The Permanent Efficacy of Grace

14.

Jacob thinks he's doing pretty fucking well with this, all things considered. For the first fifteen minutes, at least, he's been a goddamn saint.

As time passes, though, he feels his nerves fraying. He and Faith linger in the courtyard outside of the church, banished like kids at Thanksgiving, and Faith is posted up just outside the door, like if she leaves it unguarded then he'll try to barge back in. He's not going to do that, of course. Everyone in there wanted him out, so he's staying out.

He's killing time by pacing the width of the courtyard, back and forth, to the dog cages then to the lakeshore, back and forth. As fifteen minutes trickles into twenty and he doesn't hear a peep from the church, the agitation gets to be a little much to bear, and he retreats even further away, finding a battered bench at the far end of the courtyard and just barely sitting on its edge as he digs in his breast pocket for the pack of smokes he knew he'd end up needing today.

He's using his mouth to pull a cigarette out of the pack when a motion catches his eye, and he freezes, tracking the movement. Kids. Three of them, peeking at him from behind the edge of the gate that sections the church area off from the rest of the compound. He'd noticed the absence of children earlier, but just thought it was Joseph being over-cautious, sending them away—seems instead like he'd just told everyone to keep their heads down for the Deputy's visit.

The kids shy back at his gaze, all but one, who takes a bold step out from their little hiding spot. Jacob frowns. Normally he can just ignore any kids nearby, but right this second, he doesn't have his usual deniability, what with the eye contact. The kid looks… well, Jacob doesn't have any frame of reference for kid ages these days, maybe forty years ago he could have guessed how old this kid is but at this point in his life he's got no clue. Twelve, maybe? He doesn't look old enough to fight.

Jacob stares at the kid. The kid stares at Jacob. For lack of a better idea of how to break this little stalemate, Jacob flicks the lid open on his pack of cigarettes and holds it out to the kid in silent offer.

The kid's expression shifts into eagerness, and he takes another step, reaching out towards the cigarettes, when Faith swoops down on him in a cloud of Bliss-scent and disapproval. "O-kay," she says, shepherding the kid away, though not without shooting a quick glare at Jacob over her shoulder. "I think some of you should be attending lessons at this time of day."

There are piping little voices rising in protest, but she's a hard woman to argue with, and they're headed away from the church before they know what's happening. Jacob chuckles, finding his lighter in his other pocket and lighting up as he settles back against the bench.

Faith comes back to stand in front of him, hands on her hips, scowling in disapproval. Jacob raises his eyebrows in a defiant display of false innocence. "You know," she says, "it's bad enough that you smoke those horrible things yourself. Do you have to corrupt the children too?"

Jacob exhales a little fog of smoke with a hiss. "Ah, that kid was old enough to know what he wants."

"That kid was maybe eight."

Oof. He's rustier than he'd thought. He shrugs it off anyway, feeling a little calmer with the nicotine in his system. Despite her expressed distaste towards his habits, she takes a seat on the bench next to him, perching on the edge like a little bird, and he eyes her warily. When Faith zeroes in on him, it usually means she's going to try to make him talk about something he'd rather keep quiet. Sure enough:

"Soooo," she says.

He's not exactly in a chatty mood. The temporary distraction is over, and he glances back over at the church even as he straightens upright restlessly again.

How long could this possibly take?

"What do you think?" Faith prods him when he doesn't volunteer conversation on his own.

"What do I think about what?" he asks, irritated, still watching the church.

"The deal."

"What deal?"

Faith huffs out a quick little sigh of impatience. "Letting the deputies go."

Jacob shoots her a slightly irritated glance, because frankly, that shit is the last thing he's concerned about right now—but then, it's a distraction, at least. He tells her the honest truth: "If he's letting three cops and a US marshal escape the county, then he's damn sure of himself."

"Well, of course he is." In Faith's light tone, he thinks he hears a faint touch of reproach, par for the course when anyone suggests to her that Joseph might not be a hundred percent right about everything.

Before he can do more than release a cloud of smoke from his nostrils, a scream rips through the unnaturally quiet compound. It's coming from the church, and Jacob is on his feet in a split second, flinging the cigarette away and charging towards the building.

Or, at least, trying to. Faith's faster than he is, and is in his way before he makes it two steps. He goes left, she blocks his path. He goes right, she blocks him there too. It's hard to act like a person with the tide of anger building in his chest, but he makes an effort, looking down at her and snarling, "Move."

"No," she says, and when he thinks fuck it and moves forward, willing to run her over, she plants both hands on his chest and shoves as hard as she can. It's enough to make him pause, at least, but only just.

"Faith," he warns her. "Get out of the way before you get hurt."

"No," she says insistently. "Think. If you interrupt now, they'll just have to start over and do it again. She won't thank you for that. The best thing you could possibly do for her is to leave her alone and let John work."

He exhales a furious snort of air through his nostrils and stares over her head towards the church. The maddening thing is that she's right—any interruption now would just make the whole situation harder. Knowing that doesn't help, though, doesn't quell that rage and frustration in his chest, the need to do something.

Faith's soft voice anchors him. "We all have to atone. You didn't think she could just change sides without a price, did you?"

