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Something Bad Happened

Chapter 8-What I Wouldn't Do For Love

Jamie has some conversations. Part 1.

It's strange he thinks, dying.

"Oh for God's sake Jamie stop being dramatic"

"Joe!"

"Tell me about my son" Joe said suddenly. "I shouldn't ask, Mom told me I shouldn't ask but…tell me about him anyway"

"He's a hothead, arrogant, has a temper the length and breath of the Brooklyn Bridge, he doesn't think before he does something, he breezes through life like—"

"A Reagan?"

Jamie smiled. He was sat on his Dad's windowsill looking at the Towers his forehead pressed against the glass. Joe was still sat in his Dad's chair feet on the desk swirling the scotch in his glass in a way that would have almost certainly gotten him in trouble if he'd have done it in real life.

"Does he have a girlfriend?"

"Eddie's ninety nine percent sure he's bi"

"Oh that will spice up dinner"

"You know what bi is?"

"Oh for fucks sake Jamie of course I do. And I don't care you know"

"I know."

"I didn't…I didn't mind that much about gender" Joe said finally as if he was confessing something. "I just…I like personalities more you know"

"I do" Jamie said quietly. "I knew that Joe. I kinda had an inkling that before Holly their was a Herbert"

"Herbert?"

But Jamie was laughing and Joe was laughing too and then his big brother threw his boots of their father's desk and came to join them standing up in one long elegant leap.

"So…talk to me about my car"

Jamie groaned.

That was going to be a bitch to explain.

He was tired.

He was pleasantly drunk but he was tired too.

"Is this death?" he asked quietly. "Is this what it's supposed to feel like?"

"No" Joe said quietly. Jamie had collapsed a little onto the couch and his head was now in his little brothers lap. "No kiddo it's not. Like I said…this is where you choose"

"I don't want to choose" he said into Joe's jeans. "I want to…I want someone to choose for me." He looked up as his big brother ruffled his hair. "Can you not choose?"

"Not God kiddo" Joe said quietly with that gentle expression back on his face as if Jamie had, had a nightmare and he needed putting back to bed. "Not God nor do I wanna be one. I think that's what's messing up my boy a little"

"Huh?"

"You speak about me as if I didn't have flaws Jamie, you know damn well I had them."

"Dad doesn't see them"

"Yeah cause I'm dead. But you gotta tell Joe about the bad stuff. Cause the bad stuff mixes in with all the good stuff and that's how you make someone real. Right now all he's got is the good stuff and he's gonna get himself killed trying to prove that he's better"

"Name bad stuff?"

"Ask Danny" Joe said quietly. "I got drunk, I got high, crashed Dad's car that one time, got in a party that was raided. Mom and I didn't speak for three weeks because I didn't go to Church. Remember when I didn't turn up for that cops funeral? I had issues with religion and authority. I kept onto that car by the skin of my teeth and everyone forgets that because Danny was worse"

Jamie laughed.

"Danny was worse. And Erin. I could have set the house on fire and it wouldn't have made up for that"

There was a pause where Joe huffed a laugh.

"Jamie?"

"Hmm?"

"You know you can't stay here right"

Jamie cracked one eye open.

"Here is easy" he said quietly. "Here is nice and easy and simple. I don't have to think here Joe."

It was like the words had tumbled out of him with very little that he could do to stop them,

"Think about what?"

"About the pain, about what life is gonna look like post this…I know…I know that I might never walk again. What kind of life is that?"

"I don't know…least you'll always get a parking space—"

"JOE!"

Joe smiled and gently pushed him back up.

"What about your wife?"

"Don't speak about her" Jamie said suddenly.

"Why not?"

Yes indeed. Why not. Why not speak about Eddie.

It was simple really. He was keeping Eddie locked in a box for as long as he could. He didn't want to think about his wife, about how just this morning she had made coffee and they had kissed and talked about normal day to day lives. They'd had nearly five years of solid marriage under their belt most people didn't make it through half of that and they had a good partnership. Eddie was young right…if he wanted to stay…if he wanted to stay she would be able to find someone right?

Joe snorted and it took him a moment to realise that he was speaking that thought out loud. Not by the actual words but by the look on his face and his brother, ever the Detective had managed to read through it.

"Jesus kiddo, you get a woman like that and you don't wanna fight to stay with her?"

"Don't wanna be a burden to her"

"Oh for Gods sake Jamie" Joe said with an eye roll. "I never got to meet Eddie but even I know that she's got more balls than the rest of this family but together, hell within the first month of your engagement she went toe to toe with Dad, Danny and Erin and came out unscathed. She doesn't want some posh corporate twat, she wants you. And I reckon considering the way she's crying right now that she'll want you in any way that she can"

Jamie shifted a little.

"She's crying?"

