Chapter Text
It takes ten seconds for a life to be ruined.
It took one second for Race to leave his house. It took one second for him to decide to cross the street. It took one second for him to fall. It took five seconds for him to get back up. It took one second for the driver to look at his phone.
It took ten seconds total for the car to hit him.
It took longer for Jack to find out.
The past few hours seemed like a blur to him. He remembers leaving the trial, hugging Crutchie and watching him go with Snyder. Then getting a phone call from the very same man not even a few hours later. After that, he remembers feeling hopeless. So incredibly hopeless. A feeling, strong enough, that it made him run to a bar, successfully breaking his two year sobriety. Although after that, his memory gets a little… flashy.
There are things he knows for sure. Race called him… he didn’t answer. Race left a voicemail…several actually. They ranged from as old as only half an hour after Jack got to the bar, to as recent as the moment everything changed.
After that Jack got another call, one that he answered.
It was a hospital.
He should have answered Race’s call.
It’s a thought that repeated in Jack’s head while waiting for his baby brother to get out of surgery. He should have answered the call, he should have called him back.
He should have done something .
Instead he decided to make, arguably, one of the worst decisions he could have made. He drank. Two suffocating years of sobriety and he threw it all away just because someone’s words got to his head. He knew he shouldn’t have listened to Snyder, but after how the last trial went, he knew how close Snyder was to gaining full custody. No matter how hard Jack tried, Snyder had one thing Jack never seemed to have enough of. Money. He could see the jury was siding with him, and now Snyder was taking away one of the most important people to Jack. And he wasn’t even blinking an eye about it. Now the only thing Jack was sure of, is that all he has is Race.
... All he had.
But Race got taken too. Taken by Liam. Truthfully, Jack can’t even remember the last time he saw Race properly. They used to see each other everyday, but things had changed. Now they only seemed to communicate through phone calls. Yet, even then, Race seemed different. His tone was never as happy as it used to be.
And God, Jack should have done something.
“How’re you holding up sugar?”
Jack recognized the person interrupting his thoughts as Miss Medda Larkin, the head nurse in the New York Presbyterian Hospital, and the person who constantly checked in on him for the past few hours.
Jack shot out of his seat hearing her voice, “Is he out? Is he okay?” It seemed that no matter how much Jack tried to appear strong, the shake in his voice gave him away.
Medda seemed to have noticed that as her look of pity intensified. Any hope Jack might have had in that moment left when she shook her head sadly. “Sorry sugar, we’re not sure when he’ll be stable enough to be put in a room. Only time, and our best doctors, can tell that dear”
Jack sighed and took his seat again. He was ready to wait days if that’s what it took for Race to be okay. Hell, he was ready to wait years.
“However… we do have someone here looking for you. A young red headed woman.”
Katherine.
Jack subconsciously sat up at that. He didn’t know why Katherine had come, but truthfully, he wasn’t about to question it. “Yeah I know her, she was my girlfriend… not too sure what she’s doing here though.” Jack saw that Medda looked like she was gonna send her away and elaborated, “We left on good terms. She can come in.”
Medda looked skeptical leaving the small waiting room, but a few seconds later Katherine walked in.
Jack had never really gotten over Katherine. He thought about her a lot. More than you should think about someone who broke up with you, but he couldn’t help it. Katherine was... everything. Feisty and witty, intelligent, drop dead gorgeous, and the more Jack thinks about it, the more he understands why she left.
Seeing her again was like everything Jack needed, and everything he was trying to avoid.
She looked frantic coming in, different than Jack had remembered her. “Jack! Hey... how’s Tony?”
If it were any other time Jack might have teased her about not being happy to see him, but all Jack could think about was Race. “He's... hanging in there. The doctors don’t know when he’ll be stable enough to come out.... He was taken a while ago.” He assumed. Jack doesn’t know how long he had been blankly staring at the wall in front of him, and he wasn’t about to think too hard about it.
Katherine just looked at him with concern. “And how are you?”
Stressed, angry, concerned, worried, frustrated, terrified .
