[locked to Jeremy]
Is it true?
Did you get into a fight with Carter?
You haven't shown up for school and it's my turn to be really worried so if you could just let me know you're okay and
That would be good.
Did you get into a fight with Carter?
You haven't shown up for school and it's my turn to be really worried so if you could just let me know you're okay and
That would be good.
The fact that it's something that came out of nowhere (in her mind) adds to the reaction. They recently talked about it in such a calm manner, agreed about needing their anger, but also needing to find more constructive ways to release it. Not that she's one to talk at the moment, having broken a girl's nose, but it's nothing in comparison to how he looks, and she has that similar feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she'll be physically ill.
Sarah's face crumples when he apologizes and she shakes her head, since that's not--she didn't come here for an apology. "I'm not mad at you. I'm not anything but worried and confused. It is different. Why isn't it different? I don't--" and she stops talking immediately, the words dying in her throat when he begins to speak of losing more people, as if a cold, clammy hand has gripped at her throat and she can't say any more words.
I was researching. Sarah turns her head to the side and finally notices the books, bringing herself to a full stop, possibly looking more horrified than she'd been only moments ago.
Her whole body freezes, and it's almost ironic that on the very top of the pile of those books is one she gave to him. She closes her eyes and this time, she isn't able to stop the tears from welling, from slipping down her cheek, and she looks away, biting down on her lip to keep from making a noise. There was a reason she'd never told him, and the reason is in front of her in that look on his face and the bruises all over him, not that she could've ever imagined it.
"And now you know." Her voice is quiet and almost resigned.
She flips through some of the pages. 93% 99% 89%
99.
Her breath hitches and she looks like she simultaneously wants to scream or cry even if she ultimately ends up doing neither. She doesn't say anything for a really, really long time and when she does, her voice is thinner than it had been. "I really love you Jeremy, but I don't want you to--is that what I am now? One more thing to add on to the list of reasons why the world's stupid enough, makes you angry enough it can get you killed?"
Because it only takes looking at him to see how bad it was, and it won't ever not hurt to see him and how she could've played a part in that.
She knows the statistics and she knows the probabilities and she knows what could be coming for her. And she knows how much he's lost, how unfair it is and how much it hurts, why it'd feel like it's no different, and she hates she contributes to that, hates she's now someone else to represent that, hates she can't deny it.
"You told me I was more than an angel and that means I am more than some stupid statistic. That was you. These numbers are stupid,Jeremy. They're so stupid and I am not dead or dying or insane--" She reaches for the book and rips out the first page and keeps tearing at the other page and rips them into pieces because it's so stupid, and she's seen the numbers before and she never, ever wanted him to.
Reply
It's just the pain on the outside, and it's literally nothing in comparison to how everything else felt, how it can still feel if he is not careful. There are moments where it overwhelms him still, and he doesn't know what to do with the feelings. But he's doing better, but he's reading all of this.
Jeremy doesn't miss the way that her face crumples, and his does too in turn. He swallows back, past the feeling in his chest, in his throat, and it's like he can't breathe, can't swallow, can barely speak. "I wouldn't... blame you if you were." Mad at him. For doing without thinking after they just talked about it and he just agreed to it and he should have thought, should have not thrown himself head first into it. Saying these words, it's truthful and he would never give her anything but the truth.
He can see how she freezes, and he feels more sick than he had before. Jeremy never wants her to think-- he shuts his eyes more tightly until he can possibly breathe enough to look at her again, and Jeremy sees the tears on her face. They hurt. God, they hurt more than he can put into words.
And there's a quietness in his own response, he's shaking his head even as he says the words. "I do." Jeremy knows the truth now, and it's not right to put so much stock into statistics, not when he just set down a book that talks about hope.
There's hope. There's always hope.
Even angels with terrible statistics, they-- there's hope for them, more than most would think.
He just hates this world, hates that it can take her so easily, hates that her odds are worse than most peoples, because she deserves so much more. It makes him want to rip things apart.
Jeremy wants to speak in the silence, but he finds that he can't, finds that he wishes he'd read those statistics and explained them away, just as easily. It won't happen to her. It can't happen to her. He looks sideways at her, almost shocked by the question though it makes sense that she'd think that after how he reacted.
