FIC - Rise Up (Friday Night Lights)
Title: Rise Up
Author: rachel_wilder
Rating: T
Summary: Miles might separate them, but when the chips are down, Tim and Jason know who they can count on--each other. Set post Season 4 of Friday Night Lights - not based on spoilers.
Author's Note: Many thanks to devilc for beta and advice.
Joanne Street slipped the red ball on the branch of the Christmas tree and stepped back to take a look. Even with decorations on, it still looked a little funny to her. She moved the hand-painted decoration that Jason had made in Sunday School when he was six and then looked the tree over again.
"It looks weird," she said.
Mitch walked up behind her and slipped his arms around her. "It looks great, honey, and you'll appreciate the adjustment when they get here."
She twisted slightly in his arms. "Is that the car? Did you hear something?"
Mitch kissed her neck slightly and dropped his arms. "I think it was the neighbor's, but I'll check."
She was a bundle of nerves, but as always Mitch was doing everything he could to keep her calm. She wanted to act like it was no big deal, but it was-Jason was coming home for Christmas and he was bringing the baby with him.
Except Noah wasn't a baby any more. He was eighteen months old and walking. Jason gave them updates on the phone every week and posted videos to YouTube whenever he could, but it had been over six months since their last visit to New Jersey to see the boys.
They had wanted to go out again in the fall, but Jason had asked them to wait-that they would come home to Texas for Christmas instead. It seemed like he was putting them off, but she had been learning to give Jason his distance. He was an adult now, even though deep in her heart she knew that he would always be her baby.
"Jo."
She turned at the sound of her husband's voice.
"They're here."
Her hand flew to her mouth and for a moment she was frozen to her spot, then miraculously came to her senses and rushed to the door. Two steps out onto the sidewalk and there they were.
Jason.
And the baby.
Jason and the baby. She watched as Mitch pulled Noah from his car seat in the truck and Jason slid down into his chair.
"Oh my land!" she exclaimed as she took Noah from Mitch's arms. She looked again to see if she had missed Erin in all of the commotion, but she wasn't there. But something else was-the back of the truck was full with boxes and equipment. She looked first to Jason and then to Mitch.
Her baby was home again.
/~/
Jason watched as his mom held Noah's hand and helped him walk up to the house. Erin had commented to him once that Noah was never going to learn to go up and down steps because everywhere he went there was a ramp or zero grade entry. Like a lot of things Erin worried about, that one didn't actually happened.
For the first eighteen years of his life, failure wasn't a word that Jason Street had much experience with, but in the past three years it had seemed to come with more and more frequency.
Failure to get a football scholarship.
Failure to graduate high school.
Failure to walk again.
Failure to make the Paralympics team.
Failure to practice safe sex.
Failure to get married.
Failure to make the mother of his child love him.
There were times in the morning where it all crashed over him and nearly took his breath away, but then Noah would climb up on him and give him a kiss and it almost made those other things not matter so much.
/-/
"Mom, you think you can watch Noah for me today?" Jason said as he came into the kitchen with the baby sitting on his lap. "I was hoping to head out for a little bit."
"Sure," Joanne replied as she reached for Noah and lifted him into his high chair. "Where are you going?"
Jason looked over at her and gave her a half smile. "Billy's going to take me up to see Tim."
This answered a question she hadn’t been able to ask during their last few phone conversations. Jason knew about what happened to Tim. She knew she probably should have said something earlier, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to tell him about Tim's arrest and being sentenced to jail. She had always had a vision of what life might be like for the boys-how Jason would go on to college and play football and hopefully Tim would do that same, that he would be able to escape the life that had had been given by his parents and their neglect. But instead Jason had gotten hurt, the boys’ had become estranged, Jason had moved away and now Tim was in jail rather than in school.
"You talk to him?" she asked simply.
"Yeah," Jason replied. "I call him every week."
Joanne nodded. Of course he did. Jason and Tim. Tim and Jason. The only time it hadn’t been that way was after the accident. She wasn’t surprised to hear that Jason still stayed in close contact with Tim. Maybe he was telling Tim all the things he didn’t seem to be telling his parents these days.
