A/N: Experimented with a bit of a different style here and I love it.
Let me know what you think!
For the first time in his relatively young life, Henry felt as though he were watching his own life play out before his eyes, As though he were simply some ethereal being, floating through existence, watching his own, very real body react to everything as it unfolded before him.
He didn't like it.
Not one bit.
It was like a movie. One of those movies that started off happy and slow, before building up to the crescendo of some life altering event, leaving happy cinemagoers to watch as the characters set about trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Shitty, in the way that it made you cry while pretending not to cry, and almost obnoxious in the way it made people wax poetic about inspirations and how fucking moving it was. Always wrapping itself up in a neat little bow in the last fifteen minutes, when the character who had spent the majority of the movie commiserating and being angry over the hand they'd been dealt in life suddenly came to the conclusion that life would actually be ok. Usually accompanied by some cliche line about how important family or friends were.
Bonus points to the whole lot if the crux of the story centred on God.
But this wasn't a movie. And it wasn't going to wrap itself up in a neat little bow at the end, with his mom proclaiming that life as a quadriplegic was actually fantastic.
This was real life. And right now, it wasn't humanly possible to see anything other than the bubble of the hospital in which JJ's existence currently resided, and would for the foreseeable future.
He'd hardly spoken since leaving the hospital the day before. Sandy had practically pushed them out the door at the conclusion of visiting hours, insisting that Will go back to the hotel with them to get some proper rest. It hadn't taken a lot of convincing - his dad looked particularly haggard. His usually tidy hair was falling in bedraggled curls around his face, and the bags under his eyes said everything they needed to about how much sleep he had had since leaving DC. So together, the three males of the Jareau-LaMontagne clan had retreated to the waiting embrace of a cut-rate hotel room. Quality Inn? Best Western? Super 6? Henry hadn't cared enough to take stock of the sign out the front, but the basic 1980's decor of the room told him it was somewhere within that scope of the American gothic.
He'd waited until both Will and Michael had showered before retreating to the bathroom himself. He hadn't been able to shake it, the feeling of pervasive numbness that had been slowly creeping up on him from the moment he'd laid eyes on his mother that morning. The inability to speak, to verbally acknowledge what was happening, because if he spoke it into existence, that meant it was real. So instead of trying to wrap his brain around it all, he simply retreated to the corner of the shower, huddled beneath the shower stream with the water turned as hot as he could bear it. It was only when he was sure his father would have fallen asleep that he finally got out, robotically drying himself off and pulling on his pyjamas before clambering through the darkened room to the empty bed that awaited him.
Sleep was a joke. Of course, he had slept. Fleetingly, only when his eyelids grew so heavy that they had to close. Just long enough at a time to be treated to strange visions of explosions, bodies ragdolling through the sky, his mom, pushing a clone of herself in a wheelchair.
Or was the clone pushing her?
By the next morning, the odd dreams had exhausted him more than the fleeting sleep had replenished him. Still in somewhat of a stunned silence, he dutifully traipsed along behind his father and brother as they returned to the hospital right on eight. His stomach had twisted with each step, the awful sensation getting worse the closer they got to JJ's room.
Pain had been all they could see upon entering the room. Henry had simultaneously been unable to look away, and yet wanting to shut his eyes against the reality before him. But he couldn't. In the same way the injury had a crushing grip on his mom, it also had an identical grip on every member of the family. She was twisted, contorted in pain, the muscles and tendons of her arms locked in a spasm that seemed to be trying to tear its way through her skin. His eyes had travelled from her claw gripped hands to her face, her teeth gritted against a scream of pain as the nurses hurriedly administered something, anything to release her from the clutches of her own body. The drugs worked quickly, visible to the naked eye as they travelled through her veins, releasing muscles one by one until she was relaxed, a tear snaking down from the corner of her eye as she finally took a full breath.
He didn't want to watch. And yet it was going to consume every waking moment of his life from this day on. His mom was disabled, life-alteringly so. And yet, despite the lack of movement she currently had, the room around her had been a complete flurry of activity.
Tired. Drained. Lost. All words Henry could link to his psyche. The reason he was unable to focus on anything going on in front of him. Rather than a movie, it now felt like a trailer. Flashes of significant moments appearing in quick succession before him. The nurse bringing in a hoist, connected to the ceiling. His mom's crestfallen face as she asked whether she could be moved in a wheelchair, and the crushing reality of being told she wouldn't be able to sit up by herself in order to do so.
His body was like lead while they followed behind his mom and her care team to the physical therapy room. It was a carefully thought out routine as they transferred her from the hoist to a machine that looked very similar to a rowing machine you would find in any regular gym, except the pedals were at arm height, and every inch of the machine seemed to have support straps attached to it. Henry knew people must have been speaking, but all he could hear as he watched them setting her up in front of the structure was his own heartbeat in his ears. Her hands, fingers locked in unnatural positions, strapped into place on each pedal. The weight on the machine was feather light, Henry could tell by looking at it, but once JJ was instructed to move, it was a fight to get the pedals to budge.
