Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of CBS and are only used for fan related purposes.
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Ghost of Jealousy
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Jimmy Mance doesn't remember making the conscious decision to leave Harper's Island behind him forever. When he climbed into the rescue boat alongside her, he just knew that he had to get away—and as long as he was with Abby Mills, it didn't matter where he went.
What happens after he first leaves seems to pass him by in a blur. The rescue, the flashes from countless photographers' cameras, the presence of the police, the endless, incessant questions… it takes its toll on the two of them, reliving the horror over and over again, pretending it's by some miracle that they even survived. He doesn't know which of them, him or Abby, is more relieved when they're finally free to leave Seattle—and Harper's Island—behind them for good.
He follows her home without an invitation because he can't imagine the alternative; she makes room in her studio apartment and introduces him to her cat because it never occurred to her that he wouldn't stay.
No one is expected to sleep on the couch now.
From the shock and the numbness to the pain and the sorrow and the grief that follows, they stay together, each strong in their own way, while the weight of their experiences threaten to crush them both. Somehow they stay together, Abby alternately clinging to him and pushing him away as she works to come to grips with the horrible events of her return to Harper's Island. Jimmy, far too nice and much too in love to let her get away from him again, holds her tight and lets her cry and scream and be absolutely silent when she needs to be.
Before long, things begin to go back to the way they were… except undeniably different. They're normal again—or, as normal as they can be following such tragedy—and Jimmy can almost convince himself that some good has come out of everything terrible that happened.
Sometimes even Abby is her old self again. She smiles and she laughs, she kisses and she loves him. They reminisce over good times, and the plan ahead for what's to come. Days go by where she doesn't mention her dad, or Harper's Island, or the week that nearly killed them both. It's almost as if they're… well, not moving on, but surviving.
Surviving is a good word for what they're doing.
But, for all the times she slips and she'll tell a funny story about something Sully did while drunk at a party, or talk about the way her father used to be so suspicious of Jimmy's intentions, or even when she wonders out loud how things are going back home, he sees it break her inside all the more. It's easy to pretend but he's not fooled; the damage spreads, the cracks widen and Abby just shuts down again.
It's like the first time. But she's not running to Los Angeles to escape the memories, escaping him—she's with him, even when she's not. Dwelling on the past isn't helping her, though, and it's definitely not helping him, either.
He tries to get her to open up to him, to talk to him about it, and he succeeds for the most part. Slowly but surely, Abby mentions her old friends with a smile and not a tear; she mentions her dad with pride and not guilt. But, no matter what Jimmy does, she refuses to bring up one of her greatest losses.
She doesn't have to talk about him. He knows Henry Dunn is never far from her thoughts.
He's always haunting her.
And Jimmy wonders: how can he compete with a ghost?
For all the times when she's able to forget, there are times when she can't help but remember.
It all rushes back, hitting her when she least expects it. Little things serve as reminders and he pretends not to notice when he wakes up one morning and half of her belongings—photos, cards, knickknacks and the like—are bagged up and ready for the trash.
Sometimes she's angry, and deservedly so. She's bitter and resentful, blaming anyone and everyone for her traumas. She blames Wakefield for the deaths of her mom and her dad, for her friends and for what he did to Henry. She blames Henry for his actions, for his secrets and for things that cut her so deep she refuses to confide in even Jimmy. She blames herself, though, most of all. If it wasn't for her, if it wasn't for her return to Harper's Island, none of that would have happened.
Nothing Jimmy says can ever sway her mind from that certainty.
Sometimes she's confused. She doesn't understand where Henry's anger and desire to kill came from, or how Wakefield knew how to find his son. She doesn't understand why Henry turned against his entire family and friends in the end, or why he needed to stage an elaborate (and false) wedding on the island.
She doesn't understand why everybody had to die…
Sometimes she's so guilt stricken over everything that Jimmy wishes necromancy is an option just so he could have the personal satisfaction of killing Wakefield and Henry himself for what their memories were doing to Abby. She keeps her emotions bottled up and inside but he sees what the reoccurrences of guilt does to her. Those are the days when she withdraws, throwing herself into her work and her writing; she doesn't sleep and the dark bags under her dark eyes stand out against her pale skin.
Those are the days when she looks dead herself.
And then sometimes… sometimes she's just grieving for the best friend she's lost.
And Jimmy wonders: how can he compete with a memory?
