he slipped in front of Jazmine yet didn't seem to notice said volumes about how much he trusted her.
"I already have a few ideas," Jazmine says. "I'll take care of the planning. And if your father doesn't like it, that's fine—he doesn't have to participate. But he won't see Jason in person. Ever."
Chuck winces. "I just said he wouldn't like it, not that he wouldn't do it."
"Whatever. That's the alternative. I never intended to have kids, Chuck. Now that I have one, I'm not going to let those nine months of my life be for nothing."
"I get it."
Herc does as well. And approves. He's come to like Jazmine anyway, but knowing that she places such value on a child—on his grandson—strengthens that fondness. Jason may have been unintended, but Chuck's choice in who he would have such an accident with is a good one.
Surprisingly or not, the reality of it is calming.
Because it's Chuck. It's always been Chuck. And with that understanding comes clarity.
Scott certainly chased women of all sorts—he'd never been very picky if they were willing to spread their legs for him. Still, he'd drawn the line firmly at single mothers, because he hadn't cared for children. He hadn't even wanted his own, so he was meticulous about using and disposing of condoms. Which made his fondness for Chuck odd, but Herc had always dismissed it as an "Oh, what a cute toy. Can I play with him for a bit? Okay, you can take him back now" situation. Or it may have just been that Scott hadn't liked young children, which Chuck hadn't been at the time they'd most been around each other. In any case, Jazmine is young and attractive, but Jason's presence would have been a big turn-off. Even at his worst Scott would have just ignored her, because he would never have been the center of her world.
The possessiveness that alarmed Herc so was really in word only; the accompanying feelings are gentle and warm and in hindsight always have been—fierce to him, in his heart, but loving and protective in act. The behaviors of a man who knows what he has and refuses to lose it. While Chuck wasn't in too many relationships—if any, other than the one with Jazmine—he would nevertheless have picked up from Herc the ability to recognize when he had something good.
Then, naturally, because of how he lost his mother, he would want those he loved to be as protected as possible, so he took the precaution of signing his money over to support them even after his death. After that, his drift phantom recognized them and tried to entrust them to Herc. Quickly, too, because it must have been aware of just how close to the edge Herc was, but it pushed so hard the effort had backfired. Almost fatally. And that kind of intensity was always typical of Chuck.
Herc dismissed the influence as being Chuck's because he was well aware of what lay beneath his son's biting exterior—the gentleness most would never guess he had—but that headstrong front was a part of Chuck too. A very valid part.
He turns to Jazmine, still stunned. "That's Chuck . . . That's my son."
She closes the video window and looks at him. Her expression says it all.
"You knew?"
She shakes her head. "Not until the other day. I told you I called my brother and we talked. At first he was really worried about you, so he asked me for whatever information I could offer about your condition. Once I told him everything I knew, he wanted to know about Jason. Of course, it came around to Jason's father. I was able to be more open with Raleigh since I knew his background, so I told him Jason's father had been a ranger. He wanted a name, but all I could give him was Chuck's given name. He showed me pictures." Her chin wobbles and her eyes grow glassy, but she gets it under control. "Raleigh told me you're Chuck's father."
There's so much Herc wants to ask, but he isn't sure he'll be able to actually give voice to the questions, and even if he does he isn't sure he has the brain capacity to process the answers. But one thing does jump to the fore. ". . . You said I didn't know him."
"You don't. Not as a lover," she replies. "Or a father."
True enough. So he says next, "What other videos do you have?"
If she thinks it an odd question compared to a request to see Jason, she doesn't say. She just refocuses on her computer.
The second video he sees—also taken by phone, it seems, as so many videos are in the modern day—shows Jason, a few months old, spread out on a grass-green play blanket.
"I have carpet in my unit," Jazmine murmurs. "We didn't need the damn blanket. But he wanted Jason to have it. Just to nap on, he said. It is much softer. And he got a green one because we didn't take Jason outside much, and he thought we should at least provide a grass substitute." She snorts.
The view pulls back to show Chuck, finally sans hat and sunglasses, on the floor just beyond the blanket's edge. His arms are folded under his chin. He's smiling at Jason, who's flailing slowly on the blanket and apparently trying to cross the distance between them.
