rip me apart to see my insides, compose myself i'm not secure;
Frankly when she'd gone to pick up her brother form the bus depot in the city -- none of her family tended to fly anywhere -- the one she had been most hoping wouldn't turn up was Jesse, the oldest of the four siblings, but typically that was exactly who it was. Immediately her reaction was a Fuck My Life eye roll and a rake of a hand through her black hair, a staggered sigh playing accompaniment to the motion. Of all of them, it was Jesse she had the most issues with; Bennett, the youngest brother had been the one that she had managed to hospitalised but he was also the one that she had shared a room with her whole life and she knew that they were pretty okay now, she didn't relish the thought of seeing him again particularly but at least that was on her, she was the one who had left town more or less the moment the Ambulance had peeled out of the driveway. Trey was the middle brother, and he would have been the best candidate, level headed and calm, someone she could have had reasonably civil conversations with. Jesse on the other hand was going to be a nightmare and she knew it as soon as their eyes met through the throng of people humming around them. His expression stiffened, her spine went rigid and for a moment she felt as if the ground under her feet was moving like quick sand. Driving back to the mansion had been awkward too, there was little conversation, little eye contact, Lucille found that she kept having to remind herself to take air into her lungs and let it out again, like her body seemed to have forgotten how to react autonomously. If it hadn't been for King and Jaya willing to distract her older brother she probably would have snapped much sooner than she actually did, instead they managed to occupy him for an afternoon and Lucille slunk off into the Danger Room to let off some steam; normally she would have gone to the art room instead but she didn't feel like running into Kevin after their spat on the journals, she was mad at him, not that she thought he would care that she was, but that was besides the point; she had said she could handle this and if she bumped into him looking a neurotic wreck that would hardly back up her statements. It was that evening, the day after Jesse had arrived that things took a nose dive.

Jesse wanted to see the hedge maze and Lucille wanted to not be hanging around inside all that much so she agreed to go out there with him. Of course they got lost almost instantly, she might have been at the school for two years now but Lucille still usually ended up lost in the hedge maze, part of her liked it though, it might ave been a conscious effort, she liked the idea of being tucked away from the school, out of sight and out of mind. This wasn't the best time to indulge in her hermit like tendencies though, because as they wandered around, hands in their pockets, shoulders in matching slants of forced casual companionship he chose to start doing what she had been waiting for him to do this whole time; acting the part of her father. Once upon a time she had needed him to be the father figure, when their own was so often away on business, but things had changed now, she had grown up and moved on and she'd tried to leave all of that behind her, and until recently she'd succeeded. Maybe a little too well.

They turned a corner to the right, her shoulder skimming the living wall as they went when he opened his mouth to speak. "You've changed, you know." It was quiet and when she looked at him he was frowning. "I don't know if I like it."

Eyes narrowed slightly, Lucille responded in an almost tentative rebuff, she didn't want an out and out argument, but she wasn't exactly a shy retiring peach who was going to take his Holier Than Thou trip with a smile. "You don't have to like it."

Jesse sighed, "No I guess not." They wandered along a little further, silently before he tried to break open a conversation again, "Are you going to tell me what happened in Times Square?"

Silence was the response he was met with at first. Lucille was frowning now, her head tilted forwards so that she could watch her feet moving across the grass beneath them. Distancing herself from things had always been one of her coping strategies, letting her mind detach itself from the immediacy of something and what had happened in the city was no exception, not just because of Adrien and Kevin, but the sheer scale of destruction that she'd witnessed, she'd never seen anything like it in her life, and hoped that she never would again, though her recent vigorous dedication to training would suggest that she didn't think she would be able to avoid it totally, not if she wanted to go all the way with the X-Teams, and she did. "No." At last she spoke, raising her head with a sigh, decision made. It wasn’t any of Jesse's business.

"Don't start doing that."

"What?"

"Getting all defensive with me."

Lucille laughed, the sound short and acidic, she stopped walking. Jesse went on a few paces before turning to look at her, her expression was one of disgusted incredulity, "What do you expect? Sorry we're not getting our kumbaya-yas in here, but you didn't really think I was going to be happy to see you, did you?"

Jesse's expression had shifted to match hers, the similarities in their appearance became more evident, though less pronounced than with the other two siblings. "No I didn't, in fact I was pretty sure you were going to act just like this but I guess I hoped you'd have grown up a bit since running away from home."

"As if you know anything about that." Angrily, she shoved past him and marched off deeper into the maze, behind her she could hear his footfalls accelerating into a jog as he followed after her, but she kept her dark eyes ahead, her muscles piano wire beneath her skin.

"Just cut the crap and talk to me, would you? I'm worried about you."