As a matter of fact, he sort of had. He knew Faith had gone through a version of her own confession and atonement (though he seemed to recall Joseph forbidding John from carving a hunk out of her skin the way he does with the standard new convert), but Jacob himself had never gone through all the pageantry. Thinking on it now, he realizes he'd more or less assumed that immunity would extend to Rook—though, of course, it wouldn't, she wasn't just his, his siblings all feel a claim on her too. The thought makes him want to break shit, but he fights the urge by clenching his fists until his knuckles go white.

I shouldn't have brought her here.

Given the way his mood has swung, the thought shouldn't take him by surprise, but it does. His grip slackens for a second as the shock hits him like ice water, then tightens again as his anger returns: anger at himself, at that intrusive, goddamn stupid thought. What else could he have done? Even if he wanted to break from his family (he doesn't), even if he decided to take Rook's half-crackpot suggestions seriously, scoop her up, and leave the county, leave the state… how long would they have before this Collapse of Joseph's starts? One week? Two?

As always when he thinks about it, he feels that little twinge of skepticism, the one he's had since childhood, that spoke up whenever their father raved and rambled about God, the one that still isn't sold when Joseph speaks with absolute certainty about the Voice and the ravaged future coming fast for them, but now, especially today, that skepticism is weaker than ever before. Sometimes he's not sure how much of Joseph lives in the real world, but even Joseph knows that letting cops—and a fucking US Marshal—leave Hope County after what they've seen is suicide. He must be absolutely certain, certain in a way he's been before, in a way that is surprising Jacob less and less.

That or he's lying.

The thought makes Jacob frown. Joseph isn't prone to lies—at least, not outright; he leans towards half-truths and concealing information if he thinks he has to—but for something this important, he can see it as a possibility.

It's a possibility he dismisses almost immediately. Joseph wouldn't want Rook to join them under false pretenses, even if he's desperate, which, with Rook's retreat from active antagonism in the last few weeks and Eden's Gate's subsequent reclamation of much of the territory and resources she'd taken from them, he hasn't been for a while. That lays the simplest explanation before Jacob once again: he's telling the truth.

Which means he's sure. Which means bringing Rook here, to him, was the only thing Jacob could have done.

Faith appears to be somehow following this internal battle, because only when he's reasoned it out does she take his elbow and guide him back towards the bench. He jerks his arm moodily out of her grip, but he goes, because she's right and he knows it. He has to let this play out. Otherwise, what was it all for?

This determination lasts him for another five seconds or so, until, as his ass is just barely grazing the bench, another scream comes from the church. He jumps back up like he's on fire. "Fuck this," he growls through tightly clenched teeth, and stalks towards the church again—reason can get fucked, I cannot be expected to sit through this—

—and when Faith grabs his elbow again, he whirls on her, ready to chew her out for real this time, but Faith is done talking. He gets a face full of saccharine-smelling powder instead.

He reels back, whips an arm violently down in front of his face in an effort to fan the drug away from his nose and mouth, but the damage is already done. The spark and flash of bliss fills his field of vision, like the inverse of passing out from blood loss, and he desperately grasps for his anger, his resolve, but something in him snaps, and it's all gone.

Everything but the Bliss.

For a time—he doesn't know how long, doesn't really need to care, time isn't important in the Bliss, everything can wait—he wanders, unremembering, unburdened. He feels good. He feels clear for once, like everything is suddenly uncomplicated—or, more, like he doesn't have to care if it isn't. For once, he doesn't have responsibilities.

He can just be here.

This nebulous existing comes to an end, though, with a sharp smell, a sudden feeling of weightiness, and an abrupt return to reality as he rockets to his feet from that damn bench again, where Faith had obviously guided him after drugging him—he remembers her doing it, now that he cares to, and even as he stumbles on his feet and struggles to drag his mind out of the Bliss, the rage returns to him, stronger even than before.

It takes him a minute to find Faith, standing by the bench in her bare feet, her hands clasped together in her skirt in front of her. She doesn't look sorry. If anything, there's a slight tightness to her jaw that strikes him as defiant.

"You dosed me?" he demands, his voice ragged, like he hasn't used it in days.

"I stopped you from making a stupid decision," she corrects him. Undercutting the natural sweetness of her voice is a waspishness he isn't used to, and if he was less distracted, less furious, he might admire it. Faith doesn't mouth off to him. She doesn't need to, usually, but even so, very few people have the guts to talk like that to Jacob.

That's irrelevant to him now. "You c'n go fuck yourself, Faith," he mumbles, seeing a flash of anger in her eyes before she pulls it back. He doesn't care. He's not feeling too kindly towards any of his family members right now. He digs the heel of his hands hard into his eyes, which are still sparking and flashing with the aftereffects of bliss, then removes them and blinks hard. It helps. The terrain seems to stabilize, and his legs along with it. It all comes back to him now, everything leading up to his unceremonious dumping into the Bliss, and he wheels around to look at the church.

He sees why Faith brought him back. John is standing a few feet outside the church doors, deliberately not looking at either of them, deliberately cleaning his hands on a white cloth that Jacob sees is now streaked with red.

