And as a little bonus... because I’m a complete sucker for a bit of Jeff on the end here.
@gumnut-logic humongous thank you to you for the cheerleading and pointers and also for letting me steal your characters. You is the best!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
“So,” He murmured, easing down into the empty armchair that looked out to the sun setting on the far horizon, “No Valentine's date with Lee this year?”
Val snorted into her scotch, shaking her head with eyes fixed on the sea far below the roundhouse, “You know that hasn’t been a thing for a long time Jeff.”
“I do,” He grinned, nudging her leg with his toe, “But I always did like to wind you up about it.”
Smiling slightly, Val tilted her head, “I forgive Lucy for many things, but setting us up on a double date wasn’t her finest idea.”
He had to concede, that Valentines had been a bit of a disaster on more than one front. Somehow the four of them had worked things out though, improvised and adjusted as a group until they found their footing once more.
It had been that winter that he’d proposed to a, very pregnant, Lucille.
“Can you imagine what she’d be like trying to pair off the boys if she were here?” Val grinned, “You definitely would have come back to grandbabies.”
Jeff had to grin at the thought as he sipped his drink, nodding in quiet agreement as he watched the orange of the sky begin to fade.
“Luce would have been in her element,” Val continued, voice growing distant with thought, “She’d be up here every night, wouldn’t matter if Three needed to launch. She’d be up here watching that sun go down.”
“We made sure to, every Valentines,” He smiled, one night coming to mind in particular, “Even now I can hear her blaming me for taking her up that hill the night Gordon was born.”
“And now her baby is getting engaged.”
Jeff had to glance over to make sure that Val wasn’t getting teary eyed. It wasn’t like the boys’ aunt to be outwardly emotional, but she was their aunt at the end of the day, he wouldn’t put it past her to be harbouring the same sort of feelings as himself.
Lucy would have loved the cliche of a Valentines day engagement.
“Like you said,” He started, looking back to the darkening void of the sea, “it would have happened years ago if she had had anything to do with it.”
“We still got there,” Val reasoned, “The boys just had bigger priorities to deal with first. And, no, don’t you even dare start to question Jeff, you’ve had that discussion we me, and Scott, and your mother.”
Snorting into his glass he conceded with a slight raise of his eyebrows.
“Besides,” She continued softly, “Would John have bumped into someone as wonderful as Ridley if it weren’t for all of that?”
Te couldn’t deny the pure feeling of joy and relief he had felt when John had introduced Ridley for the first time. Even if it had been Gordon that had brought up the mention of boyfriend and girlfriend. Jeff had seen love in enough forms to know that, friends or otherwise, the two had a bond that wouldn’t be easily shaken.
All of his boys did.
That was why he had enforced the day off, in the hope that they could each share as much joy with those other halves as he once had.
“They’re all happy, Jeff.” Val assured quietly, tipping her glass towards him, “It might have been one hell of a road, but I promise you, it’s worth it.”
It didn’t ease the hurt in his chest, the knowledge that he’d never have that feeling absolute adoration for one single person swell inside of him as it once had every time he had set eyes on his wife.
God he missed her.
Every damned day.
He missed spoiling her, flirting with her, and sitting to watch the sunset with her.
A toe nudged his leg, drawing his attention from the final stretches of orange highlighting the horizon.
Val’s eyebrows were raised as she watched him, head tilted in silent question.
Sitting up, he extended his arm out slightly, raising his glass towards her with a tired smile. Neither of them were where they thought they would have been at that age, both without things he knew they had wanted from life. Sitting in the Round-House, on his island, with a montage of family photos on the walls behind him, Jeff knew they both still had so, so, much.
“Happy Valentines, Val.”
Her smile was just as tired as she reached her glass to clink softly against his, “Happy Valentines, Jeff.”
It was only out of convenience that she and Lee had agreed to share the twin room of the suite. After all, Sally had volunteered to take the single room and Hugh and Kyrano the other twin. It left the boys to top and tail in the two double rooms and John and Ridley to take the double room across the hall.
It didn’t mean Val had to like it.
Lee was insufferable when he was worried.
She knew he meant well. Knew it was simply because he cared. Knew that he got scared that he would lose something more than what he had in the past.
It was because of his and Lucy’s parents that International Rescue had been born. Jeff had seen the grief of the loss and how it had affected his wife and his best friend. He had been there when the blame had been thrown back and forth, if only someone had been there faster, if there had been something to dig through the snow quicker, if only one of them had gone with them.