"Well somehow I don't think she's throwing a parade" Joe deadpanned. "And then there is Danny…Christ Jamie can you think for a second about what burying you is gonna do to Danny?"

Jamie shifted uncomfortably. "Danny will be…it was harder to lose you, you and Danny were always closer than me and Danny"

"Jamie that is a crock of shit and you know it"

"No it's not! Danny and I…were better than we were yeah sure but were not close. Not like you and him used to be, not like me and you used to be, we don't talk every night about the day, we don't go out drinking and bitch about the bosses, there is tension every ten seconds with us. You don't…were better sure but…but were brothers you know, you and Danny were friends"

Maybe that was an unfair characterisation. Since that Mothers Day all so long ago things had been getting better. Danny made more of an effort and so did Jamie, even more so since Linda died and Danny had become a shell of himself overnight dragging his feet and unable to look anyone in the eye, blaming himself and sometimes blaming the badge for what had happened.

The more he sat there and thought about it the more that he thought that there was a point to what Joe said. Danny had been barely functioning when Joe had died. He had pulled his boots on his Marine boots and had done what he'd had to do to keep the family afloat but it was clear that he had been struggling. Jamie had barely been able to get out of bed but he had seen Danny hadn't shaved in a week, had seen that he was shaking whenever he thought nobody saw, had seen the excessive drinking whenever they managed to tip their Dad and Grandpa to bed, both of them old men overnight with the loss of their son and grandson, a man who was supposed to have buried them and not the other way around. Now that he did think about it—he didn't think Danny had it in him to do it all again,

"Okay so Danny would be a problem"

"Danny would be here with us within six months" Joe said quietly. "And you know it"

Jamie did.

God help him he did.

"And Erin cannot carry this family by herself" Joe said and again he conceded the point. "So you have to live then don't you?"

Jamie shrugged.

"I don't want to leave here" he said quietly. "I don't want to leave you. I don't…do I have to make the decision now?"

Joe shot him a rather unimpressed look but answered truthfully.

"No" he said quietly. "No you don't have to leave right now Jamie"

Jamie put his head down on Joe's thigh, in any normal position this would cause terrible cramping but this time it didn't. His back and his leg and his knee were fine. He was making the most of this he supposed.

One way or the other.

Joe's hands found his hair and if he noticed that Jamie was crying silently into his jeans then he didn't say anything.

Joe was a good brother like that.

Maybe he died or maybe just simply he fell asleep. Or maybe dying and falling asleep was the same and he had nothing to show for it? It didn't matter really because when he awoke he was still in the same position that he had always been in and there were softer hands combing through his hair. Hands that he remembered soothing him when he was sick, when he had nightmares, when he was crying because the end was near and in the prevented sense of comfort his mother was comforting him even though she was the one who was dying.

He didn't open his eyes. If he looked up and saw her face then he was going to lose it and he was going to stay with her, he was never going to leave her again,

If Joe was an open wound then his mother was like pouring vodka on it and then throwing the match in just to see what happened and what was left when the world all burned.

"Momma?"

"Hello my sweet baby boy"

He closed his eyes shut. Tight.

"Momma"

She made a shushing noise and rocked him back and forth a little her fingers in his hair. Her touch was just as he had remembered it, he had forgotten so much of his mother over the years but some stuff still remained. Some stuff he could remember. Like how his mother had smelt like YSL perfume and how she had used Estee Lauder skincare. About how her hair smelt like a specific cherry shampoo that still caught him off guard even now when he smelt it. Eddie had never understood why he couldn't have those three things in the house—not really—but then again—for better or for worse his wife had two living parents.

She shushed him again and he closed his eyes and breathed her in.

"You need to live Jamie" she said softly. "Your father needs you, you cannot leave your Dad alone here"

He knew it, Danny would be hell, Eddie a thing worse than hell…what his Dad would do when he found out he had lost a second child to the job that had taken his first, his eldest and his youngest…the job he was married too…the job that Jamie was never supposed to have entered…well…that was the seventh circle of whatever was beyond hell and Jamie knew it.

There was another run of fingers gentle in his hair and he kept his eyes closed.

He knew she was right.

He just didn't want to waste a single second of this.

Eventually he had to open his eyes. He didn't know when she was gone but he knew she had gone and when he looked up he was face down on the couch again and he sat up wiping his eyes and feeling tired. There was a dull ache now in his lower back Joe was gone.

His mother was gone.

But there was someone else looking at him and as Jamie turned to see who it was he felt the smile come to his lips.

Because this was the one man he really, really had wanted to see again.

Just once.

Vincent Cruz sat there looking at him that same shit eating grin on his face and Jamie grinned back and knew there and then, that his decision had already been made.

And there you go, let me know what you think.

Next Chapter-Vinny and Jamie are reunited at last.