Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes...and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for." - Melina Marchetta, On the Jellicoe Road

That afternoon, Jamie Reagan was studying for a science test.

He sat at the dining room table, textbook and notes spread around him, pen in hand, listening to the deathly quiet of the house around him. The silence was the worst, really. To come home after school, let himself in at the kitchen door, and immediately be enveloped in the utter stillness of the empty house. No bubbling of a pot on the stove, no soft hum of the oven, no rustling of the curtains through the open sitting-room windows, no creaking of somebody else moving around in the house. No “Hi, Jamie-hon, how was school”. He had come in with Joe once, and even though Joe was supposed to be in Chicago at the time and nobody had known he was due back that day, they had heard Mom greeting them both from the top floor. His mom always knew which one of them it was when they came through the kitchen door, even if she’d had no way of knowing who’d arrived. Another one of the mysteries Jamie would never be able to solve now.

It was nearing six o’clock according to the antique clock on the mantelpiece, which meant that Dad would be home soon. He was working long hours these days, putting in extra shifts like it was going out of style, according to Danny, but he’d said this morning that he’d be home for supper.

Jamie had stuck one of Linda’s casseroles in the oven, about an hour ago. He wasn’t looking forward to dinner. The food was delicious of course, although he missed the way his mom browned the mince before she put it in the casserole, but Jamie it was Dad being there that Jamie wasn’t looking forward to.

They didn’t talk anymore, him and Dad. Sure, they said ‘good morning’ and ‘slept well?’ and ‘have a good day at work/school’ to each other, but they didn’t talk like they used to. About history and God and a weird book about the universe not existing at all that Jamie had accidently read in the library during lunch. About Billy Carlotti, who had been trying to bully Jamie into trying weed at school, and a thousand other things nobody knew to explain as well as Dad did. Dad also knew when Jamie didn’t want an explanation, but just wanted to muddle about in some idea on his own.

Dad didn’t eat either, which made meals doubly awkward. Nor sleep, as far as Jamie was able to tell, because he’d always still be awake when Jamie finally went to bed, and already be halfway through a pot of coffee and a stack of files at the kitchen table when Jamie got up in the morning. Dad seemed to live on coffee and no sleep, these days, and Jamie often went cold and clammy when he thought about the fact that coffee and no sleep really weren’t good enough to keep a man his dad’s size alive.

The kitchen door clicked open, and Jamie hastily looked down at his work. He had been studying for the past God knows how many hours. Must have been, since there were books open, and he remembered reading and there were actual notes made on the lined paper under his pen. He had no idea what was going on, really, and he didn’t care much because his attention was wholly focused on the sounds of his dad entering the kitchen.

“Hi, Dad,” Jamie called, his throat tight.

Dad appeared in the doorway, with the pale, frozen expression Jamie was beginning to grow used to. He rested his hand on Jamie’s shoulder for a moment, but he didn’t say anything. The hand was heavy, but not warm, and Jamie wondered if this was what the phrase ‘a dead weight’ meant.

“There’s casserole in the oven, and I cut up some tomatoes.”

“You go ahead and eat,” Dad said, already turning away to the leather armchair in front of the fire. And the files in his briefcase and the bottle of scotch on the mantelpiece, no doubt.

“You said you’d be home for dinner.” It came out with a lot more whine than what Jamie intended, but he was feeling the familiar cold pit in the centre of his stomach, seeing how Dad was almost noticeably filling up less of his coat than he used to. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’ll get something later.”

Dad put down his briefcase, loosened the scarf from around his neck and shrugged out of his coat.

“So you are going to eat, just not with me?”

Dad didn’t answer.

He sat down, heavily as though he was exhausted, and opened a yellow file. He started leafing through it, apparently unaware of his son glaring at him from the table. Because Jamie found himself, inexplicably, going from dreading another silent meal to coldly furious at the dismissal. He glowered down at the table, afraid to open his mouth in case he said something he really didn’t mean. No matter how weird Dad was acting, Jamie was pretty sure he’d still take exception to being told to ‘fuck off’.

He packed up his books, stuffing them into his backpack, leaving Dad and the scotch and the silent sitting room to their own devices. On his way upstairs he stopped in the kitchen to ladle some casserole into a bowl and turn off the oven.

But once he was in his room, he couldn’t bring himself to actually eat. He ate more than dad, at least, since he’d had a bowl of cereal this morning. The bowl of casserole having been abandoned on the window sill, he went back into the hallway to the phone.

He didn’t look at the little notepad lying on beside the phone on the table, or at the list of numbers stuck on the wall next to it. Mom’s handwriting was distinctive in their house – elegant and neat in a way that even Erin’s wasn’t. He couldn’t bear to look at it and remember her long, fair-skinned fingers, her dark hair brushing over the page as she bent to write.

He dialled Joe’s apartment, but the line just rang and rang. Joe didn’t usually work evenings, but maybe he was following Dad’s example in taking on extra shifts. So, Jamie called the precinct. The desk sergeant knew his voice apparently, because he greeted him by name. But Joe wasn’t there either.

After trying his apartment one more time, Jamie put down the phone.

Joe was avoiding him. Sure, it might be that he was just down at the bodega getting bread. But Jamie hadn’t managed to reach him in, well, all the weeks since the funeral. He didn’t randomly pick him up after school, like he normally did at least once a week. Didn’t even show up for Sunday dinner anymore. But he had been at Danny and Linda’s for dinner just last week, and when Jamie had offered to watch Nicky the previous weekend Erin had said that Joe would be coming over to watch her. And Dad and Joe worked at the same precinct, so it wasn’t as if he could avoid seeing Dad just by not coming home.

It was Jamie he was avoiding.

A headache was forming between Jamie’s eyes, and he pressed his fingers onto the bridge of his nose.

Not for the first time, since that dark Tuesday three weeks ago when his mother breathed her last, he wished that everything could just be normal, just for a second. And if it couldn’t be normal, if it could just be okay.

He went back to his room and got under the covers, trying to convince himself that it was late at night and that the house had every right to be this silent if it liked.

Chapter Text

The next morning Dad had already left when Jamie came downstairs. The kitchen was empty, and so was the spot in front of the back window where Dad always parked.

Jamie poured himself some cereal, added milk and two spoons of sugar, but he couldn’t settle down. Dad had gone to work, presumably, but what if he hadn’t?

From the downstairs phone, in the nook next to the stairs, Jamie phoned the precinct. It was a different desk sergeant this time, who didn’t know Jamie’s name.

“Hi, sergeant. My name is Jamie Reagan, can I ask if my dad has come in yet? Captain Reagan?”

“Yeah, sure,” the woman said. “You want me to put you through to his desk?”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary. I just wanted to make sure… in case I need to come by before school. Thank you.”

The lie slipped from his tongue easily. She’d probably believe him, and it wouldn’t do to tell her the real reason he’d called. That he had been suddenly and uncontrollably sure that his dad had taken a permanent detour into the Hudson and out of life on his way to work, and that Jamie would never see him again just like he wouldn’t ever see Mom again. Relieved that Dad was safe for now, Jamie managed to eat all of the cereal and drink a glass of OJ too.

He got a roasted chicken from the freezer and put it by the sink to thaw, then let himself out by the kitchen door, locking it carefully behind him.

There was a certain relief in arriving at St Brendan’s and becoming just another blue blazer in the early morning rush through the gates. He saw a few kids from his grade in a group near him, but he didn’t join or call out to them. He realised, with a grimace, that he had done his own share of being silent the past few weeks.

At his locker, Julie McKenna poked her head around the door and gave him a smile.

“Hey Jamie!”

They’d been paired together on their first day of kindergarten, because the teacher thought Jamie and Julie sounded similar, and had moved through grades together. She was the only one who consistently treated him like she had always done, with a persisting cheerfulness that wasn’t bothered much by the silences on his side.

