24 - Brittany House/Jake Hannigan, stages of change: transcendence
Title: Even The Score
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 416
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For the House season finale, "No Reason."
Summary: Brittany needs something done and there's only one person who can do it.
Author's Notes: This is an extension on a very brief moment that was alluded to and was written as a coda to the House season finale, and is canon.
It needs to be done and she has many friends who would do it without hesitation. But Jimmy McCarron is in Los Angeles, as is T.J. McCabe. She wouldn't dare thinking of asking her ex-husband, Michael. Kyle isn't that kind of man. It comes down to only one man who is close enough to her, whom she trusts to handle the task. She dials Jake's apartment and waits for him to pick up while she's standing in the ICU.
"Greg's been shot," she says. "The man who did it is in the jail ward."
He's heard all he needs to hear. He's never been her friend, but time has changed them both. He respects her. Understands her. Knows and approves of what she isn't asking. "I'll be there in forty minutes," he tells her, hanging up and going to find his badge and his gun.
When he arrives at the hospital, she's sitting by her husband's bedside, unsurprisingly. He looks at the leads and the IVs and the bandages, then walks over to stand beside her. She turns to look at him, giving him the details that he needs. She looks older in an instant. He chooses not to comment, simply nods and walks away. He won't come back until the job is done and he won't stay.
Two flights of stairs. A handful of corridors. One glimpse through a window. One flash of a badge. Two minutes, maybe. One shot. One kill. The proportional response.
Jake calmly deals with the aftermath and then goes back upstairs to the ICU. Brittany is still in the same place. He settles his hand on her shoulder. He doesn't know what it's like to see a spouse hanging in the balance, but he's lost a few agents and friends in his thirty-odd years. They don't say one word to each other, because he can see the gratitude in her eyes. And she can see the respect and calm in his. This means nothing to him. It's just what they do for each other.
Ten months ago it couldn't have been further from the truth. But this is not ten months ago.
She hears nothing but the quiet sound of his footsteps, the whooshing of the sliding glass door, the beeping of the monitors in his wake. She thinks nothing of it, though she thinks the world of him at that moment. Actions have always spoken louder than words with them. That's just the way it's done.
It's done now.
Title: Bruised
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 483
Rating: PG
Summary: People with black hats in white hallways.
Author's Notes: Takes place post-"Release." Canon.
Michael is in surgery. Greg is in an exam room, being checked out. The hospital's ER is taken up by a handful of battered agents. Jake Hannigan and Brittany House are standing together in a hallway off the main lobby, watching the chaos from a distance and with very little to say about it.
Jake has a bruise forming on his left cheekbone, red and ugly, but it looks to be the worst of his injuries. He tossed the Kevlar and the gun in the van, but his black T-shirt has several dark splashes across it and his pants that she knows are blood, and not his blood. There's a fine sheen of sweat on his skin, his hair is awry, and he shifts his jaw, sore but not enough to complain about it. He stopped counting how many people he injured and he doesn't really care, either. His agents are okay.
Brittany's eyes are red and cheeks are stained with the tears she cried when she found her husband and her ex-husband in one reasonable piece. She's much less physically affected, but much more emotionally drained. Her eyes are locked on Greg through the window in the exam room door, watching his every move as if she hasn't yet realized that he is truly safe and with her again.
They take one glance at each other, as she raises her cheap coffee cup to her lips, and he smiles a grim, thin smile.
Both of them had to sacrifice more than a little pride to be standing here together, and more importantly, for other people to be standing here with them. Both of them are very proud individuals who would once have sooner killed each other than worked together. He didn't want to go help the woman who ruined his life, and God knows she didn't want him helping. But he couldn't turn a blind eye to her suffering, and she needed someone who could carry the weight she couldn't bear. Pride had nothing to do with it.
"Thank you," she says softly, eyes downturned, her first words in over fifteen minutes.
He eyes the side of her head. "I wasn't going to let them die," he replies, the sentence sounding like it should have been a bitchy statement at the mere audacity but it coming out much softer, because she knows that he cares what happens, to her and to all the others, even if he never shows it.
"You want some ice for that?" she says, because she doesn't need to tell him he's a good man.
He snorts. "Last thing I need is your hands on me and then your idiot husband belting me one."
She almost smiles. He'll always be like this. Which means that she knows as much as he infuriates her, they can always put all that aside, and they can always count on each other.