“I’m fine.” he replied.
She looked like she was about to argue, but he cut her off before she could.
“I’ll be happy when Race is happy” And it was true, Jack would not really be fine until Race was safe.
She pursed her lips like she did when she was getting frustrated. “No one is asking you to be happy Jack. Just asking that you’re okay.”
Jack was getting frustrated now too. “I’ll be okay, when Race is okay.” His tone suggested that that was the end of the conversation.
For a second, it looked like she might drop the
subject, but then, suddenly, she scrunched up her face. “Is that… were you drinking Jack?”
Jack stared at her for a few seconds then let out a humorous laugh, “Really? You really want to do this, right now?” Jack bit out harshly.
Katherine didn’t flinch at Jack’s tone. If anything, she seemed to get more aggressive. “Yes Jack, really. You have a problem. We broke up what, three years ago, and you’re still going on with this bullshit?”
It hurt Jack that she thought he hadn’t changed, but at that moment Jack didn’t want to be hurt anymore. He focused on the anger. “One, you don’t get to do that. You broke up with me, you don’t get to tell me how to live my life. And not that I need to tell you, but if it’ll get you off my back, I was two years sober until tonight happened.”
A small part of Jack took pleasure seeing Kath speechless. Another part felt guilty for making her feel bad. He wasn’t sure which side won control.
Katherine looked like she had more to say, but thankfully, didn’t push the subject further. Instead, she surprised Jack. “You’re right…. I don’t have any right to tell you what decisions to make. And, if it counts, for anything at all… you seem like you really did change. I didn’t mean to hurt you… I’m sorry.”
Jack didn’t respond, although he knew Katherine didn’t mind. Even after three years, Jack could still tell when she got lost in her mind.
A few seconds of silence passed before Jack felt a hand on his. He froze before looking over at Katherine who looked like she was mentally telling him to accept the comfort. Jack didn’t know what to think. It baffled him that she held his hand like it was perfectly natural. Although… In a way, Jack supposed it was. Natural, just uncommon. Very uncommon.
He accepted the comfort.
A few minutes pass with them sitting in silence before a question surfaced in Jack’s mind. “Kath,” to her hum of acknowledgement he looked up from the ground “how did you know Race was hurt? I thought… after we broke up you took your name off his emergency contacts.” When Jack looked to Katherine he saw a guilty look displayed across her face.
“I did,” She spoke the words carefully, as if she were breaking bad news to someone “but that’s not how I knew… Jack… have you watched the news lately?” Jack didn’t say anything, just shook his head and motioned for her to continue. “What happened to Tony is there… All of it.”
Before he could think, Jack grabbed the television remote from the small table in front of them, and turned on the news channel. Katherine tried to protest and grab the remote but Jack was already standing up out of reach, turning up the volume.
“-An accident involving 22 year old Anthony Higgins, who got hit by a car at the Fort Washington Avenue and West 176th Street intersection. Anthony appeared to trip and fall in the middle of the intersection, and that combined with the driver, who was said to be on his mobile device, resulted in this terrible accident.” Jack couldn’t focus. For a second he thought the television was off, but then he saw a video on the device playing. It showed police cars lined up around the crime scene, and Race being loaded into an ambulance. He looked terrible. His face was covered in blood and even through the sheet that was covering him, Jack could his right arm and leg busted. He could vaguely hear Katherine trying to get his attention, but he ignored her in favour of listening to the television once more.
“The young adult is said to be getting medical treatment at a nearby hospital, but the future of Anthony seems to be unknown-”
This time the television really did turn off, and suddenly Katherine’s face was in front of him, her hands on the sides of his face and her eyes filled with concern.
“Jack? Jack, c’mon snap out of it…. God I knew I shouldn’t have told you about that crap… Jack come on, you’re okay, Tony’s okay, he’s gonna get out of surgery soon and everything is going to be fine”
“You don’t know that.” The words came out a lot harsher than he meant them to, but Katherine didn’t seem fazed.
