Archive of Our Own

There isn’t a time that he remembers actually wanting kids. Jacob loves his brothers with a fervency he’d always thought unmatched, but he’d had his fill of child rearing during those awkward teenage years where he’d played the fused role of brother and dad.

He goes to war, kills a hundred other young men just like him, loses the closest friend he’s ever had. He comes back from war, but he’s still carrying the fight inside him, his brain a traitor to his body. He has hazy memories of hospital beds and overcrowded shelters. He doesn’t think once about children.

He gets to Hope County, settles into a routine that makes him strong, powerful, whole. The Project becomes life. His brothers become his life. He’s forty-four years old and doesn’t have time to think about a family of his own — not when he’s too busy chasing that hellion across the mountains.

The bombs fall. The Collapse, the end that his brother promised, is at their doorstep. He rushes into John’s bunker with that same hellion in tow, his hands shaking, his breath coming in anxious gasps. He feels differently about her now. He knows what her nightmares are about, knows how much guilt she’s storing inside herself. He cares about her.

The world has ended, and ‘children’ is no longer a word in his vocabulary. It can’t be.

And then it happens.

Rook tells him she’s pregnant, and he loses his goddamn mind. He doesn’t talk to her for weeks, sleeps on a cot in his office instead of their bed, becomes so irritable that even his brothers start to avoid him.

Jacob won’t ever admit it to anyone, but he is terrified. He’s terrified of a lot of things. Becoming weak. Turning into his father. Rook and his kid realizing that he has nothing to offer them but the empty halls of this metal prison.

He’s ashamed to admit that his first thought is to pretend that none of this is happening. Rook doesn’t need him. He’ll just make it worse. It’s best if he just stays away.

It’s John, of all people, who ends up knocking some sense into him.

“Get your shit together or I’m going to do it for you,” John says one morning, wandering into Jacob’s office unannounced.

He hasn’t slept in two days, and he can’t muster up the energy to be annoyed by John not knocking. He’s reading a report, and he doesn’t look up from the page.

“Hello to you too, little brother.”

“I mean it,” John continues. He always speaks like the lawyer he is; methodically, exactly, intently. “I’m sick of your moping.”

Jacob finally looks up. He knows John can see the dark shadows under his eyes.

“I don’t mope.”

“You do, and you’re doing it right now,” John says, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. “It’s exhausting.”

Silence settles around them as they stare at each other. John has a look in his eyes that Jacob doesn’t recognize — he’s angry, sure, but there’s something else there that he can’t quite place. Jacob exhales heavily once a few minutes pass in which neither of them say a word.

“Do you need something, John?”

“You’re going to be a father,” John says bluntly.

“I don’t want to—“

“—talk about it,” John finishes for him, smiling wryly. “Yes, I figured that out fairly early on, Jacob.”

Jacob doesn’t say anything. He may have spent years separated from his brothers, but he knows John just as well as anyone else. If he says something now, that’s all the ammunition John will need.

John doesn’t need any more ammunition than he already has.

“What do you plan to do?”

The vow of silence doesn’t last long. Jacob stands from his seat abruptly, pushing the chair back into the wall with the movement.

“I don’t plan to do anything.”

John raises his eyebrows, nods almost imperceptibly.

“Mm,” he hums. “So it’s true, then.”

What’s true, he wants to ask, even though he has a decent idea of what John means. The bunker may be big, but word travels fast through those halls. By now, Jacob thinks, everyone must know about the Deputy’s condition, and if they know about that, well. 

“Have you told our darling Deputy that she’s on her own, then?”

Jacob clenches his fists, turns his back on his brother and focuses on regulating his breathing.

“John,” he says quietly. A warning.

“No? Have you spoken to her at all?”

Ignore him ignore him ignore him.

“Oh, Jacob,” John carries on, his voice sickeningly sweet. “That’s hardly fair, given the circumstances. You at least owe her an explanation, no? A reason why?”

The corners of Jacob’s vision burn red.

“What is that reason, by the way? If you don’t mind my asking.”

He turns on his heel and stares John down, one finger pointed straight at his chest. He is furious.

“I will not turn into our father,” Jacob seethes, chest heaving. “I’m not taking that chance.”

John ponders that statement, blue eyes burning wildly.

