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It seemed apt that the sun would not shine down on you today. That, instead, the grey clouds swirled as they sprinkled snow down atop your family and friends. It was cold, a different variation than what you'd grown accustomed to in the northeast, no this kind seemed to turn your bones to ice.
Not for the first time this trip did you wish you were there, in Pittsburgh, rather than here.
You hadn't expected to be home again so soon after the almost-ruined Christmas surprise in December, but life was funny... and a vindictive bitch. You weren't even home. Sure you'd flown into MCI, and gotten a day to rest at home in KC, but then your father had bundled you and the others into his car for the few hours drive to Wichita.
Which found you here. In a cemetery outside of Clearwater, Kansas, standing to the left of your mother. On her right stood your father, and surrounding you were your siblings. The bagpipes were beginning to pick up as tears pricked at your eyes and snowflakes gathering in your hair. Those pipes droned on and on as the casket was lowered into the cold hard dirt of winter. They droned on as your mother's baby brother, your beloved Uncle Stevie, was laid to rest.
And, not for the first time this trip or even this day, did you wish for the calming and steadying presence of Jack Abbot.
Jack was the first person you called when you'd gotten the news. He was the one to catch you when your knees buckled under the weight of finality. The one who listened as you sobbed over the unfairness of it all. Your uncle was 12 years older than you. 12 fucking years. Why hadn’t he told you about his pancreatic cancer diagnosis? Why hadn’t he told you that he was going to stop treatment? Maybe you could have convinced him, hell you would have given him any money you could to help cover the costs that the state wouldn’t… But it was too late.
“Baby girl,” your mom had sniffled over the phone as you sobbed at the news, “he didn’t want your last memory of him to be of him so sick.” You’d swallowed a wail at that. You swallowed the anger and pain. You swallowed the want to bellow “but at least I would’ve gotten to say goodbye.”
You raged, you cried, you wished for a different world where healthcare didn't cost so damn much in this fucking country because maybe he'd still be here then, and Jack… he stayed. He remained steady. He offered comfort, he listened, he cared, he saw you.
He'd offered to come with you, bless him, but you… you didn't want the first time for him to meet your family to be so heartwrenching. You didn't want him to see you more broken than he had already seen.
But oh how you wished he was here now. You could fist fight your past self if given the opportunity for saying no.
After the burial, the family (and friends) moved to your uncle's favorite watering hole. You sat at the far end of the bar, away from your cousins drunkenly singing acapella karaoke as a coping method, gripping a whiskey neat in your free hand.
Drinking wasn't something you tended to do often, your mother's side of the family had a long history of struggling with alcohol abuse, but on rare occassions you indulged. The last drink you'd had was in the airport on Christmas Eve, gripping a bottle of hard apple cider with the same dread you now held your whiskey. You would sip this one drink and then leave, stay only as long was appropriate, then go burrow in the blankets of your hotel room and sob. Losing your uncle was painful, and you had spent enough time crying into your sister and brother's arms in the last 48 hours, you really didn't want to continue to do so in a bar surrounded by both people you knew and didn't know.
Staring down into the whiskey, you scoffed at the distorted reflection of yourself. You looked as exhausted on the outside as you felt on the inside. You didn't want to be here any longer. Not in this bar, not in Witchita, not in fucking Kansas... You wanted to be in Pittsburgh.
You wanted to be in Jack’s arms.
You wanted to be home.
You pulled out your phone with your free hand, swiping it open and going to your text messages. I wish you were here was typed up and blinking at you as your thumb hovered over the send button. The last text he'd sent you was from earlier in the morning, asking how you were holding up. You hadn't meant to leave him on read but it happened. Would it be pathetic to respond like this? You grumbled under your breath and let your forehead fall to the bartop with a light thunk.
When you felt a presence come next to you, you straightened up, ready to tell whatever drunk cousin had come to try and coax you into horrible drunk karaoke to buzz off (or, hopefully, agree to leave early with one of your siblings), but instead you were met with an altogether unexpected visage.
“This seat taken?”