When Jason pauses, Chuck chides kindly, "You're going to have to do a little better than that, mate."
As if in response, Jason does more flailing, with more energy. He isn't making much progress, so Chuck crawls forward a little, closing the distance by half. Jason succeeds in traversing the shortened space and reaches out to grab Chuck's face with both hands.
"Da!" he announces, far louder than necessary.
Chuck twitches and rolls onto his side with a theatrical cry of, "Oh, you got me!"
Jason squeals, giggles, and swats his cheek.
"Ow."
Jazmine, presumably the camera handler, laughs.
The video is edited; it skips to show that Chuck, no doubt exhausted by one of Striker Eureka's required watches, has fallen asleep on his side. Jason has also fallen asleep, sprawled over his father's head. Jazmine moves in close to get details of the endearing vision. Chuck's eyes open, and before he even gets out a calm, "Boo," she jumps. He grins. "Gotcha."
"Go back to sleep," she tells him softly.
"I can't. I've tried. My neck hurts too much."
"How long have you been lying there like that?"
Chuck checks his watch. Carefully, so as to not disturb the baby. "'Bout a half-hour, I reckon."
"You should've said something."
"I didn't want to bother him."
Jazmine snorts.
The video skips again. Chuck is sitting upright now, a still-sleeping Jason held against his chest, one hand easily spanning the infant's small back. It makes him look that much more a man, nineteen or not. He's gazing up at Jazmine, but his attention is elsewhere. After a few seconds, he focuses and smiles.
"Having fun, are you?" she prompts.
He simply nods.
"You look like you're thinking about another."
"I think we can handle it," he tells her with confidence.
"Great," she says. "You let me know when you're ready to be pregnant, because I expect to be given some time first to forget how annoying and painful it was to have a parasite swimming around in my gut."
Chuck wrinkles his nose. "That's a horrible thing to say."
"Babies are parasites, you moron. They take life energy from their mothers and give back nothing in return except waste products that have to be disposed of or they poison her blood. They can chemically irritate their mothers' physiology so that the mothers produce more nutrition for them. Everything about them puts stress on their mothers' bodies and provides no return benefit. That is the very definition of a parasitic relationship, according to the scientific community."
"Then why have them?"
"What, did you think orgasms and love have no purpose beyond entertainment?"
Chuck snorts and makes the mistake of saying, "'Love' is just a four-letter word."
Herc wants to reach through the computer monitor and smack the little beast he sired. That isn't the sort of statement a man should use to make himself seem tough or superior, or to counter the very true remark that babies are, scientifically, viewed as perfect parasites. It's also clear—to Herc, anyway—by Chuck's expression, his interest in more children, and his easy use of the word 'we' that he's quite smitten with Jazmine, so making a comment of that sort can pave the way for trouble.
Fortunately, instead of getting angry about it, Jazmine simply says, "Hey, guess what?"
"What?"
"So is 'fuck.'"
Chuck blinks and his brows draw as he attempts to understand her meaning. He fails. ". . . What the hell is that—" Then it clicks, and he gets inappropriately offended. "Oï!"
"Exactly," Jazmine snarls.
He pouts.
"I'm glad you like children. Everyone should have the chance to be with the people they're most like."
"Oï."
"When you employ a double standard, you ignorant bastard, I'm going to call you on it."
"Love and sex are two different things!"
"Not when you're trying to have kids, dickhead! You have no right to bring children into a world devoid of affection! It's the most irresponsible thing a person could do!"
Chuck lowers his head, chastised. "Fine."
"FINE?" That time, Jazmine sounds truly angry. She sets the phone on a countertop, bringing one of her eyes—focused elsewhere, presumably on Chuck—and the top of her head into the shot briefly. "Give me my baby and get your arrogant ass out my door." She leaves the edge of the screen.
"What?" Chuck says, sounding startled. "No!"
"Yes! Give him to me and go!"
"No!"
"Yes! If that's how you're going to talk then you don't deserve a child of your own! If love means nothing to you, then he'll be better off not knowing his father doesn't give a damn about him!"