“No,” he says eventually, taunting and soft. Jacob feels like he’s on trial. “No, you’re not, are you? You’d rather just ignore it altogether.”

Jacob punches the wall, just the once, listening to the way the metal shakes under his fist. Pain radiates into his wrist.

“John—“

“You have the opportunity to be better. Or would you rather just forget this and move on? Because I have to say, Jacob, it’s going to be an awfully long seven years if that’s the path you plan to take.”

He’s never seen John so passionate about anything in his life - not sin, not atonement, not confession. How long has he been sitting on this?

That look in John’s eyes that he couldn’t quite place? Jacob thinks it might be bitterness.

There’s a silence as John looks down and straightens his vest, knuckles white and skin taut, rows of pebbles stuck under his flesh. Jacob’s familiar with most of John’s mannerisms, always fidgeting, always flitting around, but this one is new. He grips the edge of the vest like he’s doing his very best not to take a swing at Jacob.

When he looks back up, his face is unnervingly blank.

“You’re a coward.”

Rage bubbles up under Jacob’s skin, white hot, and he wants to hit him, wants to wipe the blank look off his face  and replace it with the same smarmy look he’s used to seeing on John.

Instead, he clenches his fists, chipped nails digging uneven crescents into his palms.

“Get out,” Jacob says, dangerously quiet.

“You’re going to abandon your chil—“

“Get out. Now.”

John is uncharacteristically silent. They stare at each other for a moment before John clears his throat and shoves his hands into his pockets.

Jacob watches as he turns on his heel and leaves the office. His stomach is in ragged knots, a sickening mix of angry and terrified.

When the door closes, he relaxes his grip and sits heavily in the chair at his desk. He has the mother of all headaches, and he feels like someone is holding him underwater. He knows exactly what he needs to do, but he doesn’t want to do it.

The palms of his hands are sticky. Jacob looks down and finds that he’s managed to draw blood.

It’s a few hours before Jacob feels calm enough to leave his office. He’s still angry, scared, still vehemently does not want to deal with this right now, but he thinks he needs to see her. He wants to see her, even if she doesn’t want to see him.

The walk to their room is mechanical, perfunctory. The braver inhabitants of the bunker stare at him as he stalks by them, fists clenched at his sides, opening wounds that have just barely started to heal. He spends the whole walk thinking about what he’s going to say to her.

I can’t do this. I don’t want this. I’m afraid.

There is no easy option, no matter what way Jacob spins it. He can do exactly what John expects – get out while he still can, pretend this isn’t happening, split when the doors open in seven years – or he can forge his own path and do what needs to be done.

He is blindsided by the memory of Miller, a good man with a wife and a little boy back home. Jacob wishes he could go back, could trade places and be the one that died in the desert that day. 

Jacob finds himself standing outside the door, jaw clenched so hard that the pain radiates up behind his eyes.

He does not want this memory back.

He knocks. Rook doesn’t show up on the other side of the door, doesn’t swing it open to berate him. Jacob turns the knob and steps inside.

It’s dark. That’s the first thing he notices as he scans the room. His eyes take their time adjusting, but when they do he sees that Rook isn’t there. She’s not in bed, not over in their makeshift living space.

It’s the sniffling in the bathroom that tips him off. Jacob wanders toward it, shoulders tense, and stands in the doorway.

Rook is sitting on the dry shower floor, completely clothed, the water turned off. Her back is pressed up against the tile. Jacob takes a step into the bathroom.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks. The words come out far more harshly than he means them to, and he flinches. Why can’t he ever do this right?

“Fuck off, Jacob.”

Pain shoots up the side of his face as he grinds his teeth. She is so difficult sometimes.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’re used to getting what you want but this time I’m not interested.”

“Rook,” he says, trying and failing miserably to moderate his tone, “can you just—“

“Can I just what, Jacob?” Rook snaps. She looks up from her toes for the first time, and even in the dark Jacob can see she’s been crying. “Can I just sit here while you ignore me for weeks and weeks? Can I just pretend that none of this is happening like you want me to?”

He doesn’t know what to say to her, so he takes a step forward. She flinches, and he hates himself for doing this to her. Slowly, cautiously, he slides down next to her in the shower, his back resting against the wall. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, words slipping through his gritted teeth. “I’m not—I’m not good at this.”