His mom. Jennifer Jareau. Agent Jareau, who had so fiercely taken down the lady with black hair in their house when his life was in danger, who had run into burning buildings, who could hold her own in hand to hand combat with dangerous assailants twice her size… reduced to this.
He couldn't stay. It was just too much. He shifted his eyes from side to side; his grandmother was stoic, a few feet away from JJ, clearly trying not to cry as she watched. His dad, just in front of him, holding himself so stiffly it was like one gust of wind was going to break him. Michael wasn't here. Henry remembered seeing Dave lead him down the hall. Maybe to the cafeteria? That was good. Michael was so little. This was so much for him to comprehend.
Turning on his heel, Henry made quick coverage of the distance between himself and the door to the therapy room. He threw it open, not even caring how much noise it made, and let himself into the hallway, where the sterile silence of the hospital seemed to explode into his ears.
His breathing was quickening, his chest heaving, a shaking hand coming to his face to hide himself momentarily as he tried to regain his composure. There was no-one in the hallway, so he didn't know what he was hiding from, but he felt too vulnerable. He didn't want anyone to see him this upset.
"Henry"
He was so engrossed in holding himself together that he hadn't even heard Will come into the hallway behind him. He stayed silent, not acknowledging his father's presence, willing his emotions into submission as he stood, frozen in the middle of the hallway.
"Henry… you don't have to hold it together for anyone's sake"
His father's voice was soft… concerned. Everything he wanted and needed right now, but was too scared to let himself have.
He felt the brush of a hand on his shoulder and angrily twisted himself away. He wanted comfort, but he didn't. He was seething and yet breaking, his chest heaving through each breath with ragged intensity.
"You're fourteen years old, and this is… so much for you to process. It's a lot for me to process, and I'm a fully grown adult. There were not enough words in the English language for me to have ever been able to accurately describe what you and Michael were goin' to see when you got here-"
"Why did this have to happen to her?!" he spat with vitriol, whirling around to meet his father dead in the eye. He could feel the tears burning his eyes, his lower lip quivering, yet his teeth were gnashing together, his brow twisted and furrowed in something that could only resemble anger. He wanted to concede, to let one of the emotions win… but he just didn't know which way to fall. "Why her? Why our family? Why didn't they just wait? Why does she have to do this-this-this stupid fucking job? W-why did it have to take her away from us?"
As the last word met his lips, his voice cracked, the cascade beginning as the tears began to flood down his cheeks. His chest heaved, his shoulders shaking as hollow, desperate sobs began to rattle up from deep within. He didn't even notice that he was sinking to the floor, his father's hands grasping at him to slow his descent, pulling him into his chest and stroking his hair the way he always had when he was little.
"She's still here, Henry," came Will's voice after what felt like a lifetime, a lifetime of tears and snot and god knows what else. "I don't know why this happened to Mom… why her, why us, why this? I don't… I don't know. But she's… she not gone. Not taken. She's still her"
"She's not the same," Henry managed to choke out. "She's hurt and she can't move and she's in pain and I can't-I can't see her like that, she's my mom, she's not, that's not, it can't be-I just-you have to-"
"Henry, you need to breathe"
The sudden insistence brought Henry to the realisation that he was gasping for air, a clenched hand coming to his chest to mimic the Jaws of Life that seemed to have closed around his lungs.
"She can't… even sit up," he gasped, the thought rolling off his tongue as if he were conversing over dinner, not panicking in a hospital hallway. "Her… she… hands, she-"
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He couldn't do anything. Oh god, it felt like he was going to die.
"Breathe out Henry, force it out. Like you're blowin' out your candles"
The words seemed to echo through his head, bouncing dully off the inside of his skull, reverberating until all meaning was lost. His throat felt like a Chinese finger trap. A one way street. Out but not in. His goddamn lungs were caving in, vacuum sealing themselves in his chest.
His hands were tingling. Pins and needles, pricking their way up his arms and legs. Vision, closing off, tunnelling down, darker by each second.
Was he falling asleep?
Someone was stroking his hair.
And it felt like there was a concrete slab on his chest. As well as a pile of bricks in his head. Something on his face?
Forcing his eyes open, he blinked groggily up at the ceiling above him. Sterile. White. Something brown was growing in the furthest ceiling panel.
"Hey"
Turning his head towards the quiet voice, he found the pale face of his father sitting protectively at his bedside. What the hell had happened? Was he in a hospital bed? His bedroom definitely didn't have any suspicious brown stains on the ceiling.
"You passed out… went into shock and stopped breathin'," Will said in a shaky voice. "One of the nurses jabbed you with somethin' to calm you down. You'll feel a bit heavy for a little while… it's a pretty strong sedative"
Henry didn't respond, his eyes rolling back up to the ceiling as he tried to catch up with his racing mind. He could recognise now the rim of the oxygen mask on his face, cool oxygen blowing gently towards his mouth and nose.
And then just as suddenly as the panic had hit him before, he burst into tears. They came flooding forward with vigour, so much so that he felt ridiculous. A fourteen year old boy, midfielder on his soccer team, tough and strong like his mom and dad, blubbering like a baby in a hospital bed because his mom couldn't walk anymore.
