[Underneath this farce] There beats the heart of man...

[little_callahan]

True to her word, Valkyrie was at Jack's house in ten minutes exactly...her mother had located a route that was clear, but Valkyrie knew about it a good five minutes before she did, as was her way. She always got the jump when someone was looking for something...

The road back, however, wasn't nearly as kind. Valkyrie could only assume that Julius was either in trouble with Billie, or he was falling hard. His power was emotionally tied, and she saw the way he was looking at that scrawny little toothpick of a girl that was, somehow, still prettier than she herself would ever be.

Two hours later, she was finally pulling her car into the driveway and ducking out, shivering in the rapidly falling snow that was now knee-deep. Leading Jack through the treacherous path up to her stoop, she let them both inside and stomped the snow off her boots, shedding her jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves quickly to let in the heat that surrounded them.

"Bugger the fucking snow." she huffed, rather than cursing her brother. After all, Jack didn't know yet...

Once Jack had laid his own things aside, she led him down the hallway to the guest room. Cracking the door open, she saw Billie in bed, bundled under the covers with Cain's massive form looming over her and Julius seated by her bed, rhythmically stroking her forehead. Catching his eye, the pair signaled to each other for a moment before Valkyrie shut the door and turned to Jack.

"You saw her, she's safe, but it looks like she's only just nodded off." Valkyrie explained. "She's hurting at the moment, so we'd best not wake her yet. Cain's looking her over, once he knows how she's doing we'll send you in. Meantime, living room. That fireplace you saw coming in is real, and I'm bloody freezing."

Comments

[not-thatbadass.livejournal.com]

Jack had to forcibly stop himself from staring during the ride to the Callahan's. She was just so damn... fucking beautiful. With the little almost ski jump nose and the freckles and the hair and the eyes and the lips and shit he was staring again.

As it was he spent most of the ride in silence fiddling with the sleeves of his uniform. In his haste and preoccupation with both Valkyrie herself and Billie's sudden predicament, he hadn't changed. And so he'd only noticed he was still in his dress blues when he shrugged his jacket on at the door. Oh well, he practically lived in his uniform most days, this was nothing different. There was no difference between Jack as a man and Jack as a Marine. Billie made fun of him because of it...

Billie.

He hated this. He really did -- and when he'd blamed Colby earlier, it hadn't been because he'd thought Colby influenced her, far from it. It was Colby's asshattery that had broken up the family in the first place, Ryan off the prison and Billie slipping and sliding down a path they didn't even know about. Fuck if he'd ever say that out loud though, Lord knew the kid blamed himself enough.

Seeing Billie's tiny little body under the blankets physically hurt, like the first time she'd gotten really sick after their dad died. She was nine and he sat up with her for three days while she cried in his lap because it hurt so badly. It scared the shit out of him then and it scared the shit out of him now, still knowing there was nothing he could do but wait it out.

At Valkyrie's words he blinked, tearing his eyes away from the closed door and fumbling in his pockets for a moment, pulling out a stick of Chapstick and a plastic teddy bear of honey. "She likes the honey when her throat hurts," he explained. His voice sounded odd to his own ears, choked and rough and for the umpteenth time in his life, he wished his parents were alive, if only to have someone to tell him that she was going to be okay.

And, selfishly, that he didn't do anything wrong.

[little-callahan.livejournal.com]

"S'ok, Keeks...we got her." Julius soothed as Jack stalked out of the room, reaching out to lay a hand on her shoulder. "G'won, help him out."

With an unsure look at Julius, and an apologetic look at the seething Billie, Valkyrie nodded and left the room, struggling against her own mixed feelings of regret and hurt. She'd done the right thing, she knew it...but the whole thing still stung.

Her own disquiet, however, was forgotten when she returned to the living room and saw Jack huddled by the fire again, shoulders hunched...and decidedly not comfortable. For just a split second, she didn't see a troubled man by the fire, she saw an older woman huddled on her bed, holding a split lip instead of a bruised heart. The two situations had nothing to do with each other, but they were connected by a single thread: Valkyrie wanted to comfort both of them, but just as it was when she was six years old, she didn't know how to just wave her hands and make it all okay.

So instead of fixing it, she simply crept across the room, quiet as a mouse, and sank down beside Jack without a word. Drawing her knees up, she rested her forearms on them and tilted her head to lay against his shoulder, offering the only thing she had: her presence, and the simple warmth of human contact.