Going home is perhaps not the wisest decision, but Jonathan can't take the girl to the office any more than he can crash at the place of a family friend. Even the neutral location of a hotel could raise pointed questions by those with a tendency to leap wildly to conclusions. He'd call Patchouli to see how a surprise visit would go over, but knowing her, she wouldn't let him in the door without an explanation, and she'd always been able to see right through him when they were kids.
He sits the girl at the kitchen table as he makes her tea, just as he does for Susan whenever she has a stressful day.
He didn't have time to clear Haley's drawings off the fridge, but better here than the living room, where family pictures line the mantle.
Still, there were enough photographs in the entryway and hallway on the way here, and he doubts she missed them however quickly he'd tried to usher her through. If she hasn't guessed who he is, then perhaps she isn't Huntsgirl after all.
Or perhaps she's far worse off than she looks and is spending all her energy on keeping upright and not falling apart. Stressful though the situation is for him, it must be worse for her.
He tries to think of what he can say to find out one way or another, but after a few failed attempts at sparking conversation, he works in silence that is broken only by the kettle's whistle.
The uncontaminated portion of Lao Shi's potion sits heavily in his pocket.
The potentially contaminated half sits on the counter in a travel mug he'd managed to find before they'd left the shop, and he is rather thankful she hasn't asked why he never drank a drop of something he'd gone to the trouble of transferring just to bring along with him.
When he sets two teacups in front of her and fills one from the pot, taking it with him and leaving the other for her, she lifts her head to meet his eyes. She looks…defeated, in a way that she hadn't while they'd been at the shop. Defeated and haunted.
He doesn't know what to say to her when nothing else has worked, so he takes a sip of his tea so that she knows it's safe to drink. She watches him swallow before whispering, "I'm not Huntsgirl."
It's the first time she's spoken to him since agreeing to leave the shop.
He can't think of a reason why she'd lie to him, but he still isn't sure it's true. He shrugs and says, "Perhaps not, but if you weren't Jake's friend, you wouldn't have agreed to this."
"You don't know what I would have agreed to. You don't know my situation."
"Do you care to tell me?"
She reaches for the teapot instead of answering.
She doesn't try to—or perhaps cannot—hide her wince as her arms stretch out.
"We've a utility room just here," Jonathan says, gesturing to the door behind him beside the spare room. "It has almost as many first aid supplies as the upstairs bathroom does if you'll let me tend to you."
She pours herself tea with shaking hands, nearly spilling it in the process, and the teapot hits the wood of the table louder than he suspects she intended. "I'm fine."
"We both know you're not."
She purses her lips. "I've already done what I can."
"But I haven't done what I can. Please, let me at least take a look. Even if you just take off your coat…." He lets the thought die, knowing he doesn't need to complete it, and she stares at the table again.
When she stands without touching her tea, he fears she means to walk out.
Instead, she gingerly peels off her coat, and he gets his first glimpse into what happened to her.
His eye is drawn first to her right arm. Despite the gauze and bandages on her forearm, hints of the angry wound beneath peek through in the darkened spots where the wound has seeped; the cut nearer her shoulder looks considerably smaller and must be shallower, if the butterfly bandages are anything to go by. Still, she uses that arm to sweep her hair to the side as she turns her back to him, and he sees a reddish-brown stain spreading out from a cut in her shirt that runs along her left shoulder and nearly to her spine. The bandages below are lumpier than he'd first realized, and that means her leg—
She lets her hair drop as she turns back to him and approaches, letting him get a better view of that leg and the clean cut though the stained denim that reveals bandages beneath.
"I should take you to a hospital," he says. Despite years of Boy Scouts and First Aid courses, he doubts he's qualified to handle this.
"No."
"If you're worried about coverage—"
"I'm worried about surviving," she snaps as she retreats to her chair. "If you want to help, then you can help me clean and bandage everything again. I took as much time as I dared, but I—" She breaks off. "I can't fight like this."
"You fought me," he offers, though he realizes that wasn't the right thing to say when he sees the expression on her face.
"That was more bluff than fight, and I used the advantage of surprise when I had it." She pulls the teacup towards her and hesitates a second more before she lifts it and sips. "Call me 93."
"Wouldn't you rather a name, even if it's not your own?"
Dubiousness pulls at one corner of her mouth, and she tilts her head briefly to the side in what he suspects might be her version of a shrug until her shoulder heals.
"Well, I'll pull out the supplies we have down here, and then I'll run up for some more and find you some clothes to wear instead of those ones. You're close to my wife's height." He can't invite her upstairs until he's had a chance to remove anything that might be incriminating, but he sets out clean towels by the sink and pulls down the ironing board to use as a table for all the first aid supplies.