The confrontation goes on for another minute, with their voices receding a little bit at a time as Chuck gives ground to Jazmine's aggression. Finally, sounding panicked, he admits defeat.
"I'm sorry! All right?! I'm sorry—it was a stupid thing to say! I wasn't thinking! It was a bad joke!"
Silence follows.
"You need to start being very, very careful," Jazmine hisses. "Children take things very literally. You can't go staggering through life hoping that people will tolerate your awkwardness anymore. At the very least, you need to learn to apologize clearly so that a child will understand it."
Chuck's voice is so quiet the phone can't pick it up properly, but it sounds like he's apologizing again.
"Thank you for understanding my concern," Jazmine answers, calm. "I know you can do this, I just wasn't sure you knew you had to start now. Get in some practice."
The video ends there and Herc asks, "You keep that one?"
"I don't want to pretend we had an ideal relationship," Jazmine explains. "It would weaken the intensity of the times that were ideal. And I don't want Jason to think that we did, either. These videos are as much for him as me. I want him to understand that no one is perfect, and that's okay. You can work around it, get past it."
"He held on to Jason the whole time?"
She smiles. "Absolutely would not let go."
She's clearly proud, and Herc understands. Is glad. Jazmine recognizes how important it is that Chuck had clung so tenaciously to Jason and refused to leave—had, in the end, sacrificed his pride and apologized to the point of begging to make up for his error. Some might have called Jazmine's tactic cruel or manipulative, but Herc is intimately familiar with his son's stubbornness; he knows that making Chuck aware of thoughtless statements—and then dragging a genuine apology from him—had more or less required over-the-top responses.
"Another?" she asks.
He nods.
The video she chooses shows Jason clad in a onesie, sitting on his "grass" blanket on the vinyl floor of her kitchen. He's much bigger than in the previous videos—somewhere around a year old. He's playing with a few toys. Quietly, as though he understands the necessity, since Chuck has fallen asleep half on and half off the blanket, one hand clasping one of Jason's toys. He must have attempted to join in but hadn't managed to stay conscious.
Jason looks at him, then says in a voice that's loud in the quiet house, "Dada."
Chuck doesn't so much as twitch.
Jason lifts his left arm, the one nearest Chuck, and throws the toy he has onto his father's head as hard as he possibly can. The toy is made of thin, hollow rubber and squeaks as it bounces off Chuck's cheekbone. Chuck snorts sleepily, startled by the impact but not feeling threatened, and Jazmine laughs.
"Dada!" Jason says again.
Chuck looks, disoriented, from Jazmine to Jason. When he determines the situation isn't critical, he takes the time to stretch. "Whazzit?"
Jason crawls closer to him, and when Chuck lifts his head Jason wraps tiny arms around it.
"Aw," Jazmine croons.
Chuck is similarly charmed, and lets go of Jason's toy to return the hug and press his face gently into his son's abdomen. "Thanks, buddy," he murmurs, voice muffled by the fluffy onesie. "I needed that."
"You should go take a nap," Jazmine advises.
"No!" Jason protests, clearly in distress, obviously thinking the comment had been aimed at him.
Chuck withdraws enough to check his watch. "I guess so . . ." He pulls away from Jason completely and gets to his knees before he reaches for the boy. "Come on, Jay—it's Daddy's naptime too."
"Again," Jazmine puts in.
"Quiet, you," Chuck scolds, without heat. He lifts Jason to his shoulder and gets to his feet, then heads for the hall. Jazmine follows.
Chuck places Jason on the bed in Jazmine's room and the boy grasps at his hand. "Dada!"
Chuck looks at him blankly. "What?"
"He wants you to drag him around on the mattress," Jazmine explains.
"Oh."
So Chuck sits on the bed, takes Jason's hands, and does so. Jason is thrilled and squeals his excitement. But it doesn't last long; Chuck slowly begins to slump and lets out a yawn.
"Okay," Jazmine announces, "fun time over. Naptime now."
Chuck doesn't argue. He uses his grip on Jason to pull the boy close while he tips over onto the mattress. It's as far as he gets. Jazmine is the one who has to lift his legs onto to the bed and cover him and Jason up.
