A/N: Thanks for reviewing, everybody! This chapter is my salvation from a work-filled day. Curse ye, GCSEs! I hope you like this chapter, I think its the beginning of a beautiful friendship...
P.S. Don't tell anybody, but I have plans for Pauliestiltskin sequels. If anybody cares. Teehee!
"Jesse!"
I banged on the door with my fist till it gleamed raw red. And then I pounded some more.
"Jesse! Open the door now or I swear to God I will kick the goddamn door down!"
I released a roar of anguish and kicked the door for good measure, before doubling over and leaning against the wall opposite number 237. After the revelation that was the article, I'd driven at top speed all the way back to Carmel to interrogate Jesse. I'd only stopped for breath to wake up Kelly from her irritable slumber and ask where he lived.
And where he did live was a while out of the way from where I'd ever been before. I doubted that even Brad or Jake, life-long residents of Northern California, had even ventured this far out of town. It was a place mostly covered by smog, as if the fog rolling in from the bay never quite left, and there were dodgy looking guys on every street corner. I'd made sure I had a firm grasp on my pepper spray before leaving the car.
I stood now in an apartment block deep in the heart of this strange, sprawling neighbourhood. There was a rude message scrawled in indelible ink to my left, the dulcet tones of a heavy hip-hop pulsating from underneath me, and from somewhere in the building, a baby was wailing at top volume. Maybe Jesse hadn't heard my caterwauling.
Or maybe he was just trying to avoid me.
"Jess-" I had raised my fist to slam on the door one final time, before it swung open and I nearly landed flat on my face. But it wasn't Jesse who had opened it. Sure, she looked like Jesse, but she was smaller than even I was, with long dark hair and deep shadows beneath her black eyes. She sighed, and shifted the weight of the baby in her arms. It grizzled.
I felt myself soften immediately, despite the anger that was bubbling uncontrollably inside me. She could only be my age, yet the baby was unmistakably hers. I opened my mouth to say something, but she beat me to it.
"Hector is coming now." Her voice was barely a whisper; a quiet, exhausted, whisper.
Hector?
I was debating whether I had gotten the wrong apartment after all when he appeared at the door; strong, muscular arms holding the door open over his sister's head. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, before nudging her back inside.
"Do not worry, querida," he said, softly. "I will take care of this."
Querida? That sounded vaguely like what he had called me, back before he had been mad with me. Something inside of me ached for that time.
He closed the door with a click, and with an exasperated sigh crossed his arms over his chest. "Listen, Susannah, if this is about what I think it is-"
The reminder caused another fresh, hot wave of fury to sweep over me, and I angrily jabbed a finger at his chest. "You asshole! You completely and utterly humiliated-" I reached to scram at him, claw at his face, his chest, anything I could reach and anything I could mar. But his arms formed a cage around me and held me stuck to the ground. I couldn't move, so I stayed there till the rage subsided slightly, and slid out of his now limp grip.
"Please," he whispered, and I noticed that his voice was as worn out as his sister's. "Please, let me explain."
"Let you explain why you fabricated a complete lie for the tabloids?" I snarled. "Oh, I wonder why. This is your kind of sick revenge for rejecting you the other night in the car, I get it. This is totally my fault for letting Paul walk all over me and I should be thanking you for ruining my life and my career-"
"Susannah." To my surprise, he placed a single finger over my lip and silenced me completely. "This has nothing to do with you, or what happened last night. This is about my family."
"Your family." I repeated his words lifelessly as the image of his poor, tired sister came back to me. It was a small apartment, I could see that much from the sliver of space she had opened the door up to me. How many other relatives did he have in there?
"Yes," Jesse replied, and he looked at me pleadingly. I inhaled deeply, and ground my teeth.
"Fine," I said, eventually. "Tell me everything."
-x-
"And so," Jesse concluded, as I sat frozen on the park bench we were both sitting on. "Without my mother or father, where else could we go? And with Marta's baby on the way we had to find somewhere to live fast. Our apartment we have now is on a monthly contract, and I'm hard pushed to scrape the money together each month for our rent. In fact, it's only due to our grandparents' trust fund – for education only – that I can get them to school each day."
I sighed, tightening my grip around his fingers. I don't know when I'd taken hold of his hand, or when he'd slipped his jacket around my shoulders, but every bit of anger I had felt towards him and that article had ebbed away completely. Though it had been cowardly and unjust what he had done to me, it had only been to provide for his family – for himself as well as his five sisters. Marta, his eldest sister, had racked up hospital bills during her pregnancy, which only added to his debt. It was like a clichéd on-the-streets novel. But I knew now that Jesse only wished it could disappear with the rub of an eraser.
"Jesse," I said, softly, as he squeezed my hand back. "I'm so sorry I didn't understand. Why didn't you say anything sooner? We could have… I could have…"
"Could have what, querida?" he questioned, when words failed me. "Money does not grow on trees. I have no-one to turn to, to ask money from. Your account barely has enough for a pair of shoes," he added, when I'd opened my mouth to interrupt. He grinned mirthlessly. "Whilst you are Number One you are not yet exactly rolling in it, Susannah."
I sighed, and held him tighter. "We'll figure something out, Jesse," I said. "Maybe Paul knows a bank that can help you with loans, or something." I didn't miss his grimace when I mentioned Paul's name. "Maybe even another tabloid interview." I laughed humourlessly.
"I don't expect anything from you, Susannah," he said, and he dropped my fingers like they were on fire. "Except another Number One single, you know." He smiled, the first warm smile I'd seen since he'd re-emerged in L.A. "Josefina loves you. I'm sure some of the money from the housekeeping jar has been stolen to buy your latest single."
"I'm sorry," I said again, but he held up a hand to silence me.
"Thank you for coming down to see me, querida," he said, and he patted my arm affectionately. "Even if it was to verbally abuse me." I couldn't help but smile then. "We're friends, si?" I nodded. He was the only friend I had now. I hadn't seen Cee Cee or Adam since I'd left Carmel all those weeks ago.
"Good." He kissed the top of my forehead. "I shouldn't have gone to the paparazzi like that, Susannah, I know that. I was just desperate." I shrugged.
"Paul will sort it out." With a pang I suddenly remembered him, all the way back in L.A, and found with some surprise that I missed him, even after the slap he had given me for stupidity. "Speaking of, I should probably get back."
"I will be waiting," he said, and I turned to look at him with some confusion. "For your next single, I mean," he clarified, and I laughed. "Come back and visit sometime, querida. I don't think I'll be able to afford any more freedom visits to L.A. for a while."
That stopped me as I began to get up. "Why were you in L.A to begin with?" I demanded, and he tapped his nose knowingly.
"To see you," he said, simply, though something told me he was lying. "And to get your autograph for Josefina, of course," he added, with a satirical grin. I signed the notepad he handed me with a flourish, before poking my tongue out at him as an afterthought.
"I'll see you soon, Jesse," I said. "Look after yourself."
"Oh, I will."
"Soon?" I was more hopeful than I'd realised.
He stood so he was face-to-face with me. "Sooner than you think," he answered, cryptically.
And then he was gone.