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The car picks up slightly as Veronica presses her foot down on the pedal, her eyes shifting from the speed limit sign to the almost empty expanse of highway in front of them. Patches of sunlight shine through grey clouds that hint at rain later. They pass a sign on the road, and her stomach tightens at the words. Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution, 30 miles. She guesses there's a reason this road is so empty.
Beside her, JD keeps his gaze out the window and his hand tightly wrapped around hers. The occasional squeeze or him rubbing his thumb on the back of her hand are the only things that prove he's still here. He hasn't said a word since they got in the car, and in front of him is stone-cold coffee and an unopened sandwich. Veronica forces herself not to look at it for driving safely and keeping old memories at bay.
"You don't have to do this, you know," he pipes up at around the 25-mile mark. It's probably the first time he's spoken today, not counting whatever he said on the phone with Claire that morning. It's not the first time he's said that, though. He said it yesterday, the day before, the week before, and two weeks earlier. He said it once she told him she was coming too.
"No, I do," she tells him. It's the same answer she's given every single time, and it's the answer she'll keep giving.
"You could be doing more valuable things with your spring break," he tells her. "You know, catch up with Martha. Go to the beach. Drink insane amounts of alcohol, smoke marijuana, and end up boning a stranger in a hotel bathroom." Veronica chuckles, the sound alien and welcome after forty minutes of silence.
"I would never do it in a bathroom, J. I have class; I'd do it in the bed or the couch, minimum."
"Well, I seem to remember, end of senior year, you and me in Macnamara's-"
"Well, that was different. That was you," she says firmly, her cheeks warm. He rolls his eyes, a teasing smirk on his face, but it fades again within seconds, and the heavy air threatens to choke them both. They sit silent as trees and warehouses pass them by, and cars zoom past on the other side.
"You don't have to do this either," she says after a while. "We can turn around. Go back to the hotel. Spend all day in our pyjamas watching movies we should be too old for." She shifts her gaze for a second and looks at him. "You don't have to do this."
"No. No, I do." His shoulders slump, his voice heavy and resigned. She's seen him in worse states regarding his dad, but it still hurts her heart to see him like this. "If I don't, I'll…." He presses his lips together and doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, he turns his head back out the window again. The conversation's over, so she presses her foot down again and watches the buildings on the horizon come into focus.
JD lifts her hand and kisses it gently, a murmured "I love you" against her skin, and she squeezes his hand back.
She doesn't know what she expected the inside of a prison to look like. It looks pretty much like what she's seen on TV; concrete walls and dingy linoleum floor, and guards whose eyes make her press into JD's side. JD finds her hand and holds it tight, clinging like they're survivors of a sinking ship. She doesn't know if it's for her benefit or his. Probably both.
His eyes don't leave her as the security guard pats her down, darkness creeping into his gaze. He doesn't calm down until she's by his side again, and there's a protectiveness in the way his arm wraps around her shoulders.
She feels oddly guilty because he's not in any state to be protective of her. She's the one who should be protecting him right now.
God knows how she's meant to do that.
They're led down a corridor with greying walls and white lights, shoes squeaking off the polished floor. Veronica keeps her eyes ahead, even though the walls are mostly bare.
The visitor's room is, at least, something familiar to her. Not that she's ever seen one before, but TV dramas recreate them reasonably well. The room is divided in two, with barely enough room for her and JD to stand side by side on their end. A long table is divided into sections, with two small chairs on their side. A long window runs from the ceiling to the table, and the other side of the room looks equally uncomfortable.
Two other visitors sit at the table, chatting to tired-looking men on the other side. JD leads Veronica down the room, walking like the floor is made of glass. He sits at their spot and picks up the phone, just like in the movies. There's a second phone that Veronica picks up, her hand curling around the plastic. She looks up at JD, trying her old trick of grounding herself in him, but it's harder to do when he's doing everything he can not to scream.
The clock ticks away the seconds. On the other side, a door is opened, and feet shuffle across the tiled floor. Veronica shuts her eyes, blood rushing in her ears. JD's voice opens them again, so scared and broken by just two little words.
"Hi, Dad."
Veronica looks at the man in front of them, trying to connect him to the Big Bud Dean in her mind. The superficial pieces are there, filling in like a paint by numbers. His eyes are the same colour as JD's, but where his are clouded, JD's are almost always sharp and bright. They're smaller too. She remembers the dark hair, though it's longer now. Messier. In her mind, it was so slicked back she could have sworn there was oil in it.
What she remembers most is the smile. Calling it a smile was kind. The way his lips were curled like a snake on his face, spreading when his glasses-clad eyes landed on her. The goosebumps that prickled on her skin, the way she never felt safe in this man's presence, even if she only spent a few minutes with him. They were all she needed to understand why JD didn't want her in his house, even if she didn't know everything.