In time Abby starts to get better, the good new days all the more frequent as the two of them (and the cat) make a content life for themselves. But she's not completely healed. Like a porcelain figure that has been dropped and carefully glued back together, there are still plenty of cracks—some small and some much more noticeable—when held up to the light.
Abby is that porcelain figure. Always assuming she was safe in Henry's hands, she trusted him implicitly until his betrayal was akin to his dropping her. Jimmy wasn't there to catch her as she fell but he's happy to serve as the glue that keeps her together, the force behind her becoming whole again.
Sometimes his mind thinks back to that day in the garage, on the last day of Henry's life. He remembers the rage when Abby kissed him, the indescribable fury that Henry showed as he hastily pulled her away before knocking her to the ground. Abby had defiantly told him that she loved him—him, Jimmy—and Henry's reaction was telling.
Even now, as Jimmy watches her tear herself into two over her feelings for him and Henry, he has to worry who of the two was always the more jealous. He never understood Henry's last actions, or the last words that he fears still echo in Abby's head, and he doubts he ever will.
He refuses to ask her.
She still refuses to talk about Henry, and Jimmy is pretty sure he understands. He doesn't like it, but he understands all the same.
A handful of days when she saw Henry for who he really was isn't enough for her to completely forget who she thought he was; she can't forget all the good times they had, as children and as adults, or the bond they forged from childhood. She knows what he thinks his motives for the second rampage were—he told her himself—but still she finds herself unable to believe them.
Jimmy thinks it's a mix of denial and shock that lingers even now because, in ways he can't explain, he knows deep down that Abby still loves Henry. Not the way she loves him, and there's pity and an overwhelming guilt mixed in with the affection now, but it's love all the same.
There's no denying that her guilt at having accidentally/on purpose—she doesn't know, or refuses to admit, even to him—killed Henry affects her more than almost everything else. She hides it well but he sees the way she avoids using a knife, the careful way she cuts anything when she has to, as if she expects blood to ooze out from anywhere the steel edge touches.
Sometimes she turns away from him, guilty and ashamed and oh so broken inside.
And Jimmy wonders: how can he compete with her sacrifice?
He's lost a lot, too. From Shane to Nikki, Kelly to even Charlie Mills, Jimmy mourns his losses but he doesn't allow himself to be consumed by them. He saves that for his irrational jealousy of a dead man.
Sometimes, when she sits there quiet and reserved and so very alone, he's troubled by where her thoughts stray. He just wants to grab hold of her and shake her and remind her that her best friend is responsible for the death of his best friend. That he's still here, that he loves her and that he wants her to just forget all about Henry Dunn.
But he doesn't. He can't.
One look at how fragile she is under the tough façade she's trying to portray—he's still not fooled, not even a little bit—and he just can't do anything to make her feel any pain. She's been through too much, they both have, and he accepts that as he finally accepts the truth: no matter what, Henry is still a part of Abby. Nothing can change that anymore than it can change the fact that Henry and Wakefield led a massacre on his island that ended with twenty-nine people dead.
As far as he's concerned, the part of Abby that still grieves for Henry is just another thing that Henry has stolen away from Jimmy.
But, he tells himself, part of Abby hates Henry, too. She hates him more than Jimmy hates Henry, or she hates Wakefield. It's that part he clings to—it belongs to him as much as it doesn't belong to Henry, and he treasures it. It's something that Henry can't have—dead and gone, he can't stop that part of her from hating him.
Still, Henry killed for her. He died for her. And all Jimmy has to show for his devotion during those few terrifying days is a scar that won't fade and an overwhelming survivor's guilt.
And Jimmy wonders: how can he compete with a killer?
He can't. He won't.
And, as Abby crawls into bed beside him and wraps her arms around him in the night, Jimmy knows he'll never have to.
Author's Note: I thought it might be interesting to explore the aftermath of the finale in this short fic. After everything that happened to her, I could just see Abby struggling, especially considering how strong she was throughout the whole ordeal. On the plus side -- as jealous as I'd expect any rational person to be -- she does have Jimmy to support her. I like to think that that's enough for her.
Of course, delving into a scenario that is set after the fact, I realized that this idea is something I could really run with. Since working on this piece, I've had little snippets of scenes and settings after Abby and Jimmy return to the mainland. I guess, what I'm saying here is this: would you guys be interested in reading a longer detailed fic based on that? I've seen quite a few popping up here -- I'm waiting to check those out until I decide what to do in the future with mine -- and I'm thinking it might be... well, fun. Who knows?