(Untitled)

[just_wontsettle]

In the early hours of the morning, the compound silent and still, Jason jolted awake, blinking at the darkened ceiling, his heart beating wildly in his chest. There was a dim light on in the bathroom, the sheets on his floor empty but rumpled, and Jason grunted, shifted onto his side, took a few deep breaths and forced himself to go back to sleep,

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[broken_brushes]

When I thought back on it later, everything would have seemed to have happened in slow motion. The feeling it gave you was like punching underwater, never quite able to hit anything, so I suppose as memories go, it was apropos.

Sometimes, you could just look at a person and know. When I saw Jason that morning, I knew. I knew, and I wanted to run in the other direction, hide like a child, cover my ears with my hands -- If you don't tell me, it won't be true. But the knowledge was already there, sitting like a rock in my gut, a sickening, creeping dread.

"Jason," I said, ludicrous in my flour-smeared apron, watching him bang his way angrily out of the elevator. "You're bleeding."

[just_wontsettle]

He stopped in the hallway, looking down at blood-smeared knuckles for the first time, and let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. "I hadn't noticed," he said distantly, blood smearing under clumsy fingertips.

[broken_brushes]

Well, obviously. Jason Street didn't strike me as the sort of guy who enjoyed going around bloody.

"Can I help?" I asked, and as genuine as the sentiment might have been, it was a ridiculous question. Anybody else would have asked what was wrong, but I was terrified of the answer to that one.

[just_wontsettle]

"It's not bad," he murmured, pushing a little further down the hall, looking at her almost pleadingly. Tell me you know where he is. Don't make me be the one to have to tell you.

[im_chuckbass]

It was early, much earlier than Chuck usually woke, but for some reason that morning he'd been unable to get back to sleep, and he'd reluctantly gotten up and gotten dressed. After a moment's thought about what in God's name there was to do around this place before noon, he took the stairs down to the fourth level, intent on waking Lyla up to entertain him. If he had to be awake at such a godawful hour, someone else should have to be too

[just_wontsettle]

"Dillon, Texas," he answered simply, huffing out a helpless laugh. He wasn't usually a mean-spirited person by nature, but at the moment, he couldn't think of anything else to say. It was the truth, or as much of the truth as he knew. She'd gone home. There was no way to let the guy down easy. This guy he'd never met but knew she'd been... close to.

[im_chuckbass]

Chuck shot a look back at Lyla's room, shaking his head as he turned back to Jason. "No. No way," he said. It made no sense. "She probably just changed rooms." But even as he spoke, he knew that there was no way she would have done so without asking for help, or at least telling him. He took a few steps down the hall and pushed open the door to the bathroom, calling her name as he did so. Empty.

[just_wontsettle]

"She wouldn't have done that," Jason said evenly, his jaw aching from clinching so hard. "Tim Riggins is gone too. Either they've gone and secretly shacked up together, or..."

[withoutasea]

With her hair wet from the shower and a piece of toast in her hand, Jenny padded down the corridor barefoot. When she saw Jason so close to doing himself a damage, she hurried her step.

"Jason," she said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. "Dearest sir, what has occurred?" She took in the bleeding knuckles. "Come. Let me tend to you."

[just_wontsettle]

"It's fine, Jenny. It's just a scratch," he murmured, stopped in the middle of the hall and looking down at his bleeding hand like it wasn't a part of him at all.

[withoutasea]

"Aye, I've seen worse," she agreed, smoothing his dark hair with the flat of her fingers like she might have smoothed Lancelot's once, in the day.

"Come, and let me tend you anyway."

[just_wontsettle]

Nodding, he moved toward the kitchen silently. At the moment, the clinic seemed more than unpleasant. He'd spent enough time in there and places just like it for one lifetime.

"I punched the wall," he admitted with a huff of laughter, "I can't believe I did that."

[unchosen_son]

Sam's nose was about as healed as it could be and when he went to find Tim to tell him about that, he couldn't exactly track him down. So when he came across Jason, he figured if anyone knew, it'd be him. Except, by the looks of him, Sam gathered that he knew, alright. It just wasn't pretty.

"Jason?" Sam quietly spoke, already dreading the explanation that was bound to come.

[just_wontsettle]

"Sam," Jason said curtly, hunched and scowling in his chair, parked blocking the elevator doors. "Haven't been by Tim's place lately, by any chance, have you?"

[unchosen_son]

"Stopped by earlier, but he wasn't there," Sam said, the confusion rife in his voice as he tried to figure out exactly what was going on. "Why, what's up?"

Maybe, maybe if he clung so heavily to denial, it wouldn't be what he most feared.

[just_wontsettle]

"He's not here. Anywhere. I think he's gone," Jason said, slowly shaking his head and looking away, his cheek twitching under the force of his tensely clinched jaw.

[off_the_ceiling]

Jess might not have known Jason as well as some of the other people on the island, but she definitely knew him. A first meeting like theirs - just like the ones she'd had with his friends - was sort of hard to forget.

"Hey," she said as she unwound her scarf, letting it hang loosely around her neck. "Hey, are you bleeding?"

[just_wontsettle]

He looked up and saw her standing there, spitting image of Tyra Collette, and his stomach clinched. He missed her now, more than ever. What they'd all been, not too terribly long ago. Things weren't supposed to be this way.

"Yeah. Little bit."

[off_the_ceiling]

"Let me look at that," she said, undoing her coat, too, and rummaging around in her pockets for a tissue or something. "Tropical island and all, stuff gets infected almost as easy as breathing. What happened?" She gave him a tentative smile. "Bar fight?"

[just_wontsettle]

"Had a little misunderstanding with the wall," he admitted with a twist of his lips, holding up his hand so she could see it wasn't all that bad.

"I think Tim and Lyla are gone. No, I... I know they are."