Your heart skipped a beat. No, it did a whole fucking irish jig as your phone clattered onto the bar top and you set your glass down with a far harsher thunk than you'd intended. Jack's eyes were full of tenderness, the shoulders of his black coat covered in a dusting of snow, his cheeks red from the wind. His smile toward you was sympathetic and kind, the same one he gave you when he dropped you off at the airport, and you couldn't stop the tears from falling.
Jack caught you easily when you launched into his open arms. He held you tightly, one arm wrapping around your waist while his free hand came to cup the back of your head, tucking you underneath his chin. "You're real. You're here." The crack in your voice damn near broke his heart in two. "And if you aren't real and I am drunkenly lucid dreaming with my cheek to this bar top I will kick whoever's ass tries to wake me up." Jack chuckled and pulled away slightly, hand cupping your cheek. "I'm here. I'm real. You aren't dreaming."
There was a booth empty across from where you had sequestered yourself at the bar, and Jack easily coaxed you into it. He shrugged his coat off and hung it on the corner of the booth before scooting in, opening his arm for you to nestle into his side. You grabbed a napkin from the dispense, sniffling as a few straggling tears escaped the corners of your eyes, and wiped your face. "How?" He smiled softly, his thumb rubbing soothing circles along your shoulder. "I called in a favor from Robby, and Shen was also happy to volunteer once I waved a certain coffee shop gift card at him." You barked out a laugh before covering your mouth, eyes crinkling in delight.
"Oh my god you bribed him with Dunkin'? Way to go, captain crayola." There was a light in your eye, one he hadn't seen since you'd gotten the news about your uncle, and it made him smile. “I wasn’t just going to leave you to carry this alone. Not when you’ve helped so many carry this burden before.” His admission was soft but powerful. You were a literal angel when it came to handling grief and death, especially for those at the SWVC. You’d taken on aspects of a death doula at the veteran’s home; offering the kind of support families were desperate for when loss came knocking at the door. It was something he greatly admired about you. “How’d you even get here, Jack?”
Jack’s sheepish smile and quick look across the bar, a look you followed to see your eldest sister grinning from her stool. Her wife sat beside her, talking to your father as your sister raised her glass to you and Jack.
Your sister had been the first person you talked to about Jack when you first met him at the SWVC (she’d sent you a Blue Angel ornament to both poke fun but also remind you of home that holiday) and then every time you encountered each other thereafter.
When you landed in KC for Christmas after sharing your first kiss, your sister got to hear the story regaled dreamily as you sat in the backseat of her sedan, a dopey smile on your lips.
When you landed in KC two days ago, she’d asked where Jack was. “Kiddo, you deserve to have someone here to help you carry this. You deserve a partner to help shoulder your burden, to see when you’re breaking and hold all the broken pieces.” She’d said, but you’d brushed her off. Jack didn’t need to be thrown into the deep end of your family loss and trauma; especially when you were just beginning to date. You were a big girl, you could handle this yourself.
“That explains why my sister needed to ‘use my phone’ before we left for Witchita.” You shook your head, feeling a mixture of amusement and quiet gratitude. “But, when did you get here?” “This morning.” Your eyes nearly bulged which made Jack snort. “This morning?!?” You hissed, eyebrows practically in your hairline. “Took the first flight out of Pittsburgh to Wichita last night.” You grasped his free hand in yours, squeezing gently, and leaning your head against his shoulder. His arm around your shoulders squeezed you just a tad bit closer before relaxing, his fingers continuing to trail idly up and down your shoulder. “You sure are something, Captain Crayola.”
"Well, you're more than something to me, blue angel." Jack let you pull back and face him directly, eyes soft as they searched his expression. “Yeah?” He cupped your cheek, thumb brushing just along the bone with a gentle smile. “Yeah, sweetheart.” Your smile was the warmest thing he’d felt all day. “You’re more than something to me too, Jack.” Jack leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours. To him there was no one else in this bar; just him, you, and your breath mingling together. The two of you stayed like that for a little while, eyes shut, finding peace in each other’s presence. Jack pressed a soft peck to your cheek. “You wanna get out of here, doll?”
You felt yourself blush at the endearment. That was something new, and it made butterflies flutter up your ribcage. “I would love nothing more. Let me go check on my mama first, see if she needs anything.” Pecking his cheek, you slid out of the booth and scanned the room until you saw her familiar figure.