Will must have seen this conflict on his face, because the next thing out of his mouth was, "It's ok to be upset Henry. You're allowed to be scared, confused, sad, lost, whatever. You can feel whatever you need to. No-one is judgin' you"
"I want Mom," Henry sobbed, the words tripping on his blubbering lips, seeming to die beneath the mask. "I want my mom"
"Come here," Will said sadly, bringing a hand to Henry's shoulder to guide him up into a sitting position as he carefully removed the oxygen mask from his son's face. Henry allowed himself to be pulled up, his head swimming from the crying and the sedative and the fact that he had passed out, but then his father's arms were around him, strong and comforting, holding him in the most crushing embrace he could manage. He buried his face in Will's shoulder, allowing the tears to flow freely, wishing that it was enough to make this waking nightmare go away.
"Let's see if they'll let you out of this bed, ok?" Will said gently. "And I'll take you to Mom"
It was only by virtue of the fact that they would be remaining in the hospital anyway that the doctor agreed to release Henry from observation, on the condition that Henry wasn't to walk upstairs to neurology, he was to be taken in a wheelchair until the side effects from the sedative had worn off. Henry acquiesced this with little argument; he felt too heavy to walk anyway.
It was in a sombre sort of silence that they made their way back to JJ's room, Henry staring at his fingernails as the ugly linoleum of the hospital floors whipped beneath him. It seemed an age and yet only minutes until they were entering back into the small room on the upper floors that had become his mom's temporary home.
She was alone when they came in; Henry guessed his dad must have sent Michael off with their grandmother to give them all a moment together.
"Hey… I'm supposed to be in the wheelchair, not you," JJ said as Will pushed him past the curtain that separated the entry door from the rest of the room. She had a tired smile on her face, but it couldn't shield the concern in her eyes. The gentle joke seemed to skid to a stop in front of Henry, failing to even crack at the corners of his mouth.
Will brought the chair to a stop, locking it in place before holding out a hand to help Henry to his feet. Too shattered to insist he could do it himself, Henry accepted, shakily getting to his feet and shuffling over to the edge of JJ's bed.
"You ok?" JJ asked quietly, her blue eyes shining up at him even in the dim light of the room. Henry shook his head, wordlessly climbing up to lay beside her, maintaining care not to jostle her or hurt her. JJ said nothing, clumsily moving her arm out to wrap around Henry as he lay down and tucked his head against her shoulder. Her hand came to rest on his back, and while he could feel the differences in her touch, the way she moved, he could also feel the familiar comfort of mom. He closed his eyes, a few more tears slipping through as he listened to the rise and fall of her chest with each breath, the sound of his dad moving to sit on the other side of the bed. The mattress shifted slightly, somewhere near JJ's feet, indicating his father had taken residence at the end of the bed. His mom's lips pressed against the top of his head, flooding him with a familiar warmth and comfort he was so scared would be lost.
"Once there was a baby star," came her voice in his ear, soft and soothing, barely above a whisper. "He lived up near the sun. And every night at bedtime, that baby star wanted to have some fun"
Henry pressed his lips together, a futile attempt against the onslaught of tears that his old bedtime story was sure to bring. He hadn't had it read to him in almost ten years… but somehow, he remembered it like yesterday.
"He would shine and shine and fall and shoot and twinkle oh so bright. And he said 'Mommy, I'll run away if you make me say goodnight'," JJ breathed, her own voice catching in her throat. "And then his mommy kissed him on his sparkly nose and said 'No matter where you go. No matter where you are. No matter how big you grow, or even if you stray far. I'll love you forever, 'cause you'll always be my baby star'"
Exhausted, Henry let the barriers fall, tears falling silently into his mother's hair. He could feel her tipping her head into his, gentle kisses of comfort peppering their way along the top of his head.
"I love you Henry," she said softly, and in her voice, Henry could hear the thickness of tears. "My beautiful boy who made me a mom… I'm so proud of you. And I know this is going to be… shit. It'll be tough, and ugly, and sad, and everything under the sun, but I wouldn't even have the strength to comprehend what's ahead for us if it wasn't for you and your brother"
Henry took a shuddering breath, keeping his face tucked safely into the crook of his mom's neck, away from the vulnerability of having his tears out in the open.
"That doesn't mean you have to be the strong one," JJ continued, pressing another kiss to the top of his hairline. "You're allowed to feel whatever you want or need to feel… that's the only way we're going to make it to the end of this. And we will. We're going to be ok, my sweet boy. I promise you. We're going to be ok. Our little family will be stronger than ever. And we're going to get through this, whatever it takes"
Henry swallowed hard, a shaky breath escaping him as he opened his mouth to speak. "I love you too Mom"
And then the room was silent save for the quiet tears running down the faces of its three occupants. At that moment, they were broken, and there were no instruction guides on how to put themselves back together.
On the other hand, Henry's shitty Lifetime movie scenario had come to ring true - family and friends were the most important thing to hold onto in dark times. Whatever came next, he knew their little clan would stick together like glue until all was said and done.