Jacob's head hurts. He feels a confusing crush of things—anger, sudden plunging fear, hope, exhaustion—somehow unable to keep them under-wraps and under control like he normally would (an aftereffect of the Bliss, he's sure). He takes a few uncertain steps towards his brother, but stops dead in his tracks as the door creaks open behind John.

Rook comes out, Joseph by her side. He appears to be supporting her, one hand gripping her at the shoulder, the other holding her by the elbow. She doesn't look good—ashen-faced, glassy-eyed, and after Jacob adjusts to the shock of her appearing out of thin air, he notices the sodden red stain soaking through her formerly white undershirt, blossoming to cover the lower part of her right side.

He's moving before he means to, before he makes the connection between all that blood and his sudden need to get his hands on her (he's seen it before, and though this time shouldn't be as dangerous as last time—this time it's under control, isn't it?—he can't seem to regulate the flood of fear).

"It's all right," Joseph is saying as Jacob shoulder-checks John (John laughs, low and sadistically delighted, through his nose) on his way to them. "The path to atonement is painful, and difficult, but—"

But Jacob isn't listening to him. He nudges Joseph out of the way, none too gently, and takes his place beside Rook.

"I'm okay," she says, very quietly but immediately, before he can say a word or check her over himself. "It's fine. It's fine."

It's not fucking fine, but he knows better than to trust himself to say a word right now. He realizes he's all but panting, and clamps his mouth shut, inhaling and exhaling slow through his nose in an effort to get his breathing under control—or at the very least, to keep it from further betraying the fear and worry he's suddenly sure is rolling off him like a stink. It bothers him, that he's perturbed and upset enough about this whole ordeal that he's having trouble keeping it under control—it's not like him to be so angry that he's shaking. He blames the bliss hangover, part of why he hates the drug: he always feels less in control after exposure to it.

Joseph is saying something, his mild voice humming away behind them, but Jacob can't be bothered to focus on him enough to make it out. He reaches for the edge of Rook's shirt, where the blood is fast approaching, but her hand shoots out, catches his with a tightness that's almost painful. He meets her eyes and unexpectedly, he sees terror there. "No," she says, quieter than whispering, practically mouthing it.

Another blinding wave of rage washes over him, and he realizes, finally, that he needs to get them both out of here—her for medical treatment, and to get away from his family so she can spring back from whatever the hell John had just done, and him because he started out pissed off and now, in the wake of a Bliss dose, he's not sure how long he can hang on to his temper.

"Come on," he mutters, taking her by the arm and starting across the courtyard. The truck seems miles away, and he hears Joseph say his name, but ignores him.

"Jacob," Joseph says again a moment later, more firmly this time.

"Wait," snaps Jacob, in a way he's sure Joseph will rebuke him for later. He doesn't care. He's walking fast, and thankfully Rook is keeping pace, though she seems to be leaning on him a bit harder than he'd expect. Faith wisely backs up a few steps out of their path, arms crossed behind her back now as she regards them solemnly.

John, of course, can't help himself. "You're welcome," he sings out. Jacob hears Joseph say John's name in reproof, and is turning his head to glare at him, but stops halfway when he sees Rook flinch.

The anger builds to a white hot breaking point.

He keeps it together till they reach the truck and he can hand Rook—who is behaving so docilely that he'd be suspicious if he didn't have a hard suspicion that it was just fucking shock—into the passenger seat. He pauses, glancing over her as she settles gingerly into the seat, taking care not to bump her bloodied side. She avoids eye contact, avoids looking at him entirely, which is worrisome, because up until very recently, she's always come at him straight-on, no shyness or evasiveness about her manner.

He knows he should let her be, but he's having a hard time controlling himself right now. He says her name, very low, almost without thinking. It's enough to draw her eye. Her gaze is still glassy, but she blinks hard, and he can see her breathing deep, focusing. She says, again, "It's okay," then, in a whisper, adds, "I was strong enough for it."

It takes Jacob a moment to speak. When he does, he's shocked at how controlled he sounds, how level. "Stay in the truck," he says. "I'll be back in just a minute. Then we can go home."

Her gaze slips away from him again, but she doesn't say anything, just nods. and turns to face front. He sees her brace the arm of her injured side against the dashboard, take a deep breath, and release it shakily.

He shuts the door and feels instantly lighter, though no less angry. Now that she's safe, sealed away from his family, he feels free to talk, to act. In her state, he's not worried she'll spook and run, and at any rate, he has the keys, and Faith is just a few yards away, sure to sound the alarm if anything unexpected happens.

He turns and stalks back to the church. Joseph has ventured out into the courtyard a few steps, and he says Jacob's name again in a soft, conciliatory way, but Jacob ignores him, moving past him to where John still stands just in front of the door.

John's wearing a look on his face Jacob knows well—eyebrows slightly up, mouth slightly curved, a delighted shine in his eyes. He gets that look when he realizes he's gotten under someone's skin, guessed something about them they didn't want to know or otherwise struck a nerve, and it always irks Jacob, but this time… this time it's borderline unforgivable.

He stops just short of his little brother, looming over him, hands at his sides and fingers flexing as he tries not to throttle him. When he speaks, his voice is quiet with the effort it takes to keep it down. "Welcome for what?"