Title: Hard Feelings
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 356
Rating: PG
Summary: They're too proud to beg, so this is as good as they'll get.
Author's Notes: Set after the events of the "Faithless" novel.
Six months after they call off the engagement, Brittany comes to visit him in Dallas. He has to admit that she was right all along. He was born for the title of Special Agent In Charge, and he's never been happier. At least, professionally. The empty bed is a necessary sacrifice, he tells himself that when he bothers to remember that she used to be there.
But she is there now, and they smile at each other and ask how things have gone. She's back with Greg; she better be, considering he told her to cut him one more break and him not to fuck the damn thing up again. No ring on her finger. She's wary of marrying him again. Jake remembers where his ring used to be on her hand.
She couldn't leave Durham. He couldn't stay.
"I'm glad to hear it's going well," she tells him when they're alone in his new office. "You've been through enough shit, it was time for karma to pay you back."
He waves a dismissive hand. "Fuck karma, I just paid my dues." He gives her a look. "He's treating you well? I don't need to hurt him?"
She shakes her head. "It's...we still have a lot of work to do, but slowly. We'll get there someday."
They're quiet, just looking at each other for a long moment. They were together, on and off, for the better part of four years. Longer than either of them had ever been with any previous lovers. They were going to get married. That meant something. They had changed and grown, and now they've changed and grown again. It doesn't keep them up at night. They have both moved on, past the pain and the disappointment. It worked out this way, for the both of them, just not for the both of them together.
He leans in and kisses her softly, and she has to steal a hug. They're both too proud to beg, too driven to remember, so this is the best they'll ever get.
But they're always going to miss each other, even if it's never enough to matter.
Title: In Time
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 330
Rating: PG
Summary: Life goes on. Unless, of course, you were there.
Author's Notes: Takes place after "Bottom." Canon.
He denies he ever said anything. She pretends she never heard anything. They get a conviction, they come back from Richmond, and life goes on. In the grand scheme of things, nobody gives a fuck about anything that happened on a hotel rooftop in the middle of the night.
Unless, of course, you were one of the two people on a hotel rooftop in Richmond in the middle of the night.
Because then it changed a lot.
Jake is surprised he got through the night without reaching for a cigarette. Not that he could, because she confiscated them. He has his pride, his ego, and his condescending sense of humor intact. But admitting she was in his head, made it real. Made her even more in his head. He thinks on that night, sometimes, when he has nothing else to think about. How she never flinched. How she listened to what he had to say and accepted it. Knowing she wouldn't have left him there if he hadn't pushed her to.
Knowing he could have kissed her and he almost did.
Brittany can't bring herself to hate him with the same vitriol she once did. It was easy, to take everything he did as some way to piss her off. To believe that he was put there simply to screw with her. She knows better now. She's seen the hints he's been leaving, about loneliness and truth and turmoil. Seeing inside his head scared her, because she saw familiar territory. She always suspected, but she knows now, that he's no demon or bastard. He's just a man, and he's a man who needs somebody to lean on. She wants to help him.
They don't talk about it. There's nothing to talk about, because nothing ever happened. There was no rooftop, no confession, no shift in the paradigm.
But it just takes one look between them, and they know that they're far from done with one another.
They've only just begun.
Title: Escape Plan
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 308
Rating: PG
Summary: It's just him and her and there isn't a fucking elephant in the room, for once.
Author's Notes: Follows the previous hospital fics. Canon.
It's just him and her and there isn't a fucking elephant in the room, for once.
No accusations of sexual assault, references to revenge beatings, comments about how she has a bleeding heart, or jokes about her cleavage. They're just sitting on the floor of the hospital gym, talking complete crap about whatever they feel like. Just a man and a woman, and a basketball, and nobody cares where they are and they don't care what they're doing. He blames it on the meds. He doesn't know or care what her excuse is.
The truth is, they've been stuck here too long with one another. She's visited him twice a week for almost three months. Familiarity breeds apathy.
"You know, I knew you were going to be bad for me," she says, crossing her legs and eyeing the opposite wall.
He smirks. "Is it that obvious?"
"You're blond. Blondes get me into trouble."
That makes him laugh, even though who she's alluding to is a terrorist that fucked up her life. "Well, I'm not really that blond," he says, running a hand through his hair. "A little more brown."
"But you're still trouble."
"For more people than you, so don't think you're special." He can't help but smirk just a little. "Somebody has to start something."