She sat with her head bent towards yours aunt’s, her older sister, a soft smile on her lips. You weaved through your cousins, family friends you hadn’t seen since you were in middle school, and friends of your uncle you’d never met, until you finally snagged an empty seat in front of your mom. “Hey mama.” You greeted, hand reaching out to grasp her’s on the table. “Hey baby girl. You gonna head back to the hotel?” Her gaze flicked up and down your body, as if checking for any injuries or signs of exhaustion, which made your heart ache. She was the protector of this family, a true matriarch in every sense of the word, and you wanted nothing more than to reassure her that you were fine.
But you weren’t. The grief was too fresh for you to truly be fine. Smiling, albeit a little sadly, you nodded while squeezing her hand. “Yeah, I think some quiet time for reflection and rest is what the doctor is ordering.” You murmured. She nodded and stood, as did you, and wrapped you in her arms. “Thank you, kiddo.” Your brows furrowed as you wrapped your arms tight around her to return the hug. “What for, mama?” “For being here, for coming home, for loving your mama and her siblings with all your heart.” You pulled back slightly just to see her face, her eyes carbon copies of your own—or your eyes were carbon copies of her’s—and filled with tears. “Oh mama.” Your heart ached, and you simply hugged her more fiercely. “You don’t have to thank me for loving y’all. It’s the least of what I can do to repay all you’ve done for me. For all of us kids… I’m just so sorry ma. I’m so, so sorry.”
Jack observed quietly as you and your mother held onto each other tight. He watched as you laughed, a watery emotional filled sound, and pulled back from your mother. “Jack?” He blinked in shock as you beckoned him over. He strode towards the two of you, and quickly intertwined his hand with yours when you offered it to him. “This is my mama. Mama, this is Dr. Jack Abbot, my,” You paused, looking up at him, not knowing if you should say friend or partner or date. Jack smiled gently down to you before offering his free hand to your mother, “Her boyfriend; it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Your lit up eyes were answer enough that he’d made the right decision.
Your mother shook his hand before letting go with a nod. “It’s good to meet you, Jack, and thank you for coming.” The other words didn’t need to be said, the I wish it were under better circumstances, as he nodded. He understood loss, his own parents gone and no siblings to speak of. His fellow soldiers became his brothers, his sisters; and he knew what losing one of them felt like. “And thank you, for being here for my baby girl.” She added softly. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, ma’am.”
The two of you walked out into the still snowing afternoon of downtown Wichita and then into an Uber. Thanks to your older sister, Jack was staying at the same hotel as you, meaning you could stay with him rather than continuing to share a room with your cousin. You leaned against him as the driver slowly maneuvered his way towards the hotel, hand still clasped in Jack’s, watching as the snow came down in fat flakes. “He would’ve liked you, y’know. Stevie? He would’ve thought you were the bees knees… and a cradle robber, but mainly the bees knees.”
Jack let out a bark of laughter and you couldn’t stop yourself from giggling either. “A cradle robber?” He asked incredulously. “Well you and I are, like, what, fifteen or so years apart? Closer in age to Stevie than me.” You teased, grinning as Jack shook his head with a chuckle. “But don’t worry, I’d just tell him you were in the army and he’d call you a crayon muncher instead.” Jack scoffed without any real anger or annoyance behind it.
“Well, you’re the one dating this crayon muncher.” “Mhmm, and he’d give me shit for that, too. Tell me to act my own age and at least go from some other chair-man. But he’d see how happy you make me… and he’d just be happy, too.” You trailed off. You hadn’t had a moment to think of more positive thoughts in regard to your uncle. Somehow Jack made those light thoughts easier to voice.
“Thank you, Jack.” “Whatever for, doll?” You tilted your head up to meet his hazel eyes. “For seeing me; not just today, but every day… Thank you.” Jack brought your clasped hands up to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of your palm. “Thank you, sweetheart, for seeing me, too.” He leaned forward and pressed a sweet kiss to your lips, before nuzzling your cheek with his nose. You giggled and nuzzled him back, pressing one more kiss to his lips before going back to resting your head on his shoulder.
The sting of grief would lessen, that you knew from experience, but maybe having Dr. Jack Abbot by your side would help the process along quicker than before.