John blinks with surprised that's clearly feigned, judging by the way the shine in his eyes seems to brighten. "Pardon?"

"You said 'you're welcome.' Welcome for what?"

John opens his mouth, awareness dawning with an ohhh that he doesn't quite bother to verbalize. "Well," he says, deliberately taking his time, "normally, I mark them with their sin, and I tear that sin off of them—off the chest. It makes sense, doesn't it. Front and center, where they can't hide. For your sake, though—well. I didn't think you'd want all that pretty skin mutilated, so I took from a place more… out of the way." He pauses for a few seconds, and when Jacob doesn't say anything, he tilts his head slightly forward and says again, "You're welcome."

Or he tries to. Jacob's last thread of self-control snaps and he lunges, grabbing John by the lapels of that stupid fucking plane coat and slamming him back against the front of the church. "Shut your goddamn mouth," he barks, leaning his weight into his balled fists as John starts swiping at them, trying to pry himself free.

Even as he fights fruitlessly against Jacob, though, John's talking shit. "Yess, yes," he crows, his teeth bared in aggression belying his casual, sing-song tone. "Play the overprotective boyfriend all you like, all macho posturing and wounded pride."

Joseph's hands are grasping at Jacob's shoulders now, trying to pull him back—he's always been stronger than he looks, but Jacob's strong too, and he's got rage on his side keeping him planted firmly in place. "Jacob, stop this, right now," Joseph says with an authority that would have his followers scrambling to obey him. Jacob's just not one of Joseph's little followers. He tightens his grip, yanks John forward, shoves him back again so that his head bangs against the wall.

Fury flashes through John's eyes, just for a split second before, like Faith, he gets it under control, though his sickly little laugh betrays the flare of temper. As if he'd barely noticed the blow, as if he hadn't been interrupted at all, he says, "You don't have to pretend. Not for us, brother."

"Pretend what," Jacob says through gritted teeth.

John blinks, again with the infuriating fake surprise. "That you didn't know exactly how this was going to play out," he says. There's a current of viciousness in his tone despite his carefully-schooled expression, a note that Jacob recognizes is intended to sting. "You wanted her, but you couldn't do the dirty work yourself. You brought her to us instead. To me. And now the ugly part is over with, and you didn't have to lift a finger, but… for some reason, you think you need to act indignant about it. To play the innocent fool."

Jacob finds his grip slackening, and John's hands on his wrists loosen in turn, his expression turning ever-so-faintly satisfied. He's right, is the thing, right about all of it, and it doesn't calm Jacob's anger, but redirects it towards himself instead of his family. It's stupid and futile, of course—he's already thought it out, and he knows he made the only choice he could, with Rook's cooperation, but he's still furious, and now that fury has nowhere to go.

Sensing his new advantage, Joseph starts pulling on him anew, this time murmuring soothingly to him—"It's all right, Jacob. Everything is as it should be—" and though he resents being talked to like a fucking baby, Jacob releases John's coat with a wrench, lets Joseph pull him backwards and away from their little brother. John stands up straight, grabbing the lapels of his coat and adjusting them in an arrogant huff now that he's out of danger.

Jacob gives him a long, contemptuous look before shrugging off Joseph's hands and turning away. If he can't seem to burn off his temper, then at least he can get back to Rook, get them back to the Veteran's Center and regroup, calm down away from his family and away from fucking John. (He won't be able to get away from himself, but he thinks that'll be more manageable once he's back at headquarters, distanced from this tense, unbearable fucking scene.)

Of course, John can't leave well enough alone. Feeling slighted, maybe, or like he has to get the last word in to prove that he's not scared of his big brother, he pitches his voice to carry to Jacob and says, "You know, she said something quite interesting to me during her atonement."

Jacob turns on his heel, stalking right back up to him despite Joseph's efforts to block his path. "What did she say?" he asks, more a challenge than a real question as he crowds back in John's personal space, glaring daggers.

Again with the triumphant little glimmer, the childish ha ha, I got under your skin bullshit. John just stares at him for a few seconds, long enough to make it clear that he knows that Jacob knows just how much pleasure he's getting from this, then, very quietly, almost as though he doesn't want Joseph to hear, he says, "I had just finished marking her sin. Wrath—I'm sure you know all about that—tattooed on her side. She'd already confessed—all that was left was to remove… her sin. I had the knife in place, just preparing to push it into the skin, when—very, very quietly, I had to lean close to hear—she said, 'I want to go home.'"

Jacob's vision goes red. John says something else—later, Jacob will remember it, what he said: she's certainly afraid of me now—and then a sharp, fiery pain is sinking into the knuckles of his right hand and he's dragging John, freshly punched, up the church wall, wrapping both hands around his throat, forcing him up to the tips of his toes.

John wheezes, shock dawning in his eyes. Joseph, in a harsh tone Jacob's not sure he's ever heard from him, barks, "Jacob!", but he's well beyond being able to listen to reason.