She pauses, looks at him. "So we would be starting...what?"
"Fuck if I know."
But what he does know is that it has to be something new. Something different. Because they're not talking about the past. They've rehashed the past for too long. Their whole lives have been about the past. Except when they've been here, stuck with one another. Now it's about something else. Something only the two of them can figure out. If they ever bother to figure it out at all.
Why try and break down a good thing?
Title: After The Fact
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 402
Rating: PG
Summary: She won't give him any regrets.
Author's Notes: Sort of a sequel to "Finale." Futurefic.
They swore they'd never see each other again, which was the biggest, most boldfaced lie in the history of mankind, so neither of them are surprised when they run into each other at the gym a month later. "Jake," she says, like she's actually happy to see him, and he smiles, because he might sort of be happy to see her, though he'd sooner admit to having a fatal disease or losing at poker.
"How's the kid?" he says, leaning against the weight bench, and she beams with a motherly pride. "A complete terror, but look at his gene pool. And you know about the team." He nods. "Yeah, yeah, you're doing good with them. Half expected to see you take a chair to the first sexist prick that got in your way," he quips and that makes her laugh.
She's quiet for a long moment and so is he. That last night they shared together, talking quietly about what made them who they were, wasn't so long ago. And the secret that he told her -- who really betrayed him and what it did to him -- has never been far from her memory. Even if it doesn't mean much now, out in the real world.
She wants to help him move past that, if he hasn't already. Doesn't want to be another former boss that just walks away and doesn't come back.
"You want to..." She almost invites him to dinner, but she knows Greg would merely mutter and growl and glower all night, and that Jake is only comfortable being open with her in private. "...get lunch sometime? A cup of coffee or something like that?"
"Your idea of lunch has Starbucks on it?" he says, incredulously. "Actual food," he continues as if she's dense. "But sure. Give me a call."
Brittany nods, turns to go, then thinks of something else. "Jake? You doin' okay?"
The look on his face makes her realize that nobody's asked him that question in a damn long time. The silence says the same thing. He nods slightly. "Yeah, I'm fine," he says quietly. "But thanks for asking." A pause, because he can't just be kind. "As if you care."
"You know I do," she says sweetly, smiling obnoxiously, and leaves him be.
Because deep down inside, they know that even though she's gone, she still does care. She won't give him any regrets.
Title: Point of Origin
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 495
Rating: PG
Summary: He's come back looking for something.
Author's Notes: Takes place after Strange Allies With Warring Hearts. Alternate universe, futurefic.
As his keys turn in the lock, she doesn't talk this time. The jokes about him actually growing up in a real home, as opposed to a test tube or military school, are old now. They were old the first night they spent here, clamoring around in the attic, interrogating each other in the living room, laying together in the same bed staring at the ceiling. His parents' place has a meaning to them now, one that they never intended. Because this is the place where they first decided to stop calling it a one-night stand and become something more to each other.
That's what this is, now. It's more than just sex. It's less than love. But it's protection. Understanding. Support. That all started here five months ago. That makes this not just some random trip to make sure all the furniture is still on the premises.
He's come back looking for something.
"Are you ever going to enlighten me?" she asks, flicking on a light in the entry and nudging the door shut with her heel.
"You say that as if I have some master plan and I don't," he retorts. He walks through the kitchen into the living room, ignoring her, ignoring the luggage, ignoring everything. She waits until she realizes he's not coming back, and then she follows after him. With him, she does a lot of following.
She finds him sitting there on the living room couch, and his line of sight reveals absolutely nothing anyone would give a shit about. Standing there behind him, she sucks in a quiet breath before she settles her hands on his shoulders. He doesn't even move.
"What's going on?" she says, and now it's not to be smart, it's because she knows something is wrong.
He turns his head and looks at her, and almost smiles. The cruel glint is gone and for a moment, it's easy to believe he's just a man. Just another average guy she fell into. Except that she knows much better. He's quiet for a moment, and then he says, "I was thinking that we could move in. When you come back to Durham."
Which makes her shut up and stare at him. And realize what exactly he's saying. The man who never gives an inch of ground, who keeps everything to himself, who can hardly trust another person he's been burned so many times, is offering her a part of him. The place where he grew up. As a place where they can start over. Move on. He wants to put down a foundation.
With her.
She realizes he's looking at her and she owes him some sort of actual spoken word.