"So, honey," Joanne started as she set the baby's bowl of cereal down on the tray of the high chair.
Jason paused and turned back to face her and shook his head. "Not now, Mom. Let me go see Tim. We'll talk about the other stuff when I get back."
/-/
He didn't know where to start with his mom. How would he be able to explain to her what had happened and what had not happened with Erin, and he really didn't want to tell her that even though he'd brought all of Noah's stuff with him, he was staying, but the baby wasn't.
He pulled the truck into the driveway at the Riggins house and honked the horn. Billy came to the door and waved. After a couple of minutes the door finally opened and Billy walked out holding a baby.
"Thought you might want to see him," Billy said as he came over to the driver's side of the truck.
"Geez, Billy-good looking kid. You sure he's yours?" Jason teased.
"Just check his diaper, Street," Billy replied. "I just need to grab a couple of things and then I'm ready to go."
Jason hadn't worried when Tim missed their call the first week, but after the third time he tried he got a message that Tim's number had been disconnected. Jason knew things had been rough since Tim dropped out of San Antonio State, but Tim had always managed to keep his phone on somehow.
After a month Jason broke down and called Lyla. He hadn't talked to her since he left Dillon. It just seemed easier to make a clean break-especially after things started going south with Erin. He couldn't keep falling back on old habits.
He figured Tim had probably gotten himself into some kind of a jam, but he never imagined it would be something like this. Tim was stupid, but not the kind of stupid that put you in prison.
He had hung up from his call with Lyla, called his boss, then Erin and then packed Noah into the truck and headed to Dillon.
Cause even though Tim had been too afraid to come see him in the hospital, there was no way Jason was going to leave him sitting in some prison cell, all alone and not knowing what the future was going to hold for him.
Billy shut the door to the house and walked over to the truck. He opened the door and sat down next to Jason, dropping a couple of small shopping bags on the floor by his feet. "Stuff for Tim--deodorant and stuff. They don't let you bring a lot of stuff, but I can usually get him some new underwear and a couple of bags of sunflower seeds."
Jason didn't know what to say. How did they ever find themselves in this place? He and Tim were supposed to have exciting lives, not find themselves failures before they even turned twenty-one.
The trip went quickly. Jason tried to engage Billy in conversation, asking about the baby, but more often than not they would just fall back into silence. Finally, they reached the prison. Jason pulled into the parking lot and put the truck into park.
"Why don't I go in and drop off this stuff and then you can have your visit," Billy said. "You'll need to get checked in and stuff and then they have a place where you can wait."
Jason nodded, his throat suddenly feeling very small. Man, he was nervous, like he used to get before a game. If he could jiggle his legs, they'd be bouncing up and down right now with his nervous energy.
"Does anyone else come see him?" Jason asked.
Billy nodded. "Yeah, I know Coach has been over here, and Tami, too, I think. And, uh, Tyra came down once or twice from Austin."
Jason nodded. Tim and Tyra. Jason and Lyla. They'd never gone out on double dates--the girls wouldn't stand for it and besides, Riggins wasn't much of a dater, but that was when everything seemed like it was in balance.
/-/
He filled out the paperwork, sliding his New Jersey driver's license over to the guard for inspection.
"Came a long way, I see," the guard said as he slid the license back to Jason.
"Jersey transplant," Jason replied. He would never be from New Jersey... he was a Texan born and bred. Erin had teased him about it now and then, back when things had been lighter between them, but eventually the teasing had stopped, the silence had gotten longer and it had become clearer and clearer that although she loved Noah, she resented Jason for guilting her into having the baby. Jason had ruined her life and she wasn't going to stop blaming him for that any time soon.
"Jason Street."
Jason looked up for find the guard waiting for him at the door. He pushed his chair over to the door and waited patiently while they searched him. Finally the door opened and they led him down the hall to a room filled with tables. The guard walked with him over to a table near the window and pulled away the chair. Tim was sitting across from him, his eyes cast down at the table.
"Hey," Jason started. 'Cause, what do you say? When you're seventeen and you have the world in front of you, you don't think these things are going to happen to you, but then life takes a turn and you're nineteen, twenty years old and you've got a baby and your friend's in jail.
