134:Tempers Flare

November 14

Jon rolled from one side to his other in the darkness, pulling the blankets up high and reaching out to put an arm over Chiara.  When he encountered nothing but cool sheets and emptiness on her side of the bed, he then pushed onto an elbow to look toward the bathroom door.  The edges of it were just as dark as the rest of the room, giving no indication that she might be in there.

“Fuck.”

The barely breathed epithet registered as nothing more than another intake of air in the silence of – he glanced at glowing numbers on the nightstand – four in the morning.  It was quieter than the air he blew out his nose while throwing back the cozy blankets to go in search of her.

Things had not gone well with the boys.

Both were weary yet wired when arriving at midnight, and Jon’s presence registered as unspoken surprise in both sets of brown eyes until he started dishing out the pizza that their Uncle Dominick left.  At that point, the world could’ve blown up around them and those kids wouldn’t have known the difference because they were so busy inhaling garlic, tomato and pepperoni. 

It was when they slowed down enough to actually breathe that the two adults sat with them at the kitchen island, and Chiara gently broke the news of their father’s death. 

Noah couldn’t have cared less and had several choice words for dearly departed dad, which the counselor scolded him for.  She reminded him about the ball practices and sick days that Owen had always been there for, but Noah fired back with a blast asking about the manipulation days because there were just as many of them.  He hated his father for being a “selfish son of a bitch” and a “poser”, to which Chiara could do nothing but admit that the kid was entitled to his hurt feelings and opinion.

Proud of the way she was handling the situation, Jon kept his mouth shut while she did her mothering thing with Noah.  Calm, rational, understanding and sympathetic to everything the boy said, she also didn’t hesitate to bring up the good things Owen contributed to the boy’s life, and that earned her a gold medal for class in Jon’s book.

It also came back to bite her in the ass with Caleb.

The younger child sat as quietly as Jon, his face nothing but a blank slate that masked all emotion.  Attentive eyes and ears were absorbed everything transpiring between his brother and mother. 

When she gently prodded to ask what he thought, his features remained impassive when coldly relaying that he hated her.  If it wasn’t for her, then his dad wouldn’t have gone to jail and been in a position to be killed by criminals. 

That, in turn, prompted Noah’s name-calling of his younger brother, which Chiara put an immediate stop to.  The removal of “dumb shit” and “clueless asshat” from his vocabulary didn’t slow the criticism in the least; it simply kept it from being quite so colorful. 

He’d personally seen Owen’s treatment of their mom, even though he hadn’t known the severity of it at the time, and reminded Caleb of that.  It was also loudly proclaimed “they’d gotten the same treatment without realizing it” and for his brother to “grow the fuck up”.

The two of them had eventually resorted to shoving one another, and that was the point in which Jon felt obligated to step in. 

He was grateful for the workouts that made it possible to insert himself between two angry young men, backing Noah against the wall and quietly advising that there were no wrong emotions in this.  Each of them was entitled to their feelings, regardless of what they were, and would receive the respect of everyone in the room tonight.   They’d talk about it again tomorrow when things weren’t so raw.

After shooting another venomous glare, the boy nodded to indicate understanding, but that reasoning didn’t do a damn thing to calm his brother.  Caleb shouted long and loud that it didn’t matter if his mother was wearing a ring or not because Jon’s only business in their family was in her pants – and they probably didn’t even wait until Owen was cold before getting married.

Taking his own advice and respecting Caleb’s emotions was a tough pill for Jon to swallow, but he had no choice unless he wanted to make himself a hypocrite.   The only thing he could do was bite out that the boy had better enjoy the one-time pass because Jon never wanted to hear him disrespect his mother like that again.

Obviously unwilling to leave that hanging in the air, Chiara followed up with the fact that no matter how deeply in love she was, there was and would be no marriage.  Once was enough to completely sour her on the institution.  

With both sons falling into sullen silence, she sighed and hugged first one and then the other, reiterating just how much she loved them.  Noah returned the fierce embrace while Caleb only tolerated it, and the counselor suggested they all call it a night.

Except she obviously hadn’t called it a night.   

With jeans buttoned enough to be appropriate if he ran into one of the boys, Jon went in search of his girlfriend.

He’d known when she lay tense and unspeaking beside him in bed that she was upset, but none of the reassurances he gave seemed to help.  She remained stoically withdrawn into herself without letting him in, and Jon had finally fallen asleep in the silence. 

That’s when she slipped out to… where?