"No," the vehemence in his own voice is nearly strangled with the emotion that he's feeling. "No, that's not what you are. You'll never be that, Sarah, not to me. I was angry at everything, at life, at the universe, at what happened to your friend and what those books say will happen to you, but..."
But she is not just a statistic. There are times... times when he feels like everyone around him is someone that he could lose, but it's-- she's Sarah to him.
That hasn't changed. He doesn't view her differently at all. Those books were like a knife into his chest, twisting around between his ribs, and he opens his mouth, trying to breathe but finding it's nearly-- it's near impossible.
"I-- I still mean it, Sarah. I still-" But he can't speak anymore, not at seeing her reaction because it tears threw him, it tears into him, and Jeremy pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the pain of that quick movement because he can't do anything else, and he reaches for her, for her hands, for her arms to stop her from ripping as he looks at her, tugging her toward him and leaning in close to look at her. His hand reaches up to rest against the side of her face as the whole of him feels like it is being ripped to pieces.
There are tears in his eyes, and he's not bothering to try to stop it anymore. They slip down his face, and he hates it, and he hates this, and he hates-- hates what his reaction drove him to and what it's doing to her. "You're so much more than numbers, than that angel. You're not dead or dying or insane. You're not. I know, but-- sometimes it gets so dark, and I can't think of anything other than how unfair it is, how wrong it all fucking is."
And he doesn't mean fight like what happened with Carter, that's not fighting, that's anger.
He means fight, fight that she hopes still, fight that he finds hope.
"But I meant what I said and I still do. I do."
Reply
She bites on the insides of her cheeks and doesn't say anything else.
"I'm not," she says, and her voice almost cracks but it doesn't. "I was and now I'm... not. I mean, I'm mad, but just... in general."
She doesn't know how it works. How she could be furious with him and concerned when she was standing at the other side of the door and now looking at him she can't remember ever being furious at all, there's just the concern and the ache and the slow, painful, cold realization as the rest of the pieces start fitting together.
Sarah doesn't know what to think. She'd had no idea any of this was going on throughout the whole weekend, and it amazes her so much could change without her ever realizing it. It's not that she believes he himself is different now--she still knows and understands he's not like other people, not like the kind that'll look at her and give her pity and oh, but she's so young and oh, you poor thing and she hates that more than anything else in the world.
You poor thing.
She is not a thing and she is not scared. She's not.
"I didn't tell you the day we became friends or even the day we talked about it because I didn't--I didn't want anything to change. I didn't want..." her voice trails off and she shakes her head, words failing her, as they always do. She certainly didn't come here with the intent to have a conversation revolve around that.
Sarah turns back at him sharply at the vehement reply, even if she remains standing where she is, the whole of her feeling very, very heavy, like she's held in place by an anchor. She understands being angry. Especially about what happened to Elizabeth, especially that, and the tears well up again.
"But what?" she asks helplessly, turning back at him even if it hurts to meet his gaze at the moment. "I know what all those books say. I know what everyone says. I know what they think when they look at me. I know what it means every time I help someone die. You don't think it makes me angry? You don't think I hate that what I am could jsut add to the growing list of reasons why it's all unfair?"
She always thought so. That it was unfair and it sucked royally. But she'd made peace with it in a strange, morbid way, except then she started making friends, and then she started caring, and then she started coming out of her own, closed off little world, and suddenly she wasn't okay with it. She didn't and doesn't want to die anytime soon, but it's not her choice.
Sarah rips the pages out without thinking.
If she were thinking, she would realize she's making it all worse, and she does eventually stop, the moment he stands and moves over to her she stops, because he shouldn't be moving. "Don't--" she cuts herself off from saying he shouldn't be standing because she takes one look at him instead. Her hands, which had been fists, unfurl and the ripped pieces of paper fall to the ground.
The vehement reaction is drained from her at the sight of his own tears, so quickly that what's left is the ache, because it hurts. It hurts to know he hurts. From up close she can see the bruises that much more clearly, and that hurts, too. She shakes her head, wiping at her cheek almost furiously, and lets out a small breath, looking up at him when he cups the side of her face.