“Ready for the test?”

Jamie’s heart skipped a beat, as he remembered yesterday’s afternoon of studying, which hadn’t been studying at all. Julie must have seen the expression on his face, because she grimaced.

“You’re not, are you?”

“Not in the least. But we’ll see what happens.”

“I’m willing to bet that you’ll scrape through anyways, so buck up.”

She gave him a grin, and Jamie returned it with a feeble smile. He would probably make it, since it was a revision test and he had been diligent in keeping up with the work until a few weeks ago. But he felt squirrely at the idea of bringing home a C in the state that Dad was in. He didn’t need to be disappointed by Jamie right now as well, not while he was struggling so much. But there was nothing Jamie could do about it now. He couldn’t even bunk the first few classes to cram in the library, since Science was in first period today.

He slipped into his usual seat near the front of the class, and Julie encouragingly at him as she walked past to her own seat in the back.

Dylan Jones next to him had his textbook out, and so had the new kid on the other side whose name Jamie hadn’t learned yet.

Jamie frowned.

It was maybe a short test, taken only at the end of the period. Mr Kendall sometimes did that, and Jamie tried to remember what he’d said in the previous class.

Then Mr Kendall breezed in, his glasses slightly skewed like they usually were, carrying a stack of papers under his arm.

“Well,” he said briskly as he stacked them on his desk and started rifling through them. “Morning class. Not badly done on the revision test last week. I expected more from some of you, and less from others, but all round I think you put in a good effort. Come forward to get your tests as I call your name. Abrahams! Atwood!”

Blood was rushing to Jamie’s head, and last night’s headache clamped around his head like an iron band. They had written the test last week. Sainted Joseph, how could he have forgotten? They had written the science test last week, which he hadn’t studied for then either, and the test they had today was history.

Jamie stood and fetched his test automatically when he heard his name called, noticing the C circled in red ink at the top. His hands were shaking when he sat down again, and he pressed between his brows, trying to stem the raging headache.

He had no idea what the test this afternoon was even on. Revision? New work? He had no bloody idea. And worst of all, the realisation that he had somehow completely forgotten having written a science test the week before. The cereal and OJ in his stomach moved dangerously, and Jamie put up his hand quickly.

“Reagan?”

“May I be excused, sir?”

Mr Kendall gave him a funny look.

“You look pale, Jamie. Is everything alright? Do you need to go to the nurse’s office?”

“I just need some air, thank you, sir,” Jamie said, surprised at how relaxed he managed to sound. “I’m feeling a bit nauseous.”

“By all means, go then.”

Jamie went, taking his books and pencil case with him.

In the boys’ bathroom across the hall he opened the cold water tap, first just holding his hands beneath the running water, focusing all his attention on the coldness. Mom had helped him figure out that it helped, back in fourth grade when his anxiety attacks had been almost a daily event. It wasn’t helping much today, though. As he bent over the basin, watching the water gurgling down the drain, he felt his nose start to bleed.

The nurse made him call his dad, after an uncomfortable hour of her alternating between clutching at his nose until the bleeding stop and standing over him like a hawk, watching for the bleeding to start again which it inevitably did. It had finally stopped completely at around the 45 minute mark, and Jamie could feel something nasty slipping down his throat which usually meant that his nose had stopped its histrionics. But the nurse wouldn’t hear of letting him go back to class.

“You’re as pale as a sheet, sweetheart. You’re going home for the day.”

It sounded horrible, to be honest, but Jamie couldn’t very well tell her that he didn’t want to go home without raising some uncomfortable questions as to why. And getting sent home for a medical emergency would mean that he’d be excused from writing the test this afternoon. He’d have to write it sometime else, of course, but at least he’d have time to study a bit before then.

He called the precinct for the second time that day from the phone in the principal’s office. His dad wasn’t in – he’d gone to a crime scene – and Jamie guessed that it was a big one if they had to drag a captain out there. Joe wasn’t at his desk either, but Danny was.

“Hey, kid, what’s up?”

Jamie glanced at the secretary across the room.

“Not much,” he said. “I had a tiny nosebleed at school, and the nurse is insisting on sending me home. I’m completely fine though.”

Danny chuckled, slightly disbelieving.

“Yeah? First time I heard about a nurse sending someone home because they’re just too healthy to be at school.”

“I just told you I had a nosebleed,” Jamie said sullenly. “I tried to tell her I get ‘em all the time, but she’s overreacting.”

“Well, what do want me to do about it?”

“Someone has to come pick me up from school if I get sent home like this, but I can just take the bus. Would you talk to the secretary and get her to sign me out?”

Something crinkled on the other side of the line, and when Danny talked again, it was through a mouthful of food.

“Sure, put her on the line, I’ll get you out of there. Provided that you’re not lying to me about this whole nosebleed thing. If you’re skipping class I will find out and I will kick your ass.”

Jamie grinned at the normalcy of the threat. Danny rarely meant it, since he was usually the one pleading on Jamie’s behalf with Dad, but he seemed to enjoy sounding tough.

“Thanks, Danny. Hold on a minute, will you?”

Jamie didn’t know what Danny said to the secretary, but it took a surprisingly short amount of time for her to start nodding and smiling. Jamie was signed out and free to go before they’d even finished speaking.

Outside in the sunshine in front of the school, Jamie ran a hand through his hair and breathed deeply. Danny probably expected him to take the bus home, but Jamie couldn’t really do anything about Danny making assumptions. And he really had no wish to spend a lonely day in the silent house, listening unconsciously for Mom the whole time.

He shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders, straightened his tie, and walked into the city.

Chapter Text

He spent a vaguely horrible morning wandering in and out of shops, eating a ham sandwich without tasting it, half expecting a police car with an irate brother in it to pull up next to him any minute and thoroughly miserable because it never happened. Nobody even noticed that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, apparently. Or if they did, they didn’t care enough to come look for him.

Late-ish in the afternoon, he wasn’t sure what time it was since his watch had decided to stop, he was brooding on a bench in Central Park when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Yo, Reagan.”

Billy Carlotti had two friends with him, slightly slimy-looking fellows, and Jamie figured that it was just the perfect addition to an already awful day.

“Hey, Billy,” he said, giving the older boy a reluctant smile.

“You skipping class?”

“Nah, I got sent home by the nurse.”

“Sweet,” Billy laughed, entirely too loudly, and Jamie noticed that his nose was runny. “You’ve got all the luck in the world, don’t you, Reagan?”

“I guess.” Jamie shrugged noncommittedly once again, keeping a firm eye on Billy’s friends. One of them kept rubbing his arm, almost obsessively, while the other sucked at his teeth with a single-minded focus. He was willing to bet that they were all high as kites, the three of them.

And he found himself not caring half as much as he should have.

“You skipping school?” he asked Billy.

Billy seemed surprised. It was no small wonder, Jamie reckoned, since he’d always rebuffed Billy’s overbearing attempts at being friendly. At first because he’d been intimidated by the large, rough boy, and later because Mom and Dad had given him strict orders to. Billy had offered him weed at the school’s back gate only once, but that was enough for Mom and Dad to put him on the blacklist of Kids Jamie Will Not Be Anything More Than Courteous With.

“Well, yeah,” Billy said, as if the last word had almost been ‘duh!’. “We’re heading over to a party on 22^nd street later tonight. You wanna come?”

“What time?” Jamie asked, to his own surprise.

“Sometime after 9. Hey, I can pick you up if you want? I don’t figure you have wheels of your own.”

“I dunno,” Jamie shrugged. “I’m not even sure I want to come to your party.”

Billy lifted his palms.

“Hey, no pressure, bro. But you let me know, huh? You look like you could loosen up a little.”

“Do you have the time on you?”

“Just past five.”

