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It was her first game back, and it couldn’t have gone worse.
The smoking had stopped, thankfully, and the locker room was empty now, so she slowly packed her things into the duffel and tried to ignore the shaking in her hands that had started the minute she’d taken a moment to stop and sit somewhere, calming down from the absolute rage she had felt. Her water bottle clattered to the floor however, and suddenly the rage was back and she was screaming, hammering at her locker door with fists that shouldn’t be capable of the act. A very, very small voice in the back of her head rebelled at everything, whispering panicked that this wasn’t real it couldn’t BE real.
But it was.
Jaylen Hotdogfingers, returned from the beyond.
No memory of it, of course, aside from the absolute certainty that whatever had happened she very much did not want to remember. She could remember coming to on the field of the Garage, surrounded by the team, old faces and new, covered in amniotic void gunk and coughing something up that felt very suspiciously like congealed blood. It had been such a rush of sound and sensation, after the feel of being caught in the blinding, burning light of what she knew now was the opening of the Forbidden Book. Allison had told her that, and about the rest of the season. About Bennett and Derrick, Shaquille and Tiana.
About so many others.
She had been the first though, which made her a trailblazer. The punching had stopped now, the locker dented all over and her hands more than a little bloody. That was how Teddy Duende found her, leaned up against the wall across from it with tears streaming down her face silently. He stopped when he saw her, but didn’t say anything, simply heaving a sigh, reaching for the first aid kit in the corner and then sitting next to her, taking one hand and slowly starting to tend to it.
“Some game huh?”
“Some game indeed, didn’t think that inning would ever stop, Jaylen.”
“Was kinda hoping it wouldn’t myself.” Jaylen gave the team captain a weak smile and a wince as he dabbed her hands with iodine.
“I dunno, a lot of us, hell all of us, were pretty happy to see you on the mound again.” He gave her hand a squeeze at that, but the words just made Jaylen look away.
“Oh yeah, bet lots of people were real happy to see me.”
“They were. We put a lot of effort into it.” Theodore was very careful with his words then, but even so they snapped a fresh flare of anger and she snatched her hand away, applying half finished badges herself now.
“Yeah? And how the FUCK has that turned out? More to the fucking point Teddy what the FUCK?!” Her chest heaved as she snapped around on him, bloodied hand pointing at his face, “Y’all even give it a damn thought about whether or not I wanted to come back? Whether I SHOULD HAVE COME BACK?!”
“Jaylen, we didn’t have a choi. . .”
“FUCK THAT NOISE TEDDY YOU ALL HAD A GODDAMN CHOICE AND THAT CHOICE WAS DRAGGING ME OUT OF WHEREVER THE FUCK I WAS.” Her free hand had a grip on the front of Duende’s jersey now, yanking him forward. He held up his hands placatingly but Jaylen didn’t care right now.
“Are you all fucking happy I’m back?! You got your star pitcher back? What about Mike huh? What about him? He played his goddamn heart out for this team and suddenly you’re all ok with him just having to fuck off because I’m back in the land of the greedy ass living? Did any of you EVEN THINK?”
Theodore didn’t even try to defend himself, or any of the team on this one.
Jaylen shoved him back against the wall of the locker room at this, suddenly very tired. She closed her eyes and wiped away the tears and tried desperately, desperately, not to think about the looks on the batters faces each time her pitch struck home. Someone on the team had had the absolutely winning idea of grabbing one of the helmets from the Breath Mints in recognition of the event, the massive crack in it testament to Jaylens return according to them.
For Jaylen it was just a reminder of the fact that something had reached out and made her do something she couldn’t have ever brought herself to do before the incineration. The thought of it made her sick.
“Whatever, Teddy, good for all of you. You selfishly raised the dead and here I fucking am, ready to play ball like I always was. Not like I got anything better to do huh?” She got up off the floor and picked up her duffel, spinning on her heel and stalking out the door.
“I’ll keep playing ball Theo, don’t have to worry about me suddenly up and leaving.” Jaylen turned and gave her captain a sad, angry look, “How could I? I gotta start from scratch up here Teddy, I got nowhere else to go? Did any of you think about that either?”
She left, and it was a long, long time before Theodore got up and did the same.