He knows where Susan keeps what is essentially her remedy for all ailments, something that helps ease pain and start the mending process for everything from cuts to headaches. She's given it to all of them over the years, and he can't deny that it works. Of course, he now knows that this secret old family recipe is really a basic healing potion to help hasten the process, and he knows that it really wasn't the placebo effect that made it work so well.
He doesn't know if his guest would drink it even if he drank some first or if she'd try to sneak a sample to study later.
He doesn't know if he should stop her if she tries.
In the end, he takes a spoonful to ease his own aches, grimacing a bit at the chalky taste, but otherwise leaves the unlabelled brown bottle where it is; he can pour her a portion and offer that later.
Jonathan isn't sure how long it takes until he and Huntsgirl—he still thinks she's Huntsgirl, not 93—are both satisfied with the job they've done. She had sewn up her leg before coming to the shop, which is just as well, as Susan doesn't have a suture kit in their supplies. Huntsgirl hadn't been surprised by this and had offered up hers before stuffing a towel between her teeth.
She had, apparently, helped herself to the painkillers while he'd been busy elsewhere.
If he has any luck at all, she didn't snoop anywhere else while he was otherwise occupied.
He leaves her to freshen up and change into some of Susan's clothes (the softest he's able to find) while he strips the living room of family photos and potentially incriminating memorabilia, just in case. There will be time enough for memories of Rockaway Beach—and making more memories at Rockaway Beach—once this is over, so he only allows himself a few maudlin seconds of thinking of what could have been before shoving everything but a photo of him and his father at the beach into the drawer of the old washstand.
It's only once he opens that drawer that he remembers his father's old liquor flask is inside.
Jonathan stares at it for a moment, its stainless steel almost gleaming amongst the family photos, before pulling it out and running his finger over the engraved J on the front. He'd never had any desire to use his father's flask despite inheriting it, but now….
This flask will be a lot more durable than the glass one in which the potion is currently contained, even if it is protected by some measure of magic as Jonathan suspects.
It's a suspicion that is strengthened by the fact that every last drop of the potion rolls from one flask to the other, but at least the lack of remaining liquid means Jonathan has no qualms about leaving the volumetric flask in the drawer and keeping the liquor flask in his pocket instead.
He makes sure to pull the blinds before coming back to the kitchen, and his breath catches as he realized what she picked out to wear. The pink jacket is hung on the back of the chair, likely to avoid aggravating her wounds while she's safely inside, but the green shirt she wears beneath it had been one of Susan's favourites. She'd retired both pieces of clothing from active wear outside the house once they'd started to become threadbare, but seeing that those clothes had been picked out of the armful Jonathan had brought downstairs—
The girl looks up as he enters and smiles weakly. She's back at the table and had been staring down at the cup of tea he only ever saw her touch once. He swallows back his emotions and tries to convince himself that Susan will be okay, that she's more prepared for this sort of thing than him, and that he'll see her again, whatever happens. He tries to tell himself that Haley is safe with her grandfather, that Lao Shi would step into danger before letting Haley near it, let alone get close to bearing the brunt of it, but—
He clears his throat and attempts a smile in return, though he doubts it's convincing. "I can warm that up for you," he offers with a nod towards the microwave.
"No, it's fine."
It isn't fine.
He'll let her pretend it is this time.
"The couch will be more comfortable than that kitchen chair," he says. "Why don't you sit down while I make us something to eat? I'm sure you're hungry."
She bites her lip, but she doesn't argue.
He shows her to the living room before seeing what they have for food that requires minimal to no preparation. Carrot and celery sticks, pre-cut and ready for school lunches Haley won't be here to eat, make it onto the tray with some crackers, cheese slices, and the last four cookies in the box. He fills them both tall glasses of water, even though he's tempted—for the first time in years—to try something stronger. He still grabs a shot glass from the cupboard, but instead of liquor, he fills it with a dose of Susan's potion.
He adds the travel mug with the potion to the tray almost as an afterthought.
He finds her sitting stiffly on the couch. She'd turned her head as he approached, and he's not sure if she heard him coming or had been watching for his reflection in the TV screen. It doesn't matter, really. So much of this doesn't matter compared to what does matter.
"Help yourself to anything but the coffee in the travel mug," he says. "The shot glass is for you if you want it; it'll help you recover. I can drink some of it if that would make you more comfortable."
Her hands don't move from her lap. "What do you really think this is?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Helping me. What do you think that's going to accomplish? I can't find my friend. I can't help your son, whoever he is. And I certainly can't do anything but put you in more danger than you can possibly realize."
According to Susan, he's been there before—in far more danger than he ever realized.
Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.
He folds a slice of cheese onto a cracker as he asks, "Is it such a crime to want to help people? Do I really need a reason for doing that? I've given you some reasons already, but I shouldn't need them, should I? If the world is what we make it, why not make sure there's a little bit more kindness in it?"