Jamie startled involuntarily. It was a lot later than he had thought. Subconsciously, perhaps, he had been quite deliberately dawdling, but he hadn’t planned on staying away until Dad actually returned.

“Shit, I’ve got to get home.”

Billy clapped him on the shoulder.

“Call me, hey?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jamie said, although he didn’t mean it.

Dad’s car was in its usual spot and the light was on in the kitchen when he got home. Through the window, as he walked up to the door, he could see the big kitchen clock indicating that it was seven minutes to six. He stepped inside the silent kitchen, his heart beating impossibly loud in his own ears.

The roast chicken was still next to the sink, soggy and miserable in its own water. It looked about as appetizing as a freshly skinned toad.

Jamie shrugged his backpack from his shoulders and went through the door into the hallway. Dad was sitting in his usual chair, file in his lap, cradling a glass of amber liquid.

He looked up briefly when Jamie stopped in the doorway, but it was as though he was looking straight through him.

“Hi, Dad,” Jamie said.

Back when things were normal, the reply would have been something to the effect of “don’t you ‘hi, dad’ me, young man”. But then again, back when things were normal Jamie wouldn’t have pulled a stunt like this in the first place.

“Hi, Dad,” Jamie said again.

This time Dad looked vaguely at him and nodded, smiling thinly.

“Hi, kiddo.”

The silence seemed to stretch indeterminably between them and Jamie could feel the beginnings of a headache creeping up on him.

“I got a C in Science,” he said, desperate to stop the silence before it filled the entire house.

“Hm.” Dad flicked the page in front of him. “You go ahead and eat.”

“Dad,” Jamie said. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to eat, I said a got a C in Science.”

“Oh?” Dad said. He looked up at Jamie again, frowning a bit. But then he looked down at the file again, took a sip of his scotch. Jamie could almost see him fading into sepia, like an old movie, before his eyes. You couldn’t have reached him any more than you could have reached one of the figures jittering about on those old reels.

Jamie went upstairs, somehow at the same time angrier than he had ever been in his entire life, and also more frightened than he had ever been. He called Billy Carlotti’s house from the phone in the hallway.

It was answered by a maid – Billy’s parents were stinking rich – and when Billy sniffed into the phone Jamie didn’t waste any time.

“Can you still come to pick me up for the party?”

Billy whistled and whooped.

“Of course, bro, of course! You’ll have a real good time, hey, a real good time.”

“I’m sure,” Jamie said stiffly. “Now, listen. I’ll meet you at the end of the street, alright?”

“No problem.” Billy chuckled. “Your old man not exactly up for this whole party, hey? No worries, I won’t roll up in front of your house all dressed up and somewhere to go.”

Jamie was quiet for a minute, wondering to himself why he was asking Billy to meet him at the end of the street. It wasn’t as if Dad would notice, and if he’d notice, it wasn’t likely that he’d care.

“Scratch that. Pick me up in front of my house, it’s fine.”

Which Billy did, about half an hour later. He was slicked up and smelling strongly of body spray, and Jamie felt a little underdressed in his simple jeans, t-shirt, and jacket. Billy smiled wildly at him, though.

“Are you high?” Jamie asked as he slid into the passenger seat.

Billy chortled.

“Me, high? Not while I’m driving, bro. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Jamie didn’t reply, and he didn’t quite believe Billy either. But it made no difference to him. Here he was, climbing into a known pothead’s car, who may or may not be high at that very moment. On a school night, right in front of his own house. Where not a mouse stirred, as Jamie wrapped the seatbelt around him and sent up a quick Hail Mary as Billy careened away from the sidewalk.

Chapter Text

The party was already in full swing by the time they pulled up. In the garden of the big white suburban house, Jamie could see people milling about. Music with heavy drums were blasting from the open windows. A few kids closer to the fence cheered when Billy pulled up in the little side street at the back of the house, and Billy pumped both his fists through the open window at them, in time with the music.

“Now that’s a sight, ain’t it, Reagan?” Billy said.

“Uh-huh,” Jamie said, although the scene didn’t fill him with the same joy it seemed to evoke in Billy.

The older boy fairly beamed as they moved through the crowd.

“Yes, Richy!”

A thin bean-pole of a boy with slicked back hair grinned widely at Billy’s greeting.

“I knew you’d show up,” he said, exchanging an intricate handshake with Billy. “Who’s this?”

“Jamie,” Billy said, slinging a warm arm around Jamie’s shoulders. “And Jamie, this is Richy, the man of the house.”

Jamie couldn’t help but notice that Billy was not calling him “Reagan” anymore, and he wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that his grandpa was the police commissioner and that he’d practically been born into law enforcement. Judging by the smell of what could only be weed, Jamie felt like he was guessing in the right direction.

Billy, still with a companionable arm around Jamie’s shoulders, dragged him up the steps and into the foyer of the house. The music was spine-thumping loud, and Jamie found, to his surprise, that he was completely headache free for the first time in three weeks. Maybe he just couldn’t feel it over the vibrations of the music and clamouring voices around him.

Billy pushed something into his hand, a red plastic cup, and Jamie sniffed at it. It was alcoholic, definitely. He took a deep swallow, forcing himself not to choke at the kick.

“Come on,” Billy yelled in his ear. “My friends are over there.”

A group of tough-looking kids were sitting in the far corner, but they didn’t look twice at Jamie when Billy pulled him down next to him. A rolled-up cigarette was immediately passed to Billy and he took a long pull, his eyes falling almost completely shut. He looked numbed and relaxed when he passed it away again, and Jamie felt the slightest bit jealous.

“So, Reagan,” Billy said, his eyes still closed. “I was sorry to hear about your mom, man. Mine died two years ago.”

Jamie’d had no idea, but he couldn’t speak past the thickness that had solidified into his throat at the mention of his mother. Billy still didn’t open his eyes.

“My old man couldn’t take it, you know. Looked like he’d completely died inside. That’s why I started smoking, you know. Just takes it all away, makes you feel chilled out.”

“It does?” Jamie asked.

“Uh-huh,” Billy said. He gave Jamie an inviting grin. “You wanna try?”

“Oh God, yes,” Jamie said, in a rush.

Jamie should have known that he was screwed the moment that blue, flashing lights filled the garden. Around him, it had the effect that the sudden appearance of authority usually has on teenagers at a party. One minute, everybody was laughing, drinking, smoking, dancing to the music blasting from Billy’s friend Ricky’s house. The next everybody was scrambling to the nearest exit. Plastic cups filled with liquid splashed on the ground, getting trampled underfoot as everyone did their best to get the hell out of dodge before the cops could actually get them.

Jamie ran too, but only because Billy had slung an across his shoulders and was dragging him along. He was in no condition to run. In his dazed state, he wasn’t even particularly worried about the flashing lights and the stern voices calling out behind him. It all seemed highly amusing, stumbling along with Billy who was chortling a bit himself.

Billy was a good guy, really. Maybe not Dad’s definition of a good guy, or Danny or Erin or Joe’s, since he was the one who’d given Jamie the blunt that was to blame for his current state. But he’d made Jamie feel welcome at the party, had given him something to drink, had offered some of his own weed. And hadn’t abandoned Jamie to the mercy of the cops. Billy was a good guy.

So good, that Jamie might have teared up a little bit, if he hadn’t bumped into the front panel of Billy’s Corolla just then. Billy was on the other side of the car, already opening the driver’s door and he was gesturing frantically at Jamie.

“Come on, Reagan. We gotta go, man, we gotta go.”

Jamie figured out to open the door and slid in, barely managing to swing the door shut behind him before Billy gunned the engine. They pulled into the main road next to the house, and as they picked up speed a siren whooped. In the rear-view mirror, he could see blue lights flashing just behind them.

“Dude, they’re following us.”

“Fuck,” Billy said.

He took a sharp turn into a smaller street, barely missing a streetlamp, and Jamie clutched at the armrest, feeling a bit queasy. Behind them, the siren whooped again, and the blue lights danced in the side mirror again.

