Chapter Text
Alice Abbot, née Randolph, had died on December 3, 2019. At 10:34 in the morning. Jack knows, because he’d been the one to declare her dead. Quietly, in his own head, fingers pressed on his wife’s pale neck, checking for a pulse.
She had woken up at 9:12, and the moment Jack had looked at her hazed-over eyes, he’d known it was going to happen soon.
You should have gone in your sleep, he had thought, taking Alice’s hand in his own-her thin, shivering hand. For a month now, every day he had woken up hoping that he would find she had gone in her sleep, peacefully.
But he had just kissed her forehead, gentle, because any touch could hurt. There had been pain in her eyes, and he’d moved to press the morphine drip, but Alice had shaken her head.
“Can you bring Meg?” Her voice had been so weak, he could hardly remember how strong it had been once-how her laughter had been like bells that rang through the world, brightening everything up.
“You’re in pain,” he’d objected. It was the only thing he could do for her, now.
Alice had nodded. She knew. But she would rather die in pain than out of it. He should have expected that.
So he’d put on his prosthetic and gone to get their baby girl.
Megan had been in the living room, still in her nightgown, being read a book by Alice’s mother. She had been eight, and had been reading for years by then. But she had stopped completely a few months earlier. Refused to read on her own, demanded to be read to.
It’s safer, her therapist had told Jack once. She can get the comfort of hearing the voice of the adults around her, but without conversation. Conversation is risky-it can always turn to her mom.
Memory is an odd thing. Especially the memory of a traumatic event. Sometimes it hitches its wagon to something innocuous and random. When Jack thinks about that day, and he thinks of Meg, the thing he remembers most clearly is her PJs. A matched pair. Alice had never tried to match Megan’s PJs. Why do that, when having a part from two sets meant Megan got double the choice? And Megan didn’t much care, either, once she got old enough to dress herself without assistance (when she was three. Some people said she was young for that. Alice would laugh and say she inherited her daddy’s pathological need for self-sufficiency).
But ever since Alice had deteriorated to the final stages of up-coming death, Megan had needed her clothes chosen for her. And her grandmother did care about matching.
And these ones had monkeys on them. Swinging from branches, munching on bananas. Megan hadn’t had much of an opinion about monkeys before that day.
After that day, she had hated monkeys.
“Meg,” Jack had said, and the look Alice’s mother gave him told him-she understood.
And Megan had too, because she had stiffened and said, “Let’s go to the park.”
“Not now, sweetheart,” Jack had reached out for her, but she’d shied away from him.
“Meg, go with your father,” Alice’s mother had said.
“No,” Megan had shaken her head, her two braids flying around her head with the force. “I want to go to the park.”
“We’ll go to the park later, I promise.” It had been one of the only times Jack had outright lied to his daughter. “Now let’s say good morning to Mommy.”
“But I don’t want to,” Megan had yelled.
And Jack had lost it. Not completely, not in a dangerous way. But he had felt something flooding him, numbing him, so he could think and not feel. And he’d reached down and picked Megan up. She’d struggled for a moment, demanding to be put down, but he’d just walked with her to the bedroom.
Then she’d cried, big rolling tears that fell on Jack’s shoulder as she pressed her face into his neck.
“I don’t want to,” she’d whimpered, clutching onto his shirt.
“I know,” Jack had said, and had known that his voice was too cold, too sharp.
You’ll thank me someday, he’d thought, as he deposited Megan on the bed next to Alice.
He could see the horrible pain in Alice’s eyes, and the struggle for clarity.
But Alice had smiled, and Megan had fallen against her, holding her tightly. Too tightly, tight enough to hurt and bruise the weak body. But it hadn’t mattered, at that point.
“My baby,” Alice had whispered, and Jack had stepped out of the room. Knowing, in some instinctual way, that this wasn’t for his eyes or ears.
Afterwards, Megan had been taken back to the living room by her grandmother. She had grabbed Pip, her elephant, who was bigger than she was, and curled into a tiny ball.
“Take care of her,” Alice had whispered to Jack.
“You know I will,” Jack had replied. “I’ll try to love her enough for both of us.”
He had felt so numb, like he was at the Pitt and Alice was just another patient-someone he cared about in a vague, detached way. But someone whose death he would recover from.
Alice had nodded, taking his hand in hers. He should have been hugging her, he should have held her in his arms. But he sat on the edge of the bed, and stayed there.
“Don’t... don’t join me,” Alice had said. And those had been her last words.
She had closed her eyes, then, and Jack had just watched her. Watched her breathing, until that was gone. Then he’d calmly placed two fingers on her neck.
December 3, 2018. At 10:34 in the morning.
***
Grief, Jack has learned, is a strange thing. It doesn’t always hit you when you expect it. It sometimes slammed into you in the moment you least expected it, for the most ridiculous reasons.
So, no, grief didn't follow a calendar. Jack would have expected that December 3 would be the one day a year when he would be sure to feel weighted down by the grief.