She sighs and looks away. From the tilt of her head, he suspects she's staring at the scorch mark on the rug that Jonathan is only now realizing was likely an accident from when Haley was first learning to control her powers and not the unsupervised and ill-advised mishap with matches for which he had grounded her.
"You know of Huntsgirl," she says eventually. "What else do you know?"
Clearly, he doesn't know nearly enough.
He tells her some of it anyway. Not all of it, of course, and he keeps some bits deliberately vague, but he tries to tell her enough.
He tries to prove to her that she doesn't need to try to keep hiding all of this from him.
He's had enough of these sorts of secrets to last a lifetime.
"What about your son?"
The question takes him aback for a moment, and he can't think what she means.
Either he takes too long to answer or she sees the confusion on his face and interprets it correctly. "You said you thought I knew your son." She lifts her right hand, showing off the birthmark he'd seen earlier when helping her care for her wounds. Now that he can see it more clearly, the birthmark looks more like a dragon tattoo than anything else. "If you know what this is, then do you believe he has one?"
"Of course." As far as Susan had explained it, he must. Someone at the hospital must have noticed before Susan had had a chance, and then they'd done whatever they'd done, and then—
Thinking of that day sends a wave of coldness over him even now. Jonathan doesn't want to admit that he can't remember the face of his baby boy that clearly, but that day in the hospital is little more than a blur to him. Some details haunt him, but all too many important ones like his baby boy's features are lost to him.
"Initiates are given the Mark of the Huntsclan at the pledging after their first year," she says. "Before that, it's nothing more permanent than henna, and it's far less meaningful. If he's pledged, it's not surprising you haven't seen him since. Those who come rarely wish to go back."
"He's not—" Jonathan breaks off, not sure how much he should say. Dissuading her of the notion that his little Jake vanished from his life far more recently than he had might point too strongly to the truth he hasn't quite spelled out. He's said as much, but he knows she thinks that he doesn't mean Jake, even if he's not sure why. She thinks he's talking about another boy, someone else she may well know….
If he tries to convince her of the truth, what will that mean for Haley? For Susan?
"He's not yet been gone a year?"
He can't think of how he should reply to that.
"I think I may know who you mean," she says slowly. "Tall, lean, bit of a bucktooth? His number is 89, not 99. I suspect he turned up with an impressive resume that was less than truthful, at least when it comes to real world experience. He may not have changed as much from the boy you once knew as you think he has, even if he decided to take on a new name when he accepted his number."
Jonathan cannot help but remember Jake's reaction to being called tall—from his expression, Jonathan doubts it has happened before—and he's forced to shake his head. "The boy you're thinking of isn't my son. He's—" Jonathan thinks of the hug he gave Jake, the slight stoop he'd needed to do so the boy's nose wasn't buried in his chest. "He'd be shorter than you, about up to my shoulder."
She looks to the mantle of the fireplace, stripped of all but that one photograph. Too late, he sees that it's off centre. "You don't have a picture?"
Jonathan swallows.
With everything else that had been going on, he hadn't thought to take a picture.
"No." It comes out as a whisper.
Her blue eyes meet his again, and this time her brow is furrowed. "When did you last see him?"
"Today." He's already told her as much, and talking about Jake in this way will hardly endanger Haley. "I met him today." That handful of moments thirteen years ago hardly seems to count. Today is the first day he's ever held his son, and a part of him is terrified it might be the last.
She's still again, that same stillness that had come over her in the shop earlier; however much she might seem tense and tight, he knows she's ready to move, to strike.
"I hadn't seen Jake for thirteen years," he says. He has no idea how much those in the Huntsclan are told of their origins; he has no idea if she'll believe him when he can't offer her proof. "My wife and I never had a chance to bring him home from the hospital, and we—" Grief, still present even though he knows his son is alive, tightens around his chest and closes his throat. He pushes a different set of words past it. "We know now that he was taken into the Huntsclan, and we know…. We know it's dangerous for him to stay with them."
Her expression doesn't betray her thoughts, and he's reminded of Susan's ability to do the same when she tries. He can never seem to mask his thoughts and emotions half as well as he hopes he can. "And you believe that your son is 99."
"I know he is. My wife, she— She met him before today. She knows he goes by 99, and she realized who he was before she dared tell the rest of us. She's certain now."
"Is your daughter as certain?"
"I think she's—" He stops.
It's too late.
Huntsgirl smiles. It's small, smug, and far too knowing.
He can't unsay the words, can't wipe them from existence. He can't take back the confirmation he's just given her, which he fears is too much after everything else.
He leans forward to pick up the travel mug and hold it in his lap.
"You're the father of the American Dragon."
It isn't a question.
Her tone holds far too much certainty for him to hope that he can dissuade her of that notion.
He's the father of the American Dragon, and Huntsgirl—one of the most important members of the Huntsclan—knows it.