Work Text:
When Jack broke down, soaking wet in the firehouse kitchen, it was obvious that nobody really knew what to do.
They awkwardly milled about, keeping their eyes glued to their shoes and the wet kitchen tiles, and Andy moved within arm's distance to cautiously rub Jack solemnly on the back.
As Travis stood by his mother and tried to help her salvage some of the Thanksgiving meal, he tried not to stare at Jack, with his shoulders hunched and his head down, shielding his face as if he was afraid to be seen while he cried near silently. It figures, Travis thought, if Jack went quiet when he was furious, it made sense that he was quiet while he was miserable, too.
It was uncomfortable, too uncomfortable. It probably wouldn’t feel this way if it were literally anybody else who was crying silently in the communal kitchen space after losing someone closer than a friend, not even if it were Beckett. And Travis hated how uncomfortable it was to see Jack, a teammate, a brother, a friend, like this. It was unnatural. It shouldn’t feel like this.
Carina entered from the hallway, laden down with paper towels and a mop. She took in the scene, glancing between Jack and Maya wordlessly before she instantly changed the subject by divvying up jobs and handing out cleaning supplies while lightly chiding them for the mess they had made out of such a simple thing, notably, “Travis, how did you manage to wash a turkey?”
In the commotion, Jack was able to slip silently away, moving out from under Andy’s hand, manoeuvring around his teammates and darting out of the room before anybody could stop him.
Even with Jack gone, Maya, Andy, and even Carina were looking at the doorway where he had disappeared through, and the rest of the group was trying not to mention it, laughing and talking about other things instead. Even Travis’s mother had moved on, talking to Vic about her relationship with Theo.
But Travis felt unsettled. Not only did he find it strange that he had never seen Jack as anything other than warm and romantic and friendly, but he also wondered if he had ever seen Jack so sad, and why nobody was going after him or reacting much at all. Then it hit him- nobody was sure quite what to do.
Like a compulsion, Travis made sure his mother would be alright for a few moments without him and he made his way after Jack before he could talk himself out of it, wondering, suddenly, where he would go and what he would do when he was upset enough to break down in front of the whole team and Travis’s mother.
He didn’t get very far. “Travis?” Vic asked, mid-laugh with her hand on Theo’s arm. “Where are you going?”
“To get changed,” Travis said, a little too fast. He held his arms out as evidence of his current dishevelled state. “I’m soaked.”
“I’ll come with you,” Vic said, making to stand up.
That was the exact opposite of what Travis wanted and tried to say as much. He was also keenly aware that Jack might have fled the firehouse by now, gone home and forgone the thanksgiving festivities altogether, and if he was still considering leaving, Travis wanted to catch him before he got the chance. “Nah, I can handle it. I’m not a baby, I can change myself, thank you very much.”
Sinking back down, Vic rolled her eyes with a smile. “Says the man who washed a very expensive turkey instead of cooking it.”
Resisting the urge to respond with a very snarky comment, Travis darted through the halls, poking his head into every room and silently hoping that he would find Jack in one of them, but he knew the possibility was high that he had left already to stew in his pain where nobody could possibly find him. Travis didn’t even know where Jack would go. Maybe to Marsha’s apartment? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what Jack did or where he went after hours.
Thankfully, he turned a corner found him alone in one of the sleeping quarters and Travis breathed a sigh of relief. That was until he noticed that Jack was pacing back and forth in the small space, his face red and twisted as he tried not to cry, one hand on his hip and the other running harshly across his face like he was trying to snap himself out of it. The pacing seemed involuntary, and Travis wondered if Jack was even aware he was doing it or if he was moving on instinct, just trying to get the nervous energy out of him in any way he could.
Now that he was here, Travis wasn’t sure what he should do. Jack hadn’t noticed him yet, so he could slip away if he really wanted to, spare both of them the mortifying reality of the situation, but somehow he didn’t think it would work out the way he thought it would. He also thought that this was a conversation that needed to happen, and if he didn’t start it, nobody would.
Before he could back out, Travis cleared his throat and knocked on the doorframe. Jack immediately dropped his hands to his sides as he looked at him, but his fingers drummed relentlessly at his thighs and he continued to pace. “Hey,” Travis said gently. “You alright?”
“Yeah, man. I, uh, I’m sorry about that back there,” Jack swallowed. “I don’t know why I did that.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologise for,” Travis watched Jack move wearily. “We’ve just lost a friend. It’s going to be hard for a while.”
“I know, I know,” Jack said. “But we were having such a good time, and it’s supposed to be a special day with all these people here and-”
“Jack,” Travis interrupted, taking a step into the room. Jack had stopped pacing, but his hands were shifting erratically, and though his feet weren’t moving, his body was in near-constant motion. Travis had heard about this from Pruitt, but hadn’t understood it until now. “Stop moving.”
“I don’t know what came over me, I honestly didn’t mean to ruin it, and everyone was laughing and having fun and then I made it all weird,” Jack ran a hand down his face. “Like an absolute dumbass, I-”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Travis stepped into the room. “You’re mourning your brother. Nobody will ever fault you for that.”
