WHO: Esther and Gabriel Shaw WHEN: Morning of March 7 WHERE: The living room of their house SUMMARY: Gabe comes home after a night at Jules's and finds Esther waiting for him. WARNINGS: Mentions of child abandonment BINGO PROMPT: Have An Argument Â
Gabe’s first overnight with Jules since they had begun whatever tenuous relationship they’d had the past several weeks had been anything other than what one might have expected from their first opportunity for one. But he’d expected it to be different, if only because they’d mutually decided that maybe it was time they sit down and decide what they were or wanted to be to each other. It hadn’t been an easy night. There was really no way the path they were walking together could be with everything they shared in their past and the events that had lead them here. By the time they had reached the actual overnight portion of their time, though, they seemed to have come to a conclusion that tentatively worked for the both of them.
Everything wasn’t okay but there was hope that maybe one day it would be. Gabe and Jules had come to the mutual decision to try to be okay. Whatever they had to do to give their family the best chance, they were willing to do it, even if they failed in the end.
And so when Gabe drove home the following morning after having stayed wrapped around this woman who, despite everything and how complicated it still was, held his heart, it was with a new surge of hope for a future he was going to try to attain. He let himself in the front door and shrugged off his coat and hung it on the hook in the hallway before slipping off his shoes and heading back toward his room quietly in an effort not to wake his sister who was likely still asleep.
Except that she wasn’t still asleep he found as he rounded the corner into the living room where Esther was currently sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal.
Gabe cleared his throat and ran a hand over his hair. “Er, morning,” he said by way of greeting, realizing that there was no way to make this less awkward than it already felt.
Esther had never considered herself an overbearing sibling. For the vast majority of the last eleven years, she and her brother had been roughly 700 miles apart, save for visits to one another's respective cities or back home to see their mother. They had managed to stay close and protective of one another even with that distance, but there was plenty that went on in her brother's life that Esther knew she wasn't privy to. And that was fine, given that much of it was the sort of thing she didn't want to be privy to.
The night prior, she had been up as late as she ever was. Though she had considered seeing what Chase was doing, a stellar combination of heartburn and fatigue had left her curled up on the couch, trash TV on, as she cuddled with her cats. It wasn't until she'd dozed off and woke up the next morning, still on the couch, that she realized that Gabe had never come home.
It didn't take a genius to figure out where he was, not with the context clues that Esther had already gathered in the last couple of weeks. She didn't consider herself to be an overbearing sibling, no… but she found herself veering into that territory that morning. And so, rather than go to bed to get a few extra hours of sleep like she might have on a normal occasion, she let her immediate irritation that her niece's mother always inspired keep her awake. She got up. She fed the cats. Then, she got herself some cereal, sat on the couch, and waited.
Esther hadn't waited long before Gabe entered the house. Still on the couch, bowl balanced in one hand, one cat at her feet and the other sprawled next to her, she looked up at her brother, raising an eyebrow. "Good morning."
Gabe, not sure what else to do, gestured toward his sister and the cereal bowl and noted, “You’re up early.” He’d thought for sure that he’d be able to slip in unnoticed. He knew he didn’t need to explain himself to her, but he also knew that he didn’t necessarily want to, either. They didn’t keep a lot of big things from each other, but this particular big thing was something he was still figuring out for himself and he didn’t need to be a genius to know how Esther was going to feel about it.
"I had heartburn last night and fell asleep on the couch, so now I have heartburn and a backache," Esther responded, as though that was an actual answer to his observation. She placed the spoon in her bowl, both hands now cupping what was mostly just sugary milk. Looking into the bowl, she considered its contents for just a moment before looking back up at her brother.
"So," she started, raising an eyebrow. "How's Jules?"
Gabe nodded at the completely reasonable explanation as was about to ask her if she needed anything to help with the heartburn like a good, concerned brother before Esther continued. He let out a sigh and glanced up at the ceiling. So they were doing this. Early in the morning. When neither of them had had nearly enough sleep to be prepared for it. Letting his gaze turn back to his sister, Gabe shrugged. “Good,” he replied, not even trying to deny where he’d been all night. “Probably picking up Ella as we speak.”
Despite herself, Esther felt her heart warm at the mention of her niece; if there was one good thing that had come from having Jules in their lives, it was certainly that girl. But it wasn't enough to distract her entirely from her feelings. There had been plenty of distractions come up since Gabe had first told her that he'd slept with Jules and while she didn't judge and would never judge her brother, the concern was there and it had only grown.
Leaning forward Esther set her bowl down and refocused her attention back on her brother. "I don't get it, Gabe. Is it just for fun?"
Gabe considered how to answer the question. He knew the answer, but he wasn’t entirely sure that Esther would be satisfied with it. Was it easier to pretend this was nothing for Esther’s sake until he knew for sure what the future was going to look like? Or would it be impossible to hide the weekly therapy sessions they’d agreed to, or the family dinners he’d committed to? And, even if he could lie about his intentions for the time being, did he really want to? Did he want to pretend like this meant less to him than it did, especially to the one person in his life who knew him better than anyone else?
