Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
Predicting the future is really very challenging when everything is up in the air. Especially when those things are books, assorted knick-knacks, and that nicely framed picture of your family. At first, Jude woke up thinking he was having some sort of panic attack or bout of nausea to be blamed on the scallops he had for dinner. It was a slow rocking sensation, but that quickly gave way when he noticed his lamp was doing the same thing. Suddenly, the rocking was not so gentle. And then the posters on the wall caught the wave. And the books. The worst book of the lot was the god-awful tome he had to lug to history class, it was thick and heavy, and it came down on his chest like a ton of bricks. The next things to fall were the photos of him, his family, and of Connor. He really missed Connor, and now, as the frame hit his headboard, the glass had been shattered.
He looked up at the golden plush bear Connor had given him. It was shaking back and forth like an excited cub. It was mesmerizing. Had he looked up, he would have seen the bronze head of Darth Vader concluding its journey from the top shelf to the top of Jude’s head. He felt a warm, liquid-like sensation flowing down his ears. Then everything went black.
Then the lights were overwhelming, at first in many colors, then just white. He could hear their voices, some commanding, but there was a soft whisper that cut through the confusion.
“Everything is fine sweetheart.”
The hands that held his were soft like the voice, but firm.
“Everything is going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
He twisted his fingers through the hand and touched velvety flannel. He tried to turn his head.
“Don’t try to move.” It was the commander. “Can you hear me?”
He could but he had no voice of his own. Then the rocking began again. Panic. Then there was beeping. It was loud, urgent, and then the velvet flannel disappeared, only to be replaced by rough hands. Commanding hands. Hands that were moving quickly. He was moving quickly.
The soft voice faltered “It’s okay baby, you’re going to be okay. Mama’s here with you.”
More lights, different lights that were flickering above. Square after square. The soft voice was trailing behind. Then came a very distant voice, a voice that was everywhere. It was speaking in another language. A new commander spoke, and it was so much closer than the others. It spoke the same language as the everywhere voice. He reached to find the velvet flannel, but all he felt was a stab in his arm.
The new commander spoke again “In three, two, one.”
***
“Hey, bubba, it’s time to go.”
Lena’s hand glided over Jude’s shoulders, drawing Jude back into the reality of the courthouse. He had no idea how long he and Connor had been standing there, eyes closed, minds lost in the feel of arms and the warmth of necks, the sound of slow breathing blocking out the murmur of voices echoing off marble columns, the rhythmic beat of their hearts, compressed together. They let go. “Hey, so when are you going?” Jude asked, his voice cracking in the process.
“I think at the end of the week.”
“So soon.” Jude said, somewhere between pleading and questioning.
“Yeah, I guess I need to be there to sign up for school.”
“Well, at least we have a week. There’s no school, so we kinda have a lot of us-time for the rest of the summer.” Jude did not understand where this optimism came from, but there it was coming out of his mouth. He wished he felt how he sounded.
The universe was cruel. His life had been so brutally unfair for so long, then he found a home and a family. That family brought him to a school where he met this wonderful boy. This boy whom he loved and who loved him back. Why couldn’t the universe let that be? It seemed now to Jude that the curse of his life had passed on to Connor. Connor, whose life was peaceful before Jude arrived, whose parents were now divorced, whose father couldn’t seem to accept him. Now it was school, the institution that had brought them together, that had set the date of their separation. Jude sucked in his nascent tears.
They walked out to the parking lot. For a moment Jude was going to walk the distance to where Connor’s father was idling his car, but he stopped, gripped with anger. Whatever good will Adam had earned with Jude had evaporated. It was Connor’s decision to move to L.A, but that decision had been forced on him by Adam’s selfishness. Sure, he said he was trying his best. His best was not enough. He was a lesser man. Jude’s anger resolved into contempt. And he could not—would not—disguise it. So instead of making a bad situation worse, he said “I’m going to go meet my moms.”
“I have something for you in the car, though.” Connor said, contravening Jude’s decision.
