Who: Max and Jack What: A meet up while Thomas is away. Where: Aubade When: During the tail end of the carnival. Warnings: Extreme UST?
Max had gone to the warehouse after her errands on Valentine’s Day - to her warehouse - where she’d dug through the paltry box of things she’d brought from Musings and decided on the chain and medal as a gift for Thomas. She’d had the thing since she was seventeen and she’d graduated high school with early admittance into Army training. It was the last thing her mother had ever given her that she could recall, and despite having worn it all through training and on enough missions to see the smooth round edge marred by fire and blade, she still kept the thing, polished it on occasion and tucked it away in a box when she couldn’t stand to look at it. It had made her feel safe and loved when she was younger. Now, it was more about what she’d lost than what had been given to her, but it had meaning - at least to her.
She’d resisted the urge to drive by the carnival after, and she’d gone to Aubade instead. She knew it would be empty by then, quiet and still, with Luke and Thomas both gone. And so it was.
The morning maid had left her a bottle of sparkling juice on ice with Preston’s flowers beside it, and she pet the petals as she poured herself a flute and went to take a hot shower. A few hours later, she was sitting on the bed in the master bedroom in sweats, a tanktop and one one of Thomas’ robes, paging through that morning’s edition of the Seattle Times, and checking her work e-mail while drinking the sparkling juice. The slight contractions she’d been having since the hospital were far enough apart that the monitor visible on the bare skin of her belly wasn’t beeping, and in the low-light of the bedroom the bruises on her temple were still visible, but not garishly so.
Jack had left the carnival intent on seeing Max when he left. He'd seen Thomas with the pink-haired girl at the carnival and taken it as a sign that he might actually be able to see Max without someone else being around.
He'd wanted to see her as soon as he found out what she'd done, what she'd tried to do, but when he had tried to visit her Thomas had been at home, and there was a guarantee of conflict there that he didn't exactly relish. He needed to talk to her, but it could wait until she was alone. Now it seemed he had his opportunity.
After he left the carnival he went straight for the Aubade, deciding to try the front door for once in his life. The guard by the front called up to Thomas Brandon's apartment, letting whoever was up there at the moment know that a man was waiting at the front desk to come up.
The night maid had left hours before, and Max answered the phone when the desk called, worried that it was Thomas needing help with his bad vision. When the desk guard told her someone was there, she asked for a name, and she loaded her pistol, just in case.
"Jack Corvus," he told the security guard, who relayed it over the phone to Max.
Max could hear the voice, but only slightly, and while she agreed to let the man up, that didn’t stop her from turning off every sound, every light in the apartment and positioning herself at a vantage point in the living room, gun pointed at the now-unlocked front door.
Jack took the elevator up, and when he stepped out onto the fifth floor he couldn't help but paused a moment to look at the opulence of it. He hadn't been in the Aubade before, and he couldn't imagine anything further than Hamartia. It felt a little like an alien world.
He knocked once on the door, then tried the knob when there was no answer, pulling it open onto a dark apartment. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he stood in the doorway, partially visible, eyes struggling to adjust to the dark. "Max?"
She lowered the gun when she heard his voice, and she switched on the light closest to her and ejected the magazine in one move of skilled practice. “No one comes up like that,” she explained, realizing it sounded slightly paranoid and giving him a small shrug of apology. She walked past another light and turned it on, too, and then she dropped onto the couch and motioned for him to sit. Beneath the light, like she was, the bruise to her temple and cheek was an ugly, yellowed-green and she propped her elbow on the arm of the couch and looked at him, the fetal monitor beeping slowly, but not alarmingly. “Did you come to bitch at me? Because everyone else has that covered.”
The gun didn't surprise Jack, not really, though it did make him worry. "It's fine," he said, to the apologetic gesture, and shut the door behind him as he walked in. "I thought it might be a good idea to use your front door for once," he said.
The bruising immediately caught his attention, and he didn't walk across the room to sit right away. He walked up to her instead, took a hand under her chin, and turned her head carefully to inspect the bruising. When he let go again, his expression was clouded and dark. "Who was it?" Then, after thinking on it a moment, he added, "What happened?" since he likely ought to find that out first.
“Nathan,” Max said, not pulling back from the grip while he held her chin. She knew their names now, knew which one was which, and she hugged her arms around herself as she looked away. “I just wanted to talk to the fucking waitress. Get an address and give it to Oracle. We’d talked about putting them on surveillance, the men,” she explained. “They were trailing me, and they shoved me down on the ground. I turned and shot, but my balance isn’t what it used to be, which makes me a fucking idiot, I know. I got one of them down, but the other pulled the gun on me - Nathan. I wasn't expecting the blow, and yes I know it was fucking stupid. I've already heard it from Oracle and Thomas, and I really don't need to hear it from you.” She stopped there, looking away, voice shaking more than a little. She'd been scared, and it showed on her face, even with all the anger.
