AN: I'm not dead, real life just got crazy for a bit. We will now return to our regular updating schedule, I promise. As always, thank you to the reviewers and remember, requests are always open.
Jaclyn DeLage was a woman with fire in her blue eyes.
She did not live an orthodox life or have any particular desire to. She went into ghost hunting despite the disapproval of her conservative parents, and despite the fact they would have spoiled her with anything else she requested. They were doting, they were sweet, they were saccharine in their treatment of their baby girl. For her they would have done anything, given her anything within their power to buy, gotten her a tutor for anything she wanted to learn, and let her live a life of luxury. There was only one thing that was forbidden to Jaclyn: freedom, the freedom to fail, to fall, to make real choices, to be her own person. They fought fiercely with her, but in the end she ran off.
She didn't run off to find love, it just so happened she met a man who cut her no slack whatsoever and that was wonderful to her. He didn't treat her as delicate, he didn't give her any special treatment for being female, and he didn't seem to care about any one person more than another. He called her Jackie as a derogatory term and she took it up with a pride that baffled him utterly. His name was Vincent, and he was cold as she was on hot, but she knew deep down he had a passion for his projects. She wouldn't have followed him to the top of the world otherwise.
It was their arguments that made her love him, because no matter what he said, if he argued he cared. Anger, to her, wasn't the sign of a bad person or an immature person. Anger was passion, it was disdain for what was wrong, it was the fuel to standing up for what you believed in. To her, every insult people threw at her was taken as a sign they gave a damn about her and wanted her to make it out of the ghost hunting field alive. Though talented and intuitive, she was new. She was easily far and away the youngest person on Vincent's team, and many questioned the logic of letting the pixie-haired spitfire onto their team at all. Jaclyn relished having a chance to prove herself, and people to prove herself to. She wanted to show the world she wasn't just a spoiled kid, she was a serious ghost hunter, and after four hours of yelling, talking and trading barbs with Vincent, she eventually wore him down. He let her on the team and she jumped forward to hug him. Given he'd just told her she would at least be useful as a pack mule, there was something of an awkward silence on his end afterwards, but Jackie didn't notice.
In spite of her rookie status, however, it was her fire that kept them going when Quttinirpaaq turned into a bloodbath, a dark symphony of ghosts, bodies and ice played out before an audience too scared to move. Her cerulean blue eyes were alive and angry, fierce, determined, and only grew more so as things went further and further downhill. Jackie was the one who rallied the troops, so to speak. She made speeches. She kept morale from tanking. She was the one who slapped Vincent to talk sense into him. And when they were in the absolute worst of it, he laid down beside her and curled up against her for comfort, the navy blue of her coat the only familiar thing left in the world. He soon learned to shut his eyes and recall the suede smell of it, learned to look into her eyes before making a decision, and knew he had to press on because she was pressing on. Their relationship was the least romantic thing in the world, defined totally in silences and arguments, in moments of desperation and pain. But it was theirs, and she wouldn't have traded it or left him for anything in the world.
Things were bad, but they were not all encompassing or defining, not to her. She kept at her insane theory on catching a ghost, the old one she'd gotten from folk tales, which none of them believed in or could shoot down anymore. Vincent let her go pursue it since his own methods had failed, a horrifying failure he'd never recover from, all of them huddling in a miserable cavern of ice. He would remember for years her hands shaking from the cold as she worked with bright blue kyanite, hollowing out the large gemstone, making a smooth hollow orb inside it. Only when her fingers turned blue did she stop, when everyone agreed it was too much. More than once she warmed her hands up in Vincent's pockets, prompting him to wrap his arms around her. Her boldness didn't bother anyone, especially as time passed, when spirits ran low and there was nothing left to do but hope and try to survive.
The energy released from the kyanite when it came crashing down on a ghost was blue, electric blue, like lightning, a stark contrast to her own warm eyes, but in the reflection of light on her face there was an anger, a fire, a willpower to keep going that scared the other ghosts. When the little orb fell to the ground with one of their own inside it, they fled, and when she took the ghost with her they went undisturbed the entire way home. She walked with a queen's presence through the snow and sleet, sending ghosts scampering back at this human who had power over them. Under the blue light of the moon on the snow, the pitiful remainders of the team made their way back home. They stopped in Iqaluit on the way back, where Vincent bought her an extra blanket, eyes lingering meaningfully on her midsection. They had only a few moments alone with each other, but in that terribly ironic way life had, in the midst of death and ghosts they had conceived life.
Her wedding was attended by her tearful parents, Vincent's aging family, and a ring he refused to show her until the day of the wedding itself. It was bright blue with orange edges, a flarepoint kyanite ring. She could've slapped him for the ham handed symbolism.
Instead, she grabbed him by the collar and kissed him before he'd finished saying 'I do'.