The smile isn't there anymore. She doesn't know if she should be relieved. Instead, his mouth falls open slightly, patchy stubble on his cheeks and chin.
"Jason," he says. He sounds surprisingly strong. What really sounds strangest to her is the name 'Jason' in his mouth. It's the name he gave his son, but it's the first time she's heard him say it. It doesn't sound right. "You came back." He turns his head slightly, eyes moving up and down Veronica. The twelve-year-old girl inside her shudders even if that look is gone. In fact, he frowns slightly as if trying to place her face. "This is… the girlfriend?"
"Fiancee, actually," JD says. Veronica can't help smiling at that. Her finger traces the bare spot where her ring should be. Security made her take it off, her most prized possession currently sitting in a locker in the waiting area. "I'm sure I told you about that in the letter."
"Oh. Yeah. Of course, you did," he nods. Veronica sighs, waiting for a smile. Something normal. Not every day, your son brings his fiance to visit you in prison. They sit, the hum of the light filling in the glaring silence.
"So when's the wedding?" he finally asks.
"We haven't actually set a date yet," JD confesses. He looks at her, tenderness and guilt fighting in his gaze, and squeezes her hand. "We want to wait until we've finished college. Both of us."
"College?" his dad snorts. Fury jumps in Veronica's chest, and it's only because of the guard a few feet away that she doesn't fly at him right there. It must show on her face, though, because Bud raises a hand apologetically. "Don't you think you should finish high school before thinking about college?"
Veronica chuckles bitterly. It's only, so she doesn't scream at the question.
"I graduated two years ago, Dad," JD says. "Veronica went to Brown. I started Ohio State this year." Bud nods, but there's nothing behind it. Like a stage direction or a puppet being pulled on. The silence creeps back in, twice as thick as before.
"She does Law. I'm doing English," he says. "With a minor in library studies."
"So you're gonna be a librarian now?" he asks. There's a slight chuckle in his voice, dull humour in his eyes, and Veronica digs her nails into her legs. JD grips her hand so hard that his knuckles turn white, and the blood is drained from his face.
"Maybe," he says in a low voice. "What's wrong with that?"
Veronica turns to look at him and almost recoils at his expression. She didn't know a person could hold that much hatred in their gaze. It's like watching storm clouds roll over a sky, but instead of being safely behind a window, she's beside the eye, waiting for it to blow.
"You just never struck me as a librarian," Bud says, oblivious to his son's anger. Veronica wonders how a person can have that much hatred on their face. Especially towards their own father. She's long past the point of disbelief; she knows that the only thing linking JD to Bud is DNA, that Claire is more of a parent than he ever was. But still, that look in his eyes it's unsettling.
It's why she's not sure time heals all wounds.
"Yeah. Well. It's been a while," comes JD's response. Bud raises his eyebrow, a silent acknowledgement that JD isn't wrong. Darkness lurks in his gaze, too, not as dark as his son's, but enough. If JD's expression unsettles her, Bud's chills her to the bone, cold sweat running down her back. She blinks, and suddenly she's twelve years old again, eyes darting between JD's panicked expression and Bud's grin. The feeling that she'd unintentionally walked into a battlefield before JD flung her out the door with barely a goodbye.
They exchange some more small talk, empty questions and two-word responses. JD asks how prison is treating his dad, and his dad asks the same question he asked five minutes ago. He asks JD if he's ever going to get a haircut, and while it's the closest thing to something normal, the curve of his lips makes it anything but.
According to the clock, only twenty minutes have passed when they get up to leave. But if you asked Veronica, she's had said around five hours. JD might have said a lifetime.
"So," Bud says as they get up. JD's eyes widen, and he once again looks like that kid hurrying Veronica out of his house. He pulls Veronica behind him slightly and tenses at his dad's teasing smirk. Veronica gulps and tries to breathe, but an invisible weight pressed on her chest.
"When can I expect my wedding invitation?"
It's a trick question. They might not have a date planned, but it's most likely before he gets out. Veronica doesn't know the full extent of his sentence, but she knows it involves more than what happened to JD's mom. But even if he is out by then, they both agreed he's not coming. It was never even brought up.
So it wasn't a question. A joke, at best. And at worst, it was a way to hurt JD.
Judging by the haste he flees the room, it worked too.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks. He hasn't said a word since they left his dad, not when they got their stuff back from security, not when they left the building, not when they got into the car and pulled out of the parking lot. She thought he'd fallen asleep for a second, given how little he'd slept the night before, but when she looked over at him, he was looking straight ahead, his hands balled into tight fists. "J?"