“I do. He’s gonna make it Jack. I know he is. What they were saying on there was-”
“The truth, wasn’t it? We don’t know what’s gonna happen to him… We don’t know if he’ll live or…”
“Hey. Don’t think like that. If there’s anything I know, it’s that Race is a fighter. And he’s a good one too.... He’s gonna make it Jack.” Her tone left no room for argument and she said it with so much certainty, Jack almost believed her.
“A fighter...” She had no idea how true that was.
“Well I wouldn’t say that. More like... a mouse you know? In a game of Tom and Jerry.”
Jack stopped at that voice. For a second he thought he was imagining it, but when he looked over Katherine’s red curls at that unmistakable smirk, he saw red.
He was sure he blacked out, or he skipped a period in time, because one second he was looking at the face of his brother's abuser, and the next he was being pulled off of a bloodied Liam. Jack didn’t truly know if he was the one that caused all that blood, but he sure as hell hoped he was. And judging by the bruising on his knuckles, he had a pretty good chance.
Before he could say anything about it though, he remembered the situation at hand. Race got hit by a car, because he was running from his house, and he was running, because of Liam. All at once Jack realized he felt angry again. Murderous.
And he loved it.
He also realized that security guards were holding him by his arms to stop him from getting to Liam.
Jack tried to pull his arms out of their grip, but they were prepared and just held his arms tighter. He heard a gruff voice speak behind him, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you boy.”
Jack didn’t have time to decide if that was a challenge or a threat because not long after, Liam was talking.
“You’re fucking crazy man! Do just fucking attacked people for no reason? I didn’t even do anything to you.”
Even with the serious situation at hand, Jack let out a laugh. A crazy, psychopathic laugh. “Didn’t do anything?! Didn’t do anything my ass.” Faintly, Jack could hear Katherine trying to calm him down, but he wasn’t going to stop. Not until Liam was either dead on the ground, or in a hospital room himself. “You hurt my brother. You’re the reason he’s not here by my side but rather in surgery getting treated because he got hit by a fucking car!”
It was Liam's turn to look at Jack in humorous disbelief. “Me?! He went out in the middle of the night on his own. That’s not my fault.”
Jack was about to fight him back on it but Liam put on a smug smirk and cut him off before he could even open his mouth. “Besides, last I heard, he called you... and you didn’t answer. Maybe that’s what got him so distracted before he got hit. I think, if we should blame anyone here, it should be you.”
He knows. Jack knows it’s his fault, he’s been telling himself that since he got the call... but at that moment, he can’t help but think otherwise.
Seeing Liam at the hospital, acting like the douchebag Jack always knew he was... Jack’s not so sure it’s his fault at all.
“He was only outside calling me because he was running away from you… So that pegs the question Liam. ” He spit the name out like venom, and smiled at his next words. “Why was he running from you?”
Before Liam could give some bullshit excuse though, Jack heard another voice enter the room.
“Jack, can I talk to you? It's about Anthony.”
As much as he wanted to expose Liam for the terrible person he was, Jack knew he had to go with Medda. Race was his first priority.
Without taking his eyes off Liam, he answered, “Yeah, of course.” Jack didn’t stop glaring until the door closed behind him.
After it did, Jack finally turned to face Medda. Upon seeing her troublesome expression he immediately started asking about Race. “Is something wrong? Is he finally getting out?”
Meddas face fell even more than it already was. She spoke her next words carefully. “Jack… sweetie, he… he didn’t make it.”
For a second, everything around Jack stopped.
For a second, he forgot all about Liam, and Katherine, and Snyder. He forgot about the custody battle, he forgot about the bar, he forgot about everything. For a second his mind was quiet.
And then that second passed.
Jack didn’t know what was happening around him. If he focused really hard he could make out a floor underneath him and hands on his arms, a voice talking to him, and a head of red hair. But realistically, he didn’t have the energy to focus on that. Medda’s words played on a loop on his mind.
“he didn’t make it.”
It takes ten seconds to take a life.
It took four words to ruin Jack’s.