Once again, Jude compacted his pain into the pit of his stomach. There would be time for that later when he was alone in his room. As if acting under the influence of Newton’s third law of motion, the pain he pushed down buoyed his head up, and he floated over to the car in a daze.
Connor opened the door and picked up from the passenger seat a gift bag. “I was going to wait, but I wanted you to have this now.” Connor said quietly.
Jude took the bag and ruffled through the crepe paper and pulled out a small stuffed animal, a golden bear cub. It wore a shirt that said bear with me. Jude laughed through the slowly emerging tears that he had been fighting so hard to keep in. “I love it.”
Connor choked out “There’s something else.” He wasn’t in the best shape either.
Jude pulled out a small picture frame. It was a shot of him and Connor sitting in the sand on the beach. They were side by side, arms together and sharing a pair of headphones. They were both looking at the camera and laughing in surprise, Jude’s hand was up as if to say stop. He remembered that day quite fondly. “Callie took this. How did you— ” Jude began to question.
“I asked her for it. It was going to be part of your birthday present, but I figured that since…you know.”
Jude nodded. “It’s perfect.” He wrapped his arms around Connor. Two days ago he wouldn’t have done it in front of Adam for assorted and unnamable reasons, but now Adam was nothing but a bag of watery meat with a driver’s license. Jude availed himself of Connor’s lips—equally for the sheer joy of it, as a reward for holding it together, and to punish Adam for his weakness. It felt awesome.
They pulled away from each other. “I’ll see you in the morning?” Jude asked.
“Definitely.” Connor replied with a smirk smeared across his face like badly applied lipstick.
When Jude returned home he ran upstairs and placed the bear cub and photograph on the shelf above his bed. He studied the collected knick-knacks, the pictures of his new family, his copy of A Wrinkle In Time, a bottle of blue nail polish, a baseball, the bronze head of Darth Vader, the wind-up chattering teeth Jesus gave him, a stake from a tent, movie tickets, his Mr. Potato-Head, Connor’s hospital bracelet. He had never had things like this, or at least that he got to keep for very long.
Jude was soon distracted by the return of Jesus. He joined his family in welcoming their brother back, gulping down the celebratory dinner for Callie’s adoption, and generally reveling in the completeness of his family. He barely noticed the acid pain brewing in his stomach until he got ready for bed and again took stock of his treasury of things. He thought of cuddling with the plush bear as he fell asleep, but decided against drawing attention to it by doing so. The thought of having to discuss the origin of the bear with Jesus was intolerable--he had been so removed from it all, and having to rehash the summer was too much right now. There would be time and energy later. He contented himself with a last look at the photograph from the beach and laid down to sleep. It was sometime before dawn that the rocking began.
***
The first thing Jude heard was a quiet, repetitive beeping. Was it his alarm? No, it did not feel like a school day. It was still summer. He opened his eyes and it was dark. This was an unfamiliar room. He closed his eyes, exhausted from the question of where he was. He opened his eyes and it was light now. Lena and Stef were there. Hi moms. He closed his eyes again. He felt their hands on his arms. He opened his eyes, and again it was dark. He shifted his head. Callie was asleep on a chair in the corner. Brandon was looking out the window. He closed his eyes. He felt a hand on his chest, the sensation of plugs in his ears, then the rhythmic beating of a heart. It was so familiar.
He wanted to open his eyes but he couldn’t, the weight was too much. He slipped into a darkness filled with a familiar rhythm. He remembered a room filled with fading summer light. There was a hat on the nightstand next to the bed. He could feel the jersey knit sheets, and the arms that felt so smooth against his back. There was the pluck of buttons in his fingers and the smell of freshly washed hair in his nose. He remembered the motion of his hands moving sleeves of linen cloth up and over and off. The novel sensation of warm skin touching his stomach filled him, and the sharp intake of breath that momentarily broke the contact. He could taste tender lips and the intrepid tongue winding its way through his mouth. He could feel the familiar rhythm against his chest, he could hear the rushing of blood. Then he floated up and a dangerous voice said “It’s time to go home.” He retreated to the comfort of the void.