"Wake me in an hour," Chuck mumbles, without opening his eyes. "Want to eat with you. Talk."
"About what?" Jazmine asks, puzzled.
"Anything."
"You should sleep, Chuck."
"You need hugs too."
Jazmine is silent for a bit, then says quietly, "I guess that's true." She runs her hand from his shoulder down his arm to his elbow, which she pats twice. "Fine. Two hours."
Chuck's brows draw as though in disapproval, but he doesn't seem to have the energy to argue.
The video ends there and Herc looks at Jazmine. "Was he normally like that?"
"Oh yes. For the whole first year and a month or so of Jason's life."
"He seemed fine with me."
She snorts. "That's because you were as exhausted as he was and slept just as often and deeply. I'm sure he visited me a lot more than you realize, because he would have left and returned before you ever woke up."
It does coincide with Striker Eureka's launch and fulltime watch, which required far more time and energy than training. Actual jaegers had 'weight' to their operation that simulators didn't or simply couldn't replicate, and long dry runs in the drift meant a larger and longer influx of one's copilot's memories and emotions and whatever else, an occurrence that was irrespective of the initial familiarity between copilots. Typically, heavy sleep followed, which J-science had assumed was the brain's preferred coping mechanism for the psychological exhaustion. It did seem to pass at speeds dependent on compatibility, but always happened.
Still, Herc had gone through that with Scott, before Chuck had even entered the Jaeger Academy. Surely his brain would have been used to the strain and adapted. "I was jockeying long before he was, though."
"It resets with new copilots," she tells him. "Or that's what I have to assume, anyway. When I asked Chuck about what he told you so that you didn't know what he was up to, he said that he didn't have to because most of the time you were asleep. 'Comatose' is the word I recall him using."
Herc blinks. "News to me."
"He got better," Jazmine says. "He did still sleep right after he arrived or right before he left, but it was just a brief nap, and he'd wake up on his own."
"Did you really wake him up?"
"I almost didn't, so I ended up giving him three hours." She sighs. "I wanted to talk to him. At the time, he was giving Jason most of his attention, and I was okay with that—Jason needed him more than I did."
Herc fully understands what she isn't saying; he'd already had it "explained" to him years ago by his less than tolerant wife. "Couples need to make time for each other."
"I was feeling a little . . . disconnected," she admits.
"Left out."
She nods. "Neither of us was really paying the other attention—we were both focused on what was best for Jason because we agreed that his development needed the stability of our devotion. But for me, it got to the point where I felt . . . I felt as though a stranger was walking into my home. I didn't like that. For a long time we barely said a word to each other that didn't involve Jason. We saw each other regularly, and I was glad he was all right, but we were still lonely. When he was more or less recovered from the exhaustion, he'd play hard enough to wear Jason out, and once Jason was asleep we'd put him in his room for a nap and have time for ourselves. He'd spend more time with Jason before leaving. It helped a lot."
Herc feels a sudden streak of anxiety. "Were you all right?"
Jazmine blinks. "I was fine. Why?"
Herc hesitates and explores his distress. When he's confident of the explanation he says, "I think . . . I think Chuck was worried. That you felt neglected."
"Maybe a little, at first," she admits, "but not by the end. Like I told you, he went to a lot of effort to keep our relationship in good shape. The only thing that I would have preferred," she concedes gently, "is the one thing I know he wouldn't have budged on."
Herc figures out she'd probably wanted Chuck to quit being a ranger. After Yancy's death and Raleigh's departure, Jazmine doubtless didn't want to lose anyone else. Still, she'd met Chuck and dared to hold her heart out once more, and fate—if there was such a thing—had firmly trampled her trust into the dirt. It's no wonder she has a few screws loose.
There's a knock on the door. Herc doesn't bother to respond, since there's a big observation window along the same wall; unless he's in the restroom or until after someone says goodnight and turns the ward lights off, he's been careful to not do anything he might regret getting caught at. He's already told Raleigh to not bother knocking, but Raleigh told him it was a courtesy, because isolation room or not, it's still Herc's private space. Herc apparently wasn't able to explain that there is no such thing as privacy when there's a huge window in the wall of his room, and no amount of special consideration is going to change that.
