Last day of Ouchtober!

Day Thirty-One: It's Not Your Fault

Characters/Pairings: Jake/Rose; Lao Shi; Susan; Haley

Rating: T

Content warnings: character death(s); violence

Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!

~TLL~

Jake stared woodenly forward, watching his grandfather's casket be lowered into the ground. It wasn't real. This wasn't happening. His grandfather wasn't dead. It was real and it had happened and Jake had seen it and he hadn't been able to stop it. On one side, his mother clenched his hand, and Jake tried not to let himself think about how much he had let her down. Gramps had been old and now that Jake was in his twenties, it had become his job to protect his grandfather from harm and not the other way around. They hadn't even been looking for a fight. They had been doing some routine patrolling and Gramps had been putting Jake through some aerial practices that were well out of date but had also saved his life from time to time.

Jake thought that he'd been humouring the old man. It had been a long time since he had technically been Lao Shi's pupil but Jake occasionally took the time to let Gramps put his mentoring cap on again. Jake had been in the middle of a loop when Gramps had frozen. It would have been comical, something that would have been on brand for the Looney Tunes, if Gramps hadn't started gushing blood from his chest and then started falling.

Jake had chased him, down, down, down, onto the dark streets, reaching his hand out and trying to grab Gramps, but there was nothing left to grab onto. Gramps had been dead by the time that he had hit the pavement and all Jake had seen was the flick of the Huntsgirl's blonde brain and the laughter of the Clan all around them. Jake had seen red and he had wanted to kill a destroy, except that he hit his knees and bent over his dead grandfather and sobbed until he couldn't see straight.

Watching Lao Shi be put into the ground, Jake was reminded of that nighttime spiral again and again. He hadn't been able to save Lao Shi from the darkness and he should have been. Lao Shi had done a better job than that and was owed more than that.

Jake turned with the other mourners. Susan had organized a good reception to send her father out in the style that he would have expected and Jake felt sick about it all. How was he supposed to celebrate Gramps' life when that life shouldn't have been over yet?

"Jake, it's okay." Rose's hand was heavy on his shoulder. "It's not your fault."

She hadn't stopped saying it since Jake had first sobbed into her lap that he hadn't been able to help and it didn't make Jake feel any better. He needed to get revenge on the Huntsgirl and then he could mourn. That was the way that things had to be.

Still, he appreciated the support that Rose was trying to give him and he lopped his arm through hers as they got into the town car for the family and were driven back to the reception hall. Normal, for a funeral, but Jake never wanted to go through any of this again. Not the receiving line of people who meant well but made him feel worse, not the loving smiles of people who didn't have to carry around this guilt, not the look of his little sister as she sat, staring at her shoes, uncharacteristically quiet for Haley.

"Kid! Kid!" Jake turned as Fu ran into the reception. "Kid!"

"What?"

"In private," Fu said, suddenly side-eyeing all of their closest friend and family. "Come on."

The tucked themselves into one of the tiny bathrooms and Fu suddenly became awkward, unable to look Jake in the eye.

"Did you find her?" Jake asked.

"Yes."

Since the second that Gramps had died, Fu had been working on finding the Huntsgirl's identity – the one that she used outside of the Clan. It was going to be Jake's best way to get results.

"And?"

"You don't want to know."

Jake wanted to grab Fu by his wrinkly shoulders and shake him. "I need to know. What's her name?"

"Rose Hunter," Fu confessed.

Jake saw red. His ears filled with static. He turned toward the bathroom door but Fu was in the way.

"Kid, wait, she probably doesn't know either –"

It didn't matter.

"It's my Rose? My Rose Hunter?"

"Well … yeah."

That was all that Jake needed to know. He pushed Fu aside and threw the door open, transforming as he went. He didn't care about the humans in attendance; he didn't care about what trauma he might be causing here. His grandfather had died during a sneak attack and Gramps deserved justice. Jake couldn't give him anything else but justice.

Rose was shocked but, at the same time, Jake could tell that she knew who he was and why he was doing this.

"It's noy my fault?" he roared at her. "Is that because it's your fault?!"

"Jake! Oh, Jake, I –"

Jake swiped a dragon paw at her and she expertly evaded it, diving toward the silverware. She brandished a butter knife like it was a sword.

"You knew!" Jake accused, even though he couldn't be completely sure of it. "You knew!"

Rose didn't deny it. It put a fury in Jake unlike one that he had ever felt before. He was so intent on killing her, on making Gramps' death mean something, that he hadn't made a plan or realized what he was doing. She was the Huntsgirl. She had beaten him every time and this time was going to be no different. In front of all of his family, so many of his loved ones, the Huntsgirl killed him too.