And sometimes he was, certainly-but sometimes it was just a day. Sometimes he woke up and thought about how another full year had passed, and that did nothing to him. Sometimes it felt silly, even, to commemorate the day. As if the more time passed-what? It would be easier? It would be harder? What difference did it make, the exact number of years, months, weeks, days, hours, he had lived without her?
On December 3, 2025, Jack wakes up to the warmth of a body pressed against his, to the view of snow falling outside the window, and only a small ache in his heart (The first time he had woken up with Robby pressed to his back, he had nearly lost it. Had nearly beaten the man next to him. Because for that half a second when he woke and felt the heat, he had thought it was Alice, and the half second that came after that, when he realised it wasn’t her-he had been so angry, suddenly. At Robby for not being Alice, at himself for being with someone else, at himself for feeling good wrapped in Robby’s warmth, that it was right. That he was meant to be there). He looks over at Robby, finding him still deeply asleep. Robby’s arms are surrounding Jack, holding him close, and Robby’s face is resting on Jack’s shoulder. He’s bigger than Jack, but he ends up as the little spoon more often than not. Which Jack hadn’t anticipated but also makes perfect sense.
Jack looks over at the clock. Six. Robby’s internal alarm will wake him in a few minutes, and Megan wouldn’t wake until seven at least. So Jack leans back against the pillows and closes his eyes, allowing himself a few minutes of quiet.
"Hey."
Jack looks down at Robby, who has a little frown decorating his forehead.
"Good morning," Jack replies. "Slept well?"
"Did I-you’re seriously asking me if I slept well?"
"I'm just trying to be nice in the morning, if you don't want me to just say and I'll go back to being a dick," Jack shrugs.
"No, it's ok, you can keep being nice," Robby smiles, tender. "I slept fine. Now tell me how you are."
"I'm ok."
"Yeah?" He doesn't sound like he believes Jack.
"Yeah," Jack confirms. "Look, sometimes it's just a day. Sometimes it's not, but right now... right now it just feels like a day."
Robby scrutinizes his face for a moment, and then nodded, seemingly satisfied with what he saw there.
"And you're sure that it's ok for me to be here when Megan wakes up? I don't want to-"
Jack rolls his eyes. How many times? It's not like this is the first time Robby is staying the night, and Jack had asked Megan, enough times to annoy her, if she was sure she was good with him being there on the anniversary morning. She hadn't minded, and Jack knows her well enough to know when she really doesn't mind something and when she's putting on a front.
He'd asked, one last time, the night before, when he'd gone into Megan's room to remind her to close the phone and go to bed and she'd rolled her eyes with an annoyed, oh my god dad, I said I was ok.
"It's not always a hard day for her either, you know," Jack says quietly. "Her-her birthdays tend to be tougher."
Another birthday celebrated without her mother.
"That day you definitely shouldn't sleep over," Jack finishes, then sighs and starts to squirm out from under Robby. This is all very nice, but it's morning and his brain is telling him he needs to get up.
He'd never been one for idling about. Add to that how it's one of those things that he hasn't managed to drill out of himself since the army-up and at 'em. You don't need to rest, get something done.
"Jack, come on," Robby needles. That had been a surprise for Jack-how cuddly Robby is, how much he enjoys just lazing around when he can. Robby at work is so full of energy, never stopping. But when he can rest, he really rests. "Stay with me a bit."
"As tempting as that is," Jack leans over Robby to whisper in his ear, "I'm going to go make breakfast."
Robby groans in disappointment as Jack slips away. Jack grabs the crutch leaning against the bed. Using it, he heads out of the bedroom, stopping for a second in front of Meg's closed door. For a moment he stares at it, imagining what is happening on the other side. Megan, curled into a ball the way she always is in sleep, maybe hugging her stuffed elephant Pip, maybe the pillow-but she always hugs something in her sleep.
Jack continues, making his way to the kitchen to get started on breakfast. Pancakes, eggs.
By the time Robby comes in, hair wet from a quick shower, Jack has almost finished.
"That smells amazing," Robby says, collapsing on the chair with a sigh like he's just entered nirvana. "Is there anything you can't do?"
"Not really," Jack replies. "I'm going to get Meg before the food gets cold, don't eat all the pancakes."
"You made like twenty pancakes," Robby says, "I'm not going to eat all of them."
"Great," Jack pats Robby's shoulder and heads back to Meg's room, knocking on her door and calling out, "Meg? Breakfast is ready."
He waits for a moment, but there's no response.
"Megan, pancakes," he tries again. But again, nothing. Jack frowns and pounds at the door, "Megan!"
"Jack?" Robby frowns as he comes up.
"Megan's not answering," Jack says.
"Maybe she's upset-"
"And I can't hear anything from inside," Jack takes a deep breath, forcing his whole body into calm. "She's not in there."
Robby's face pales, "Shit."
"Shut up," Jack snaps, because he can't have Robby freaking out right now.
He opens the door.
As expected, the room is empty.