Rook laughs bitterly. They’re close enough that their arms are touching. Jacob wants to grab her hand.

“Understatement of the year.”

“Rook.”

The air is tense, bitter in Jacob’s mouth when he breathes in. Rook stays silent next to him, the rise and fall of her chest and the heat of her arm next to his the only clue that she’s still there.

He’s got nothing. All that talk on the walk over, all those potential conversations that floated through his mind — they’re gone. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do, and it shows.

“Right,” Rook mutters, her voice thick and low. She’s crying again, trying to hide it as she places her hands on top of her thighs. “Well, if that’s everything, I’d like to go curl up in bed by myself now.”

Jacob stays put as Rook stands. There’s a shakiness to her legs, a wobble in her step like her legs are asleep.

“Always nice talking to you, Jacob.”

It feels like his head is going to explode. He tries to think of what John said to him, of the rage he felt only a few hours ago as he stood in his office. You’re a coward, John had said, spitting the words like poison in his mouth.

He is a coward.

Jacob spends a while in the shower, pressed against the tiled wall. He thinks about Rook. He thinks about his brothers, back when they were all kids, when Jacob was a child looking after children of his own.

He thinks about his baby, about how he has no idea how to do this the right way. He has always wanted what he can’t have.

Eventually, he gets his feet and wanders back into the main room, flicking the light on as he goes.

Rook isn’t curled up in her bed like she said she would be. She’s standing in the middle of the room, staring at an imaginary spot on the ground, her shoulders shaking. Her figure tenses as she hears him enter.

“You should leave,” she says. Her voice is hoarse.

“I love you,” he blurts out. The words are thick in his mouth, sound clumsy as he says them. “I love you.”

Rook’s breath hitches.

“Stop,” she hisses, a sob catching in her throat. “Jacob, stop it.”

He moves closer to her, grabbing her shoulder to spin her around so she’s facing him. His hands slip up to her face.

“I’m sorry.”

There’s a silence in the room. She doesn’t look at him.

And then she hits him, fist connecting with his ribs hard, and Jacob grunts and stumbles back, startled. Rook does it again, and again, and he lets her because he deserves it, stands there and takes it until she drops her arms, breathing heavily.

“I don’t—I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be someone’s dad,” he says weakly, sounding small and so unlike himself. He digs his nails into his palm again to feel the familiar sting.

Rook stares at him with red-rimmed eyes and laughs. There’s a lilt of hysteria to it.

“What, and you think I know what I’m doing?” she asks incredulously. “Jesus, Jacob. Do you think you’re the only one that’s scared?”

Jacob doesn’t remember the last time someone rendered him speechless like this. He’s always had a response to everything, has always known what to say, more or less, to salvage control of a situation. Right now, his mind is blank.

“Please don’t make me do this alone.”

Her voice shatters him. He wants to yell, to scream that she won’t be doing this alone, that there are so many people stuck in this bunker with her that are willing to step up and do what he can’t. Nick Rye can change her child’s diapers. Boshaw can teach them how to walk. Armstrong can help them stumble over their first words. She doesn’t need him.

Rook doesn’t look like the woman who’s spent the last several months terrorizing him and his brothers. Right now, standing in the dim light of their bedroom, she looks like a wounded animal, curled in on herself, hands shaking, shadows dark under her eyes.

You have the opportunity to be better.

The memories he has of his own father are nightmarish, things that haunt him in the dead of night when his unconscious mind starts to play tricks on him. Jacob remembers violence, hatred, anger. He remembers bloody noses and open wounds and screaming his throat raw the first time he saw bruises on his baby brother.

He remembers tracing John’s wounds in the dead of night and feeling like a failure for not being able to stop their father.

John was right. Jacob has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from letting out a manic laugh. He was right.

He moves forward, quick and quiet, and Rook startles when he grabs her tightly by the shoulders. She’s been crying so hard that her eyes aren’t just red-rimmed, but bloodshot, the pale blue of her irises a sharp contrast to all that red.

“I’m not cut out for this,” he reminds her as gently as he can. It’s her last warning, the last reminder of exactly what she is asking, how unwise it is. His hands slide up to her neck and angle her head up toward him.