After a moment Tim looked up. He brushed his hair away from his eyes. "Six."
"How you doin' Timmy?" Jason asked. "You hanging in there?"
Tim shrugged. He looked down again, then lifted his head and met Jason's eyes.
"Thanks for comin', Six. It's more than I did for you."
/~/
They talked for about a half hour until the guard came in and told them to wrap it up. Jason told Tim he was back in Dillon for the foreseeable future and Tim had enough experience with these kinds of things that he didn't ask how things were with Erin.
"Can't wait until you see Noah--he's walking and starting to talk a little bit. My dad got him a little football last week. He doesn't quite have a spiral throw down, but he's working on it," Jason said as they were preparing to say their goodbyes.
"Think you'll still be here in six weeks?" Tim asked hesitantly.
Jason nodded. "Yeah, we're gonna be here. You finish this up and I'll be here to pick you up. We'll figure this out, Tim. You know, you were the one who really got me thinking that I could get over this...over the chair and not playing football and everything. You told me that we'd rise up. That together we'd be able to get through anything."
"I don't know, Six," Tim replied.
Jason wanted to assure him, to reach over and take his hand and let him know it was going to be okay, but the guard had told him that he couldn't touch Tim.
Sitting there, it felt like he was still thousands of miles away in New York.
"You remember that day-when you showed up in therapy and said you wanted to bust me out of the hospital?'"
Tim nodded.
"You saved me that day, Tim. That day, in the truck, with you and Lyla-that's when I knew it might be okay again.
"I'm going to be back here in six weeks. I'll be at the door and I'll pick you up. Then we'll figure out what's next. "
Tim let a quiet laugh slip out as he shook his head. "You'll never change, Six. Coach had to make you quarterback-you're too bossy to do anything else. "
"As long as you understand the game plan, Riggins, " Jason replied.
Tim nodded.
Jason pushed his chair back from the table. "Then I'll see you in six weeks. "
He didn't wait for Tim to answer. He'd see his friend in six weeks. And hopefully by then he'd figure out what to do.
FIN
Author: rachel_wilder
Rating: T
Summary: Miles might separate them, but when the chips are down, Tim and Jason know who they can count on--each other. Set post Season 4 of Friday Night Lights - not based on spoilers.
Author's Note: Many thanks to devilc for beta and advice.
Joanne Street slipped the red ball on the branch of the Christmas tree and stepped back to take a look. Even with decorations on, it still looked a little funny to her. She moved the hand-painted decoration that Jason had made in Sunday School when he was six and then looked the tree over again.
"It looks weird," she said.
Mitch walked up behind her and slipped his arms around her. "It looks great, honey, and you'll appreciate the adjustment when they get here."
She twisted slightly in his arms. "Is that the car? Did you hear something?"
Mitch kissed her neck slightly and dropped his arms. "I think it was the neighbor's, but I'll check."
She was a bundle of nerves, but as always Mitch was doing everything he could to keep her calm. She wanted to act like it was no big deal, but it was-Jason was coming home for Christmas and he was bringing the baby with him.
Except Noah wasn't a baby any more. He was eighteen months old and walking. Jason gave them updates on the phone every week and posted videos to YouTube whenever he could, but it had been over six months since their last visit to New Jersey to see the boys.
They had wanted to go out again in the fall, but Jason had asked them to wait-that they would come home to Texas for Christmas instead. It seemed like he was putting them off, but she had been learning to give Jason his distance. He was an adult now, even though deep in her heart she knew that he would always be her baby.
"Jo."
She turned at the sound of her husband's voice.
"They're here."
Her hand flew to her mouth and for a moment she was frozen to her spot, then miraculously came to her senses and rushed to the door. Two steps out onto the sidewalk and there they were.
Jason.
And the baby.
Jason and the baby. She watched as Mitch pulled Noah from his car seat in the truck and Jason slid down into his chair.
"Oh my land!" she exclaimed as she took Noah from Mitch's arms. She looked again to see if she had missed Erin in all of the commotion, but she wasn't there. But something else was-the back of the truck was full with boxes and equipment. She looked first to Jason and then to Mitch.
