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Jack had gotten the call early that morning. He was shaken awake from sleep when suddenly the ringing from his phone woke him up, startling out of a dream that was quickly shaken off as he blinked up blearily at his ceiling. Tommy still slept next to him, nothing could shake that man from sleep, and while Jack debated waking him up, he decided not to. He had a sense of what was coming anyway, and figured it would be better to face it alone.
He stepped out of bed onto the cold hardwood floor, picking up the phone from its receiver, Jack momentarily taking a deep breath before pressing the button to answer the call. There was silence on the other end for a couple of seconds, and he took that given grace period to step out of his bedroom onto the balcony, sitting in one of the plastic chairs in his bedclothes. He and Morrigan had gotten them a couple summers back, cheap plastic things from a department store they were visiting, but she had decided that no balcony was complete without a set of chairs even if the view they would overlook was a parking lot surrounded by swamp.
Still silence on the other end, but he could hear someone breathing. Jack looked down at the cars parked in the parking lot below, the chain-link fence enclosed playground adjacent to it where someone sat on top of the structure smoking a cigarette. It was a warm summers night- or morning, he could see the sun just beginning to peek above the mountains. It was going to be the start of a beautiful day.
"...Hey.", he muttered into the phone, looking down at his feet, "Its early."
"Jack."
He felt a lump in his throat begin to form, then expand, as he quickly wiped his face, "Yeah?", he said hoarsely, "Its early, sorry, I'm still waking up."
"Morrigan. It's not pretty right now."
He felt a breath whoosh out of his lungs, Jack hated that phrase "Its not pretty right now" . It sounded so fake, so movie-like, like he was trapped in a hospital drama instead of real life. This was real life, he could hear the fan going in the background, the cars from the nearby highway, even Tommy's soft breathing from the open door. That also meant that that was real life too. God, that made his head hurt. How early was it? Certainly not early enough for him to be dealing with this.
Maybe it was all a dream. Man, that would be funny.
"Yeah? How so? What do you want me to do?"
"Jack...it's going to hurt me so much to say this, and I would promise you that she's fine, but...", a pause. He could hear Jupiter swallowing on the other end, and Jack fixated on a treebranch in front of him. He remembered reading somewhere that if you looked at something long enough it was enough to stop crying.
"Yeah? Go on, say it."
He hated how his voice cracked in the middle. How he knew what was coming. He hated all of this, so, so much.
"You should come home for a little bit."
No "If it would be best to..." or "If you can...".
This was the real deal. The sun was rising, and its golden rays spilled onto his face as his tears also did, Jack steadied himself by grabbing the railing, and looking down at the playground below. The little mulch pieces looked like little nibs of metal in the lighting and the rusty swings looked good as new. Everything did. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day.
"How bad is it?", he snapped, "Tell me. Be honest, I have plans with Tommy today and..." Jack didn't finish his sentence. Plans with Tommy. They were going to see a movie. Maybe- he was starting to hate that word, maybe if it wasn't as serious then they could go and he could drown everything out with whatever Art film they were seeing this time.
Listening to the sound of cars from the nearby highway, he wondered for a moment what the purpose was. Of not just the chairs, but anything. Jack could smell the bug spray he had sprayed a couple of hours ago and suddenly began wondering about the families of the animals. Did bugs have families? Probably not, but it was nice to think about.
"She had a hemorrhage in her nose. It was bad, really bad. We're at the teaching hospital right now...but they said that we might get transferred to somewhere else. Morrigan wants to go back home though, so we're probably going to do that. I don't think...well, Jack, you know, the doctor said that-"
"I. KNOW. She was supposed to die in May and now it's July. I know that. Bertram survived for years past his time, so this is probably another hiccup and-"
"JOHN. This is serious. Just let me talk for a second, alright?"
Jack quieted himself, the front of his nightshirt completely soaked as he hiccuped in his seat, not pacing around anymore but just gazing into the blazing sun, as he heard Jupiter take a long breath on the other line. Long breaths were becoming common. Why couldn't anyone say anything anymore?"
"I think this is it Jack, I really do. She's fought a long and hard battle and, well, Mog told you herself, she's not afraid to go."
What he said sounded like he was parroting something else, like his uncle had been replaced by a machine, just reading out lines meant to sooth him.
"Wundersmiths are meant to live a long time.", he muttered, before twisting the hem of his shirt with one hand and stretching out, so far that the wet part barely touched his skin, "I can be there by noon. Is that good?"