Snarling, lips curled back in pure fury, Jacob's words are spilling shakily out of him in a rush he's not even sure is intelligible: "You're turning into him, after all that, you're turning into him, you're just fucking like him." In John's eyes for the first time sparks… not fear, like Jacob would expect, but something maybe a little closer to hurt. Jacob's too far into it to pull back just yet, although something in him already wants to—it just comes up and out of him like vomit. "You were too young to remember what it was like and now you get your fuckin' kicks out of terrorizing anyone unlucky enough to get too close to you—god damn it," he shouts, and drops John abruptly, kicking the wall beside him so hard that later he'll discover that he broke a toe and wheeling away, rambling like a crazy person. "I thought we got you out in time but if the fuckin' blood is bad—"

John is coughing, wheezing, but he never could keep his mouth shut, especially when he feels he's being wronged. "Are you talking about me or you?" he calls out hoarsely, and Jacob turns to see him struggling back up the wall, glaring. "Isn't that what you do, Jake? What you've always done, preying on the weak? Only now that it's your girlfriend it's somehow—" The strain on his vocal cords proves too much, and he breaks into a coughing fit.

"That's enough," Joseph booms. Jacob's run out of words anyway, filled with loathing, for himself, for John, Joseph, this whole damn project. This path has always seemed so clear to him, sticking beside his family, the only people he's close to, the only people he's ever loved, backing them up in whatever they decide to do, even if it's certifiably fucking nuts. It's the only course of action that ever seemed right to him.

He's not sure when that changed. He just knows that he's looking at his brothers now, his brothers who he's loved his whole life, and thinking that he might take his chances with an apocalypse rather than being walled up in a bunker with them for any amount of time.

Maybe that'll change once his temper fades. Right now, though, he has to get away.

Joseph, oblivious to the thoughts rampaging through his older brother's head, tries to assert control of the situation. "We are better than this," he enunciates firmly, glancing from brother to brother—Jacob notices Faith, who has wisely kept her distance during the fight, wandering up slowly behind Joseph, silently telegraphing her support. "This will not tear our family apart." He levels a gaze at Jacob, and Jacob hears the implied or else loud and clear.

He raises both hands up on either side of his head, like he's dealing with cops, then drops them. "I'm done," he says, and turns away from them all.

"What do you mean, you're done?" John demands peevishly.

"I mean I'm going back to the Center before I do something I actually regret," Jacob barks over his shoulder, and he wants to leave it at that, but despite the roiling upset in his chest, the soldier in him still has a say, apparently: "If I'm needed, call. Don't drop in."

John mutters something that would probably make Jacob want to punch him again—not that he ever really stopped wanting to—but Jacob deliberately tunes him out and picks up speed, fast-walking to the truck. When he climbs into the driver's seat, the vehicle dipping under his weight, he looks over at Rook.

Her bleeding doesn't seem to be too bad—at least, it hasn't spread much further along her shirt, though it's starting to stain the flat white interior of the truck—and she glances furtively at him. She doesn't ask about the fight, which is worrisome (he tosses it onto the pile with all the rest of the shit bothering him). She just says, "Are we going?"

"Yeah," says Jacob brusquely, not sure of how to handle this, how to talk to her right now, and deciding that getting her home takes priority over the rest. He reaches forward, turning the key in the ignition with barely-contained violence. "We're going."

By the time they've crossed the river and are safely in a new truck, headed back to St. Francis's, Jacob has managed—mostly—to bring the complicated tangle of everything he's feeling somewhat under control. Taking action, doing something has been a reliable method to distract him from whatever inconvenient thing he's feeling. Rook stays quiet, staring off into the distance, which is worrisome and unlike her, but at least he knows she's safe with him, away from his family. If she doesn't want to talk, he's not about to make her.

When they reach the Veteran's Center, he collects a pliable Rook from the car and takes her straight to the infirmary. Keter is on duty, and Rook doesn't stop her like she did Jacob when she peels the damp, sticky shirt away from the source of all the blood.

A rectangle of flesh is missing from the space just below her ribs, above her hip. The skin around it is red, angry looking.

"Praise God," whispers Keter when she sees it. She's looking so reverently that she doesn't see the way Rook looks at her, suddenly pulled from her daze, looking at her murderously, but Jacob sees. He thinks for a second that she'll actually come to violence, but after that split second, it passes, and he sees her check out again.

Keter lovingly tends to the injury, disinfecting it and securing a thick bandage to the spot. "Since you just came off a run of antibiotics, we'll try to avoid them this time," she says as she finishes up. "Keep it clean, don't bump it or put stress on it, and I'm giving you more bandages—change them daily. If you take good care of it you'll be surprised by how quickly it'll heal."

Rook is totally unresponsive. Jacob is a little worried that if nobody says anything, then Keter will show Rook her own atonement scar, so he takes the bandages from her and says, "We'll keep an eye on it."

That seems to do the trick, and Keter yields, allowing Jacob to take Rook's arm and remove her from the infirmary, taking her up to his office.

The thought briefly crosses his mind that she might be in shock, but he dismisses the idea almost as soon as it occurs. Keter would have pointed it out, and besides, Jacob's seen his share of people in shock, and she doesn't qualify: she's warm, if a bit gray (not abnormal given the minor blood loss), and she doesn't seem confused, just shut down. No, Jacob knows he's just looking for something to blame for the way he's withdrawn from him, and the weakness of that, of scrambling for some easy lie to spare himself the reality of it, disgusts him.