Her baby was home again.
/~/
Jason watched as his mom held Noah's hand and helped him walk up to the house. Erin had commented to him once that Noah was never going to learn to go up and down steps because everywhere he went there was a ramp or zero grade entry. Like a lot of things Erin worried about, that one didn't actually happened.
For the first eighteen years of his life, failure wasn't a word that Jason Street had much experience with, but in the past three years it had seemed to come with more and more frequency.
Failure to get a football scholarship.
Failure to graduate high school.
Failure to walk again.
Failure to make the Paralympics team.
Failure to practice safe sex.
Failure to get married.
Failure to make the mother of his child love him.
There were times in the morning where it all crashed over him and nearly took his breath away, but then Noah would climb up on him and give him a kiss and it almost made those other things not matter so much.
/-/
"Mom, you think you can watch Noah for me today?" Jason said as he came into the kitchen with the baby sitting on his lap. "I was hoping to head out for a little bit."
"Sure," Joanne replied as she reached for Noah and lifted him into his high chair. "Where are you going?"
Jason looked over at her and gave her a half smile. "Billy's going to take me up to see Tim."
This answered a question she hadn’t been able to ask during their last few phone conversations. Jason knew about what happened to Tim. She knew she probably should have said something earlier, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to tell him about Tim's arrest and being sentenced to jail. She had always had a vision of what life might be like for the boys-how Jason would go on to college and play football and hopefully Tim would do that same, that he would be able to escape the life that had had been given by his parents and their neglect. But instead Jason had gotten hurt, the boys’ had become estranged, Jason had moved away and now Tim was in jail rather than in school.
"You talk to him?" she asked simply.
"Yeah," Jason replied. "I call him every week."
Joanne nodded. Of course he did. Jason and Tim. Tim and Jason. The only time it hadn’t been that way was after the accident. She wasn’t surprised to hear that Jason still stayed in close contact with Tim. Maybe he was telling Tim all the things he didn’t seem to be telling his parents these days.
"So, honey," Joanne started as she set the baby's bowl of cereal down on the tray of the high chair.
Jason paused and turned back to face her and shook his head. "Not now, Mom. Let me go see Tim. We'll talk about the other stuff when I get back."
/-/
He didn't know where to start with his mom. How would he be able to explain to her what had happened and what had not happened with Erin, and he really didn't want to tell her that even though he'd brought all of Noah's stuff with him, he was staying, but the baby wasn't.
He pulled the truck into the driveway at the Riggins house and honked the horn. Billy came to the door and waved. After a couple of minutes the door finally opened and Billy walked out holding a baby.
"Thought you might want to see him," Billy said as he came over to the driver's side of the truck.
"Geez, Billy-good looking kid. You sure he's yours?" Jason teased.
"Just check his diaper, Street," Billy replied. "I just need to grab a couple of things and then I'm ready to go."
Jason hadn't worried when Tim missed their call the first week, but after the third time he tried he got a message that Tim's number had been disconnected. Jason knew things had been rough since Tim dropped out of San Antonio State, but Tim had always managed to keep his phone on somehow.
After a month Jason broke down and called Lyla. He hadn't talked to her since he left Dillon. It just seemed easier to make a clean break-especially after things started going south with Erin. He couldn't keep falling back on old habits.
He figured Tim had probably gotten himself into some kind of a jam, but he never imagined it would be something like this. Tim was stupid, but not the kind of stupid that put you in prison.
He had hung up from his call with Lyla, called his boss, then Erin and then packed Noah into the truck and headed to Dillon.
Cause even though Tim had been too afraid to come see him in the hospital, there was no way Jason was going to leave him sitting in some prison cell, all alone and not knowing what the future was going to hold for him.
Billy shut the door to the house and walked over to the truck. He opened the door and sat down next to Jason, dropping a couple of small shopping bags on the floor by his feet. "Stuff for Tim--deodorant and stuff. They don't let you bring a lot of stuff, but I can usually get him some new underwear and a couple of bags of sunflower seeds."