She gets a response in the form of him shaking his head. The road is pretty empty, so she turns and looks at him. She takes note of the dark shadows under his eyes, how the rest of him is two shades paler than when they left that morning. The sun shines through the window, and unshed tears glisten in his brown eyes. Years and years build up on him and strip away in a minute, a pain she knows she'll never be able to move. She's tried, and he's told her the same thing every time.
She turns her attention back to the road and tries not to let the feeling of helplessness drown her.
JD heads straight to the bed once they get back to the hotel. He collapses on it like a wounded soldier coming back from the field. His head is turned away from her, but she sees his shoulders shaking, and that's when she bit back her tears. She leans against the wall; she hadn't even realised how tired she was herself until now. She bends over, her hands on her knees, and breathes until the pain in her chest is lifted. In for eight, out for eight. JD taught her those, and she hopes he's using them now.
It can't have been more than a few minutes, but JD appears in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. He presses a gentle kiss to her head, then another, harder one. They hang there for a second, trying to match their breathing, then JD picks her up in his arms and carries her over to their shared bed.
What will your mother think? He had joked when they booked it. She shouldn't have taken that joke for granted.
They arrange themselves on top of the covers, lying side by side with their hands linked. Her cheek is pressed into his shoulder, and she turns on her side so she can trace patterns on his stomach.
He doesn't need to talk about it. Everything he could say, he's probably already said. Everything else is for his therapist's ears, and she's doing her best to be okay with it. To be okay with the fact that not every problem is one she can fix.
"Penny for your thoughts," she asks after a while. JD presses his lips together. She can almost see everything he's thinking, a dark grey hurricane tearing through his mind. She runs her fingers through the hair at his temples, a grin tugging at her lips as he leans into the touch. His hand meets hers on his stomach and he runs his fingers over her knuckles, the touch as close to playful as he can manage.
"Thank you for coming with me," he replies. His voice is hoarse like someone scraped sandpaper against it.
"Of course," is what she says. "You needed someone." You needed me. "Did it help any?"
JD smiles, but it's cold and humourless. He shakes his head, a short exhale.
"I don't know," he says. "I know I would've regretted it if I didn't, but…" He looks up at the ceiling, begging the plaster for answers. Veronica follows his gaze, wondering if he sees something she doesn't. He sighs heavily and closes his eyes, trapping the unshed tears. "I regret going too."
Veronica nods. Words desert her, but she also knows she doesn't need them.
"I used to wonder," he says. "Why was he like that? How could he treat me like that? Then I realised…" He bites his lip, his eyelashes resting against his pale cheekbones. "I realised I didn't want to know. That it was beyond my understanding, and maybe it didn't matter. He did it. That was enough."
She remains silent and continues running her fingers through his hair. Her hand trembles slightly, but he doesn't complain.
For a few minutes, it seems like he's done talking. And then-
"God, I hate that son of a bitch." He sounds more emotional than he has all day, like someone twisted a valve on his soul. The resentment rises to the surface, crashing with the heartbreak and mourning the life he never had. "Like I see him… and I think of all the stuff he did to me, and he doesn't care. He's in prison and has his problems, but he's not the one waking up in the night or… or pacing or who had to freeze his brain to survive. Or who's always scared. I was. I am." Tears roll down his face now, wetting the pillow. "That's going to follow me around forever. Or you know… long enough." He gasps like someone punched his stomach. "I know I always say he's just the guy who gave me life. That you and Claire are my real family. But-"
He lets out a long sigh and turns over, his eyes staring into hers. She's rarely ever seen him so scared, and fear clenches her own heart. He opens his mouth, urgency flashing in his eyes, but something crosses his mind, and he stops himself. Instead, he traces her cheekbone with his finger before wiping away a tear she didn't know she'd shed.
"I'm my father's child," he mutters defeatedly.
"No." Her reply is so firm it surprises even him. She shakes her head firmly. "You're not JD. He doesn't love people. You do." She takes his hand and places it over her heart. "That's what makes you different from him. You having his blood doesn't change that."
He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, his hand curling around Veronica's.
"Yeah, I know," he replies. His voice is small. He curls in on himself a little and leans towards her. He might not even be aware he's doing it. But she wraps her arms around him and pulls his head to her shoulder. He wraps himself around her, a shaky breath released against her neck.
"You know what you said earlier about pyjamas and movies we're too old for?" he asks against her skin. "That still on the table?" She laughs, the sound strangely alien after the day they've had, and kisses his head.
"Always," she tells him.
She doesn't let go of his hand for the rest of the night. Even when he wakes just before 4am, and she's still sound asleep, she's still holding him.
It almost makes him believe what she said.