the notes of our love faded in the dust of time, for angela_weber
Title: the notes of our love faded in the dust of time
Author: mollivanders
Recipient: angela_weber
Pairing and/or Characters: Juliet/Jack in the alt!verse, David
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers through S6, though not through the last scene. Angst, past addictions of alcohol and drugs.
Prompt: Jack/Juliet alt!verse fic. Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, awkward post-divorce-style. David optional. Angst, thunderstorms and/or any other dramatic weather, music as atmosphere or inspiration, mild hurt/comfort.
Summary: Jack and Juliet spend some accidental time together in the first New Year’s Eve after their divorce.
Author notes: Many thanks to my beta ozmissage for convincing me this worked and clearing up some passages! And happy holidays to angela_weber - I hope you enjoy your fic &hearts Also, this is the version of Auld Lang Syne I was thinking of.
Outside, Jack can hear the rain tentatively falling against the glass, the wind rising into a storm. If Juliet doesn’t leave soon, she could be here until morning.
He leans forward across their tin mugs to catch her hand in his, her last accidental words still ringing in his ears.
You should have been there for Christmas.
(David had told him all about it, how Juliet’s mother made enough dinner for twelve people and how Juliet’s father had given him new sheet music, how the Christmas tree scraped against the high ceiling and sparkled with gold and silver baubles, how he still wasn’t hungry a day after Juliet brought him back.)
He’d been invited, of course - it was his idea to stay away.
“Jack,” she whispers, a warning she knows better than to give before he catches at a strand of escaped hair dangling by her cheek and pulls her closer.
“Are you really living off of camping equipment?” she asks instead and Jack gives up, leans back to stare at the steel utensils scattered across the carpet, crumbs from Juliet’s homemade cheeseburger balanced on the edge of his plate.
“Yeah, well, David likes it,” Jack sidesteps. It’s easier than admitting the cool metal is more comfortable than the best china, that the rough edges remind him of something he lost a long time ago (lost before he lost her).
The storm’s getting worse outside and Jack’s wondering why Juliet has stayed this late, now that David’s fallen asleep on the couch and the radio announcer’s begun waxing lyrical about the end of another year.
It’s a year Jack’s well rid of, he thinks. He prefers not to remember the day Juliet quietly told him she was moving out (finds his memory of that day is too hazy to recall much at all). He still has the divorce papers she sent him in the mail, boxed up in his closet where David will never find them.
Sometimes, when he feels like opening another bottle (slipping another bottle of pills), he takes them out and goes over the reasons for divorce.
Unstable, alcohol-reliant, addictive behavior, prone to emotional outbursts.
(He clings to the words like a substitute for drugs and they intoxicate him in ways he never knew - only knows them in her absence and he’d trade the drugs and words back for five more minutes.)
But Jack hasn’t made his New Year’s wish yet.
“How’s your new apartment?” he asks, stalling for time, and Juliet gets that secretive smile he misses from when they first met, when he didn’t know every nook and cranny of her glance and beat.
“It’s very sterile,” she tells him like an inside joke (like something only they would get) and Jack wishes for the hundredth time he could ignore the nagging dreams, the knowledge there’s more to his life than just operations (once upon a time, there was).
“Well maybe you should get a roommate,” Jack jokes, though he doesn’t really like the idea of someone else getting to share space with her (pushes it down, an instinct from another time and place). In the background, the radio’s piping the first notes of Auld Lang Syne and Juliet’s eyes cut away from him, toying with the dishes but unwilling to move.
It’s their wedding song.
“One dance,” Jack asks, suddenly and with more bravery than he feels.
Her hand slips into his easily and slowly, he leads her in steps around the living room, her low heels clicking on the wood floor as they leave the carpet and her heartbeat just close enough for him to hear it now, her head crooked at his shoulder.
For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
The storm’s rising around them, raindrops lashing at the windows angrily, but Jack just holds Juliet a little closer and lets her hum off-key notes to the song against his chest. Here, it doesn’t seem like he’s lost her just yet (for a moment, it’s just another New Year’s with his wife and son asleep in the corner, and he’s not plagued by unsettling dreams and the determination to be a good father-son-husband in spite of it).