“I’m not asking you to be good at it,” Rook says. Her voice is steadier than the rest of her. “I’m asking you to try.”

Jacob looks down to her belly. It’s his mind playing tricks on him, he knows, but he can almost convince himself that there’s a slight swell there.

He is terrified, but John was right. This is his chance. He’s going to change his kid’s diapers. He’s going to watch them wobble on shaky feet as they learn to walk. He’s going to be there for their first words.

He is better than his father. He’s going to try.

“Okay.”

Charlotte is born, and it’s still terrifying, but in a different way.

He’s terrified he won’t be able to protect her. He’s terrified of the things she’s going to hear about him.

He’s terrified that she won’t love him.

But she does. Somehow, she does.

Neither of them is really sure how to broach the topic of their situation. How does one tell a four year-old that her parents have done horrible, nightmarish things? That her father and mother are meant to be enemies? That the man who tucks her into bed at night is the reason some of the braver inhabitants of the bunker stare at her with contempt when Jacob’s not around to put a stop to it?

They both grapple with the question of ‘what do we do?’, so they shelter her as best they can instead, smother any of her doubts with tight hugs and bedtime stories. Charlotte will never grow up thinking she is not loved.

“Charlie. Bedtime.”

“Five more minutes.”

Some days, Jacob is painfully reminded that this is Rook’s kid, too: always bargaining, always looking for ways to bend the rules.

More often than not, she wins.

“That’s what you said five minutes ago,”

Jacob muses. He crouches down next to her, ignoring the way his knees grind in protest. “And five minutes before that, and five minutes before that. You’re runnin’ out of minutes.”

Charlotte shakes her head, sending wild red hair flying in every direction. She peers over at Jacob with defiance burning in her blue eyes.

“Nuh uh. Those didn’t count.”

Jacob huffs out a laugh. He reaches over and brushes stray hairs from her face, tucks them behind her ear, kisses the crown of her head.

"Pretty sure they did, kiddo.”

Charlotte squirms out of his grasp. Over her shoulder, he can see the picture she’s been drawing - three little stick figures, two redheads and a blonde. The only family portrait they have.

When they get out of here, when the world is no longer in shambles, they’ll have to fix that.

“I’m not tired.”

“Still bedtime. You’re an hour late.”

“Please, Daddy? Just five more minutes.”

Jacob sighs. His kid is four, and she’s already on her way to becoming a master negotiator. Something’s gotta be wrong with that picture.

"Tell you what,” Jacob says, shifting his weight — his knees are too old for this crouching shit, “if you go to bed now, I’ll give you an extra ten minutes tomorrow. Deal?”

Charlotte stares at him with her brow furrowed, looking so deep in thought he can’t help but crack a smile. Without warning, a mischievous grin materializes on her face. Jacob is pretty sure he’s being treated to an early version of what Charlotte will be like as a teenager: an absolute goddamn nightmare.

“Okay. But you have to read to me.”

“Only one story.”

“Okay.”

Charlotte clambers to her feet, leaving her crayons and her drawings behind, and reaches up her arms to Jacob wordlessly. He picks her up, cradling her against his side, and tries to ignore the way his chest aches when she wraps her tiny arms around him and buries her face in the side of his neck.

The play room is just down the hall from Charlotte’s room. It’s a convenient set-up, a built in babysitter, and more often than not Jacob has to look no further to figure out where she’s gotten to.

“Are we going to see Uncle Joe and Uncle John tomorrow?” Charlotte asks. Her words are muffled by Jacob’s neck.

He’s made it a habit to try to spend time with his brothers once a week. It doesn’t always happen, but he always brings Charlotte. She’s enthralled by them both - Joseph, who sings to her when Jacob asks him to put her down for a nap, and John, who carries her around on his shoulders and looks at her like she put the stars in the sky.

Rook tags along sometimes. Jacob knows she doesn’t like to, but he appreciates it nonetheless. They both have learned to make compromises now.

“Sure. Think you can convince your mom to come?” he asks as they pass his and Rook’s room.

He feels the nod against his neck. Charlotte is a better manipulator than he’s ever been, even with the help of conditioning.

Once they cross the threshold of her room, Jacob sets Charlotte on the ground and crouches down again.