Jack felt a spike of anger even hearing his name, and he looked into the darkness on the other side of the apartment, struggling to hide how much hearing that Nathan had nearly killed someone else he cared about felt like a punch in the stomach. "Why?" he asked finally, turning to look at her again. There was anger in every inch of him. He'd tucked it away neatly in the way he was very good at doing over the past few days, but that hadn't meant it had disappeared. It wasn't directed at her, however. "Surveillance - what, you wanted to make sure they weren't harming anyone?"
Max stood, the movement awkward with the baby weight, and she walked over to the window and looked out it, arms crossed and eyes unseeing. “No. When the Bat let you out, he let Oracle and I know it was on our heads if anything happened. We figured those men were the only ones you’d fucking go after, so we wanted to keep an eye on them. We hadn’t figured out what we were going to do yet. I was just going to talk to the fucking waitress,” she repeated. “They were going to fucking kill me.” She turned on him. “Do you understand? So any shit you’re going to give me for what I did, it won’t add up to that fucking fear. And I’ve already been run through the ringer, so save it. Yes, it was irresponsible. Yes, I’m a terrible fucking mother. I get it. Alright?”
Jack listened, and his expression grew more and more drawn in, more dark, more intense, and he began walking over to her before she was done speaking, stopping just shy of her.
"I'm not angry with you," he said. There was rage in that, seething and bubbling under the surface. "I'm angry that this became your responsibility. I'm angry that you were put in a position where you took that risk to keep me from doing something. I'm angry because he attacked you, as if it didn't matter, like all his sins will go unpunished forever and I hope they put him and Brian somewhere with high enough walls that I cannot get to them because if they don't I will kill them because they touched you. Because they hurt you. You aren't a terrible mother. You didn't know you would get attacked, you didn't deserve to get attacked and you didn't ask for it - no one ever asks for it. They are responsible. No one else."
The sound she made was pure frustration. “You can’t kill them. That’s the entire fucking point. They’re in jail, and I’m pressing charges, and they won’t get out for awhile. And in the meantime, you’re going to give this the fuck up, Corvus.” She looked away, then. “Oracle’s right. Thomas is right. I’ve fucked this entire pregnancy up, and this-” she waved a hand in a helpless motion. “It’s just dumb fucking luck I came out of it alive.” She shook her head, and she looked back at him. “Not me. It’s not me anyone’s pissed about, is it? Me making it out alive isn’t the concern.” She sounded hurt when she said it, angry, something she hadn’t voiced before.
He had to actually stop himself from touching her again, because it wouldn't be right. "When you sent me those booking sheets, I was terrified," he said, truth as plain as he could make it. "For you. Not for anyone else. It's not your fault."
She hugged herself tighter, the fetal monitor beeping quicker as she moved away to the couch again. “You can’t fucking kill anyone else,” she said, looking up at him. “Please. I’m begging you.”
He hesitated, not liking the beeping, not liking being forced to bind his word to that promise. He held that look with a mismatched gaze, then said, "Alright," after a moment. "I won't." It seemed to make him tired just to say that out loud, but little of the anger went out of him. "I just - you have to understand how it feels, Max." He didn't really need to go any further, couldn't bring himself to. The men she'd gone up against had taken everything from him, and the idea that they had tried to do it a second time, that they were still doing it to other people made him want to kill them ten times over.
He folded down onto the floor where he was, looking up at her on the couch. "You didn't go to the carnival," he observed, which already seemed a thousand miles away, somewhere in normalcy.
“They’re in jail. They assaulted a pregnant woman with a firearm. They can’t do what they did to you to anyone else,” she said, sitting forward on the couch. “And the one that’s left, we’ll find him.” She gave him a weak sort of smile. “Once I’m not pregnant anymore.” She looked down at her hands. “I was fucking terrified, if it helps. I didn’t tell Oracle or Thomas, but I was. I can’t fight like I could, and I still don’t know how I managed to get the gun in the end.”
His question about the carnival was so harmless, so innocuous that she looked up. “Thomas went with my sister, and I wasn’t going to wander around a carnival by myself like a beeping bus.”
He moved toward her, settling beside the couch, because he suddenly decided that the distance seemed impersonal. He was starting to feel a bit like a lap dog. Sad. He pushed thoughts of how pathetic all this was out of his head, there wasn't time for them. "You have to promise me you won't be the one to find him," he said. "I won't if you won't. He - it's his fault, the one who's left. He was my friend, and I think if I go near him I won't be able to keep myself from killing him. But I don't know where he is," he added, as a bizarre consolation. "And I won't."
"Of course you were scared," he said, surprised that Oracle and Thomas wouldn't have just assumed that. "You're pregnant, and a man attacked you with a gun. You took it from him because you are better, Max. I don't think it matters how pregnant you are."
The touch of humor seemed to deflate something, and he smiled faintly. "So that's who the girl was. I thought maybe some punk rock teenager had just lucked out."
“Yeah, well, Audrey has her own ways of acting out,” Max said, a reference to Audrey’s hair and her clothes. “She and Thomas get along really fucking well,” she added, before sighing and looking over at him with a little almost-smile. “I was fucking lucky,” she said, knowing it was true. “And between that and going after Thomas and whatever the fuck they injected in us at the hotel-” She took a deep, shaky breath and the monitor beeped louder. “I fucked up.” She shrugged again, helplessly. “They’re right - Oracle and Thomas. They’re right.”