"I'm--"
I'm sorry, Jeremy, she wants to say, but it gets caught in her throat and she just grows very quiet and very still instead. It's a comfort to know you, he once said to her, and she doesn't know why those words, of all words, are the ones ringing in her ears. It doesn't really feel like much of a comfort now, does it?
"I know," is what she says very softly. Knows he still means it in spite of everything, knows it gets dark, knows that it's wrong.
It just doesn't change anything.
Reply
Jeremy closes his eyes at the sound of her voice, at the fact that she was but wasn’t anymore. He’d almost prefer her being angry at him still to this. But anger is an easy emotion that gets him in trouble often and he knows anger doesn’t mean those other emotions aren’t there too. It’s the other emotions he wants to protect her from, but he can’t.
He can’t make those go away, and he is solidly aware that he put that look on her face. It makes him hate it all even more, hate that he snapped like that, hate how it all ended up. Jeremy would never ever think about her in that way. Jeremy wouldn’t give her pity, and he would never call her a poor thing.
She is no thing. She is so much, the strangest person that he’s ever met and he means that.
He means that still in the best way possible. It hasn’t changed how he looks at her at all, but he was angry for her, he was angry and he wanted to fight something because that shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t be a statistic in a book, because she is more than that and he’s seen it, and how is it fair or right or okay? It’s not at all, and if he thinks about it too long, he’ll get angry again right alongside her and that won’t do any good.
Not that he can go out and be self-destructive again anytime soon, no matter how angry he might feel.
“No, Sarah. You shouldn’t have to tell me. It shouldn’t be something you have to tell people, but it doesn’t change anything for me,” Jeremy says softly as he looks at her. “It never could. I feel the same way about you. I’m still looking at you.. in the same way, Sarah. That doesn’t change.”
It won’t change. There’s so much to be angry at, and anger is such an easy emotions. It’s much easier than grief which makes them heavy, grief which surrounds you in darkness, grief that makes you feel alone, no matter how many people you have around you. The tears in her eyes sting. They do, and he has to look away.
Jeremy winces at her response, shaking his head as he looks up at her. The hurt that he’s feeling is clear in his expression. She sounds like he feels, worse than that. “No, I know it would make you angry. I knew it had to…. Make you angry too.’
And he should have gone to her with it right then, right there, but he wouldn’t have wanted her to know that he knew. If only because it shouldn’t be a part of their relationship, a part of them, because they’re-the statistics aren’t hers. Statistically, he’s died more than 99% of the planet after all. It’s a completely different situation, but that shouldn’t define him either. That shouldn’t be it. Ther should be more.
Jeremy’s on his feet when she says Don’t- grateful that she cuts herself off, because he literally could not pull away from her if he wanted to. The whole of him has to be in front of her, has to be near her, and it hurt far more to be apart than it does to be standing.
He shakes his head as he looks down at her and that hurts too. Literally, there is nothing that doesn’t hurt right now, and his hand rests against her arm still. The other hand cups the side of her face, wiping tears away that are there even that motion hurts his hand, but it eases the feeling, the aching in his chest that was created by the distance.
Reply
I know she says, and he turns his head as he looks at her. There’s no mistaking the expression on his face for anything other than all that pain that he’s feeling. His face crumples this time, and he tugs her in by her arm, pulling her against his chest and sliding his arms behind her, to hold her close against his chest.
Jeremy presses a bruised kiss on top of her head as she's pressed up against his chest, and he feels that fire, that pain, that grief, and that anger all twisted up inside of him until it's hard to breathe. And he feels himself shaking, because it's wrong and everything's dark and it shouldn't be that way but it is.
And he wants more than anything to take it away. It is still a comfort to know her and that won't change either. There are always be times when someone you love... you hurt because of what's happening to them, but it doesn't take away what she does for him, what she has done for him.
Reply
It doesn't matter who went up to who and what was said, you don't beat somebody up like this. "No, it shouldn't be something I have to tell people, but it's something I should've told you," she says. Because he's not just people, he's Jeremy, and he's lost more to last a lifetime, and she knew that, knew he'd find out anyway, so he should've found out from her, not these books she still wants to tear to shreds. "I just felt like--like maybe if I didn't say anything, it wasn't real. You'd never have to find out, which isn't...at all logical."