“Go brush your teeth. I’ll get your PJs ready.”

Charlotte darts over to the tiny bathroom in the corner of the room, and Jacob hears her fumble with toothpaste and toothbrush as the water runs. She’s only just started doing it herself. So far, only one mishap - a swallowed glob of toothpaste that had left her screaming and crying and convinced she was dying. Jacob has tried to keep an eye on her since, and has tried to keep himself from laughing every time he thinks about it.

When she’s back, she gives him a big, exaggerated smile to show him how clean her mouth is.

He helps her into her favourite pajamas - a pink pair with a cartoon unicorn plastered across the front. They’re an old pair, and they still fit, but Jacob has to tug a little more than usual to get the shirt to cover her belly button. She’s growing, he realizes belatedly. He wants it to stop.

“Go pick a book,” he says, once she’s comfy, and watches her take off toward the little bookshelf in her room. “Not Go, Do—“

“Go, Dog. Go!”

They’re lucky to be stuck here in John’s bunker. Jacob’s Gate was never meant for children, never had toys or books or teddy bears. John’s bunker, however, is as excessive as he is: Charlotte has a stuffed bear named Vincent, a dollhouse bigger than she is, and, more importantly, an endless supply of children’s books.

She picks Go, Dog. Go! every single time.

Jacob hates Go, Dog. Go!.

Charlotte comes back with the stupid book gripped tightly between her little fingers, the striped cover battered from years of reading, and holds it out to him proudly.

“Picked one.”

“Don’t you wanna read somethin’ new, Charlie?”

She shakes her head and clutches the book to her chest. “No. This one is my favourite.”

Jacob sighs and reaches out for it, nudging her towards her bed. The routine is the same every night - it’s a tiny, tiny bed, but Charlotte makes him lay there with her, tucked tightly into his side as he reads. It’s not comfortable, but he’s never said no, and he doesn’t think he ever will.

Tonight, he stretches his legs easily over the width of the bed, and Charlotte clambers in beside him, burrowing into his middle like a rabbit might burrow into its den. Her hair tumbles across the scarred skin of his arm, soft and wavy. It needs to be cut, but she won’t let them. Rook is a good mother, twice the parent he’ll ever be, and even she can’t convince the kid that haircuts don’t hurt.

“You ready?” he asks, looking down at her.

Charlotte nods into his side, one arm wrapped tight around him, the other clutching her teddy bear. Jacob opens the book.

“Dog. Big dog. Little dog. Big dogs and little dogs.” 

“You got Vincent?”

Charlotte holds the teddy bear up for Jacob to see before tucking him back under her arm.

“You comfy?”

There’s a silence as Charlotte ponders this very important question. She wiggles around a little under the covers, then frowns at him.

“I need to be tucked in more.”

“If I tuck you in any more the blankets are gonna eat you,” Jacob says, but he reaches over her anyway and fixes the covers. “Good?”

“Good.”

He brushes stray hair from her face and leans down to kiss her cheeks, her nose, her forehead. Charlotte giggles and squirms.

“I love you, Daddy.”

Jacob runs the pad of his thumb across her cheek and kisses her again, one last time on the forehead.

“I love you, too.”

There’s a stupidly cliché question that runs through his head every now and then. Leaning over his daughter, he can’t help but think it again.

What did he do to deserve this?

Jacob stands back up and heads for the bedroom door. He looks over his shoulder and finds Charlotte staring at him.

“You better go to sleep before Mom finds out you’re still awake. Then we’re both gonna be in trouble.”

The giggle he gets as he flicks off the light and shuts her bedroom door behind him is one of the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it.

The door to his and Rook’s bedroom is only a few feet away, but Jacob takes them slowly, savouring the quiet of the bunker at nighttime. There’s always someone around, always one of his soldiers patrolling the halls or giving orders. It’s not an ideal existence, but something about it is calming.

Rook is already in bed by the time he gets there, curled on her side under the blankets. Jacob’s slept next to her long enough to know her sleep habits off by heart - she’s not asleep, not yet. She’s left the light on, so he flicks it off as he steps further into the room.

“I’m gonna burn Go, Dog. Go!,” Jacob announces.