“Dude, they’re following us,” Jamie said and giggled, suddenly overcome with amusement. The cops were actually following them.

“Shit,” Billy said.

He turned to look over his shoulder, which was dumb because he could have just looked in the mirrors. His whole body seemed to follow his gaze, as his left foot pressed down harder on the gas and his hands moved on the steering wheel. The car swerved sharply, went onto the opposite kerb with a jolt that made Jamie’s head almost bump against the roof. Then there was a loud crash and the car jerked to a halt. In front of them, peculiarly, there was now a tree. The Corolla’s nose was crumpled, and something that looked like smoke was drifting up through the twisted metal.

“Oh, no,” Billy said. “Oh, no, man. We gotta go. Come on, Reagan, we gotta go.”

He was already clambering out and Jamie followed suit, stumbling after him as he ran into the garden of the nearest house. They picked their way through the darkness at the back of the house, and climbed over the fence into the next yard.

Jamie stumbled slightly over a flowerbed, and then went headlong into it, smushing his face into a row of flowers. He giggled.

“Come on,” Billy hissed, astride the next fence already. “Come on, man.”

Jamie scrambled to his feet and came. Behind him, he heard a noise, and when he looked over his shoulder it was just in time to see someone in uniform vaulting over the far wall. He wondered who the cop was after. Not a dangerous criminal, hopefully, because Jamie had no taste for getting murdered tonight. He was still looking at the cop, and running after Billy at the same time, when he found himself stepping on air.

Split seconds later, he hit water in a sprawl that sent liquid burning into the back of his nose. The water was ice cold and about as pleasant as a kick in the nuts. Jamie scrambled for the surface, gasping for air as he cleared it.

He was suddenly, and irrevocably, sober.

The cop was standing at the edge of the pool, his arms folded over his chest. In the light from the porch Jamie could see that he was a tall Italian guy with slightly protruding eyes. The look he gave Jamie was uncomfortably knowing.

“Reagan?” he said.

“Officer?” Jamie clutched at the concrete edge of the pool, his teeth starting to chatter.

The cop offered him a large hand, and hauled him up and out of the pool.

“One of captain Reagan’s kids?”

“Yes, sir,” Jamie said, shivering miserably. Mostly from cold, but also from the sudden realisation that he was, in fact, one of captain Reagan’s kids. God, he’d really smoked weed, hadn’t he? Dad was going to lose it.

“I thought I knew a Reagan when I saw one,” The cop looked positively smug. “Your dad know you’re out at this time of night, smelling like weed?”

“N-no, sir.” It was a stupid question, Jamie thought, but there was no way he was antagonizing this guy any further.

“Come on. I’m taking you back to the station.”

“Am I getting arrested, officer?”

“I don’t think so. Turn out your pockets for me?”

Jamie did, and tried not to flinch as the officer carefully patted him down, finding only the penknife Mom had given him for his twelfth birthday and his wallet.

“You don’t have weed on you.” He finally moved so that Jamie could see the name tag beneath his bag. Renzuli. “And I’m seriously not going to haul you up for trespassing, unless your old man insists on it. Nah, I’ll just take you back to the station so you don’t get any ideas about running any further tonight. Your dad can pick you up there.”

Officer Renzuli worked out of the same precinct as Dad and Joe, which was just Jamie’s luck. Sergeant Hochlin, who was the desk sergeant that knew him, gave a melodramatic gasp when officer Renzuli pushed him through the front door.

“Jamie, what are you doing here?”

“Picked him up at that party on 22^nd, sarge. Smoking weed, by the smell of him. You figure you can put a call through to captain Reagan?”

“Dialling as we speak, Tony.” The sergeant gestured sarcastically at the phone in her hand. Then she gave Jamie a sharp look. “You, young pup, sit down over there and don’t move a muscle. Seriously, I thought Danny was the wild Reagan.”

So Jamie sat down, behind the desk where she had pointed, hugging his one knee to his chest. Both for a little warmth, and to quell the rising panic in his chest. There was no way, no way, that Dad wouldn’t notice this. And while part of him was strangely hopeful at the prospect, the larger part of him was shaking at what Dad was likely to do.

Sergeant Hochlin, after having reported that his father was coming to fetch him and, with relish, that he was spitting mad, sent officer Renzuli to fetch him a blanket and a warm cup of coffee. Which rather belied the stern glances she tried to keep sending to Jamie.

Jamie was thankful for the blanket, but he couldn’t force himself to drink the coffee. His stomach was turning somersaults and his throat felt only half its normal size. He could only stare fixedly at the part of the street that he could see through the doors, waiting for Dad’s car to make its appearance.

Which it did, about ten minutes later. Jamie ducked his head when he saw Dad’s tall figure appear on the steps, feeling like he was going to be sick.

“Captain Reagan,” sergeant Hochlin said.

“Sergeant,” Dad said. His voice was very, very polite, and Jamie felt a shiver of apprehension go down his spine. “Jamison.”

Dad wasn’t looking through him anymore, that was for sure. Jamie almost wished he was.

“H-hi, Dad.”

“Apologise to sergeant Hochlin for taking up her time.”

Jamie stood quickly, bundling up the rather wet blanket. He probably should fold it, but he honestly didn’t think he could with the way his hands were shaking.

“Sorry for taking up your time, sergeant Hochlin. And thank you for the blanket.”

“No problem, pup.” She winked at him, and pressed his hand when he walked past her. “Just don’t let’s meet in this way again, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am. Will you thank officer Renzuli too, please?”

“Of course.”

Dad thanked sergeant Hochlin too, and then with a curt ‘let’s go’ to Jamie, led the way out into the street. At the car he turned to Jamie, his expression unreadable.

“Why are your clothes wet?”

“I-I fell into a pool,” Jamie said, unwilling to confess that it had been while running from the police just yet.

Dad’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t ask anything further. He just unlocked the boot of the car and rummaged around, finally handing Jamie one of the tin-foily screens people sometimes put in the windows of parked cars. He’d never seen Dad using them, and he wondered if he just kept them in the car for the express purpose of protecting his seats from wet kids. It was likely the wrong moment to ask, though, so he just lined the seat with it and sat down.

The ride home was tensely quiet. Not the deadly quiet that had bothered Jamie so much the last few weeks, but a brooding quiet that Jamie associated with Dad trying to keep his anger from boiling over. He’d had most experience with it being directed at Danny or Joe, and it was exceedingly unpleasant knowing that he was the target this time.

Once home, Dad sent him upstairs with a curt order to take a shower and change his clothes. When he got back from the shower, feeling a lot better on the outside at least, Dad was waiting in his room. It was never a good sign, and Jamie went to sit down on his bed with shaky legs.

“I’ll tell you what sergeant Hochlin told me,” Dad said, quietly. “Then I suggest you fill me in on everything I don’t know. Comprehensively. I don’t need to warn you about omission.”

“No, sir.”

That particular conversation, just about six months ago, when Jamie had omitted certain vital information about a school-trip to the large science-fair in the city, which hadn’t in fact been a school-trip at all but an attempt of Jamie’s to attend the science-fair even thought the school had cancelled, had ended in enough unpleasantness that Jamie was fairly certain that he’d remember it for the rest of his life.

“According to sergeant Hochlin, you were picked up at a party. You and a friend tried to flee the scene in a vehicle, was apprehended, and brought to the station because the officer recognised you as my son. Apparently, you smelled like weed when he got to you.”

Jamie’s mind short-circuited a minute, trying to think where he should start. This morning? This afternoon?

“Go on,” Dad said. “I’m waiting, Jamison.”

“Well…” He swallowed. “Well, yes, I was at a party. I went with a guy from school.”

“Who?”

“Billy Carlotti.”

“Billy Carlotti.”