I'm still looking at you... in the same way, Sarah.
Sarah turns back to him, and she smiles at him almost sadly, shaking her head and wiping at her cheek again. He doesn't see it, he couldn't since he's not looking at himself in the mirror, he's looking at her, and she can see it and more than that, she can feel it. She can feel the hurt and the grief and the anger and the many things that he'd never once looked at her with before, never in association to her, never attached to her along with all the many other losses and all the many other justifiable reasons he has to be angry.
She doesn't think they're any less than what they were, doesn't think who they are together has changed in the end. She would never think he doesn't understand, that he wouldn't accept her for what she is. But to say it hasn't changed when they're standing in the room, looking the way they do, it's not true, even if he believes it is. I'm still looking at you in the same way, Sarah, and she forces herself not to glance away, because it hurts, and she doesn't want to answer.
"But you're not," she says, voice quiet and raw, finally glancing away when he does.
Sarah's still holding her breath as he moves, because it's never not going to be evident he's hurting, in more ways than one, and she can't take that way, no matter how much she may want to. Even the physical pain isn't something she can help with, she can only take it on herself if the person is dying. She swallows back the lump in her thraot when he shakes his head, willing her face not to crumple again when he touches her face, hand bruised.
"I'm not sorry for that," she says, and that much she knows. As horrible as it feels that he knows now, that it hurts, she doesn't and couldn't be sorry for knowing him, for befriending him, for trusting him and becoming as close to him as she has. "I wouldn't want to not ... not know you. You're... you mean a lot to me, so I'm just sorry it ... brought everything back for you, made you angry again. That's all."
And she laughs, but it's more tearful than anything, and there's another headshake, since she's not feeling particularly strange right now. Miserable and irrationally guilty, yes, but not strange. Her hand lifts itself to rest gently against his own, the one resting against her face, and her other hand wipes at the tears on his face, almost resistantly since there's so much bruising.
She is terrified of touching him.
Sarah grows very still once again when he tugs her in, knowing it has to pain him. Knowing he physically should not be making any sort of movements, and she holds her breath, hands remaining at her sides like they're being pulled down, despite the fact she wants to reach. It only lasts for a moment, the standstill, and then she's tentatively lifting her hands to wind them very, very carefully around his middle, face burying itself into his chest. "If you do that again I am beating you up myself."
The words are muffled against his shirt, nearly unintelligible, but she will.
Reply
He looks at her, shaking his head. “You should be able to put something like that as long… as long as you would want. I don’t know. Illogical or not, how do you tell someone that? Especially someone you care about or… that cares about you,” Jeremy says after a moment, shaking his head. “I mean, when would you have said something? And how? I get… why you wanted to have told me yourself, but… my reaction’s on me.”
Jeremy did not react well at all, and it’s his fault, no matter what he’s been through, no matter how many people that he’s lost. It doesn’t excuse how he reacted, full of emotion, looking to hurt someone, looking for a fight, looking for something to do with all that anger in his chest. It was the wrong reaction, but he can’t take it back.
He almost moves back when she shakes her head at him, and he already knows what she is going to say before she says it. It’s read all over her face in the near sadness of her expression. There’s nothing about that smile that’s comforting right now, and Jeremy swallows thickly before he looks down again, because he can’t bear to see her face right now. It makes him wish he’d never read those books either, knowing why he had to, knowing that he almost knew already, just refused to accept the evidence in front of him.
Jeremy had been in denial, because he loves her so much and he’d wanted it to be-he’d wanted it to be different even fearing already before he read this that nothing would change. Everyone that he’s been with, they’ve ended up dead or near dead, nearly everyone around Elena and him, they’ve died at least once. It’s hard to not see it everywhere, not half expect it, but that made it all come home and he could picture it. He can still picture it.
But you’re not.
He looks away from her even though he knew that she would say that. Jeremy can’t look at her, because he never wanted this, never wanted to look at her this way, because she’s so much more than those statistics. It makes him want to tear those books up himself as if that will take away the numbers, take away the truths there, take away what’s already happened to her friend.