Rook rolls over - wide awake, just like he thought - and gives him a look that’s almost devoid of venom.

“You can’t cremate your daughter’s favourite book just because you don’t like it.”

Jacob hums thoughtfully as he shrugs off his shirt and sweats. The dog tags around his neck clack noisily, settling against his chest.

“Then I’m hidin’ it,” he muses. He stands at the edge of the bed and stares down at Rook. “Somewhere far, far away.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Rook advises kindly, flashing him a smile before rolling back over onto her side. “Besides, you might actually learn something from that book.”

“That so?”

“Mm,” she hums. Jacob can’t see her face, but he knows she’s got that wicked grin of hers on her face. He knows exactly where Charlotte gets it. “You could always use a refresher on colours at your age.”

“Hilarious,” Jacob snorts. He leans down and nudges her over none-too-gently. “Scoot.”

He slips under the covers behind her, threading his arms around her middle and pulling her tight against his chest. Rook is warm; he presses an open-mouthed kiss against the side of her neck and relishes in the heat of her skin against his.

They’re not a perfect pair, but this—this, they do perfectly. Jacob’s always had the foolish thought in the back of his mind that they were meant for each other, fitting together like puzzle pieces.   He brings one hand up to run through her hair, and Rook sighs contentedly, pressing back against him. His other hand slips under her shirt, palm flat against her navel and fingers tracing the raised skin of scars and stretch marks. He can count on both hands the number of time he’s actually said it out loud to her, but he does love her.

“You know,” he murmurs after a while, his mouth close to Rook’s ear, “I wouldn’t mind having another one.”

Rook pushes back against him a little, tilting her head back to get a look at him. Her lids are heavy with sleep, but she still manages to look curious.

“Another what?”

Admitting it makes him feel soft, but he does it anyway, tangling his legs between hers and nosing his way further into the crook of her neck.

“Another Charlotte.”

They’ve never talked about having more kids. Charlotte is a handful, they live in an underground bunker - there are so many reasons not to, so many reasons he shouldn’t even ask. Rook tenses a little in his arms, but it only lasts for a few seconds before she relaxes against him again.

“Maybe not a good idea if you’re gonna burn all their books, huh?”

He laughs, his breath fanning across Rook’s neck, tendrils of her hair fluttering in its wake.

Joseph has always claimed to hear the Voice. Jacob wonders if it ever happened to mention that his life would end up like this.

Rook’s hand comes up to rest atop the one he’s got planted on her belly, her skin warm and soft. She tilts her head back again to look him in the eyes.

“Maybe,” she says gently. “We’ll talk about it in the morning?”

He presses another kiss to the side of her neck and nods.

“Yeah. Go to sleep,” he pauses, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth before he recites from memory: “Now it is night. Night is not a time for play.”

“Oh my god,” Rook scowls. She turns her face away from him and wrangles the blankets tighter around her as Jacob laughs quietly. “Goodnight, Jacob.”

The smile stays plastered on his face, even as Rook’s breathing starts to even out. He should follow her lead and go to sleep, he knows, but he can’t stop the thoughts rattling around inside his head.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, he’s become weak. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when. Was it when he met Rook, or when he first fell into bed with her? Was it the minute Charlotte was born and wrapped her tiny fingers right around his heart?

Jacob doesn’t know when it was or how it happened. All he knows is that he is not the same man he was that night in the church, the night Rook walked in and kicked the hornet’s nest.

He’s been thinking a lot lately about the speeches he used to give before the world burned. We will cull the herd, he’d said, staring down through the darkness at the woman who would end up being the mother of his child. We will do what needs to be done.

It still rings true, he thinks - most of it, at least. With everything that’s happened, everything that’s going to happen once those heavy, lead-lined doors open in three years, weakness is only good for one thing – getting you killed. Now, though, he’s having trouble with the dichotomy: weak versus strong.

It’s taken him a long time, but he’s started to realize that the world is rarely ever so black and white.

He may be weak, but he’s happier now than he remembers ever being before. Rook, Charlotte, his brothers - they may make him weak, but they’ve also made him strong. He’s learning that he can be both. He’s forging a new dichotomy for himself.

Rook moves in her sleep, and Jacob tightens his arms around her, lips pressed to the back of her neck.