“Y-yes. And well, there were people smoking weed and I just, you know, wanted to try it, so I did.”

“You seriously smoked weed, Jamison?”

“I-I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Just numbs things down a bit, you know.”

“Did Billy Carlotti also smoke?”

“Y-yes.”

“And you got in a car with him?”

Jamie shuffled his feet, looking down at his hands lying in his lap, and nodded.

“Heavens, Jamie.”

Dad’s voice sounded a bit strangled.

“You were too high to know any better, I presume?”

Jamie nodded again.

“And then you were caught?”

He particularly didn’t want to tell the next bit, but he figured that Dad was extremely likely to find out about it anyways.

“Billy crashed the car. We weren’t hurt, I promise, and then we ran a bit further on foot, and I fell into the pool. That was when officer Renzuli grabbed me.”

“He crashed the – “ Dad turned away quickly and went to the window, breathing deeply through his nose. “How did you know about this party?”

“Billy invited me.”

“At school? I thought we’d told you to stay away from him.”

“Well…” Jamie picked at a hangnail on his left forefinger. “I got sent home with a nosebleed today. I met Billy on the way back.”

“You got sent home? Why weren’t you at home when I got here, then?”

“Oh, you noticed?”

It popped out of his mouth before he could think better of it, and in a tone so nasty and sarcastic that he almost didn’t recognise his own voice.

“What did you say?”

Dad turned to him again, his eyes blazing. Jamie found himself on his feet, his hands balled into fists, feeling the anger and the worry and the fear that had built up in him over the last few weeks rushing to the surface.

“I thought you didn’t notice what I did anymore. Didn’t seem to bother you that I showed up at half past six on a school day, so I figured you wouldn’t give a fuck if I went to a party either. You just drink and read files now, remember? You don’t care about me anymore, why the hell would you care that I went to a party? Or smoked weed, for that matter?”

“Jamison –“

“I hate you, I hate you! If Mom was the one alive she would have still cared for me!”

“JAMISON!” Dad said in a terrible voice. “SIT DOWN.”

Jamie obeyed without even meaning to, his heart thundering in his ears. There was a peculiar expression on Dad’s face, one Jamie had never seen before on anybody’s face. A mixture between intense anger, and shock and somehow surprise and guilt. Jamie wondered if that was how his face had looked, except for the anger, when he had plunged into that pool.

Dad just stood there, looking strange and breathing heavily through his nose. Then he turned on his heel and stormed from Jamie’s room. His footsteps hammered down the stairs, and moments later Jamie heard the back door slam. Then, a car engine roared into life and down the street.

Jamie remained on the bed, too shocked to move.

Chapter Text

When the phone rang it was just after 11 o’clock, but Danny Reagan was still awake. Or awake again, really. Linda had woken up fifteen minutes or so earlier with an incredible craving for pickles, chocolate ice cream, and Danny’s grilled cheese in that order. Pregnancy, Danny was beginning to learn, was as unpredictable as a graveyard shift on a full moon. He didn’t like being woken up at 11 o’clock at night to make grilled cheese, but he loved Linda so that kind of cancelled it out. She was currently on the couch in the living room, making short work of a tub of ice cream.

And then the phone rang.

“I’ll get it!” Linda said helpfully from the couch.

Danny grinned at her, wiping his hands on a dishcloth as he walked through to lounge. She hadn’t moved.

“Oh, you will, will you?”

He picked up the phone and put it against his ear, fully expecting it to be the barman from O’Flanagan’s. Instead, he was treated to an earful of hysterically sobbing Jamie.

“Dad…didn’t mean to…he’s gone now…Billy…weed…”

“Kid?” Danny said, trying in vain to make sense of the incoherent words that was spilling from the telephone. “Jamie? Hey, Jamie! Calm down and tell me what’s going on, buddy. Kid, calm down.”

“He just left!”

“Who left?”

“Dad!”

Danny scratched his head.

“Ok, ok. Slow down, tell me exactly what’s going on from the beginning. No, no, take a deep breath and calm down. I can’t understand you if you keep on crying like that.”

There was a presence at his elbow, and he looked over his shoulder to see Linda next to him, a worried look on her face. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer, so that she could press her ear to the other side of the phone. Where Jamie was still sobbing like there was no tomorrow.

“Jamie, calm down now.” He put a little bit more bass into his voice, relieved when it seemed to work. “That’s good. Tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“Dad left,” Jamie said with a gulp. “It’s a long story but I went to a party with Billy Carlotti and smoked weed and the cops showed up. Dad was really angry and I thought he was going to kill me for sure, but then I said some horrible things to him and he started yelling and then he just stopped and left without a word.”

Danny’s mind was reeling, as he tried to imagine Jamie, his sweet angel-faced little brother Jamie for ‘sakes, smoking weed. And Dad knowing about it and leaving without taking a strip off Jamie’s hide with him.

“What did you say to him?” he finally said.

Jamie sobbed again.

“It’s been so horrible,” he said. “Ever since…ever since Mom died, he’s been so quiet and he never talks. Like he doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t eat either, you know. He just sits by the fire and drinks scotch. It’s like he’s not alive anymore.”

“You told him that?”

There was silence.

“That’s hardly a horrible thing to say, kid,” Danny said, gently. “Hard to hear maybe but –“

“I didn’t say it like I said it just now. And I swore at him too. And – and I said if Mom was the one who was still alive, she’d still have cared for me.” Tears was beginning to creep into his voice again. “And he looked to strange before he left, Danny, I’m afraid…I’m afraid….”

He sobbed and couldn’t speak further, but Danny knew what he was afraid of. He thought about his father’s pale, elusive face the last few weeks since his mother died and was suddenly afraid of exactly the same thing. There had been several occasions in his childhood when his father had been furious with him, but he’d never been one of those fathers who had to go for a drive or a run before he was cool enough to deal with you. He’d certainly never stormed off in the middle of a confrontation like this.

“It’s okay, Jamie, it’s okay. I promise, it’s going to be okay. Listen, I’m going to call the precinct now and ask if Dad’s maybe gone there. If not, I’m going to call Erin and Joe and Gramps. We’ll find him soon enough.”

Jamie sobbed harder, maybe from relief. Linda touched his hand, and he twisted the phone so that she could speak into it.

“Hey, Jamie,” she said softly. “Do you want me to come over there, honey? It must be awful, being alone in that big house and not knowing what’s going on.”

“Could you?” Jamie’s voice was very hopeful, and Danny rubbed Linda’s shoulder. Thankful, not for the first time and not for the last, that such a wonderful person had decided to put up with the Reagan clan’s shenanigans for the rest of her life.

“Sure, honey. I’ll get over there right now, while Danny makes some calls. I’ll be there before you know it.”

“Thanks, Linda,” Jamie said, ever polite.

“You sure you’ll be okay to drive?” Danny asked, as he dialled the precinct. Linda kissed him on the cheek, already reaching for her coat.

“Danny, I’ll be fine. I’ll ring when I get there.”

He blew her a kiss as she went out the front door, thankfully just before the person on the other side of the line picked up.

Sergeant Hochlin seemed fairly surprised at his question, but she was tactful about it and Danny pretended that he’d only misunderstood his dad’s shift schedule. Dad wasn’t there thought. Not that Danny’d really thought he’d go there. Even if he did leave simply to cool off before dealing with Jamie, it wouldn’t have gone to the station.

He rang Erin next. The phone rang for quite some time before it was picked up.

“Erin Reagan-Boyle speaking,” said a groggy voice then.

“Hey, sis.”

“What, Danny?”

It wasn’t particularly friendly, but Danny didn’t blame her. She was having a rough time of it, between a recent divorce and an extremely busy four-year-old and a new job at the DA’s office and, oh, suddenly losing a mother to aggressive lung cancer. The only reason she had been asleep right now, most likely, was because she wouldn’t have slept much at all the past two or three nights.