Jeremy only looks at her again when she says she’s not sorry for that, and he swallows thickly, nodding. “I’d rather know,” he says quietly as hoarse as it may be. “You mean a lot to me too… a whole lot, and I’m- I’m sorry. I’m sorry I reacted that way. I’m sorry I didn’t think. I should have thought. I never… never wanted to make you look like you did when you… walked in here.”
But that wasn’t on his mind. It should have been, and it wasn’t. He does feel guilty even knowing what’s done is done and it can’t be taken away. Jeremy closes his eyes when she reaches for his face, and something gives in his chest that had tightened too much. “It hurts more when you don’t touch me,” he says as if he can sense the reason for the almost resistance as she reaches for him, wipes the tears from his face. “That’s why I had to get up.”
It hurt more to be apart from her.
Jeremy pulls her in against his chest, fits her carefully there, and presses a kiss against the top of her head. His face rests against the top of her head as he holds her close, reminding himself in a way in that touch alone that she is not dead, that she is still here, that he will fight even if the statistics say fighting doesn’t always make a difference, even though he knows there’s a place she goes that he cannot reach.
And he finally smiles at what she says. “Now see that? That’s really scary. That’ll convince me if nothing else will,” he says and it’s soft and only with a hint of amusement. “I don’t ever want to make you look like that again.”
Reply
"Oh, trust me, I don't plan on letting you off the hook about your reaction," Sarah says, and if it wasn't for the extent of how bad he looks, how hurt he looks, it's possible she'd have kicked him out of sheer frustration. Then again, she can only imagine the lectures he's gotten from everyone he lives with at this point, and Sarah isn't one to lecture, even if she has very vehement reactions at times.
Even if she has no problem saying something was wrong.
Sarah inwardly winces when he looks away, and she isn't sure how to proceed. She isn't sure what to say. It's not about making it better. She knows there is nothing that will make it better right now, nothing that will change the statistics he read or all the loss he's experienced, why he's reacted the way that he has. It doesn't mean she wants it to be like this with them, where he can't even look at her because it hurts. "Jeremy," she says very quietly, and it almost sounds like pleading.
One hand curves over his neck, careening his face back to hers. The other finds his own hand, fingers slowly linking together with his, still careful, cool to the touch, but she isn't creating space despite sensing he almost moved back. It's not in her to retreat any longer. She is not that girl anymore, and they owe each other that much.
"Whatever's changed, it's still me. I'm still here," she says, almost helplessly. "I'm still here, and I'm right in front of you, and I don't want to go anywhere. I can't tell you how long I have. I can't... tell you knowing me can mean really, really messy and ugly things. I'd understand if it hurts too much but I'm still here."
His and Elena's lives appear to be one constant loop of unending loss, each in more brutal succession than the last. No one should have to lose so much, certainly not that young, and it explains the way they are, why it's not easy to let people in, why it hurts every time they do, and it's just as difficult for Sarah for her own reasons. Because she knows how it will end, because she knows it's not easy, because she knows caring makes it that much harder, but she did it anyway, and she doesn't regret it.
She doesn't regret befriending Elizabeth.
She certainly doesn't and never could regret befriending him.
Sarah nods wordlessly. She can't take back she didn't tell him. He can't take back his reaction to it. They're both sorry, and it happened, and now they're here. "And I don't ever want you to look the way you do right now. Not ever again. I don't need you to promise me anything, Jeremy, but I never want you to look like this again," she says, and she bites her lip when he speaks again, had been seconds away from dropping her hand and then she doesn't.
Her fingers slide against his cheek, before smoothing the hair away from his forehead, and she rises on tip toes, both hands lightly on either side of his neck when she presses a very soft, barely there kiss against his mouth. "So if I promise to lay down next to you to rest so you can rest too, you will? Because your sister might kill me otherwise."
And she is not looking to incur the wrath of Elena Gilbert.
Reply
"...Then don't go looking for a fight again," she says, voice quiet, but it's strong.
Sarah looks up at him without moving from where he's pulled her in, gaze somber without being accusatory. "I understand defending yourself. I understand not letting someone jerk you around. I understand standing up for yourself. I wouldn't ever want you not to. But looking for a fight that could mean a hospital visit is not okay, Jeremy. I get everyone has already told you this until they're blue in the face, but I'm not passing on my turn."