Jude opened his eyes. He felt it was time to keep them open. He looked out the window and could see the sun peeking up over the tops of the trees in the distance. It was quiet except for the repetitive beeping. He could have done without the beeping. Lena was asleep in the chair where Callie had been. His eyes rested on the table next to his bed. The shirt on the golden cub said bear with me. He reached for it and was surprised by a sharp pain where a needle and tube were connected to his arm. He moved through the pain and brought the bear to his chest. “Mama?”
Lena snapped upright. “Jude!” With incredible alacrity she was next to Jude and holding his hands, kissing his head, and repeating “Oh I’m so glad you’re awake!”
After the barrage of affection Jude questioned “What happened?”
“There was an earthquake and it knocked over that Darth Vader statute above your bed. It hit you square on the head, bubba.”
“An earthquake? I thought we didn’t get those here?”
“It’s really rare, and thankfully this wasn't a big one.”
“It was big enough for me.” Jude said wearily. “How long was I out for?”
Lena’s face grew concerned, clearly at pains to say “Five days. But you’re going to be fine.”
“Five days?” Jude asked incredulously.
“Yeah, sweetheart. You got hit in the head pretty bad and there was a lot of swelling in your brain. But the doctors have said they expect you to make a full recovery. You might miss the first week of school, but you’ll be up and about in no time.”
Jude could tell that Lena was trying to make him feel good by the perkiness of her tone, and though he could hear her sincerity, he still caught an undercurrent of nervousness. “I feel like you’re not telling me everything.” He said.
She paused and adjusted her weight to be more firmly on the bed. She grabbed Jude’s hands “Well, you needed surgery to relieve the swelling in your brain.”
Jude immediately tried to feel his head, but Lena kept a firm grip and held his hands down.
“No, no, no!” Lena said quickly but gently. “You have some stitches up there that need some time to heal, so don’t touch them.”
"Is it bad?" Jude asked in a thin whimper.
Lena shored up her features to appear strong. "It’s not too serious. They had to shave your head, but the doctor said the scarring won't be too visible when your hair grows back." She massaged Jude's arms.
“Can I see?” Jude asked, looking around the hospital room for a mirror.
“In a little bit when you’re ready to get up.”
“I’m ready to get up.” Jude said, but he wasn't really sure of that.
“Not yet kiddo. Maybe a little later today. Right now you just need to focus on staying awake and talking.” She said, assuring Jude with her smile. “One step at a time.”
Jude just shook his head and looked at the bear cub in his hands. Bear with me. He looked back up at Lena. "I was out for five days?"
"Just about."
"Is everyone else okay?"
"Everyone is fine. You just got really unlucky."
Jude was having difficulty winding his mind around the notion of having completely missed five whole days. He looked back down at the bear cub. Connor.
"Have you heard from Connor? He’s okay, too, right?"
"He's fine, he was here in the hospital quite a bit."
"Is he coming today?"
"I don't think so, honey." Lena bit her lip and shook her head almost imperceptibly. "Adam is driving Connor to LA this morning."
He ticked the days off on his fingers. That was it. The sound he emitted was like a tiny squeeze toy being slowly crushed in the mouth of a dog. He sucked his lips in between his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. He was doing his best to return to the comfortable darkness he had only just left. Despite the vice-grip strength he was using to block out the world, the tears escaped and ran down his face like his own little Tigris and Euphrates.
Lena continued to massage his arms, offering sympathetic tears. “He was here every day, sweetie.”
It was poor recompense. He had been robbed. Why couldn't he have had this one thing? This one goddamn thing. It was shit enough that Adam was a weak, emotionally stunted man, but now Jude's last week with Connor had been stolen from him by Adam, fate, and the bust of Darth Vader. There really isn’t anything to be said about plate tectonics, but as far as Jude was concerned, Adam and Vader were in competition for the title of world’s shittiest father.