"I think that's a great idea," she says. "I think I could use a fresh start. Away from Greg and everything."
"I know you can."
And he's quiet again, because he's said all he needs to say, and she's said all he needs to hear.
Title: Truth, Consequence
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 418
Rating: PG
Summary: This hopelessness that drowns all that I believe, will be the one thing that I need --Trading Yesterday, "For You Only"
Author's Notes: Alternate universe, futurefic.
Brittany Hannigan doesn't realize who she is until someone calls her 'Coach Hannigan,' and then she remembers everything that happened the weekend before. Or over the last few years, as a matter of fact. Her ex-husband being a pathetic excuse for one when it mattered. Solace in the arms of an enemy she didn't trust. Years have gone by and there's a ring on her finger and it's time to get past all that bullshit now.
"You're thinking too much," Jake says, when they're laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. "It's been years and he was a bastard. Whenever you second-guess yourself...just remember that."
"I do remember that," she replies, closing her eyes and looking pained. "That's why it hurt me so damn much."
"It's over now." He reaches up, tilts her chin so she's looking into her eyes. "You're mine. It's over now."
She believes him. She believes in the vows he said to her, in the house in which they're living, in the way that he treats her. Colder, maybe, but she knows that she can trust him. No amount of affection will heal the gouges that have been left in her heart when it mattered most. Jake may not be puppy dogs and rainbows, but he will keep her safe. And she doesn't have the heart to love anymore.
She is pain and he is cold and maybe in later years they'll love but for now they just are.
They lay in the darkness and they don't talk much, but every night they go through erases one from her memory. She doesn't think about her past anymore. Doesn't think about the lovers that broke her heart. He's right when he says that she doesn't have the time to; she has a life to tend to. And she ought not to even give a damn, after being hurt like that. He's cold, but he's right. It's so much easier to live this way. To take his name, to disappear, to forget all of that, and start again.
It's crazy to believe she's done it, but at the same time she doesn't know why they waited years to make it happen. Because now she knows the truth for what it is. Has put the past behind her. Knows who she's supposed to be. She's supposed to be with him. He's the only one who makes sense anymore. And this is the world in which she lives now. It started as a mistake...but now it's an escape.
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 416
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For the House season finale, "No Reason."
Summary: Brittany needs something done and there's only one person who can do it.
Author's Notes: This is an extension on a very brief moment that was alluded to and was written as a coda to the House season finale, and is canon.
It needs to be done and she has many friends who would do it without hesitation. But Jimmy McCarron is in Los Angeles, as is T.J. McCabe. She wouldn't dare thinking of asking her ex-husband, Michael. Kyle isn't that kind of man. It comes down to only one man who is close enough to her, whom she trusts to handle the task. She dials Jake's apartment and waits for him to pick up while she's standing in the ICU.
"Greg's been shot," she says. "The man who did it is in the jail ward."
He's heard all he needs to hear. He's never been her friend, but time has changed them both. He respects her. Understands her. Knows and approves of what she isn't asking. "I'll be there in forty minutes," he tells her, hanging up and going to find his badge and his gun.
When he arrives at the hospital, she's sitting by her husband's bedside, unsurprisingly. He looks at the leads and the IVs and the bandages, then walks over to stand beside her. She turns to look at him, giving him the details that he needs. She looks older in an instant. He chooses not to comment, simply nods and walks away. He won't come back until the job is done and he won't stay.
Two flights of stairs. A handful of corridors. One glimpse through a window. One flash of a badge. Two minutes, maybe. One shot. One kill. The proportional response.
Jake calmly deals with the aftermath and then goes back upstairs to the ICU. Brittany is still in the same place. He settles his hand on her shoulder. He doesn't know what it's like to see a spouse hanging in the balance, but he's lost a few agents and friends in his thirty-odd years. They don't say one word to each other, because he can see the gratitude in her eyes. And she can see the respect and calm in his. This means nothing to him. It's just what they do for each other.
Ten months ago it couldn't have been further from the truth. But this is not ten months ago.
She hears nothing but the quiet sound of his footsteps, the whooshing of the sliding glass door, the beeping of the monitors in his wake. She thinks nothing of it, though she thinks the world of him at that moment. Actions have always spoken louder than words with them. That's just the way it's done.
It's done now.
Title: Bruised
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 483
Rating: PG
Summary: People with black hats in white hallways.