The door opens a moment later and Mako steps in, Jason in arm. Herc's heart flips with excitement, and the feeling seems to be mutual because when Jason sees him the toddler begins to struggle and reach for him.
"Daddy!"
Part of Herc cringes to hear that term directed at him when it doesn't apply. Still, he gets to his feet to take the boy. He has to now, he believes, but there's really nothing alarming about that anymore.
As Mako relinquishes Jason to him, it occurs to him that perhaps Jason doesn't merely assume Herc's his father because Herc is the only man he can remember seeing regularly in Jazmine's unit, but that something about the way Herc's been treating him reminds him of Chuck. Herc's been dwelling on his responses to and treatment of Jazmine, but he knows there were less dramatic moments where he knew things about Jason's wants and needs that he really couldn't have without knowing the toddler for longer than a few months. So perhaps it's those things that made Jason think essentially, "like Daddy, so must be Daddy." Either way, he's going to have to do something about the mistaken identity, but for the moment it's of no concern. In the meantime, he can pretend Jason thinks calling him "Granddaddy" is just too difficult.
Herc looks at Jason with new eyes, sees Chuck in every centimeter of the toddler's tiny face, and in one fell swoop is brought to his metaphorical knees. The tears come, and he can't make them stop.
A few of them are shed in mourning of Chuck's growing up—that there's proof he hadn't been a child for some time. But mostly they're shed in relief and joy that Herc still has someone with whom he shares blood; that Chuck managed to find time to start a family of his own, an experience Herc had not been certain he would ever get the chance to have.
Herc holds Jason against him and revels in the spark of life that is his grandson. For the first time in quite a while, he feels he has something to live for.
Since he was never truly locked inside the isolation room, Herc is able to leave freely when Jason tells his mother that he's hungry. Jazmine offers to take Jason, but Herc—somewhat petulantly, to his surprise—refuses to hand the toddler over. She seems to take it well and instead grabs the photo album. Other than insisting on a quick detour to wash in a restroom, she simply accompanies him to the sparsely populated mess hall, where she grabs two trays and serves herself and him. He follows her to an unoccupied table separated from everyone else so they'll have some privacy, and sits in front of the tray she sets down for him. He settles, arranges Jason in his lap, and proceeds to watch the toddler pick through his food, only intervening if he thinks the boy might be sticking something too big to swallow into his mouth.
"Oh, is that how it is?" Jazmine deadpans as she pushes the photo album out of the potential range of flung food and spilled drinks. "Here, then . . ." She fits their trays together and forks a small quantity of her tray's contents onto Herc's. "That's for him."
Jason shares at least a measure of his father's ambition—it seems like Herc is having to take away every other bit of food and cut it down. So Herc just cuts up the contents of his tray and leaves the kid to it. Satisfied that his grandson won't choke while he isn't looking, he focuses on Jazmine and makes an admittedly vague request as he picks blindly at a portion of his tray where Jason's attention isn't. "Tell me more."
She blinks and cocks her head in thought. After a while, she says, ". . . Well, where should I start?"
The question is probably rhetorical, but Herc knows the answer anyway. One starts at the beginning, for context and clarity. "How did you meet him?"
She nods. "We were at a coffee shop in Sydney, just off the beach. I remember seeing him when he came in—he was angry about something. It was a small place and the tables were full. He looked around, then came to my table, asked if I was waiting for anyone, and when I said I wasn't he sat down."
Herc sighs. It's typical Chuck. He hated it when his space was intruded on but still felt free to intrude on that of others. It was a miracle he even asked if the seat was taken.
"I wasn't in the best place either," she admits. "It was the anniversary of a bad moment in my life—my brother's death. I was already stuck here because I'd been visiting my aunt and her family; a kaiju fell on the house while I was out, killed them, and melted all of my ID. The American consulate wasn't doing a damn thing to help, so I was already less than patient, then that day came around. We both sat there and brooded with our drinks. After about ten minutes, he asked me why I wasn't nagging him. I didn't actually recognize him because I didn't follow the PPDC, but I told him I had concerns more pressing than worrying about some stranger's happiness. I decided to leave and he decided to follow me.