We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn, frae morning sun till dine; but seas between us braid hae roar’d sin auld lang syne.
“It’s really putting up a fight out there, isn’t it?” Juliet asks curiously but Jack’s answer is swallowed in a burst of lightning and the thunder on its heels. It takes a moment for him to realize the storm’s knocked the lights out and Juliet’s back in charge, peering out the window down the street.
“It got the entire block,” she tells him in a low whisper. “I’m surprised David didn’t wake up.”
He half expects her to say she’s going, even in the midst of a storm, or suggest they move David to his room, but her hand catches his in the darkness and a shiver hits his spine like ice - her fingers rub against his in a familiar way.
It’s an effort but Jack clears his throat. “You should stay,” he tells her, her errant hair tickling his neck (she’s closer than he thought) before her hand pulls at his. Somewhere in the ink, he hears her say, “That’s probably a good idea.”
He forgets to follow her at first and stumbles down the hall toward their bedroom, praying that’s where she’s headed and he’s not a prize fool. He feels he should be bringing her something.
(She always did love breakfast in bed - he grabs a box of cereal and leaves the milk in the fridge.)
Somewhere from the living room he can hear the radio calling out a countdown to midnight and he turns, thinking she won’t want to miss this.
10 - 9 - 8 - 7
The door shuts after him and he bumps against it, the frame solid against his back and her fingers at his waist, pulling at his shirt buttons.
She’s so distracting (he drops the cereal).
Finally, his brain clicks into gear and he helps her with his shirt, tiptoes them back to their bed (a trinket she left for him) and pushes himself closer to her, drinking in the taste of her on his lips and hearing in the distance, some fool singing about starting over.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?
He knows what this is (knows they never got to say goodbye) and urges some promise into her hair about how sorry he is and always will be. Dimly, he thinks he hears Juliet repeat the words back to him and knows he’ll never tell her why, just lets her curl up next to him and fall asleep.
(It doesn’t stop the dreams from coming.)
Finis
Author: mollivanders
Recipient: angela_weber
Pairing and/or Characters: Juliet/Jack in the alt!verse, David
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers through S6, though not through the last scene. Angst, past addictions of alcohol and drugs.
Prompt: Jack/Juliet alt!verse fic. Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, awkward post-divorce-style. David optional. Angst, thunderstorms and/or any other dramatic weather, music as atmosphere or inspiration, mild hurt/comfort.
Summary: Jack and Juliet spend some accidental time together in the first New Year’s Eve after their divorce.
Author notes: Many thanks to my beta ozmissage for convincing me this worked and clearing up some passages! And happy holidays to angela_weber - I hope you enjoy your fic &hearts Also, this is the version of Auld Lang Syne I was thinking of.
Outside, Jack can hear the rain tentatively falling against the glass, the wind rising into a storm. If Juliet doesn’t leave soon, she could be here until morning.
He leans forward across their tin mugs to catch her hand in his, her last accidental words still ringing in his ears.
You should have been there for Christmas.
(David had told him all about it, how Juliet’s mother made enough dinner for twelve people and how Juliet’s father had given him new sheet music, how the Christmas tree scraped against the high ceiling and sparkled with gold and silver baubles, how he still wasn’t hungry a day after Juliet brought him back.)
He’d been invited, of course - it was his idea to stay away.
“Jack,” she whispers, a warning she knows better than to give before he catches at a strand of escaped hair dangling by her cheek and pulls her closer.
“Are you really living off of camping equipment?” she asks instead and Jack gives up, leans back to stare at the steel utensils scattered across the carpet, crumbs from Juliet’s homemade cheeseburger balanced on the edge of his plate.
“Yeah, well, David likes it,” Jack sidesteps. It’s easier than admitting the cool metal is more comfortable than the best china, that the rough edges remind him of something he lost a long time ago (lost before he lost her).
The storm’s getting worse outside and Jack’s wondering why Juliet has stayed this late, now that David’s fallen asleep on the couch and the radio announcer’s begun waxing lyrical about the end of another year.