Speaking in a clear, assertive but angry tone, she continued to walk, taking the next left. "No. You're not. You're not worried about me, you're worried about you." She pointed in his direction, but didn't look at him. "You came here to see if you're okay because you feel guilty about what happened."

Jesse's tone stiffened, lifting one hand from his pocket and pointing off in the direction of the mansion even though it was well out of sight, he caught up to her, "What did he do to you?"

"Nothing!" Lucille spat hotly, whirling around dramatically so that they almost collided and he had to double step. "I get enough of that from the kids around here okay, I'm not defined by the train wreck that is my relationship with Adrien." She paused and corrected herself, closing her eyes and shaking her head once; "Was." Getting back on track with a huff she too gestured in the direction of the school. "He didn't do anything to me that I didn't know was a possibility, I knew that the drug trials were unproven. I knew that if it came down to it he would break up with me, but, I don't know, I'm an idiot I guess, I didn't care. I didn't want to care and I'm sick of justifying myself to everyone, especially you."

"What, we barely hear from you for two years, and this is how you react? You're being a brat, Lucille. I came here to make sure you're safe, not to listen to--"

"You walked out on me! Okay? You don't get to come down here and try and save me because you weren't there when I needed you to make sure I was safe, you left me with that woman and you didn't look back because when it really came down to it you cared about exactly one person and that was you." Lucille gestured exasperatedly, pacing, her hands rising and falling as if not knowing what she ought to do with them other than gesture emphatically. "I'm not a little girl anymore, I'm all grown up now and I can take care of myself." Hadn't she come out of the concentration camps okay? Shaken, guilty but okay. Hadn't she survived Times Square? In a fashion. Emotionally wrought, but okay in the end. Lucille was always okay, right?

"Yeah, you're doing a fantastic job of that, I barely recognise you, Luce. Whatever happened to you, you don't have to carry all around like some goddamn cross to bear, you know? Don't be such a fucking martyr."

"Oh me a martyr? Me? Are you fucking kidding me with this? You're not my father, Jesse, stop acting like it."

"Luce--"

"I just can't do this with you right now. Not right now." Seamlessly she slid into Acadian, her hands knitted into her hair at the roots, bunching up the dark, unruly curls as if she wanted to tear them right out, but instead she stood frozen in that position, her voice a hoarse whisper. "It's too much, okay? I can't deal with any more right now. You just-- you have no idea."

Jesse moved forwards and reached towards her but pre-empting the contact, the younger sibling raised her own hands, her head turned a fraction, her jaw tight, her muscles tensed as she glared at him from an angle, as if suspicous of his actions, as if daring him to actually touch her. "If you put your hand on me, I swear I'll break it off." Frowning, her brother stared at her, his lips a thin, bloodless line, his hand hovering in the air between them, stopped halfway by his younger sisters words, the sursurrant edge to her breathing and the angry flush in her cheeks; her believed her, Lucille had that glint in her eye he recognised because he got it too, so did the middle brothers, that steely resolve and stubbornness.

"You should go." Lucille shook her head, actively backing away from him. Suddenly she felt so tired she couldn't even argue with him for another minute, she just wanted him gone, she wanted to forget that the past month had ever happened, the Cure, Times Square, everything. "I want you to go."

When he didn't move, still seeming to be frozen on the spot, his hands halfway between reaching out to grab her shoulders, or maybe to hug her, and dropping back to his sides, Lucille yelled at him, feeling a hot molten burst in her chest, uncontrollable bottle anger. "Go home, Jesse!" He stared at her silently and then he turned around and started to go back the way they had come through the maze with an emphatic and childish Fine. She watched him go, even when he'd disappeared beyond a corner, Luce stood frozen to the spot, hearing the argument vibrating against her eardrums still. Once he got out of the maze, she knew that Jesse would leave just as she's demanded he do and for a few moments she desperately wanted to go after him and apologise and grab him in a bear hug, for just a few moments she would have swallowed her pride to have him hold her and tell her it was okay, she was going to be okay. Then the moment passed and something seemed to buckle silently and pathetically inside of her chest.

Generally Lucille didn't cry, she got mad or she got even, but she didn't get teary and blubbery but for once she let herself dissolve, a stone bench cantered towards her as her knees lost their fight against gravity and she sank onto the seat just as it skidded to a stop behind her, some sort of subconscious call having gone out without her realising it. There was a dim possibility that several objects in the closer side of the mansion also hopped or jerked to life for a few minutes. Out in the maze, Lucille was fourteen all over again; face in her hands she gave a strangled, childlike hitch of breath before her palms were soaked with salty water.

[narrative;; closed]