"That first interaction went badly. All we did was argue. But . . ." She shakes her head and looks down at the table. ". . . we kept running into each other during the following weeks. It's odd, but we'd . . . just sit together and not talk. Sometimes we'd comment on some news event, but usually we simply sat there. I had nothing to say to him, and he seemed to be okay with that. After about a month, he asked me out to supper. I told him that I didn't have anything special to wear, so he took me to a fast-food place. We talked a little more, but still nothing like what others might call 'normal.'"
"He was testing you," Herc says, and she refocuses on him.
"Apparently. And that was probably why we kept going to fast-food places when we ate—they're as public as they are informal. The fourth or fifth time we ate out, a bunch of tweens came over and asked for his autograph. The way they were squealing made the source of his fame clear, though I never heard his full name. He humored them, then gave me this look." She snorts. "He was disappointed by my lack of interest until I explained that both my brothers had been rangers, so the novelty had worn off long before I'd met him."
She tilts her head. "Our relationship took off after that, comparatively. We still hardly talked, but we both understood each other better." Her head dips slightly as her gaze drops once more. "Rangers are people, so they like company, but sometimes, in my experience, they just need the world to stop for a while and let them work things out. I guess I satisfied that need for him.
"That's why I didn't make the connection between you and him," she says as she looks at him again. "We didn't ask about each other's lives. He never learned my family's names or even what part of America I come from, and I didn't interview him like every other idiot has. I knew him by his given name, and that was all. We got along fine as we were—it just wasn't important."
Herc can accept that, even if he's not sure he understands it. Chuck had been quiet, for all his shouting and bluster in public. Most people—people who had not spent a lot of time around him, whom he hadn't felt comfortable around—would not know that. "And Jason?"
"An accident," she admits. "I wasn't on birth control because I couldn't afford it—I don't qualify for the Australian healthcare system—and his visits were so infrequent that it wasn't worth budgeting for. He was using condoms, but . . . one of them didn't last the whole game." She scowls at the far wall. "The dickhead didn't tell me that until after I'd had a meltdown about it, wondering if I was one of those people who has sex while they sleep and had let a total stranger get me pregnant. Asshole."
She sighs through her nose and adds, "I wasn't ready for a baby. We'd known each other for about two years by then, so it wasn't him—it was that I'd just started my business and wanted time and space to work and get an empire going. Get some money saved up for a few rainy days. But it is a work-from-home job, so overhead is low and profit is high, and when he asked me to keep Jason and promised to take care of us as long as he lived so I could save my money like I wanted . . ." She drops her head and groans. "I am the sappiest sap EVER."
That worries Herc. "He didn't?"
She smiles, faint and bittersweet. "No, he definitely did."
Herc feels a wash of relief. It was always difficult to tell which parts of Chuck's existence were stagnated by the trauma of losing his mother and what parts had found a way to mature.
"He'd tell me when he had leave coming up so I could keep my schedule clear and we could spend some time together. Jason managed to hang on for him—held out a week past my due date just so he could be there for us." Her smile strengthens and she looks into Herc's eyes. "He was a good father. Always interested. I thought at first that the novelty would wear off and I'd find myself the sole caretaker of his guilty conscience, but . . . he was there. In fact, if I mentioned Jason getting a checkup and he was about to go on leave, he'd insist that I reschedule it so he could go along."
Herc frowns slightly and shakes his head. "I can't believe this never made it into the media."
She chuckles. "Neither of us wanted things aired out, so we agreed I'd be his cousin. He was tagging along for support. Since he wasn't always with us for every doctor's visit or trip out, it worked."
Still, Herc would have thought Chuck's 'cousin' would have been brought to his attention by one journalist or another. "Even when Jason was born?"
"We were very close cousins. When my boyfriend bailed on me after discovering my pregnancy, it was my favorite cousin who kept my chin up."
That makes more sense, but . . . "I would've thought anyone associated with him would be harassed."