“I’m sorry to wake you up, sis, but have you heard anything from Dad?”

It was such a peculiar question that he could almost hear Erin’s expression sharpening.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know how he’s been the last couple of weeks? I’m reading between the lines a lot but I’m guessing that it was beginning to freak Jamie out. And that’s on us a bit too, because we shouldn’t have left the kid to just deal with Dad grieving like that on his own. But anyways, Jamie went and did something amazingly stupid. And then proceeded to make Dad aware of how he’s been since Mom died in not the politest way from what he tells me. Dad left, and I’m frankly not sure to do what.”

He was aware of the fact that he was rambling slightly, but Erin usually liked to get a panoramic view of things.

“You think he’d kill himself?” Erin wasn’t usually this blunt. He could hear the worry in her voice.

“I know Mom’s death hit him hard, and I don’t think he’s done much to deal with it. I’m just…I don’t really think he’d do it but I really think we need to find him.”

“I haven’t heard from him. He’s not at the precinct?”

“No, I called.”

“Does Joe know anything?”

“Haven’t called him yet, but it’s more likely than not that he’s at O’Flanagan’s again getting shitfaced. Dad’s not the only one who’s not dealing with this well.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Erin said, dryly. “Can you come pick me up? Nicky’s with her dad tonight. We’ll pick Joe up if we need to and then I’ll help you look for Dad.”

“Look, sis, I can hear how tired you are…”

“I’ll be expecting you in ten minutes. Don’t be late.”

Danny called Joe’s apartment next, but there was no answer. With a sigh, he dialled O’Flanagan’s. The bartender had, coincidentally, been about to call him since it was closing time. Joe was indeed there, and was indeed shitfaced and unable to drive. Danny cursed as he called Erin again.

“Look, sis, Joe is at O’Flanagan’s and I gotta go pick him up before they close. Can you call Gramps and just find out if he’s seen Dad? Or maybe know of a place where he’d go?”

“Fine. Are you taking Joe back to your house?”

“Nah, I’ll take him to Dad’s. It’s high time Dad had a word with him anyways. He’s not listening to me.”

“I’ll meet you there then.”

The bartender at O’Flanagan’s was beginning to be a familiar face, which wasn’t something Danny exactly liked, and he waved Danny in the direction of a crumpled figure sitting at the far end of the bar.

Joe was far gone, and he didn’t react when Danny tapped him on the shoulder.

“C’mon, knucklehead,” Danny said, a lot more gruffly than he actually felt. It wouldn’t do for his brother to hear all the tenderness and sympathy that he felt. At the very least, it would ruin his street cred for years to come.

He ducked underneath Joe’s limp arm and dragged him to his feet. It took an inordinately long amount of time to manoeuvre the two of them through O’Flanerty’s swinging door but Danny finally got him to the car and managed to bundle him into the passenger seat. He even managed to strap him into the seatbelt, which was no mean feat.

Joe’s head fell sideways, and he slurred something which sounded like ‘scotch’.

“Yeah, none of that,” Danny said curtly. “And if you throw up in my car, I’m making you lick it up. Tomorrow, when your head is splitting in two.”

Joe remained in a drunken stupor the rest of the way home.

Erin’s car was already in the driveway when he got there, and she and Linda were in the kitchen when he staggered in with Joe.

Linda had, of course, been present the previous dozen or so times Danny had had to drag Joe home from the bar, but Erin looked slightly shocked. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, Danny knew, seeing their normally exuberant and athletic brother in such a state.

“I’ll chuck him in the downstairs bedroom,” he told Linda over his shoulder. Joe was moving at the moment, and stopping would only mean having to struggle to get him to move again. “He should sleep it off, but if he wakes knock him over the head with a saucepan or something. Don’t, on any account, give him anything more to drink. He’s liable to get alcohol poisoning.”

“Make sure to put him on his side,” Linda called.

Danny did. When he got back to the kitchen, Erin gave him a stiff-lipped smile.

“Gramps hasn’t heard from him either. He suggested we drive out to the river.”

“He’s not coming out?”

“No. He thinks Dad might try to call him or come to him, which is quite likely.”

Danny nodded.

“Is Jamie okay?” he asked Linda.

“He’s fairly shaken up, but I managed to calm him down. He was worried about Joe too, seems like he thought Joe was avoiding him deliberately as well. I explained to him where Joe was, and that seemed to help a lot.”

“You told him Joe’s drinking?”

“He’s not a little kid, Danny.” Linda’s smile was slightly sad, as if she also missed the days when Jamie had been a little kid. “But he is a teenager. He tends to think everything revolves around him somehow. Understanding that Joe has just been dealing with grief in an unhealthy way, and that not coming here has nothing to do with him and everything to do with Mary helped a lot. I think he’s realising that it might be the case with Frank too.”

Danny gave her a tender look, strengthened by the soft look in her eyes. Then he looked at Erin.

“So, the river then?”

Chapter Text

Frank Reagan had gone to the river. Not to the cemetery, because somehow this was the spot where he felt closest to Mary. She was in everything, everything he saw and did and thought, but here, with the sound of water and the creaking of the pier beneath his feet, she seemed real still. He leaned on the cold railing, looking at his own hands gripping the wood. Feeling the cold air burning his lungs as he breathed.

He had let his family down.

It was an uncomfortable thought and a sobering one, but Frank faced it squarely. It was solid at least, the first solid thing he’d managed to keep in his mind for a long time, and he knew somehow that the way back to his family, to life, laid past uncomfortable but truthful thoughts like these.

He had let his family down, something he had promised himself and Mary and his children, simply by virtue of fathering them, a long time ago.

Mary’s death had been sudden – barely a month between her diagnosis and her last breath, breathed onto his collar as he held her. He could feel the ghost of it now, just below his collarbone. Her death had left him reeling, at first, and then frozen. In time, maybe, unwilling to face the fact that he was still bound to clocks and suns while she had gone into eternity. He had lost all contact with reality, or so it seemed to him now. Was it really him, passing through his own house with such indifference? Looking at his own son, with his own shock at his mother’s death written all over his face, without seeing him?

He had wrapped himself in his own grief and his own selfish anger at losing Mary. Completely ignoring Jamie, Joe – Joe was drinking, his mind pieced the clues together for him now with vengeful clarity – Danny, Erin, Linda…

He dropped his head on his hands and, for the first time since Mary died, allowed himself to truly understand that she was dead. His eyes blurred, and he allowed the tears to come.

He was aware, sometime later, of someone behind him.

“Dad?”

Danny and Erin were both there, faces pinched and wary in the bleak light of the moon. He straightened, feeling impossibly tired, and ran a hand over his wet face.

“I’m here.”

“Dad,” Erin said again, her voice choked, and then she took two quick steps forward and hugged him tightly. “Oh God, we were so worried.”

“Did Jamie call you? Is he alright?”

“Yeah, he called me.” Danny’s voice was a little more cynical than usual, a sure sign that he was fairly close tears himself. “Linda’s with him, he’s about as fine as can be expected. Gramps told us we might find you here. Didn’t know if it’d be on the dock or off it.”

Frank reached out a hand to him, glad when Danny moved closer and gave him a gruff hug. Then he stepped back, so that he could look them both in the face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That I worried you.”

“We’re just glad you’re alright, Dad,” Danny said, while Erin said, “We forgive you, of course, Dad,” at the same time.

 “We’d better get back to the house.”

“I need to call Gramps first,” Frank said. “Before he calls up the National Guard.”

There was a payphone on the corner, and Frank went to it. He felt better, although he had no right to it, with Erin and Danny close in the darkness. And knowing at least that Linda was with Jamie. Jamie alone, leaving him alone, that had been the most unpalatable thought in an entirely unpalatable evening.

He dialled, and the line was picked up at the second ring.