She remembered the day well though, remembered how both Gordon and Alan had been fussing, Virgil had had the flu, and Scott, John, and Jeff had gone to the store simply to escape it all. Her parents in law had wanted to escape it too, suggested to Lee that they took a walk up the mountain for some fresh air before dinner. They had tried to insist that he go with them and leave Val and Lucy with the three moaning children that just wanted to play in the snow.
She remembered how he had refused, insisted that he was going to make the most of the time with his wife before he headed to Mars just a matter of weeks later.
Absentmindedly, she felt for the ring on her finger, the plain silver band still in place after all that time.
She knew he didn’t really blame her for what had happened to his parents. It was just a case of hurt and unfortunate circumstances that everything bad that had happened to Lee had always happened whilst she was around.
She had been the one to lose their baby after all.
A rescue that only she knew she shouldn’t have been on. It had been all hands on deck, everyone needed to help where they could. There was a reason she hated earthquakes most of all. Aftershocks that nobody could ever quite predict and buildings already made unstable threatened further destruction.
The stupid thing was she hadn’t even been inside when it had happened. When the aftershock had hit and the community centre had come down and a stray rebar hit her just in the wrong place.
She knew immediately there was no hope for the baby she had been carrying, barely a clump of cells but already so much a part of her.
It wasn’t until much later that she found out that there never would be a baby. It was a sacrifice the doctors had had to make in order to save her.
Surrogacy and adoption had been thrown around as ideas too early on, when she and Lee had still been hurting and grieving for someone they had never even met. Perhaps she would have considered it, if only life hadn’t gotten so hectic, if five nephews and an adoptive niece hadn’t filled the hole left.
Lee had gotten angry. Blamed her for being out in the field when she shouldn’t have been. Not only had she risked her own life and that of their baby, but others too. More what ifs had been thrown around, accusations that couldn’t be taken back even if only said in anger.
She could pinpoint the exact day their marriage had ended, even if no papers had ever been signed.
It was only a fear of being lonely that left them together.
And it was only habit that they shared a drawer in the hotel room.
Except when she came back from her shower, half the drawer was empty. Glancing around the room, she realised that a whole half of it was empty. No glasses on the bedside table, no dirty socks left at the bottom of the bed, and come to think of it, no toothbrush in the bathroom.
No sign of Lee anywhere.
She should have seen it coming, they were moving Lucy that day. Taking her home to the Island so that her family could be near her even in between rescues.
Except Lee had disagreed, had insisted that she would be better off in hospital with real supervision and real equipment available. Virgil and Sally had quickly shot him down, insisting that Elliot was more than capable of monitoring Lucy and their equipment more than sufficient.
With the rest of the family on side, there had been no competition.
Pulling out her phone she set it to dial as she rubbed her cropped hair dry.
“Val,” The accented voice of Kyrano answered, “I’m currently securing the airport.”
She sighed, rummaging through her bag with a shake of her head, “Lee’s running.”
Kyrano snorted, at least that was what it sounded like down the line, some noise of disapproval before he tutted. Val stayed silent, waiting for some confirmation that he at least wouldn’t get out of that airport without Kyrano knowing.
“Have you spoken to him?”
Holding her phone to her ear using her shoulder as she fastened her bra she rolled her eyes. Everyone always left it to her to speak to Lee, some old assumption relating to the remains of their marriage no doubt. On occasion the duty would fall to Lucy, being the older of the pair there was a certain authority she held over Lee that she was willing to use when needed.
Lucy was unavailable though, so it was clear who the job fell to.
“Not yet.” She sighed, kicking her legs in the hope her jeans would pull on just that little bit easier, “I wasn’t sure if anyone might have spoken to him, didn’t want to scare him further away if I could help it.”
“He might not be running,” Kyrano reasoned, “He did alright after Jeff vanished.”
Vanished. The word still seemed wrong considering for so long they had been saying how he had died.
When Jeff had vanished Lee had been there, had been the one that had tried to get Jeff off of the damn ship before it blew. He had been there to actively do something at the time of the accident.
He hadn’t even known where Lucy was when she had been hurt.
“This is different,” She murmured, “And you know it.”
Kyrano sighed again, “Alright, I’ll tell my people to keep an eye out but you need to find out for sure if he’s a definite flight risk.”
Val scoffed as she picked up her shirt from the pile, “I’ll find out alright.”
“Keep me updated.” Kyrano told her, “I’ll see you at the airport later.”
“F.A.B.”