He's pretty sure of the truth: she's reached her breaking point with him, with his family, and after the scene back there at the church, he's not sure he can blame her. He certainly doesn't want to be shut up with that mess of crazy at the moment, and he can't say he blames her for wanting to go back on her decision now.

Of course, not blaming her for it doesn't mean he's happy about this, or the situation as a whole. He'd thought having her secured, officially a part of the Project at Eden's Gate, would bring some amount of fucking relief after this whole ordeal with her over the past two months, but he just feels angry. And tired.

His office feels strange, like he's coming back to it after years away, cold and still. He brings Rook in, closes the door, and, his voice gruff and unpleasant and reflective of his foul mood, he tells her, "Sit."

He should be surprised that she obeys him without question—wishes he could be, actually, that she'd give him some of her usual lip, chew him out for thinking he can be the boss of her. Instead, she goes quietly to the desk chair and sits down heavily, the immediate slouch of her shoulders signaling her exhaustion. He glances at the clock and realizes it's almost 4 pm. The whole ordeal had passed in six hours, which seems all at once like too much time and nowhere near enough.

Now that he's noticed the time, he realizes that the sun is setting, and the balcony doors are open, allowing a wintry chill into the room. He glances over at Rook, half-afraid that she'll make a break for it the second he turns his back, but she's still slumped over, thousand-yard-staring at her booted feet. He goes over and closes the doors, abruptly shutting out the sound of recruits running drills in the courtyard below.

He'd almost preferred the noise. The sudden silence beats around his head, bringing with it a heavy tension.

But no one can accuse Jacob Seed of cowardice. He does what he does whenever he gets too in his head, when he starts to think or feel too much, when he runs into problems he can't seem to puzzle out: he identifies the immediate, physical things that need to be done and he works on those. Much easier than trying to fix whatever just broke between him and Rook, and it's something he has experience in, something he used to cope with the days and nights spent under his father's roof. Before he got old enough, strong enough, furious enough to start wanting to actually kill the bastard, he dealt with his anger and frustration by turning his focus to looking after for his brothers. Lord knows nobody else was doing it—their mama tried, some days, but even trying she was pretty useless, and most of the time she was worse than that, a redheaded ghost you'd barely notice was in the room.

Jacob cooked meals, rigged fixes for broken toys and patched holes in clothes, slapped on band-aids, kept John quiet and distracted Joseph from the dreamy talk that made their father so angry (of course, everything made their father angry). He wasn't always reliable—sometimes he got so sick of it all he'd just dive out of the house and disappear for the day, in the woods, at the quarry, though usually the scene he returned home to made him wish he hadn't—but it had been years of that, the stretched-out, skinny Seed boy moving through the house in angry-eyed silence to take care of his stretched-out, skinny brothers, and he grew a knack for taking care of a body's needs.

She should probably eat, but he thinks maybe they shouldn't start with that. Instead, he goes over to her and bends down to one knee, busying himself with loosening the laces of her boots. He removes the first one, glances up at her, and sees a spark of something, the first one directed towards him since she left that church. It's not like the way she looked at Keter, with active malevolence—it's just a furrowing of the brow, a small frown that he can't read. He realizes that he's tense, a streak of sweat cooling down his spine, and realizes that it's because he doesn't know if Rook might decide that the easiest way out of all this is with Jacob dead.

He bows his head and works at the laces of the other boot. He doesn't think there are any weapons in easy sight, but his pistol is in its holster on his thigh—she could reach it now, if she wanted, though she wouldn't be able to draw it unless he let her. Despite the turmoil of the day, despite his sudden antipathy towards his own family and his empathy for whatever it is she's going through, he knows he isn't going to let her.

Best to nip this shit in the bud. He pulls her other boot off, sets it neatly alongside the other, and then looks up to meet her eyes, settling more fully into his crouch in front of her. He says, "You gettin' some violent ideas?"

Her frown deepens a little. She seems slightly confused, which is both encouraging—means violence isn't actually on her mind—and discouraging, because as much as he'd rather not fight her right now, a fight would at least mean some of her old self was flaring back up. She shakes her head, barely, just once to the left and once to the right.

"Good," he says, laying a hand on her knee, rubbing it idly with his thumb and nodding encouragingly. "If you decide you want out of this, there are ways to go about it that don't involve trying to kill me and likely ending up dead yourself. Don't do anythin' stupid."

She inhales hard through her nose, exhales softer, and says, "I didn't say I wanted out of this."

Jacob shrugs, non-committal. "Just saying." He taps her knee with his thumb, then frowns when the gory mess of her formerly-white undershirt catches his eye. The right side of it is soaked in blood from ribcage to hem, creeping around to the front and doubtless to the back, and while the edges are turning brown, the center is still moistly red. It can't be good for her fresh bandages. "Come on," he says, and reaches forward, pretending not to notice when she flinches. "We gotta get this off."