“Henry Reagan.”

“Hey, Pops.”

“Francis?” There was anxiety in his father’s voice, and a lot of relief. “Where are you?”

“I dropped the ball, Pops.”

Henry was silent for a beat.

“I take it you’ve got your head on straight again?”

“I hope so. Enough to know how badly I’ve failed my family, at least.”

“You did.”

Henry had never been one to tiptoe around the truth, and not for the first time in his life Frank was thankful for it. He didn’t need sympathy and empty platitudes right now. He needed to get his head out his ass and fix this.

“How do I…can I fix this, Pops?”

“This is your family, Francis, you fix it whether you can or not.”

“I hurt Jamie, Pops. I don’t know if he can forgive me for that.”

“That’s his burden to work on, not yours. But that boy loves you, as least as much as you love him, and his only concern right now is getting you back. All of ours, really.”

“I’m not gone, Dad,” Frank said softly. “Not anymore.”

Chapter Text

Linda had made Jamie get into bed, which he resented a little at first. If he’d have had his own way he would have been out with Danny and Erin, or at least sitting right next to the telephone in case someone called with news. But there was no arguing with Linda once she’d decided something was for your own good, and Jamie found himself bundled into bed without much further ado.

He was extremely tired, he realised after a while. Wandering about in New York City, going to a party, smoking weed, getting into a car accident and oh, right, running from the cops and taking an unplanned dive into a swimming pool would do that for you, he guessed. The amount of crying he’d done earlier in the evening hadn’t done much to improve his energy levels either.

But he was resolved not to fall asleep, since Linda had promised to come and tell him the minute she heard anything. With the caveat that she wouldn’t wake him to do it.

He was resolved, and also mentally still wide awake, running the evening’s events through his head over and over again. At least Danny was handling it now. Danny and Erin and Linda and Gramps. The relief of knowing that was immense. If there was anything they couldn’t do or handle, Jamie had yet to find it.

Joe was sleeping in the downstairs guestroom, Linda had told him. And he hadn’t been avoiding Jamie, he’d just been doing a bit of going of the rails himself. That too was a relief.

If only Danny and Erin could find Dad.

If only he hadn’t told Dad that he’d hated him. What if they didn’t find Dad, didn’t find him in time? And if they did? Dad might not want to come back, might not ever want to see Jamie again after the horrible things he’d done and said. Part of him knew that it wasn’t true. Dad loved him, no matter what. Like he loved Dad, no matter what. But he couldn’t quite get himself to stop worrying.

Despite his resolve and the worrying, he must have somehow drifted off. The last thing he remembered was the grandfather clock in the hallway striking one, and then it was suddenly morning, with yellow sunlight tinting his curtains.

Jamie rolled onto his side and sat up, rubbing at his face. His eyes were scratchy and his head thick, but he felt tolerably well-rested.

Downstairs, someone was frying bacon. The smell wafted upstairs as he went out into the hallway, making his mouth water.

He went to the bathroom, washing his face as well, and then went downstairs, fully expecting to find Danny or Linda in front of the stove.

Instead, it was Dad, in sweatpants and a ratty old USMC t-shirt. He was flipping the bacon with his fingers, an old habit that used to drive his mom and Erin spare. Almost miraculously, he no longer looked like a ghost. Jamie could only stand in the door and gape.

Dad must have heard him, because he turned, and gave Jamie a smile that said “I’m sorry,” and “it’s alright” and “I see you” all at once. Jamie barrelled into him, grabbing so hard it must have hurt, and burst into heavy sobs.

And Dad hugged him back, not saying anything, just letting Jamie feel the strength of his arms around him, the warmth of his body, the slow rise and fall of air in his chest.

“Hey now,” he said, after a while. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”

He loosened Jamie’s grip on his waist somewhat, but only to sit down at the kitchen table and draw him bodily into his lap. It should have been awkward, Jamie was fifteen and grown after all, but Dad was large enough that it wasn’t a bad fit.

Dad rubbed his back, slowly.

“I’m so sorry, Jamie, I’m so sorry for shutting you out like that. I love you very much, and I will always care about what you’re doing, and I’m so sorry for making you doubt that. I promise that I will never leave you like that again. Will you please forgive me?”

Jamie leaned back slightly, looking Dad in the eye. He was still pale and slightly gaunt, but his eyes met Jamie’s squarely and in deadly earnest. Jamie hugged him once more, fiercely, almost surprised at the sudden warmth in his chest.

“I forgive you, Dad.”

Dad kissed the top of his head.

“Thank you, son.”

They sat for a while like that, peaceful, until Dad suddenly started.

“Good grief! The bacon.”

He deposited Jamie on his feet and sprang towards the stove, shoving the smoking pan out of harm’s way.

Jamie giggled, wiping his snotty nose on his pyjama top, and Dad shook a finger at him.

“Your nose is better than mine. You ought to have smelled it sooner.”

The bacon wasn’t past saving, apparently. Dad ladled the pieces into a plate and then put the greasy pan back on the stove, starting to break eggs into it. Jamie leaned against the counter, close to him, feeling suddenly nervous.

It was great that Dad was back, of course, and it felt wonderful to have cleared the air. But there was still the whole weed debacle, which hadn’t been cleared up. At all. And one of the downsides of Dad being back to normal was that he will most likely have a few choice words to say about the matter. Maybe even a few choice swats to hand out.

“Uh, Dad?”

Dad was busy scrambling eggs at top speed, something he believed made them fluffier, but he gave Jamie an encouraging nod.

“Yes, Jamie?”

“About…uh…about yesterday? Are you going to punish me? For the weed and the party and everything?”

Dad seemed to think it over. He didn’t answer until the eggs had turned solid, and he’d removed the pan from the stove. Then he turned to Jamie, giving him a very serious look.

“The last thing I want to do right now is spank you,” he said slowly, still considering. “But I think, son, that you need things to be normal more than you need a reprieve right now. And normally, I don’t think you’d even be asking me this question, right?”

Jamie shook his head, looking at the floor, feeling the familiar twisting feeling in his stomach. It was mostly what he’d expected, and a large part of him knew that Dad was right. He did want things to be normal, or as normal as they could be. And each of the things he’d done yesterday had been spank-worthy offences, let alone all of them together.

“I guess I should have thought about this before making breakfast,” Dad said, looking at the eggs rather sadly. “I expect you’d rather we just get it over and done with?”

Although Linda had made him eat a cup of instant tomato soup and some toast last night, Jamie had got up with a growling stomach. But there was no way he could cheerfully stuff himself full of bacon with a Talk looming over him. He nodded.

“Alright, then.”

Dad scraped the eggs into another plate and together with the bacon put it into the oven, turning it to a low temperature.

“Go to your room, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Jamie trudged up the stairs, his feet growing heavier with each step he took. True, one part of him knew this was necessary, but another, rapidly growing part of him was frantically inventing all sorts of ways to talk Dad out of it. An insanity plea maybe? Extenuating circumstances? In a court of law he probably could have gotten a deal, especially with Erin as his lawyer. But even Erin couldn’t talk you out of a patented Frank Reagan butt warming, as numerous occasions over the years had shown.

His bed was still a mess and he quickly made it. Then he sat down, as he had done last night, jiggling his leg slightly with nervous energy.

Dad appeared after only a minute or two, carrying the well-worn brown leather belt that usually made its appearance on such occasions. Jamie gulped silently, giving Dad a pleading look. It didn’t seem to have a great effect, but Dad did put a comforting hand on his knee when he’d sat down on the bed next to him.

“I don’t want there to be any confusion about why I’m spanking you, Jamie. So let’s talk everything through, huh? Starting at yesterday morning. Why did you go into the city, after being sent home?”

“I didn’t want to come home,” Jamie admitted quietly. “The house has been really quiet you know, silent. And it’s just hard to be here alone.”