The office outside her bedroom was dark and empty, but light filtered up the staircase and Jon followed his instincts downstairs.  There, he found that the source was a single lamp in the living room, where the counselor was sitting with both feet tucked under her as she scratched on the sketchpad in her lap.  On the table was an empty wineglass and a nearly-empty bottle to go with it.

“Hey,” he greeted softly when coming to stand beside the chair and stroke a hand over her tousled head.  “Think you’ll be able to sleep at all tonight?”

Tired eyes lifted to his, and he noted that they were bloodshot from either tears or fatigue as she dredged up an equally tired smile.  “I don’t know.”

“Whatcha drawing?”

Silently turning the sketchpad in his direction, she revealed the scene that conveyed what was going on in her mind as clearly as any verbal explanation ever could. 

Tinkerbell was one of the two most prominent figures on the page, and in her hand was a bloody dagger.  Captain Hook was the other main character, and he was on his knees before her with agony in his eyes and both hands clasped over a bleeding chest.  Off to the side was the younger of the Darling boys, clutching the trademark teddy bear while tears streaked down his face and his older brother choked Hook from behind. 

The whole thing was staged in front of an elaborate representation of Cinderella’s castle, where Peter Pan peered down from a turret.  Jon almost missed the crocodile peeking from the moat with an open ring box on his head.

“Doesn’t take a psychologist to figure that one out,” he observed while continuing to smooth a hand over her hair.  She wasn’t suffering Caleb’s anger well.

Shoulders hunched under one of his black t-shirts when she looked at it and shrugged.  “You probably figured it out before seeing the sketch.”

Letting his hand drop, Jon eased around the chair to sit on the coffee table in front of it and scooted to the very edge.  He reached out to remove the paper and pencil from her bare legs and set them aside to twist back around and fold both of her hands inside his.  “You didn’t do this, Tinkerbell.  Hook was the bad guy here.”

“I know that,” she sighed.  “Logically, I know it.  When your baby points an accusing finger at you, though…  It’s hard to explain logic to your heart.”

He could understand that, having been on the undesirable end of that accusing finger more than once.  At least two of his own children blamed Jon for divorcing their mother.  They’d gotten past it eventually, but there had been an initial need to assign blame. 

“Noah doesn’t feel that way.”

When weary eyes lifted to the ceiling, he saw the dark smudges under them.  “No.  Noah is filled with unhealthy hatred for his father, which will never get resolved now that Owen’s dead.  I need to call Izzie tomorrow and see if she can recommend someone for them to talk to.”

“That’s not a bad idea, but I think they should talk to you again first – when they’re calm.”

Her mute nod was the only response he received before she became mindlessly engrossed in rubbing her finger over his knuckles.  The repetitive action coupled with the focus she gave to his hands told him that something else was going on in her mind.

“Talk to me,” he beseeched.  “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

The thumb went still for a split second before resuming its back and forth pattern, and her mouth drew into a frown. 

“I appreciated you being here, and I don’t think I thanked you.”

Jesus Christ.  Here they went with “you’re not obligated” crap again.  “Chiara-“

“No, I mean it.”  Her irritated eyes were earnest when finding his.  “Your silent support while I did what I thought best.  Your help when it was warranted.  It felt good having you beside me.”

The thought sounded complete, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was something still hanging there, unsaid. 

“We’re a team.”  It felt like the eight thousandth time he’d repeated it, but there was nothing more appropriate to say.  “You wanna tell me what else you’re thinking?”

She flicked her attention to the far wall – the one where her brothers’ pictures were.  “As good as it felt, I think maybe you shouldn’t be here this weekend.  It’s going to make a touchier situation even more so if they’re walking on eggshells around you, too.”

That was bullshit, and Jon just barely kept from saying so.  The only thing that held him back was an understanding of just how drained she was, both physically and emotionally. 

“I think you’re too tired to be doing anything besides sleeping.  Come to bed, and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not patronizing,” he huffed, almost as tired as she was.  “I’m being reasonable.  Everything is larger than life in your mind right now, like some damn nightmare.  Get a couple hours’ sleep and it’ll put things in perspective.  If you wake up and still want me to make myself scarce…  I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?” 

“Yeah.”  He returned the smirk that was tipped up at him, relieved that amusement was outweighing anger.  “Pretty generous of me, don’t you think?”

That was the best she was going to get until he had some more sleep.  Those boys had gotten physical tonight, and while he didn’t think they’d harm their mother, sometimes a man’s voice was heard more clearly than a woman’s.  He’d like to stick close until they were operating something closer to normal. 

“You’re such an ass sometimes.”

Leaning forward he touched laughing lips in a quick kiss.  “No denying it.  Now let’s go to bed while it’s still dark.”