No, he thought, he really didn’t want to lie to her. That wasn’t the sort of relationship they had.
So despite himself, Gabe shook his head. “No, it’s...not,” he answer honestly, the hint of hesitation in his voice. “Maybe it was that, for a little while, but it’s not anymore. I’m...I actually want to see what this could be, if anything. I think I owe it to both of us to find out.”
It was the answer that Esther was afraid of. A fling or an entertainment of the feelings they had shared for one another for years before Jules had left them all high and dry would have been one thing. She understood attraction and the pull that came with it. What she couldn't understand was pursuing something beyond that, not with someone that had done exactly what Jules had done.
She should have just texted Chase the night before. It wouldn't have changed anything, of course, and this conversation would have happened eventually, but she knew that now, with too little sleep and at an hour much more early than she was accustomed to, was not a good time. But, here they were.
"You owe her nothing, Gabe." Esther sat up a bit straighter, shaking her head at her brother. "She broke your heart when you were sixteen and then at twenty-nine. Why are you giving her the opportunity to do it again?"
It wasn’t like it wasn’t a question Gabe had already asked himself, but Esther asking it, too, seemed to set him almost immediately on the defensive. “I didn’t just magically forget what happened, Esther. It happened to me, after all. I think I’m the one that gets to decide what’s owed and what opportunities are given, don’t you?”
"She didn't just do it to you." Esther's response was immediate and were words that she'd only ever admitted to Chase -- but even then, they hadn't been as direct as they were now. She got to her feet, Arwen making a soft noise of protest as Esther stepped over her, just one short movement closer to her brother. "I know that I'm not the important one in all of this. Ella is your kid, not mine. But she didn't just keep her from you. She kept her from me, from Mom. So yeah, maybe you're the one that gets to decide what's owed and what opportunities are given, but that doesn't mean I need to be magically okay with the prospect of that woman being in all our lives more than she already has to be and just sitting back and waiting for her to hurt you again."
Gabe frowned. He knew that. Of course, he knew that. Did she not think that he did? But when it came to whether or not he was allowed to have a relationship with Jules, he didn’t think it was very fair to assume it was anyone’s decision but his own. He didn’t move closer to her. It was an unconscious non-movement learned after the years he’d spent with the father they’d had. Stepping forward, using his height to intimidate and silence her...he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. So he stayed where he was, hands shoved into his pockets as he continued to frown.
“I never asked you to be okay with it. And, for the record, Jules hasn’t asked for me to be okay with it, either. She hasn’t asked me for anything more than I’ve thus far been willing to give.” He took in a breath, trying to decide what to say, what words could properly explain why he felt the way he felt. “She went through hell, too, though,” he started, “and it doesn’t excuse the choices she made, or the hurt it caused all of us, and it doesn’t suddenly give me back the years I deserved to have with my daughter, but it’s something, Esther. And if I can see the other side of this, and can see the possibility of having what I should have had from the beginning, how can you mad at me for wanting to know if I can have it? How can you be mad at me for wanting my family to be whole, if it’s at all within my power? I’m not a goddamned idiot, Es. I know what she did, and I know there’s no easy way to find a way past it, but how can you blame me for wanting to try the hard thing, if it could also be the right thing?”
There was a part of her that understood where he was coming from. Esther fully believed that her brother deserved love and happiness and every other good thing that the world had on offer. Her instinct to protect him, though, even if he was older, bigger, and smarter than she thought she would ever really be, was strong. It had been her entire life, for as long as she could remember. But how could she protect him when it seemed as though the person she was meant to protect himself from was Gabe?
And it was that frustration, combined with heightened emotions and that aforementioned lack of sleep, that she was riding on.
"You're not an idiot, but you're sure acting like one." They weren't words she meant and she immediately regretted them, her eyes closing and her face scrunching up -- neither of which were enough to take them back. "That's not -- I didn't mean that. I just don't get it."
The words stung. Of course they did, especially coming from Esther. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion,” he replied quietly. “So if you’ll excuse me, even idiots need showers.”
This was the moment for an apology, Esther knew. It was the moment where she should take it all back and do nothing but offer his support and plan to be there for her brother if this experiment with Jules went south. It was the moment that she should step up and be the good sister that she strived to be every day for the last twenty-eight years.
Maybe it was the shame that tinged her cheeks red or the fact that she really did think he was making a mistake. Maybe it was the memory of growing up without a father and knowing that Ella had spent eleven years feeling that same thing. Maybe it was because she was staring down motherhood and couldn't imagine doing to Chase what Jules had done to Gabe. Or maybe it was simply because she had a sore back, heartburn, and was more emotional than she could ever remember being that kept her from apologizing. Maybe it was a little of each. Whatever the case was, Esther simply breezed past Gabe toward her bedroom before she said something else she would undoubtedly regret.