Author's Notes: Takes place post-"Release." Canon.
Michael is in surgery. Greg is in an exam room, being checked out. The hospital's ER is taken up by a handful of battered agents. Jake Hannigan and Brittany House are standing together in a hallway off the main lobby, watching the chaos from a distance and with very little to say about it.
Jake has a bruise forming on his left cheekbone, red and ugly, but it looks to be the worst of his injuries. He tossed the Kevlar and the gun in the van, but his black T-shirt has several dark splashes across it and his pants that she knows are blood, and not his blood. There's a fine sheen of sweat on his skin, his hair is awry, and he shifts his jaw, sore but not enough to complain about it. He stopped counting how many people he injured and he doesn't really care, either. His agents are okay.
Brittany's eyes are red and cheeks are stained with the tears she cried when she found her husband and her ex-husband in one reasonable piece. She's much less physically affected, but much more emotionally drained. Her eyes are locked on Greg through the window in the exam room door, watching his every move as if she hasn't yet realized that he is truly safe and with her again.
They take one glance at each other, as she raises her cheap coffee cup to her lips, and he smiles a grim, thin smile.
Both of them had to sacrifice more than a little pride to be standing here together, and more importantly, for other people to be standing here with them. Both of them are very proud individuals who would once have sooner killed each other than worked together. He didn't want to go help the woman who ruined his life, and God knows she didn't want him helping. But he couldn't turn a blind eye to her suffering, and she needed someone who could carry the weight she couldn't bear. Pride had nothing to do with it.
"Thank you," she says softly, eyes downturned, her first words in over fifteen minutes.
He eyes the side of her head. "I wasn't going to let them die," he replies, the sentence sounding like it should have been a bitchy statement at the mere audacity but it coming out much softer, because she knows that he cares what happens, to her and to all the others, even if he never shows it.
"You want some ice for that?" she says, because she doesn't need to tell him he's a good man.
He snorts. "Last thing I need is your hands on me and then your idiot husband belting me one."
She almost smiles. He'll always be like this. Which means that she knows as much as he infuriates her, they can always put all that aside, and they can always count on each other.
Title: Hard Feelings
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 356
Rating: PG
Summary: They're too proud to beg, so this is as good as they'll get.
Author's Notes: Set after the events of the "Faithless" novel.
Six months after they call off the engagement, Brittany comes to visit him in Dallas. He has to admit that she was right all along. He was born for the title of Special Agent In Charge, and he's never been happier. At least, professionally. The empty bed is a necessary sacrifice, he tells himself that when he bothers to remember that she used to be there.
But she is there now, and they smile at each other and ask how things have gone. She's back with Greg; she better be, considering he told her to cut him one more break and him not to fuck the damn thing up again. No ring on her finger. She's wary of marrying him again. Jake remembers where his ring used to be on her hand.
She couldn't leave Durham. He couldn't stay.
"I'm glad to hear it's going well," she tells him when they're alone in his new office. "You've been through enough shit, it was time for karma to pay you back."
He waves a dismissive hand. "Fuck karma, I just paid my dues." He gives her a look. "He's treating you well? I don't need to hurt him?"
She shakes her head. "It's...we still have a lot of work to do, but slowly. We'll get there someday."
They're quiet, just looking at each other for a long moment. They were together, on and off, for the better part of four years. Longer than either of them had ever been with any previous lovers. They were going to get married. That meant something. They had changed and grown, and now they've changed and grown again. It doesn't keep them up at night. They have both moved on, past the pain and the disappointment. It worked out this way, for the both of them, just not for the both of them together.
He leans in and kisses her softly, and she has to steal a hug. They're both too proud to beg, too driven to remember, so this is the best they'll ever get.
But they're always going to miss each other, even if it's never enough to matter.
Title: In Time
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 330
Rating: PG
Summary: Life goes on. Unless, of course, you were there.
Author's Notes: Takes place after "Bottom." Canon.
He denies he ever said anything. She pretends she never heard anything. They get a conviction, they come back from Richmond, and life goes on. In the grand scheme of things, nobody gives a fuck about anything that happened on a hotel rooftop in the middle of the night.
Unless, of course, you were one of the two people on a hotel rooftop in Richmond in the middle of the night.
Because then it changed a lot.
