[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.
"...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.
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"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.
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"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."
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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.
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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.
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