"Well, he disguised himself physically also," Jazmine said. "Contacts to make his eyes brown, the Yankees ball cap, clothes unlike his normal wardrobe, and an American accent allowed him to go unnoticed. It was an awful accent, honestly, but I figure only an American or a linguist—or a high-quality actor—would have noticed. Being his cousin was the last line of defense, just in case. I mean, any idiot could understand why he might want to be in disguise sometimes."
Jazmine reaches out to the album and flips through a few big pages. "Here," she says. "These are all him. I like my space as much as he did, so if I'm cuddling with some guy who doesn't look like him but who has an arm around me, it's him. We didn't let anyone else hold Jason, either, so those would be him too."
Herc looks at the pictures with wiser eyes. Even knowing that they're Chuck, he initially has a hard time picking out his son. He just can't reconcile Chuck's blue eyes and military-chic wardrobe with the über-casual jeans and printed tee-shirts the brown-eyed young man in the pictures is wearing. "I suppose you dressed him?"
"I had to. He initially insisted on choosing his own American wardrobe. Out of curiosity, I let him. God. Fortunately, I was with him at the time, so he didn't waste his money." She shakes her head. "You know, it stuns me, the way the world can assume that all Americans are filthy rich, but when asked how we dress will consistently pick out coveralls and wife-beaters. Or sweats." She snorts. "Imagine his surprise to discover that most Americans his age dress approximately the same way most Australians his age dress."
Well, she's definitely American, to worry so much about what the world thinks of her, right or wrong. And Herc seriously doubts such a large quantity of people give a damn about how Americans dress; Chuck certainly never had, which explained his unpreparedness, and his pride would have made him resist asking for advice. "I don't think anyone puts that much thought into it," he tells her, and is certain of that, at least.
Finally, Herc starts seeing his son in the photos. It requires the intimate knowledge, however, gained from watching him grow up and sharing a home with him. Herc first recognizes facial structure; he hasn't seen Chuck smile so much since his wife's death, so expression fails to be a clue in most of the pictures. After that it's the way the young man carries himself—an even stance, battle-ready, but a little hard to see because Jazmine's stance is in a similar balance, so his looks less out of place. When he's without the ball cap, Herc instantly recognizes him by the style of his hair. Profile is another hint.
Herc stares at each image, burns them into his memory. It's been so long since he's seen Chuck . . . He's gone to so much effort to avoid any visual reminder . . . And those smiles are a side of Chuck he'd rarely seen. He's seeing his son again, but also seeing his son as a father. A wonderful father, too—doubtless more affectionate than Herc had been with him. But there's one thing he doesn't understand.
"Why didn't you ever come find me?"
Jazmine blinks and her eyes grow slightly glassy with a thin sheen of tears. "I heard the Breach had been sealed and I thought he'd come home. Then I heard he'd died and Striker Eureka had been completely destroyed and . . . He'd told me once that you and he were copilots, so when I heard about the jaeger I assumed you'd died too. I did everything I could to avoid news about the PPDC after that. If I'd known you were alive I would've contacted you ages ago."
Herc shakes his head as reality reminds him of its presence. "I don't know that I would've believed you, now that I think of it. When I got back here, there were dozens of girls your age telling me they were Chuck's wife or girlfriend. Half of them had kids. You would've been just one more of the lot."
It was a nightmare. Obviously hoping to be taken at their words without Chuck present to confirm or deny their stories, women descended on Herc in a swarm of tears and pleas for money. He'd possessed the benefit, however, of knowing Chuck better than them—that his son had been far too exhausted and introverted to be a partier or Casanova, despite the front the kid routinely put up and the habits of more extroverted rangers. Herc felt for the ones who may have truly needed the financial support, but had refused to go to the trouble of picking out one to care for; he hadn't been even marginally certain of his own future then, suicide still as prominent in his thoughts as it had been in Hong Kong.
Instead, his lawyer friend Darryl rushed to his rescue, cheerfully taking down personal information and then assuring the young women that someone would be in contact to arrange for a paternity test. The worst of that mess dried up quite quickly then, but part of the reason Herc moved out of his home had been to get away from the letters begging for help or threatening legal action and name-smearing if he didn't send checks to various post office boxes, which were—conveniently for the accusers—more difficult to trace than a physical address.
Jazmine shrugs. "A paternity test would've proven your connection to Jason."