Jake is surprised he got through the night without reaching for a cigarette. Not that he could, because she confiscated them. He has his pride, his ego, and his condescending sense of humor intact. But admitting she was in his head, made it real. Made her even more in his head. He thinks on that night, sometimes, when he has nothing else to think about. How she never flinched. How she listened to what he had to say and accepted it. Knowing she wouldn't have left him there if he hadn't pushed her to.
Knowing he could have kissed her and he almost did.
Brittany can't bring herself to hate him with the same vitriol she once did. It was easy, to take everything he did as some way to piss her off. To believe that he was put there simply to screw with her. She knows better now. She's seen the hints he's been leaving, about loneliness and truth and turmoil. Seeing inside his head scared her, because she saw familiar territory. She always suspected, but she knows now, that he's no demon or bastard. He's just a man, and he's a man who needs somebody to lean on. She wants to help him.
They don't talk about it. There's nothing to talk about, because nothing ever happened. There was no rooftop, no confession, no shift in the paradigm.
But it just takes one look between them, and they know that they're far from done with one another.
They've only just begun.
Title: Escape Plan
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 308
Rating: PG
Summary: It's just him and her and there isn't a fucking elephant in the room, for once.
Author's Notes: Follows the previous hospital fics. Canon.
It's just him and her and there isn't a fucking elephant in the room, for once.
No accusations of sexual assault, references to revenge beatings, comments about how she has a bleeding heart, or jokes about her cleavage. They're just sitting on the floor of the hospital gym, talking complete crap about whatever they feel like. Just a man and a woman, and a basketball, and nobody cares where they are and they don't care what they're doing. He blames it on the meds. He doesn't know or care what her excuse is.
The truth is, they've been stuck here too long with one another. She's visited him twice a week for almost three months. Familiarity breeds apathy.
"You know, I knew you were going to be bad for me," she says, crossing her legs and eyeing the opposite wall.
He smirks. "Is it that obvious?"
"You're blond. Blondes get me into trouble."
That makes him laugh, even though who she's alluding to is a terrorist that fucked up her life. "Well, I'm not really that blond," he says, running a hand through his hair. "A little more brown."
"But you're still trouble."
"For more people than you, so don't think you're special." He can't help but smirk just a little. "Somebody has to start something."
She pauses, looks at him. "So we would be starting...what?"
"Fuck if I know."
But what he does know is that it has to be something new. Something different. Because they're not talking about the past. They've rehashed the past for too long. Their whole lives have been about the past. Except when they've been here, stuck with one another. Now it's about something else. Something only the two of them can figure out. If they ever bother to figure it out at all.
Why try and break down a good thing?
Title: After The Fact
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 402
Rating: PG
Summary: She won't give him any regrets.
Author's Notes: Sort of a sequel to "Finale." Futurefic.
They swore they'd never see each other again, which was the biggest, most boldfaced lie in the history of mankind, so neither of them are surprised when they run into each other at the gym a month later. "Jake," she says, like she's actually happy to see him, and he smiles, because he might sort of be happy to see her, though he'd sooner admit to having a fatal disease or losing at poker.
"How's the kid?" he says, leaning against the weight bench, and she beams with a motherly pride. "A complete terror, but look at his gene pool. And you know about the team." He nods. "Yeah, yeah, you're doing good with them. Half expected to see you take a chair to the first sexist prick that got in your way," he quips and that makes her laugh.
She's quiet for a long moment and so is he. That last night they shared together, talking quietly about what made them who they were, wasn't so long ago. And the secret that he told her -- who really betrayed him and what it did to him -- has never been far from her memory. Even if it doesn't mean much now, out in the real world.
She wants to help him move past that, if he hasn't already. Doesn't want to be another former boss that just walks away and doesn't come back.
"You want to..." She almost invites him to dinner, but she knows Greg would merely mutter and growl and glower all night, and that Jake is only comfortable being open with her in private. "...get lunch sometime? A cup of coffee or something like that?"
"Your idea of lunch has Starbucks on it?" he says, incredulously. "Actual food," he continues as if she's dense. "But sure. Give me a call."
Brittany nods, turns to go, then thinks of something else. "Jake? You doin' okay?"
The look on his face makes her realize that nobody's asked him that question in a damn long time. The silence says the same thing. He nods slightly. "Yeah, I'm fine," he says quietly. "But thanks for asking." A pause, because he can't just be kind. "As if you care."
"You know I do," she says sweetly, smiling obnoxiously, and leaves him be.