She uncrossed her arms, and she squeezed one of his hands. “It’s on our heads, whether you want it to be or not, Oracle and mine. Twenty-four-seven surveillance, and we’ll do whatever we have to do to make sure-” Another pause. Being tired and worn thin made her too honest, and it had been a long fucking day. “We’ll track him down, and we’ll see what we can do to get him behind bars.”
"They seemed like they were having a good time," he said, keeping it as mild as possible. No need to make Max feel badly because she couldn't go. The reminder of the injection, however, made him concerned again. "I thought that was nothing," he said, searching her face for confirmation. It wasn't to say that he hadn't been worried it might turn out to be something, but by now any drugs would have gone through her system already. Unless it was something worse. "Stop saying they're right," he said, flatly. "They're not, and it doesn't do you any good to keep saying they are."
He squeezed her hand back, looking from her fingers back up to her face. "Don't rush it," he said quietly. "Really, Max, I'm not going to go find him. You look exhausted."
She squeezed his fingers almost painfully tight, not even realizing she was doing it. “It’s been a long month,” she said. “With Luke out looking for the terror and Thomas in the hospital, and then with Thomas missing, and we still don’t know what the fuck the deal with the hotel was, and then the Reavers before that and being bitten and the funeral.” She shook her head. “I’m tired,” she agreed, looking over at him. “I’ve got doctor visits every three days because of early contractions, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell Thomas.” She sighed. “Because he’s right, and I know it, and it doesn’t matter how much they tell me. I already know.”
He didn’t loosen his grip on hers, or pull his hand away. “I wish you wouldn’t say that,” he said, and resolved then to give Thomas a piece of his mind about the blaming Max so much she began blaming herself. “It’s been hard for everyone, but you’ve been at the center of everything that’s happened lately. That’s no one’s fault, yours least of all, and you have every right to be worn down.” Then he sighed, all too aware that telling her would have zero effect on her opinion. Oracle and Thomas had gotten there first.
She rested her head on his shoulder a minute, the movement awkward enough that it was obvious she didn’t know how to relax into it. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better,” she said honestly, staying there for a second before sitting up and punching his arm instead, which made her feel better about everything awkward in the world. “Now what the fuck are you doing here? Your date not go well?”
He tried not to take the quick lean in too much to heart, not to feel a pang when she sat up, and smiled when she punched him in the arm. “It went well,” he said, looking up at her. “I did normal things. I played a throwing game and went on a Ferris Wheel and it was all very...bizarre. In the way normal things are, these days.”
“And your date?” she asked, a teasing smile touching her lips as she looked over at him. “Read her any poetry and win her any teddy bears?” she asked, tugging on one of his curls with much less awkwardness than she’d exhibited when she leaned against him a moment earlier. “Are you going to ask her out again? Take her out to a movie and buy her popcorn?”
He laughed. "No poetry, but there was a teddy bear involved. She did most of the winning of it, I'm not very good at games like that." He bowed his head, looking up at her as she pulled on his hair. "I don't expect so. She seemed like a perfectly nice woman. She's a doctor, worked in World War II..." he shrugged. There was no explaining it to Max, not without laying a whole spread of things on the table that Max didn't need to hear. He could be her friend, from now until whenever she tired of him, but he didn't think he'd be able to take it if Max knew that when they were together he was busily hiding most of what he felt for her. Things would be broken and awkward, and they would decay. So instead, he said, "She only won me for the carnival. I expect she could find someone better any which way she turned." He nudged her, smiling a little. "It was good to be out out somewhere on Valentine's Day. Last year was a little...difficult. So thanks."
“Don’t sell yourself short, Corvus,” she said, touching his cheek. “If you liked her, give her a call. You might be surprised.” The monitor beeped, and she looked down at it and back up at him again. “I better get some sleep. Shoo,” she said, nudging him. “And thanks for not reading me the riot act for going through your shit. I appreciate it.” She was pretty sure he’d been intending to do just that, and that he’d only resisted because she assured him she’d already had her ass handed to her, but she still appreciated it. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said, using his shoulder for balance as she stood. “You’ll have to take me out on that bike of yours in a couple of weeks.”
He couldn't say anything to contradict her without sounding strange, unkind, or suspicious, so he simply avoided the topic altogether. "It's fine," he said. He wanted to add that it would be more fine if she never, ever mentioned what she'd read there, but he refrained. "Happy Valentine's Day to you too," he said. "Should I buy a baby sized helmet?"
She laughed. “I think Thomas would kill us both.” She walked to the door, and she pulled it open for him, and she leaned against the door’s edge as she waited. “Goodnight, Jack.”
"Goodnight, Max," he said. It was a little strange, exiting through the front door of her apartment, but there you were. He turned away from the door, walking toward the stairs. He thought she looked beautiful, fetal monitor, house clothes and all, but it wouldn't do anyone any good to say.