For him to escape the liars only to end up moving in next to the girl who was his son's real love . . . Either Chuck or God Himself had been fiddling with those wires. "I wouldn't have wasted my time."
She smiles wanly. "You would've if I'd gone to court and publicly accused you of fathering my child and abandoning us."
Herc blinks.
"You think I hadn't considered that?" She snorts. "Chuck kept putting off telling you—I suppose hoping you'd pick it up in the drift and mention it so he didn't have to—so I made plans for that. Even if he'd lived, I knew a thousand women would come screaming for him. And if he'd died and you'd survived, you'd be suspicious of me, and rightfully so. A paternity test would solve the problem. If you were resistant, I'd force the issue legally. Not to get money from you, but to let you know. Chuck took care of Jason and me like he promised, and between what I was able to save and the fact that the world isn't going to end, business is looking good. If I continue to not buy what we don't need, there will be enough saved to ensure that Jason gets a good start in life."
Something that his mind glossed over an hour ago finally clicks into place. ". . . Chuck's money . . . Is your attorney Evelyn Callaghan?"
Jazmine nodded. "I wasn't sure I was going to take it, but when his death was confirmed I figured you were gone too, like I said. I decided I should grab it before it was gobbled up by taxes or inactivity fees or something. If I'd known you were alive I wouldn't have touched it."
Herc shakes his head. "I don't need the money like you do. I don't have your expenses, and without a child to look after there are plenty of opportunities for jobs. If you need anything—"
"I don't need anything from you." Jazmine's gaze is steady. "Is that clear? Jason is your grandson and you are free to dote on him, but I will never ask for anything that I'm not willing to repay you for. I am an adult and I was raised to see to my own needs. Jason's existence is between me and Chuck, and your participation in his life is always up to you."
"I want to be here," Herc says immediately. He doesn't need to think about it.
He's lost his wife. He's lost his brother. He's lost his son. Jason is the only one left.
Jazmine nods and gets to her feet to take up her empty tray. Herc stares at her stomach as it comes more or less into his line of sight, and as she passes him he catches her hand to hold her still. A lump wedges in his throat. He pulls her closer, wraps his arms around her no longer trim waist, and rests his head against her swollen abdomen. He doesn't care who's in the mess hall to witness it. He doesn't care because Jason is not the only one left. There's one more to think of. To plan for.
Another little boy, or perhaps a little girl.
In an effort to seem unbiased, a lot of people swear they just want a healthy baby even when they do want a boy to carry on the family name or a girl they can dress up like a living doll. As a young man Herc never put a lot of thought into children, assuming he'd get around to having them eventually and that he'd worry about sexes at that time, if it ever came up. Then Chuck came along and Herc was overwhelmed by the simple fact of the presence of the tiny creature he had helped create. But in retrospect he can admit to anyone that yes, he'd wanted a boy more than a girl—at least for one round—mainly because he'd felt he would associate better that way. And that was fine.
At this moment, however, with his only child gone, the sexes of his grandchildren matter less than not at all. He really does just want them healthy, because they're two of a kind—their father is dead and there will never be any more like them. In one awful moment they'd become amongst the rarest of breeds, and what's important going forward is sustaining that uniqueness, in whatever form it comes.
To Be Continued in . . . Chapter 5 – The Father's Memories
His conviction soothes Chuck's drift phantom. It unfurls a little and comes forward, and draws his attention to a folder labeled simply 'New Folder.' It had never been named, so Herc had initially ignored it. But now he clicks it open and finds a single video file.
'Dad'
Herc doesn't want to open it. It's been one thing to watch videos where Chuck is focused on other people, behaving unusually enough that Herc can immerse himself in a side of his son he's never met and put aside the fact that Chuck is dead. But a file addressed to him can't possibly mean anything good, if only in the context of Herc's heart and remaining sanity.
Perhaps nudged by Chuck's drift phantom, Herc clicks the file open anyway.
Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:
… except among obnoxiously over-patriotic bogans …
A bogan is, in essence, white trash. By and large, the same stereotypes apply.
—
If you find this fic to be somewhat fine, please take the time to drop me a line!
~RN (LS)