Because deep down inside, they know that even though she's gone, she still does care. She won't give him any regrets.
Title: Point of Origin
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 495
Rating: PG
Summary: He's come back looking for something.
Author's Notes: Takes place after Strange Allies With Warring Hearts. Alternate universe, futurefic.
As his keys turn in the lock, she doesn't talk this time. The jokes about him actually growing up in a real home, as opposed to a test tube or military school, are old now. They were old the first night they spent here, clamoring around in the attic, interrogating each other in the living room, laying together in the same bed staring at the ceiling. His parents' place has a meaning to them now, one that they never intended. Because this is the place where they first decided to stop calling it a one-night stand and become something more to each other.
That's what this is, now. It's more than just sex. It's less than love. But it's protection. Understanding. Support. That all started here five months ago. That makes this not just some random trip to make sure all the furniture is still on the premises.
He's come back looking for something.
"Are you ever going to enlighten me?" she asks, flicking on a light in the entry and nudging the door shut with her heel.
"You say that as if I have some master plan and I don't," he retorts. He walks through the kitchen into the living room, ignoring her, ignoring the luggage, ignoring everything. She waits until she realizes he's not coming back, and then she follows after him. With him, she does a lot of following.
She finds him sitting there on the living room couch, and his line of sight reveals absolutely nothing anyone would give a shit about. Standing there behind him, she sucks in a quiet breath before she settles her hands on his shoulders. He doesn't even move.
"What's going on?" she says, and now it's not to be smart, it's because she knows something is wrong.
He turns his head and looks at her, and almost smiles. The cruel glint is gone and for a moment, it's easy to believe he's just a man. Just another average guy she fell into. Except that she knows much better. He's quiet for a moment, and then he says, "I was thinking that we could move in. When you come back to Durham."
Which makes her shut up and stare at him. And realize what exactly he's saying. The man who never gives an inch of ground, who keeps everything to himself, who can hardly trust another person he's been burned so many times, is offering her a part of him. The place where he grew up. As a place where they can start over. Move on. He wants to put down a foundation.
With her.
She realizes he's looking at her and she owes him some sort of actual spoken word.
"I think that's a great idea," she says. "I think I could use a fresh start. Away from Greg and everything."
"I know you can."
And he's quiet again, because he's said all he needs to say, and she's said all he needs to hear.
Title: Truth, Consequence
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: #3 -- Transcendence
Word Count: 418
Rating: PG
Summary: This hopelessness that drowns all that I believe, will be the one thing that I need --Trading Yesterday, "For You Only"
Author's Notes: Alternate universe, futurefic.
Brittany Hannigan doesn't realize who she is until someone calls her 'Coach Hannigan,' and then she remembers everything that happened the weekend before. Or over the last few years, as a matter of fact. Her ex-husband being a pathetic excuse for one when it mattered. Solace in the arms of an enemy she didn't trust. Years have gone by and there's a ring on her finger and it's time to get past all that bullshit now.
"You're thinking too much," Jake says, when they're laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. "It's been years and he was a bastard. Whenever you second-guess yourself...just remember that."
"I do remember that," she replies, closing her eyes and looking pained. "That's why it hurt me so damn much."
"It's over now." He reaches up, tilts her chin so she's looking into her eyes. "You're mine. It's over now."
She believes him. She believes in the vows he said to her, in the house in which they're living, in the way that he treats her. Colder, maybe, but she knows that she can trust him. No amount of affection will heal the gouges that have been left in her heart when it mattered most. Jake may not be puppy dogs and rainbows, but he will keep her safe. And she doesn't have the heart to love anymore.
She is pain and he is cold and maybe in later years they'll love but for now they just are.
They lay in the darkness and they don't talk much, but every night they go through erases one from her memory. She doesn't think about her past anymore. Doesn't think about the lovers that broke her heart. He's right when he says that she doesn't have the time to; she has a life to tend to. And she ought not to even give a damn, after being hurt like that. He's cold, but he's right. It's so much easier to live this way. To take his name, to disappear, to forget all of that, and start again.
It's crazy to believe she's done it, but at the same time she doesn't know why they waited years to make it happen. Because now she knows the truth for what it is. Has put the past behind her. Knows who she's supposed to be. She's supposed to be with him. He's the only one who makes sense anymore. And this is the world in which she lives now. It started as a mistake...but now it's an escape.