It's going to take a while before he fully recovers, and she's not letting him off the hook easily because she's relieved, because she understands better now where he was coming from.
Reply
"I wouldn't expect you to let me off the hook," Jeremy says softly as he looks at her, and he knows her well enough to know there won't be any lecturing, but she has her own method of 'not letting him off the hook' and he knows he shouldn't be let off the hook easily. Even if seeing the expression on her face, it's more than enough to stop him.
It's more than enough to make him never want to get in a fight again even if it means running away literally. The expressions on her face, on his sister's, they're going to stay with him for a really long time. Each time he tries to imagine it again, it burns deep in his chest.
No, there's nothing that will really make it better. The spastics will still be there, still be the same at the end of the day even if he has some hope. The sound of her voice saying his name like that, it twists his heart painfully in his chest as he turns to face her again when her hand reaches for him, careening his head again in her direction.
Jeremy can only look at her when her voice sounds like that as if she's pleading for him to look, to not lose hope, to not lose himself in darkness and anger which could be so, so easy to do. He did the other night, and it's his choice to let it linger or to not let it linger. Jeremy doesn't want to let it linger.
"I know. It's still you. You're here, and I don't want you to go anywhere either."
I can't... tell you knowing me can mean really, really messy and ugly things.
It's something he could say about him, about Elena, about the Gilberts apparently. It's not them though. Elena said that, and he agreed and insisted. It can't be them even if it feels like it is, even if it feels like there's something hovering over them, waiting to take more away from them.
"You don't have to tell me those things. I don't want you to," he says as he looks at her. "You're more than those numbers, more than the angel. I meant what you said, and I will be fighting for you. Despite how I reacted, I'm... I- and I don't mean fighting like what I did the other night, I mean... believing in more than those numbers."
Jeremy glances at the book on his nightstand that he left, that he read himself though he hasn't finished it. "I want... you to read this-- this book that I have, that Elena gave me. After I read it, it was written by Robin Rice... he was married to Rachel Dawes and he was an angel of vengeance and his older sister was an angel of death," he says quietly as he looks at her. "They both beat the statistics. I'm going to try to remember, to hold on to... that there's always hope. Even when it doesn't feel like it."
Even when he's so lost in grief that it's hard to see through it or around it or see anything at all.
Jeremy could never regret befriending her, because he knows so much of his happiness comes from having her as his friend. They've been able to talk about so much together that he hasn't been able to talk to just anyone about even before he fell through the Rift. There aren't any regrets in his life even that fight that he got into, it taught him another lesson. One that he needed to learn.
He has to change it up because he cannot risk leaving his sister, leaving her, because he made a stupid decision when the universe takes people away so easily as it is. This time, he would have died when he didn't have to die. It's why he has to find something else to do when he gets so angry, why he can't just step out and walk away from a safe house hunting for a fight.
It's not okay.
Jeremy can't do that anymore, no matter how dark it gets. It'll have to be something else. He doesn't know what yet even if it's just calling her, shoving more holes into the wall. Anything would be better than having the absolute crap beat out of him.
Reply
"I don't really want me to look like this ever again either. Believe me, but it's nothing to me compared to how you look, how my sister... did," he says after a moment as he looks down at her, sincerity in his gaze beyond exhaustion, beyond all the other emotions in his expression.
He leans into the kiss as soft and barely there as it may be and then he smiles a little. "Yes, I will," Jeremy says quietly, small smile widening just slightly. "I wouldn't let her kill you."
But Elena's wrath can be serious so he understands why she would not want to incur it.
Jeremy tightens his hold on her just a little. It doesn't hurt to hug her tighter at all. It's the slightly bigger movements that are more painful, and he rests his chin on top of her head. "I know you will," he says with a smal smile. "It's why it's so scary."
It really is scary.
Then don't go looking for a fight again.
Jeremy lets out a long breath before he looks down, closing his eyes. The pain for it hits his chest, sliding into his heart and down through the whole of his chest. It's like a fire in his chest but he swallows thickly, nodding in response.