But Jack kept rambling, degradation muttered under his breath and uttered at a rapid pace, and Travis forced himself to cross further into the little room and came to a stop in front of Jack and grabbed him by the arms, forcing him to still. His eyes were very bright in the dim lighting of the room, almost wild. “Hey,” he said. “Settle.”
To his surprise, Jack actually listened to him, stilling as if under a spell, but he was still stiff with tension under his touch, like a spring coiled tightly, as if he were using all his self-control to stop moving. He looked blindly at Travis, and Travis wondered when the last time Jack had been this close to anybody in a social setting was.
Neither of them spoke for a few long moments, silent but for their breathing and the laughter from the kitchen. Travis was the first to break it. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Not really,” Jack said. “I’m not sure I really know.”
“Well, coming from a guy who has lost someone very important to me on the job before,” Travis said carefully. Jack looked like he had been slapped, so Travis quickly continued. “I think I might be one of the best people to help you figure out what ‘it’ is.”
“He’s dead,” Jack said, and Travis wasn’t sure he had ever heard him sound quite so dull, not even after the skyscraper when everything was going to hell. “He’s really dead, and he isn’t coming back. Just like that, and he’s just… dead. He was like my brother, you know? Closer than that, even.”
Nodding understandingly, Travis hummed. “He was your person.”
Tilting his head, Jack looked at him quizically. “My what?”
It made sense for Jack to have no idea what that meant. He had never had anything like that before. But the mere thought of losing Vic as Jack had just lost Dean… it hurt too much for Travis to imagine. “Your other half. It’s nothing. It’s just something I say with Vic.”
“Oh,” Jack glanced away. He pulled away from Travis’s grip and moved to sit on the bunk. He looked blindly at the floor, his foot still bouncing rapidly on the ground, so hard that the metal bedframe rattled. “I’ve got nobody left now.”
“What do you mean?” Travis frowned.
Jack gestured vaguely. Travis wished he knew what it meant. “You know as well as I do that I haven’t always gotten along with everyone here. I’ve always been sort of the odd one out. This place… I don’t know. You’re right. Everybody has their ‘person’, and I just… I don’t. I think that Miller belonged to everyone else, and he definitely belonged to Pru. I don’t know if I’ve got anyone. I don’t even know if this place has felt like a family in ages.”
“Jack, no,” Travis said quietly, barely a breath on the wind. His heart plunged into his stomach. If he had known it was like this, he would have tried to have this conversation a lot earlier. “You’re family, and you’ll always be family, no matter what happens.”
“You say that now,” Jack laughed bitterly. Travis wished that he could place a hand on his shoulder or something, comfort him somehow. Angry Jack, they knew how to handle, but upset Jack? That was new, uncharted territory. “You know, I had a family, once. A real family. It didn’t last for very long, but long enough that I can miss it, you know?”
He knew very little about Jack’s childhood, but what he did know wasn’t ideal, so hearing him just come out with something like that caught Travis off guard. "A family?"
"Yeah, you know. Brother, sister, parents. A regular family. Lyla is the reason I learnt ASL."
"What happened to them?"
Shrugging, Jack bent until he could rest his elbows on his knees and ran an anxious hand through his messy hair. He spoke at the ground, and his voice was hard. "My foster parents were killed in a house fire and that night social services came and separated me and my siblings. I haven't seen them since. I've thought about them almost every day though."
He didn't know much about the foster system, but that struck Travis as odd. "And you've never found them again? Never figured out what they're doing now, never reconnected?"
The laugh Jack barked out made Travis jump. "You must think I'm a scumbag, but when you get put in the foster system, you're pretty much lost forever until someone makes an effort to look for you, and that's rare unless you’ve got extended family like cousins or aunts that you connected with who felt sorry for you or if you’re young enough to be in high demand.”
Suddenly, Travis felt uncomfortable just standing there watching while Jack almost seemed to vibrate with nervous energy, and crossed the room so he could join Jack seated on the bed. “We could help you find them, you know. Now that you’re older, it might be easier.”
“I’ve thought about going out to look for them, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. They’re probably not even in Seattle anymore, haven’t been for ages. And…” he trailed off, and Travis looked over to see his face contort and his eyes fall shut, and he jabbed at the side of his head hard with his finger. “In my head, you know, in my head they’re happy and healthy and successful. They’re loved, and they have families of their own, friends they can lean on. Maybe he’s a lawyer or a chef. Maybe she’s a teacher or a doctor. Maybe they're parents. Maybe they’re successful, and wealthy, and living in mansions with butlers and maids. But if I find them, and it turns out that the image in my head is wrong, and in reality, they’re unloved and alone and living on the streets and struggling to live day by day, wishing their lives were better, I'm not sure I could cope with that. It’s always been a fear that where they ended up in real life is going to be a hundred times worse than what I’ve pictured of them in my head. I’ve been too scared to ruin it.”
Feeling faint and sick, Travis stared at the far wall and wished, not for the first time and probably not for the last, that he knew more about Jack’s life outside of the firehouse. “You’ve got to rip off the band-aid sometime. Sure, their lives might not be what you would have wanted for them, but you’ll never know if you don’t take that risk.”