It’s a year Jack’s well rid of, he thinks. He prefers not to remember the day Juliet quietly told him she was moving out (finds his memory of that day is too hazy to recall much at all). He still has the divorce papers she sent him in the mail, boxed up in his closet where David will never find them.
Sometimes, when he feels like opening another bottle (slipping another bottle of pills), he takes them out and goes over the reasons for divorce.
Unstable, alcohol-reliant, addictive behavior, prone to emotional outbursts.
(He clings to the words like a substitute for drugs and they intoxicate him in ways he never knew - only knows them in her absence and he’d trade the drugs and words back for five more minutes.)
But Jack hasn’t made his New Year’s wish yet.
“How’s your new apartment?” he asks, stalling for time, and Juliet gets that secretive smile he misses from when they first met, when he didn’t know every nook and cranny of her glance and beat.
“It’s very sterile,” she tells him like an inside joke (like something only they would get) and Jack wishes for the hundredth time he could ignore the nagging dreams, the knowledge there’s more to his life than just operations (once upon a time, there was).
“Well maybe you should get a roommate,” Jack jokes, though he doesn’t really like the idea of someone else getting to share space with her (pushes it down, an instinct from another time and place). In the background, the radio’s piping the first notes of Auld Lang Syne and Juliet’s eyes cut away from him, toying with the dishes but unwilling to move.
It’s their wedding song.
“One dance,” Jack asks, suddenly and with more bravery than he feels.
Her hand slips into his easily and slowly, he leads her in steps around the living room, her low heels clicking on the wood floor as they leave the carpet and her heartbeat just close enough for him to hear it now, her head crooked at his shoulder.
For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
The storm’s rising around them, raindrops lashing at the windows angrily, but Jack just holds Juliet a little closer and lets her hum off-key notes to the song against his chest. Here, it doesn’t seem like he’s lost her just yet (for a moment, it’s just another New Year’s with his wife and son asleep in the corner, and he’s not plagued by unsettling dreams and the determination to be a good father-son-husband in spite of it).
We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn, frae morning sun till dine; but seas between us braid hae roar’d sin auld lang syne.
“It’s really putting up a fight out there, isn’t it?” Juliet asks curiously but Jack’s answer is swallowed in a burst of lightning and the thunder on its heels. It takes a moment for him to realize the storm’s knocked the lights out and Juliet’s back in charge, peering out the window down the street.
“It got the entire block,” she tells him in a low whisper. “I’m surprised David didn’t wake up.”
He half expects her to say she’s going, even in the midst of a storm, or suggest they move David to his room, but her hand catches his in the darkness and a shiver hits his spine like ice - her fingers rub against his in a familiar way.
It’s an effort but Jack clears his throat. “You should stay,” he tells her, her errant hair tickling his neck (she’s closer than he thought) before her hand pulls at his. Somewhere in the ink, he hears her say, “That’s probably a good idea.”
He forgets to follow her at first and stumbles down the hall toward their bedroom, praying that’s where she’s headed and he’s not a prize fool. He feels he should be bringing her something.
(She always did love breakfast in bed - he grabs a box of cereal and leaves the milk in the fridge.)
Somewhere from the living room he can hear the radio calling out a countdown to midnight and he turns, thinking she won’t want to miss this.
10 - 9 - 8 - 7
The door shuts after him and he bumps against it, the frame solid against his back and her fingers at his waist, pulling at his shirt buttons.
She’s so distracting (he drops the cereal).
Finally, his brain clicks into gear and he helps her with his shirt, tiptoes them back to their bed (a trinket she left for him) and pushes himself closer to her, drinking in the taste of her on his lips and hearing in the distance, some fool singing about starting over.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?
He knows what this is (knows they never got to say goodbye) and urges some promise into her hair about how sorry he is and always will be. Dimly, he thinks he hears Juliet repeat the words back to him and knows he’ll never tell her why, just lets her curl up next to him and fall asleep.
(It doesn’t stop the dreams from coming.)
Finis