Jason didn't know what to say. How did they ever find themselves in this place? He and Tim were supposed to have exciting lives, not find themselves failures before they even turned twenty-one.
The trip went quickly. Jason tried to engage Billy in conversation, asking about the baby, but more often than not they would just fall back into silence. Finally, they reached the prison. Jason pulled into the parking lot and put the truck into park.
"Why don't I go in and drop off this stuff and then you can have your visit," Billy said. "You'll need to get checked in and stuff and then they have a place where you can wait."
Jason nodded, his throat suddenly feeling very small. Man, he was nervous, like he used to get before a game. If he could jiggle his legs, they'd be bouncing up and down right now with his nervous energy.
"Does anyone else come see him?" Jason asked.
Billy nodded. "Yeah, I know Coach has been over here, and Tami, too, I think. And, uh, Tyra came down once or twice from Austin."
Jason nodded. Tim and Tyra. Jason and Lyla. They'd never gone out on double dates--the girls wouldn't stand for it and besides, Riggins wasn't much of a dater, but that was when everything seemed like it was in balance.
/-/
He filled out the paperwork, sliding his New Jersey driver's license over to the guard for inspection.
"Came a long way, I see," the guard said as he slid the license back to Jason.
"Jersey transplant," Jason replied. He would never be from New Jersey... he was a Texan born and bred. Erin had teased him about it now and then, back when things had been lighter between them, but eventually the teasing had stopped, the silence had gotten longer and it had become clearer and clearer that although she loved Noah, she resented Jason for guilting her into having the baby. Jason had ruined her life and she wasn't going to stop blaming him for that any time soon.
"Jason Street."
Jason looked up for find the guard waiting for him at the door. He pushed his chair over to the door and waited patiently while they searched him. Finally the door opened and they led him down the hall to a room filled with tables. The guard walked with him over to a table near the window and pulled away the chair. Tim was sitting across from him, his eyes cast down at the table.
"Hey," Jason started. 'Cause, what do you say? When you're seventeen and you have the world in front of you, you don't think these things are going to happen to you, but then life takes a turn and you're nineteen, twenty years old and you've got a baby and your friend's in jail.
After a moment Tim looked up. He brushed his hair away from his eyes. "Six."
"How you doin' Timmy?" Jason asked. "You hanging in there?"
Tim shrugged. He looked down again, then lifted his head and met Jason's eyes.
"Thanks for comin', Six. It's more than I did for you."
/~/
They talked for about a half hour until the guard came in and told them to wrap it up. Jason told Tim he was back in Dillon for the foreseeable future and Tim had enough experience with these kinds of things that he didn't ask how things were with Erin.
"Can't wait until you see Noah--he's walking and starting to talk a little bit. My dad got him a little football last week. He doesn't quite have a spiral throw down, but he's working on it," Jason said as they were preparing to say their goodbyes.
"Think you'll still be here in six weeks?" Tim asked hesitantly.
Jason nodded. "Yeah, we're gonna be here. You finish this up and I'll be here to pick you up. We'll figure this out, Tim. You know, you were the one who really got me thinking that I could get over this...over the chair and not playing football and everything. You told me that we'd rise up. That together we'd be able to get through anything."
"I don't know, Six," Tim replied.
Jason wanted to assure him, to reach over and take his hand and let him know it was going to be okay, but the guard had told him that he couldn't touch Tim.
Sitting there, it felt like he was still thousands of miles away in New York.
"You remember that day-when you showed up in therapy and said you wanted to bust me out of the hospital?'"
Tim nodded.
"You saved me that day, Tim. That day, in the truck, with you and Lyla-that's when I knew it might be okay again.
"I'm going to be back here in six weeks. I'll be at the door and I'll pick you up. Then we'll figure out what's next. "
Tim let a quiet laugh slip out as he shook his head. "You'll never change, Six. Coach had to make you quarterback-you're too bossy to do anything else. "
"As long as you understand the game plan, Riggins, " Jason replied.
Tim nodded.
Jason pushed his chair back from the table. "Then I'll see you in six weeks. "
He didn't wait for Tim to answer. He'd see his friend in six weeks. And hopefully by then he'd figure out what to do.
FIN