Throwing the phone onto her bed, she glared at it briefly as she found the arm holes of the top. Like they didn’t already have enough on that day with moving Lucy, no minor deal given the security in place and medical equipment required.
Groaning in frustration as the shirt refused to pull on, she stopped for a minute, standing with the stretchy material over her head and only one arm in a sleeve.
“Inconsiderate bloody bas--” She uttered, spying the label of the shirt in front of her and realising it was back to front.
“Why?” She uttered to herself as she pulled her arm from the sleeve and twisted the material around over her head, “Why can’t he just think? Huh? We’re all bloody stressed and unhappy and-- Oh come on!”
Top twisted too far or not far enough, she wasn’t sure, but the label was still in front of her face. Yanking it off of her head she threw it on the bed alongside her phone, deciding that the tank top would do, even if the weather outside was on the cooler side.
She’d be in her car at least.
Grabbing her phone and leather jacket from the bed, she turned for the suite door, pressing dial as she went and resisting the urge to curse at the busy tone that answered.
“Aunt Val?” Alan called as she passed him on the sofa, “Where you goin’?”
She smiled, turning to the youngest nephew as she straightened her collar, “Just to talk to your Uncle, have you seen him?”
“Nah,” Alan sighed, “heard him go though, like early this morning.”
Frowning at him, she tilted her head, “It’s not like you to be up early?”
His eyes fell to his datapad as he locked the screen and tilted it towards himself.
“Alan.” She warned, dropping her voice and narrowing her eyes at him.
He pouted, sighing as he looked up to her, “Please don’t get mad?”
Shifting over to sit on the arm of the sofa, she folded her arms, “What have you been up to?”
Still watching the tablet in his lap, he sighed heavily, “I was playing on the simulators, seeing if I could beat John’s high score.”
Raising an eyebrow, Val tilted her head, “And did you?”
“Turns out I couldn’t actually find what his score was.” Alan huffed, “So, I don’t know.”
From what Lucy had been saying, and from what she had seen herself, it was entirely possible that Alan could have at least matched John’s score.
Not that she was going to tell him that yet.
“How about, when we get back home you and me will have a go on the full simulator?” She offered, “Show the others what you’re made of.”
He sat straighter immediately, “Really? We can?”
If he had have been younger she would have ruffled his hair, but Alan was too big for that now. Too old to be treated like the youngest without protest.
“You’ll fly Three Kid, I’ll make sure of it.”
She didn’t add that if Lee didn’t pull his finger out it might have been sooner than any of them had expected.
***
Anger had been the prominent feature on Scott’s face when she had arrived at the hospital and told him Lee was gone.
That had quickly been followed by rushed, tense words and a show of storming out of the room with a promise to find him.
Val had been left with Lucy, silently praying that her sister-in-law would forgive her for letting her little brother slip away as he had. She didn’t doubt her best friend would understand, Lucy had always said how stubborn and pigheaded he was. They had all clashed with him one time or another.
He’d never gone completely off the grid before though.
Never vanished off silently in the early hours without anyone noticing.
“He must hate me Luce,” She sighed, “First your parents, then the baby, now you. What kind of wife is also a bad luck charm?”
A gentle tut from the doorway made her turn, Hugh nodded to her once as he stepped into the room, hair scruffier than ever but shirt ironed to perfection.
“Tell her Luce,” He muttered as he eased down into the chair on the other side of the bed, “How could she ever be bad luck?”
She eyed him across the bed, Hugh knew the story, had sat and drunk whiskey with her over it one night when the weather had been cold and the memories painful. Both had shared their stories, been reminded that they weren’t the only one in the world to feel like they had been at fault for losing someone dear to them.
“Lee’s gone, Hugh.” She uttered, “Without a trace.”
He nodded, leaning back in the seat and resting his feet on the edge of the mattress, “That’s not on you though.”
She could have disagreed, insisted that she should have seen it coming and should have spoken to him to stop it.
Something on her face must have given her away.
“Val,” Hugh chided softly, “Lee has made his choice. Just because he feels differently from the rest of us isn’t an excuse for him to run away. Our focus here is Lucy.”
Looking back to the bed, she took a breath. Lucy was still pale, eyes black, burns hidden beneath the swathes of bandages.
“Do you blame yourself?” She whispered, not looking to Hugh as she took her friends bandaged hand.
“Every damn day.”
It was easy to guess as much, Hugh cared for Lucy, more than just as a friend. He had been there for her when Jeff had vanished and it seemed like since then he had never left her side, even if they did live on the opposite sides of the world.