“It isn’t worth it,” Jack sat back and stared blindly at the far wall. “I’ve already lost one family. Now Dean’s dead, and I’ve got nothing left.”
Almost on instinct, Travis reached out and rested a hand on Jack’s knee to stop its relentless bouncing. “I shouldn’t need to tell you how many ways that isn’t true,” Travis insisted. “19… we’re your family. We always will be, no matter how alone you feel or how much you push us away, the 19 will always be here. You don’t have to worry about losing another family, because I guarantee that it will never happen, not with us, not if I can help it. I know that we lost Dean, and the two of you were a closer kind of family than you are with the 19, but you don’t have to isolate yourself and be alone to protect yourself. You can’t just… push away from us. You’re allowed to be vulnerable in front of the team, you don’t have to pretend like everything is alright, or like you’re invincible just so you don’t… I don’t know, seem weak in front of us or whatever justification you come up with. We’re not going to abandon you if we see something we don’t like. That’s not what families do. You don’t have to live like that anymore.”
“I don’t know,” Jack muttered. “It’s been working pretty well for me so far.”
Tavis really looked at Jack and imagined him living all alone in that cold and empty house-boat he used to share with his friend and brother, waiting for wake-up calls that never came, expecting a shared meal that will never be made, expecting to turn a corner and see him seated on the couch watching TV or playing with his daughter as she giggled. Travis knew something of that pain, knew that sometimes the worst part of losing someone so close to you was less the fact that they’re gone but the fact that you’ll never get to experience those little routines ever again. And the thought of Jack going through that alone… because he was right, no matter how much Travis hated it. He really didn’t have anyone from Station 19 to grieve with him, not like Maya had Carina, or Vic had Travis, or Andy had Sullivan. All Jack had was Dean, and now Dean’s gone, and Jack was all alone again.
“Screw this,” he said, surprising himself. Jack looked at him strangely. “You should come to my place and celebrate Thanksgiving with us. I know that we’re celebrating here with 19 and family, but I’m throwing something small at my place, with Emmett, my mum, maybe Vic. You should come.”
“Nah,” Jack shook his head. “I’m not gonna do that.”
“Why not?” Travis demanded. “What else have you got going on? Come on, you’re not an inconvenience or a nuisance if you’ve been formally invited by the owners of the home. I want you there, and I’m sure my mother and Emmett would be thrilled to have you. You should come.”
But Jack still didn’t look convinced, and rubbed absently at his chin as he shifted on the bed, making the springs creak- he was a big guy at the best of times, combined with Travis’s added weight, made the old, trusty bed groan with the effort. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t. I don’t want to be in the way.”
“I do know, and I say you should,” Travis said before Jack could find some reason to protest “And I’ll be expecting you, so if you don’t come down, I’ll be personally offended and my mother will be upset. You don’t want to upset my poor elderly mother, do you?”
“Nobody wants to upset Mrs Montgomery, not when she brings us such great food,” Jack managed a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, nothing like that unexpected cackle as Beckett slipped in the flooded kitchen. He still didn’t look convinced though, more trepidatious and uncertain, and Travis wasn’t sure if he wanted to smash Jack’s head into a wall or his own. His foot began to subconsciously restart its incessant bouncing. “I don’t think so, Travis. I mean, I appreciate it and all, but I don’t want to be in the way.”
“Look,” Travis tried to keep his voice even as he rose from the bed, the springs squeaking in relief. “I know that this is hard. I can’t promise that the weight is going to get any lighter to carry, but it will be easier if you’re with friends, instead of turning into a recluse and locking yourself away and dealing with it by yourself. You don’t have to suffer alone. That’s something I learnt when Michael died- something the 19 taught me. What's done is done, and though it’s unbearable now, there’s nothing you can do but move on because if you don’t, it’s going to drag you down until the weight of it all drowns you. And if you don’t have anyone there to lift you back up, then you stay there, drowning and flailing and hoping someone would see how much you’re struggling on your own and save you from yourself, but if you don’t let anyone in, don’t let anyone be there for you and you isolate, then nobody is going to be there to save you when you need them the most. So clear your schedule. Come to my place, hang out with us, have a good day for once. And then, when it’s all said and done, you can go back to coping or not coping the way you know how. But just let yourself be saved for one day before you let yourself start drowning again. Alright? Can you do that?”
For a few long, fearful moments, Travis feared that Jack was going to refuse again and there would be nothing he could do to stop him, but eventually, Jack fell slowly backwards until his head hit the wall behind him, he stared blearily at the ceiling light, and he ran an exhausted hand down his face, looking sad and resigned. “I haven’t got anything better to do so I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
“Great, great- I am so glad to hear it,” Travis was more relieved than he was willing to admit. He reached his leg out and gently kicked Jack’s foot to stop it from bouncing, and it came to a stop. “Well, I’ll leave you be. You… rest up, settle, regain your composure, bury all that back down or whatever it is you do, and then come back out and join us, and we’ll figure this out together, alright?”
Jack didn’t answer, and Travis exited quietly and shut the door behind him, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts and the compounding, overwhelming, never-ending emotions to do whatever it was he was going to do now that he was finally, blessedly alone.