Pliant as a child, she lets him pull the hem up, raising her arms and letting him drag the shirt over her head—he takes care to try to keep blood out of her hair, though he doubts she's thinking much about that right now. She's got a bra on underneath, decent enough for their purposes, and after rolling the shirt into a ball, clean-side out, and casting it aside, Jacob shifts on his feet to get a better look at the site of the injury, since Rook isn't stopping him now. He'd seen it—a bit—when Keter was working on it, but down there, under the sickly bright lights in the infirmary, it had seemed wrong, somehow, to stare. He'd mostly been watching Rook's face.

The bandage covers the actual injury—a rough rectangle of flesh gone, maybe five by two, cut maybe a quarter inch deep, and he'd seen his share of atonement wounds, knows exactly how it'll heal: into an angry red, tough dip of scar tissue covering the site. Not too bad, as scars go, and Jacob has some experience with the matter. Keter had cleaned it and patched it up, but Rook rolling her bloody shirt back down over it means that there are little flecks of blood all over her side again, like someone had dipped a sponge in it and rolled it around over the skin and the formerly clean bandage.

Jacob is wondering how he can get her into a shower without crossing any lines—she's not in a place to have him in there with her, as clinical as it would be at this point, but she also doesn't seem particularly concerned with taking care of it herself—and he's also recognizing how patently ridiculous it is that he's apparently concerned about crossing lines with this woman of all people, when she reaches down, slides a hand along his face, and tilts his head up.

He tenses up again, the thought of violence still fresh in his mind, but also because the touch sparks a memory, a moment by a waterfall in a past that seems impossibly distant now. On guard, but biddable in his confusion, he responds to the insistent press of her fingers, rising up on both knees so they're properly face to face, and her fingertips press almost painfully into his face to draw him close to her.

Her kiss is harsh, but Jacob doesn't notice right away, too blindsided to think clearly. The last couple of weeks have been hectic, complicated, and while he'd be lying if he said all thoughts of want had fully subsided to the background in the meantime, the injury and bloodshed and overall conflict has kept them both suitably distracted. The sudden heat of her hand on his face, the graze of her teeth just before her mouth meets his brings it roaring back right away, though, and if the pressure of her touch is in the realm of bruising… well, they've never been particularly gentle with one another, as far as this kind of thing goes.

To that end, he reaches out, blindly grasping for her hips, but the heat that's just beginning to take root in his belly turns to ice when she flinches away from him once again, this time more violently. He freezes, breaks away from her immediately (you goddamn fool, she's just been through the wringer and now you've gone and hurt her), and is surprised when she chases him.

"Rook," he says, not ungently, bringing his hand up to push lightly on her advancing collarbone, keeping her at an abbreviated distance.

"It's fine," she says brusquely, but she's not meeting his eye. When she seems to accept that he's not about to let her go, she drops her hands. He only realizes what she's doing when her fingers brush against his belly as she tugs at the front of his pants, working to undo his belt. Jesus Christ.

Under normal circumstances, Jacob would be more than happy to let her get on with it, but for some reason, letting a freshly-traumatized girl put the moves on him seems like a bad idea in general, let alone this freshly-traumatized girl. Leaving aside the obvious (she's not in any state to do anything but shower, maybe, and sleep) he still hasn't ruled out murderous intent on her part.

He grabs her wrists, firm, holding them at a safe distance. "It's not fine," he says, a little loudly, hoping to call her out of whatever weird fugue state this is.

Once again surprising him—she's not usually the one ignoring boundaries—she resists, crowding closer to the edge of her chair, reaching for him, her fingertips brushing against him again as she strains to break his grip. "Rook," he says, struggling to keep his hold on her as she tries to twist out, "knock this shit off." She ignores him, and he has to lift his head to dodge her as he feels her mouth graze against his jaw again. "Rook."

When she manages to actually twist a hand out of his grip, he decides he's had enough. He says her actual name, barks it, really, returning briefly to the role of soldier and commander and releasing her at the same time he rises to his feet and retreats a few paces away from her. When he turns back to her, she's slumped again in her chair, wearing a mutinous expression on her face that makes his temper flare. Since handling her gently hasn't exactly done jack shit for them, he finally gives in to his natural impulse towards tough love, jabs an aggressive finger in her direction and says, "You need to get a fuckin' grip. Snap out of whatever this bullshit is, and I mean now."

She meets his eyes then. He's not sure if he should be relieved or worried by the very real anger he can see in hers. She lets the tense silence between them build for a little while, but Jacob just puts his hands on his hips and raises his eyebrows challengingly at her. I can wait all day. Eventually, she sneers a little, then, her voice quiet and very unkind, she says, "Well, what else was it all for?"

That renders Jacob momentarily speechless, but fortunately, she seems content with just spewing that bare bones bullshit for now, pulling her legs up in the chair with her and wrapping her arms loosely around her knees. She looks like a sullen teenager sitting there, and for all his earlier sympathy for what she'd been through that day, Jacob is having an increasingly hard time not treating her like one. He keeps his voice level, though, when he finds it again and says, "You wanna explain what you mean by that?"

All she can immediately muster in response to that is a moody shrug, which doesn't do much to counteract the sullen teenager impression she's giving off. He waits her out, though, and finally, she says, "It's just, this was always what was supposed to happen, right? Always the fate Joseph had planned for me? Get me hemmed in, pinned down, then trap me into your little cult as, what, a sister or a wife or a sister-wife for one of you. So why are you pumping the brakes? Isn't this what you wanted?"

