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Chibs finds the lad pretty much where he thinks he will – up on the roof of TM, headphones covering his ears and a joint in his hand. Chibs just stands there for a minute, takes in the boy he’s watched grow – the too baggy jeans, too big flannel shirt, headphones clamped as always over his head – and searches for something of JT in the lines of the boy’s body as he slumps.
Calls himself an old man and moves into Jackson’s line of sight. Jack startles at the sight of him - makes an abortive move with his fingers to get rid of the joint - then just stares defiantly. Chibs shakes his head, sits beside the boy and slides the headphones down around his neck. The music echoing out is loud, driving rock and, while Chibs isn’t positive he could spot the difference between a pearl jam and a pearl necklace, he does listen to the kids talk and he’s pretty sure what’s coming from the lad’s tape player is the former.
“Yer mam needs you,” he says, glancing at the boy in time to see Jack’s jaw tighten, his head drop a little.
“Saw her this morning. She’s still anything like she was then, she doesn’t give a fuck where I am. Probably doesn’t remember she’s got me.”
Chibs sighs, takes the joint and hits it. The thing is – the boy’s right. Chibs has talked to Gemma exactly once today, and from the glassiness of her eyes and the carefulness of her steps, there was definitely chemical comfort in place. She had Clay’s arm at her waist to hold her up, though. It’s funny how he’s always around right now, always on the edges of everything, making funeral arrangements and stepping up to the gavel – funny in a way that isn’t, funny in a way beyond his VP duties.
“How long did you know my dad?” Jack asks; it’s soft, but it startles Chibs, makes him realize how deep he was in his own head.
“Years,” he says. “Wish it had been longer, though. When I came here, Jacky, I didn’t have anything. No family, no home.” So much more than that, though. He’d had those things and they’d been stolen – he’d let them be stolen – had come crawling to America broken and bloody because McGee told him it was the only option, the only way Jimmy would give up making trouble for SAMBEL.
“I miss him,” Jack says, simple and honest with a thin edge of pain that he’s probably numbed with the weed.
Chibs sighs, looks out across the courtyard at the fading sun. “You’re gonna. That’s how it’s s’posed to be, lad. We miss the ones we lose along the way.”
“He used to bring me up here at night sometimes. He’d sit where you are and point out stars.” Jack smiles a little. “He was fulla shit, though. He didn’t know the real names, he’d make ‘em up.” Chibs can feel Jack’s gaze tilted to him as he asks, “You have a kid, right?”
“Aye. A daughter. Kerrianne.” He braces himself for the next question – then why the fuck are you here instead of there – and is honestly surprised when it doesn’t come.
“I’m gonna need new suit pants,” Jack says instead, taking the joint back and butting it on the concrete. “Mine are too short.”
Of course they are. Lad’s grown like a weed this year, him and Harry both. “We’ll go in the morning, before the service. Tell Harry to come along; his are likely too short and then some.”
Jack stands slowly. The look he gives Chibs is sad and tired, but there’s something else there, too, something shy and a little hopeful. “Thanks, Chibs.”
“Aye, lad.”
There are words hung up in his throat as he watches Jack move to the hatch in the roof, but he’s pretty sure they’ll keep. He’ll be here, after all. There’s time.
-End