Chapter Text
Jolyne calls late at night, late enough that it's quiet, outside the house.
“Romeo was shot,” she says, sounding very small. It’s a familiar feeling, Jotaro thinks, even as his vision swims. He leans hard on the counter. Noriaki rubs his back and Selena is the one speaking, even though they’re all three listening in. (Hierophant has curled along Selena’s ear, by the streak of gray that she stopped dyeing at his request. Jotaro can hear from where he stands by the counter, Star Platinum a shadow that overlays him, intensifies him.)
“Oh, my god, sweetheart are you okay ?” she asks, and Jotaro wants to laugh, because it’s so obviously the wrong question. But both she and Noriaki are surprised at the sob that answers them, so maybe they don’t understand. Maybe they don’t know like Jotaro knows. Maybe- maybe he's the one who should be doing the talking, right now.
He stands up straighter, fighting the way his hands shake. He has gotten so much better since back then, in the months that turned into years, then decades, since he'd been broken into shrapnel shards of the former Kujo Jotaro. The pieces of him, held together so long by those gentle hands of his lovers and his friends, have learned this new shape, and Jotaro thinks perhaps for once it's his shape that can help someone else, some other person's grief, but he isn't confident. Jotaro reaches out, wordless, almost unsure if Selena will give the phone over to him.
She does, though. Of course she does. He's almost embarrassed that he'd doubted it was so.
He lifts the phone to his lips and ear and says, “where are you, Jolyne?”
“With the police,” she whispers, sniffling. He can imagine her wiping her eyes dry. “Um, in Orlando, still. We were coming home from- and. Uh. I don't. It all happened so fast. And he's gone now, they. They told me he's gone now."
His heart aches. Jolyne's never lost someone close to her before. He can only think, what an awful way to start.
"I had to call the police to c-come to the body. That was, um. That was a few hours ago. They had, um. They had questions, and stuff. Obviously. But. They said I can go home now, though.”
Jolyne doesn’t live with them anymore; she moved out last spring, for college. 'Home', given that a murder and the police are involved, probably means her apartment in Orlando. Absently, he calculates the length of the drive in the back of his head, given a little extra time to drive appropriately slow enough not to get pulled over for speeding. At least he's visited her often enough to know the way blindfolded.
“Can you pick me up?” Jolyne asks, and he can hear how it pains her to ask. She is so proud and stubborn, and he loves her so much. He feels a little guilty for failing to offer before she'd had to shape the words into sound, tries to make it up to her by answering quick and confident.
“Yeah. Give me a few hours.”
“Just you, dad, okay?”
That’s an unusual request, but he doesn’t question it. He can see Noriaki's frown, out of the corner of his eye, and hopes they won't fight him on this. He says, softly, “Okay.”
Jolyne matches him, soft on soft. “Thanks.”
There's something strange, some warmth pounding in his chest, like a parasite has manifested alongside his heartbeat. A weird feeling that isn't exactly right to feel. It’s not quite happiness, at least, because this is a horrible thing that’s happened to his daughter, and he doesn’t want her to hurt, not now and not ever. But to be trusted, to know that she wants him present in this moment, it eases some noose of self-loathing he hadn’t even known was still living inside him. It traces back, as so much of him does, to that lingering nightmare of the time-outside-of-time. A time when he crushed a throat in his hands like it was nothing more than a-
A grape.
Before he can catch his breath, she hangs up. In the wake of her call, with the drone of the dial tone in his ears, he stands there at a loss. He will have to explain to Selena and Noriaki that they can’t come with him, but just a bit he doesn't want to. There's a part of him that balks, that's deathly uncertain whether he can do this on his own, and he has to remind himself that he already promised, and Jolyne is waiting, and there's no time to worry about it, now. Jotaro hands the phone back, shaky and uncertain. Selena’s questioning express unravels his calm, locks his tongue. Three and a half hours is a long time to be alone with yourself in the dark. He's not looking forward to it.
“Are you sure, Jojo?” Noriaki asks, a gentle whisper, reminder that he doesn’t have to do this if he doesn’t want to. That, objectively, Jolyne will understand if they all go out to her, or Jotaro can't go at all. He's usually there for her, isn't he? So if he fails here, backs out and curls up and hides, she won't hate him forever over it. She knows all too well how basic tasks sometimes overwhelm him, has known since she was small how desperately he needs her mother and her papa just to stay afloat, some days. And always, ever since they became this happy interlocking puzzle of people, Noriaki and Selena both have assured and reassured Jotaro of the most important truth in his life, which is that it’s all right to ask for help and it’s all right to want things, even silly, embarrassing things like comfort in the middle of a dark and sorrowful night. This time, though, it's different.
This time it’s not about what he wants.
When it comes to Jolyne, what matters is doing the right thing, as often and earnestly as possible. So that she will never have to doubt that he's there for her. So that the sheer quantity of evidence will prove his intent if she ever wonders whether he cares. This is just one of many tasks his daughter has set him, knowingly or not, in the last nineteen years of his life, but it's a big one. Bigger than she'd usually give him.
So when he's worked out what needs to be done, he says,
“If she wants me to go alone, I’ll go alone.”
Then he kisses each of them on the cheek before he leaves, a silent promise that he will be back as soon as he can. It takes slightly more than a three hour drive to make it to Orlando from home, and it's already almost midnight. He puts on Selena’s favorite mix tape to keep the silence from creeping in too much, pauses by the nearest station to gas up their beat-up old Taurus, and sets out into the dark.