Jacob knows he needs to be patient with her. He knows he could say exactly the wrong thing right now and fuck this up forever, and he doesn't want to do that, but her accusation has him nearly paralyzed with anger—not entirely justified, he knows it, he only very recently began to advocate for her against his family, but still, in the wake of him shielding her from Joseph when she turned up on his doorstep half-dead, right on the heels of him being willing to fight Faith and nearly throttling John for laying a hand on her, it feels unfair that she's lashing out at him.

He takes a few steadying breaths in through his nostrils and then, bearing in mind that for better or for worse, being honest with her usually means cutting through the bullshit sooner, he says, as levelly as he can, "Rook, we have been at war." She snorts at that, a scornful little tch that sends a fresh flare of temper through him, but he keeps his head and keeps going: "We've been fighting for opposite sides for months now. You knew damn well that one side was going to win. Now, you want to get all pissy that it wasn't the side you thought it would be, that's your problem, but from where I'm standing, you made it through by the skin of your teeth, in the best possible position you could be in, given the alternatives."

Her stare is awful, accusing, her mouth twisted into a horrified grimace. "Alternatives to what? Being Joseph's kept pet for the rest of my life, however long that might be?" She must see his expression change because she chokes out a bitter laugh and says, "Excuse me, your kept pet for the rest of my life. Same difference, really."

That's enough to make him stop pulling his punches. "Alternative to being shot dead by the Whitetails after killing your friend, for one. Alternative to losing your mind on bliss and being worked as an Angel till your body gives out, or dumped dead in a ditch after some anonymous shootout, or—say your side did win—eventually freezing or burning up or having your body fall apart from radiation, however it is that Joseph's Collapse finally manifests." He ticks off the numerous horrible fates on his fingers as he watches for a reaction, and can't help but feel stung when she just barely shrugs about them. He takes a step closer, peering intently at her till she meets his eyes again.

He tells her, "It wasn't my idea to go to Joseph's today. You were the one who wanted to negotiate, and now, what is it, buyer's regret? I thought you were stronger than that, Rook. I thought you knew your own mind a little better."

Her brow is still furrowed into a scowl, but it's shifted from outright angry to unhappy, and there's a bit of a lost quality to it. Her gaze skitters away from his, once or twice, though it keeps coming back to him, like she's listening for some clue, some answer. He's steadily watching her, and when he's sure he has her full attention, he says, "You already know by now: I'm not keeping you in another cage. If you don't like the terms you've taken, you can go. Go to one of my brothers or my sister. Hell, you can even try starting over with the Resistance, if it suits your fancy. If you really think you'll be happier or any better off with anyone else out there, doing anything else—there's the goddamn door."

She follows his gesture with her eyes, looking at the door, then back at him, then at the door again, but she doesn't move. The set of her mouth has turned a bit watery, fragile, somehow, and now the way she's curled around herself reads a little more injured animal than pouting kid. He realizes he's never actually seen her cry before, though it's happened right before they've crossed paths a few times, and, he's sure, right after. He thinks he might be about to see it now.

Jacob, folding his arms tight over his chest and leaning tiredly against the wall, finds himself somewhat appeased by the fact that she's still sitting tight and doesn't seem too keen to take him up on the offer, to rush out of his office and his life for good. The anger drains away, and with that new calmness, he realizes that… this really isn't like her. Rook does know her own mind, she is one to stick to her decisions. If she's having second thoughts, then it's because she encountered something to make her think twice, something she didn't expect going into all this.

Before the church, she might have been distracted by the prospect ahead of them, but she was her normal self, teasing him in front of other faithful, looking at him like normal. It wasn't until she came out of the church…

Jacob narrows his eyes. Quietly—almost not speaking entirely on purpose—he asks, "What is it that John said to you?"

That does it. Her face crumples a split second before she covers it with both hands, seeming to shrink even smaller in on herself. Jacob's ready to rip John's head off at the indirect confirmation that he'd had something to do with this late-stage change of heart, but in an interesting and novel twist, he finds he's more compelled to go straight to Rook instead. Whatever John said, he thinks he can probably counteract it better by not being a dick to her right now than by tearing off to go get revenge.

She refuses to unfold at his approach, but when he touches her, she's yielding enough to let him maneuver her, and he slides into the chair underneath her and settles her more securely on his lap. The way she's crying strikes a chord of memory, old, painful, and after a moment he realizes—the half-choked, muffled sobs, bursting out uncontrollably despite her best efforts to stop them—it's the way a kid cries when they're scared they'll get in trouble for crying, when they're desperately trying not to. John used to cry like that, right before the end.

It hurts more than he would have thought, the twist of an old knife in a wound he'd have thought was too ancient to cause him any more pain. Rook hides in his chest, hands still blocking her face from view, shuddering as she tries to get herself under control, but Jacob reckons they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. He just puts his arms around her and rests his chin on the crown of her head, drawing in a deep, tired breath and releasing it again slowly. "It's okay, baby," he mutters, feeling her relax incrementally in his grip. "I got you."