Hugh wasn’t Jeff though.
And Lucy wasn’t one for always listening to what others told her.
“You shouldn’t,” She looked up to him, knowing that he would be watching Lucy, “Nothing would have persuaded her to get out of there.”
Val knew it was only easy for her to say because at the time she hadn’t been there and she hadn’t known what had been going on. She could guess that was equally part of the reason Hugh was blaming himself.
“I should have dragged her out sooner, she could have died Val.”
She didn’t voice the thought that Lucy wasn’t out of the woods yet. Hugh no doubt knew that anyway.
“She was desperate to know about Jeff,” Val countered instead, “My guess is that nothing would have got her out of there.”
Nothing but the answers she needed to hear.
Hugh closed his eye as he shook his head, reaching out to rest his hand over Lucy’s as he sighed. Something that looked like pain crossed his features as he bowed his head.
“Hugh? What is it?”
His lips pursed as he looked up to her, his eye dark and exhausted. She could see the fear there, the look of a man that had almost lost everything and was terrified of losing what he did have left.
Val knew how to wear the exact same look.
“We won’t lose her.” She assured, smile tight as she looked back to Lucy.
Hugh snorted as he sighed again, “That’s the problem Val, I think I already have.”
It’s not just as straight forward as walking through the front door and saying hi.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5
Alternatively Read on AO3
Under the cut for Spoilers for The Long Reach Part 2!!!
Thank you again @gumnut-logic for helping with so much of the wording in this one, it was a hard one and definitely needed your input <3
Nobody had seemed to quite realise what spending eight years on a lump of rock had done to his mental health, let alone his physical health. Physically, he had tried his best to stay fit in what little gravity there had been. Mentally, there was little he could do to combat the isolation he was in.
Photos weren’t the best at holding conversation after all.
What he wouldn’t have done to have some company up there.
Real, actual, human company.
Not just the visions he saw those few times he had gotten sick.
“I saw Lucy out there.” He stated to Val one day, sitting out under the same tree Lee had first found him under.
She looked across to him, concern clear in her eyes as she reached out for him, “You did?”
Shaking his head he cleared his throat and took a breath, “Don’t worry, I know she’s gone really.”
Val squeezed his knee, “What did you see out there?” She prompted gently.
Leaning back against the trunk he took a deep breath, “That scar on my arm?”
“Yeah?”
“Almost damn killed me,” He murmured, looking down as he plucked at the grass, “Somehow it got infected, and I just…”
Her intake of breath was sharp as she hissed in empathy, “Damn Jeff.”
He shrugged, he’d got through it, survived and realised that it had all just been a hallucination.
“It was when I was fighting that, that I saw her.” He explained, “It was like she was there, and I could have so easily let go and gone with her.”
Pausing he looked across to Val, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, “But I couldn’t. As desperate as I was to get out of that hell hole, to just leave that part of space behind. I wasn’t willing to for her.”
It was his boys he had been waiting out for, he couldn’t leave the cloud knowing that they may attempt to find him. He couldn’t leave knowing that it would destroy them if they came looking for him.
“I think, at the time, it was worse that she didn’t make me leave with her,” He scoffed scratching the back of his head. There had been plenty of moments of desperation, moments where he had wished he had gone with her just for the relief from being stranded.
“Looking back I know Lucy never would have made me leave. She never was selfish was she?”
“No,” Val agreed quietly, “Not Lucy.”
“And she told me that they would come. As long as I stayed strong and waited, our boys would come and she would make sure of it.”
Val’s laugh was soft, “That definitely sounds like our Luce.”
“Some days though, it just felt impossible Val. Some days I just wanted to go out of the ship and see if I could find her.”
In hindsight he knew that that sort of trip out of the airlock would have been one way only.
“You didn’t though? Go looking for her?”
He shook his head, “She wouldn’t have wanted me to, would she?”
“Not if she’d specifically told you to wait for them,” Val agreed softly, pausing for a moment before smiling softly, “Do you remember what she was like when we got a different toy for Scott’s birthday just because the one he wanted didn’t come out for another week?”
“Yeah,” He grinned, “I remember, she gave us hell.”
They fell into a comfortable silence after that, each lost with their own thoughts of the woman they had loved. Jeff couldn’t help but look back at what he had heard her say, the promise she had made that the boys would come for him if he would just give them time.
How he would have to give up the reins to Scott when he came home, the eldest a born leader and too stubborn in his ways to possibly revert back to what they had once known.