"Okay, I-- I won't go looking for a fight again. I'll try not to. I don't want to break a promise to you, but it's absolutely the last thing that I'd want to do. Ever again, definitely not with Carter and his goons. I don't want to. I want to find... another way, something else to do next time so I don't-- this doesn't happen again," he says softly, pulling back enough to look at her face which he cups with his palm again, intensity in his gaze as he looks at her. "I don't want it to happen again."
Jeremy doesn't, not if it makes the people he loves look the way that they do, that they have, because of what happened. It's been the worst part of all of it, worse even then landing in the sidewalk, then the kicks continuously shoved at his stomach.
He reaches for her hand, taking it in his own and sliding his thumb along the length of it. "I should probably move on to the bed... first, and then you can lie down beside me."
Reply
It's why there aren't many angels of death, and Charlie and Elizabeth are the only other ones she's ever met in her life.
It's why her father was disappointed when she didn't become an angel of knowledge like him, it's why her grandmother cried when she never, ever cried before in her life.
She doesn't know that she'd want to read a book and just find it'd give her false hope, though Rachel Dawes would say there is nothing false about hope. Nothing is going to make it better, nothing she says or does, and Jeremy wants her to read it. She swallows past the tighteness in her throat, tightness that pinches it almost painfully, but she gives a small nod.
"Okay," she says quietly, as if it's simple, and maybe it is. It can be simple even when it's never easy. "I'll read it when you're done."
She can't find it in herself to say anything about the rest, not when he's lost in grief and she's still feeling miserable about everything. What's hope and what's denial? How do you distinguish between what's true and just a feeling? Jess said that was the million dollar question and she finds it really is.
Either way, she would never stop being his friend unless that's what he wanted.
She doesn't have it in her to just let people who. The angel understands and knows exactly when it's time to let go, why it's necessary, why it can be a good thing--Sarah doesn't. She may have some regrets that she's piled up throughout her life but absolutely none of them involve him or befriending him. It's one of the best things she's ever done, and a lot of good things have come from that one choice.
Sarah doesn't want to lose sight of that.
It's just really hard when he's so upset and there's nothing to be done about it.
Sarah winces lightly, since she wouldn't have been able to mask her reaction when she saw him. "I just had no idea," she says thickly, once again swallowing back down that feeling in her throat that won't go away. She'd had no idea it was to this extent. A fight to this extreme, and she isn't going to forget how he looks, how much it hurt to look at him and know what led him to it.
She smiles back a little. "That's reassuring, thank you, I wouldn't want her to."
Elena and Sarah both will be worrying about him for days to come, and that just can't be helped. Even Wes is likely going to hover and make sure Jeremy isn't making any big movements and he's resting as much as possible, as restless as he may get with it. The better he follows Martha's rules to a full recuperation, the sooner he'll get better and he can get back up and go back to business as usual.
Reply
It'd be unrealistic to think things can go back to exactly what they were, and they shouldn't be.
Things happen, and they should change you.
Sarah tightens her own hold on him, her cheek resting against his shoulder. She smiles against it half-heartedly. "As long as that's clear," she says, and she'd say she isn't serious, only she kind of is. She isn't asking for any more promises. Promises can be broken, even when you don't want them to be, and he's only human. They're only human.
Sarah releases a breath she didn't know she'd been holding when he agrees, even if her stomach drops at the next time. She bites on the insides of her cheeks, wondering how she's even remaining in place but the smile doesn't fall, miraculously. She doesn't let it. "That's all I ask. I'll help you find another way," she says, even if she can't really add next time. She knows there will be.
Next time it hurts. Next time it happens.
There's always, always a next time and she hates it, and it's miserable, and why does anyone keep trying and trying and trying if they never get there?
"Yes, please. That's a very good idea. Here, I'll help you," she says, shifting so that she is beside him and he can lean on her a little. She carefully helps him back toward the bed so that he can rest in it. It's only after he's on his own side of the bed, comfortably resting there, that she gingerly lays across from it, a hand tucked against her cheek as she looks at him, at the rise and fall of his chest, just making sure one last time the worst didn't come to happen.
The bruising all over, the grief that one can so easily be lost in, they may be there, but so's he.
He's still here, and so is she, and it means something.
It always will.
Reply
Leave a comment