“I can understand that. But why not go to Danny’s? Or come to the precinct?”

Jamie shook his head, looking at his hands.

“Maybe…” Dad said, also very quietly. “You hoped that someone would notice that you were gone? Which is, I suspect, much the same reason why you decided to go out with Billy Carlotti. You engaged in increasingly dangerous behaviour, hoping that someone would notice and step in.”

“Not someone. You.”

“Fair enough.” Dad squeezed his shoulder. “Look at me, Jamie.”

Jamie did, unwillingly, aware that he was beginning to tear up again.

“I understand why you did it, I really do. And I am partly to blame, because I’ve not been doing right by you. But the fact still remains that you did some really dangerous things. No matter how bad you feel, no matter how tough a situation you are in, endangering your life is never going to earn you a free pass. So I’m going to spank you for going into the city alone, without letting anybody know where you were. I’m also going to spank you for going to that party, with Billy Carlotti. That leaves smoking weed and getting into a car with a driver on drugs. You will never, ever do any of those things again. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. Only – “

“Yes?”

There was a glint of warning in Dad’s eyes, but Jamie persisted.

“About Billy Carlotti... He’s not a bad kid, Dad.”

“He smokes weed, Jamison.”

“I know, I do, and I think that’s really bad. But he was a good friend to me, yesterday, when I needed it. And I don’t mean by giving me weed, that’s not being a good friend. But he made me feel welcome, and he didn’t just bail on me when the cops showed up and…well, he told me his mom died two years ago too, and his dad’s not a nice guy. At all. That’s why he started smoking. I’d really…I don’t know, but I feel like he really needs a friend.”

Dad didn’t reply for quite a while, looking at Jamie pensively.

“I still don’t like you hanging out with him, but I’ll think about it. Okay? If you really feel strongly about it, we can consider you two meeting under controlled circumstances. But you’re going to have to give me some time to decide.”

“Okay, Dad.”

Dad squeezed his shoulder one last time, and then moved away a little. He tapped his knee meaningfully, clearly intending Jamie to get over it. Which Jamie did, slipping down his sweats to his knees. His heart was thumping heavily, his stomach tight with apprehension. Dad drew him closer into his waist, resting a preparatory hand on Jamie’s upturned butt.

“So, why are you getting this spanking, Jamison?”

“Going into the city without telling anybody, going to a party without permission and with Billy Carlotti, smoking weed and uh…” His mind scrambled desperately for a moment, striking a blank. “Oh, yes. Getting into a car with a stoned driver.”

“Very well.”

The warmth of Dad’s hand disappeared from his butt, his shorts were whisked down and then the first swat rang out, igniting a much more unpleasant warmth. Jamie barely had time to register it, before a brisk volley of swats was covering his backside. Dad never wasted much time or energy once he got started with a spanking. He merely covered as much ground as possible, seemingly putting his whole weight and enthusiasm into each smack. He didn’t talk either, usually, which was just as well since Jamie was in no position for a pleasant conversation.

He was clutching at the covers for dear life, clenching his teeth against the growing fire. He’d probably be sobbing before this was over, but a guy had to keep at least some dignity.

A particularly pointed series of swats, aimed at the sensitive crease between butt and thigh drew a high yelp from him that he couldn’t suppress.

“Dad! I’m sorry!”

“I’m not surprised,” Dad said, rather grimly. He lifted one thigh, tilting Jamie forward, and landed a few burning smacks to his thighs. Jamie yelped at each one of them, feeling his self-control rapidly beginning to dissolve.

“I won’t do it again, I promise!”

“See that you don’t, son.”

Dad turned his attention back to his butt, laying down smack after burning smack, seemingly not aware of Jamie’s increasingly desperate yelps. He tried wiggling away just a little, but Dad tucked him tightly into his stomach and merely increased the speed of his swats.

“Owwww! Daaaad!”

Then, there was a pause and Jamie almost groaned out loud when he heard the clinking of the belt buckle. Dad tucked him closer once more.

“Do you need me to hold your hand, son?”

Jamie shook his head, sniffling.

“Alright. But don’t reach back, okay? I don’t want to hurt you.”

It was a fairly stupid thing to say, considering the fact that Dad was literally about to deliberately cause him pain, but Jamie was fairly sure that it was the wrong time to broach such a topic. And he understood what Dad meant, anyway.

He could have sworn he heard Dad sigh, and then the first stripe fell.

Jamie lost count at around six, too busy crying and pleading and finally simply sobbing bonelessly into the covers. When he was capable of coherent thought again, he realised that it was over, and that Dad was rubbing his back, whispering nonsensical, comforting things. It felt good, even though he was still crying fairly hard.

“I’m sorry, Dad, I really am.”

“Shh, kiddo. It’s alright now. I forgive you.”

Jamie cried a little more at that, relieved to realise the uncomfortable pressure of guilt and shame and just general unpleasantness that had built up in him over the last few days were gone.

Dad helped him stand after a while, pulling up his boxers and drawing him back down into his lap. Right side up this time, so that Jamie could bury his head into his neck. The t-shirt Dad was wearing was soft against his swollen eyes.

“I miss Mom.”

Jamie forced himself to say it into the quiet, to reach for that untouchable, bloody wound inside him. It felt safe to do it, for the first time since Mom had died, with Dad’s strong arms around him.

Dad held him, waiting until Jamie’s sobs had died down again.

“I can’t promise you that everything’s going to be okay.” He could hear tears in Dad’s voice. “We’re probably all going to miss her until the day we day and get to see her again in a better place. Its always a terrible thing, losing someone you love. But I can promise you, it will become better.”

And Jamie believed him.

Chapter Text

That afternoon, Jamie Reagan was studying for a science test.

An actual science test, this time, not a science test of the oh-shit-its-actually-history variety. He’d been allowed to retake that history test the week after the whole Billy Carlotti-debacle (or was it the weed-debacle? The disappearing Dad-debacle? he couldn’t decide) and had scored well on it. Although there had been nothing to be done about the actual science test that he’d got a C on. He was working on that.

The house was quiet around him, which was reasonable since he was the only one there, but it wasn’t that terrible death-silence of the weeks immediately following Mom’s death.

Jamie wasn’t quite sure why.

Maybe it was because Joe had dropped him off after school. He had jogged into the house with Jamie and had nabbed three donuts from the fridge, before Jamie could tell him that they were Gramps’. Joe always moved fast, which most of the Reagans tended to do, but he did it with such grace that he never ended up storming like Danny invariably did. Joe still slept in the guest room about once a week, more out of habit than because he still needed something to prevent him from going off to O’Flanagan’s. He’d promised Jamie, through a mouth filled with donut on his way out the door, that he’d bring ice-cream tonight, if Jamie could wheedle Dad into grilling burgers. It was a Friday evening, after all.

Maybe it was because he and Dad had had a long, in-depth conversation about Napoleon’s march into Russia over breakfast. He liked Napoleon, and Dad preferred the Russians for some reason, and they’d spent a very pleasant thirty minutes arguing heatedly about it. Dad was still quiet sometimes, because you don’t just get over the death of a loved one in a matter of weeks or even months. But he made a real effort to control his own darkness at least around Jamie, and Jamie had the feeling that it had become easier and easier to do as the weeks passed.

But neither Dad nor Joe was here, right now, and the house still felt alive.

Maybe it was because he could think about Mom again, without his throat closing up like a clenched fist. The countless memories he had of her no longer filled him with desperate loneliness, but rather with a soft, happy-sad feeling that was difficult to describe. Sometimes the grief still overwhelmed him, but then he could talk to Dad and cry a bit and just allow himself to feel it.

The house was quiet, yes, but it was a quiet in which you could grow. It was no longer only a quiet that echoed of old happiness, but a quiet that promised happiness yet to come.

Jamie leaned forward, focusing his attention on his textbook again.