How she had promised that he would get to hear Virgil’s music again, the riffs he played on the piano of an evening whilst Jeff sat and finished his paperwork. He wouldn’t have to make do with half remembered melodies made up in his head.
How he would perhaps miss so much of Alan’s teenage years, but she told him that at least he would see him as a matured young man that still idolised his father. Jeff had cried at the thought of missing so much of their youngest’s achievements.
How he had promised her that he would never get angry at Gordon’s jokes or pranks ever again, just so long as he got to be the one on the receiving end of it.
How she had made him promise to give John a listening ear and make sure he was looking after himself. He remembered her fear that he would have removed himself and shrunk away from his brothers in light of what had happened. It had been a fear that Jeff had shared.
“She’d be damn proud of you all,” Val murmured, breaking into his thoughts, “Don’t get me wrong, she was proud of whatever you all did. But this? Surviving eight years and all that? That’s something else Jeff.”
He nodded, lifting his arm to rest across her shoulders to draw her into him, “I wish she were here.”
Val leant into his chest willingly, resting her head under his chin as she sighed, “I do too Jeff, it would have made this thing a whole lot more bearable.”
She pulled away slightly to look up to him, “But we’ve got you back now. That’s the most important thing here.”
Hugging her tightly, he nodded. As much as it hurt remembering there was one person he would never see again, Val was right, he had lived against all the odds. He was home, he had his family, and he had lived.
What more could he want?
***
It felt like he was in a daze, sat amongst it all in the lounge of the villa. The boys all off doing their own thing after dinner. It seemed so normal, yet so foreign at the same time. Like he had never left almost.
“Now what’s on your mind?” His mother asked as she sat down next to him.
Shaking his head he looked around, “I’ve missed this.”
She chuckled as she patted his knee, “It’s been a long time since we had everyone together.”
“I forgot,” He murmured, glancing around at each of the boys, “how like Lucy they all are.”
Virgil was sat at the piano, playing a soft relaxed melody that was a background sound to so many family evenings. John and Alan were sat out on the deck, pointing up at the stars like Jeff remembered doing with them both once upon a time.
“How like both of you they all are,” his mother smiled, “And Scott finally relaxing,”
She nodded over to where the eldest was sat back on another sofa reading something on a tablet,
“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen him read something that isn’t business or IR in the last eight years.”
Jeff’s heart twisted in his chest, he had always remembered the number of nights the eldest spent tucked up reading with his mother.
“Hey Dad?” Alan murmured as he stepped down into the lounge next to him.
He smiled, lifting his arm across the youngsters shoulders as he sat down next to him, “What’s up kiddo?”
The book Alan held out was a familiar one to Jeff, one that he had seen the night he had left the island. It had once belonged to Lucy and had been handed down to each of the boys as they had grown. Inside was a forgettable story, but one he had always done the voices to when it had been his turn to read to the boys, and doodles of Lucy’s from long nights spent trying to coax kids to sleep.
“I know it’s silly,” Alan started, his baby blues wide like he always remembered Lucy’s being, “but you read this to me before you left… I-- would you…”
Wordlessly, Jeff took the book, happily opening it to the first page. Across from him he noticed Scott put his tablet down and sit up a little straighter as he began to read outloud.
He’d been discharged from the hospital but that didn’t mean it had stopped hurting. One eye still swollen shut and ribs still healing were the least of his problems from the past week. Going home, forced on medical leave, was perhaps the biggest issue he was facing. He didn’t want his little brothers to see him hurt, to ask the questions of what had happened, or even just come to the conclusion themselves.
Torture wasn’t something they needed to know about.
Aunt Val had offered to drive him herself though and the offer had been too good to refuse. Time at home was just what he needed, little brothers might not allow for rest and relaxation but it would be a comfort to have them around and know they were safe.
“They already know,” Aunt Val murmured as they pulled off the highway, “Your Grandma told them, they knew something was off.”
Scott looked across to her, strained neck muscles protesting as he did, “They always did have to stick their noses in on everything.”
His aunt scoffed, shaking her head at him, “Like you never did.”
The sling around his arm stopped him from shrugging but he had to smile at himself knowing that she had a point.
“They care. You’re their big brother and they want to know you’re safe.”
He had to smile as they pulled into the farm driveway, knowing that his aunt had him beaten with her point.
Aunt Val is one of the last people we told about our secret. Luckily having Aunt Elle around made it easier for my parents, but it still took her a while to accept it. Now, though, she's totally okay with it all and helps us with ghost patrols.
