fufaraw | What Was Lost, J2, PG, RPF | More Than Words Timestamp

Author:

fufaraw
Pairing: J2
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,950
Warnings: Established relationship, mention of stillborn child, angst
Summary: This is just a little glimpse of family life that follows a few months after More Than Words. You probably should read that first.
Author’s note: Many thanks to the wonderful

meus_venator, who made the beautiful, evocative and mood-perfect banner for this story.

***

Jensen knew it was a bad idea. He knew it showed a lack of trust. It wasn't that, not really. He did trust Jared, it's just--something was going on with him, and he wouldn't talk about it, and Jensen just couldn't let it alone anymore. So this time, when Jared called to say he had "an errand" to run on the way home and he'd be a little late, Jensen was already waiting in his SUV outside Jared's office parking deck. He watched as his husband's car emerged into the sun and swung west--of course, the opposite direction from the way the SUV was facing. He lucked out though, traffic was pretty light, and there was an opening. He whipped the truck around and followed after Jared, sighting him about four vehicles ahead. Given he didn't get stranded by a stoplight while Jared drove on, Jensen thought he would finally find out where Jared went every other week or so when he had this unspecified errand to run.

They were headed to the outskirts of town, a nice neighborhood, older, quiet. Jensen had no idea if the Padaleckis knew anybody who lived in this area or not. Businesses and commercial buildings had mostly been left behind; what he was passing now were older homes with large, manicured lawns. Jared's signal flickered, and he turned right between two stone pillars and drove between the open halves of an ornate black iron gate.

It was a cemetery.

Jensen stayed far back as Jared's car turned surely through the paved single-car lanes: left, right, right again, and coasted to a stop in an area presided over by a fountain circled by flower beds and concrete benches. Jensen eased over to the curb and watched as his husband got out and walked into the grounds, among the monuments, family mausoleums, and headstones. Jensen took note of the area where Jared stopped. As he watched, Jared knelt. He stayed quite a while, but finally drew himself together, walked back to the car and drove away. Jensen waited till Jared had passed through the gates and driven away before he got out of his car and made his way to where Jared had been standing.

The Padaleckis had a polished granite headstone that spanned several grave plots. In the center were the names and dates of Jared's great-grandparents. The names and dates of his dad's parents were there, too. Jared's parents' names were there, along with their birth dates. The death dates would be added when they died and were buried here with family.

There was a new name engraved on the stone in smaller script, with only one date, above a small-sized grave: Gerald Tristan Ackles-Padalecki. April 5, 2011. Beloved son.

Oh.

***

Jared was perfectly ordinary at dinner. He tickled the kids and shepherded them through their homework and baths, into PJs, and he and Jensen got them all onto JJ's bed for story time. After Jensen read the third story, JJ was already asleep and Shannon was nodding. Jared scooped her up and she clung to him, the way she rarely did when she was awake. He cuddled her, enjoying it while he could as he carried her off to her room to tuck her in.

Jensen guided Mac by the shoulders to his own bed a few steps away, pulling the covers up tight and kissing the fair curls before he turned out the light. He bent to kiss JJ, too, and whispered, "'Night, boys."

Mac mumbled something approximating, "Night, Dad," and Jensen pulled the door almost closed, leaving an opening of an inch or two. The monitor was on, but everybody felt better with no doors completely shut. Jensen slipped into Shannon's room as Jared finished tucking her in; they changed places with an ease borne of familiarity, Jared going to the boys' room for a last glimpse and kiss, Jensen stepping closer to Shannon's bed to tuck a kiss among the chestnut curls.

The men made their way to their own room, hands on shoulders, a stray kiss here and there. It was easy and non-demanding and sweet, more reassuring and comfort than passion. They undressed each other without haste, taking time to kiss and lick and nose behind an ear, beneath a jaw, to breathe on a sensitive spot and hiss in appreciation. Words were murmured, half-lost without effort, and they turned within each others' arms and fit together like separate pieces of a whole rejoined.

As Jensen lay spent, Jared cradled in his arms, he realized Jared's fingertips were tracing the branched lightning scar across his abdomen; further, that it had become a habit for Jared, and Jensen had just accepted it, never considering it as anything other than just Jared's touch. In light of today's discovery though, Jensen was remembering tears and Jared's voice. "Lost him, Jen. Never held him. He never even got to take a breath."

Morning eventually came, though Jensen had barely slept. There was breakfast and mopping small faces and greeting Cecile, who herded all the small people upstairs after they'd kissed Jared goodbye. Jensen kissed him, too; his eyes following Jared a few moments longer than usual before he closed the door and headed upstairs to help Cecile wrangle the kids into clothes and shoes. He tied four different color bows into Shannon's hair before she was happy with one--even though the violet-pink coordinated badly with the red and orange outfit she'd picked out, and the bright blue shoes. She was adorable though, he had to admit, no matter what she wore. And what's more, the little smirk she'd inherited from her Papa was proof she knew it.

Mac helped wrestle JJ into his coat, and they all trooped out to the SUV, Jensen buckling the guys into their car seats while Cecile dealt with Shannon's skirts and the seat straps. She had a list of errands to run, Cecile told Jensen, and would pick the kids up from preschool and kindergarten on her way back home. He nodded, aware of the nearly four-hour stretch between now and then when he would be alone in the house, and leaned in to peck each kid on the cheek and remind them to behave.

There was a stick drive in his desk drawer that Jared had given him, the contents of which he had never seen. He retrieved it now, and plugged it into his laptop. Photographs and videos of Jared holding a tiny blanket-swaddled form. He tilted the baby toward the camera and the infant's wrinkled, red face seemed to collapse in on itself before the mouth opened wide in a yawn. He heard voices, familiar to Jensen since his own babyhood. His mom was there at Jared's side, and Jared eased the bundle into her arms. She smiled down at it and cooed, bouncing a little as she looked up and caught her husband's eye.

Their house, the living room downstairs, was full of people, many of whom Jensen knew. There was Leslie in the background, ready to take the baby when he began to fuss. Jensen had seen enough to know the infant was Mac, on his first day home. Jensen had been upstairs, sleeping, while the party was going on.

There were more photos and videos, and Jensen watched as Mac grew, sat up, grinned a wide, gummy grin at the camera, chewed on Jensen's dad's shirt collar and Jared's dad's tie with equal enthusiasm, giggled when his namesake aunt tickled his belly and gibbered nonsense at him. Sitting up alone, first tooth, second tooth, whole mouthful of teeth, first tottering steps from Jared to Cecile, and back again, running in the grass in the back yard, chasing a ball.

In a high chair at the dining room table, covered in a huge plastic bib printed with ducks, as a cake was set in front of him with one lit candle, and voices singing Happy Birthday. Jared crouched close and coached his son to blow, and when he tried, Jared helped blow the candle out. The video jumped to Mac with hands and face covered in icing, a demolished slice of cake before him. His hands opened and closed, squishing cake and frosting between his fingers.

There were more pictures, more videos, ripping open presents. And more present action at Christmas. And then suddenly Mac was peering into the blanket Jared held, knelt down to Mac's height to present his baby sister. Mac didn't seem impressed, but Shannon certainly had a lot to say. She got passed from one set of arms to another, and Jared's mom and Megan made a quiet fuss over Mac, who seemed a little at a loss.

Videos and photos documented Shannon's milestones as well, and when it was her first birthday Mac stood at her side and sang with the family, then told her to blow out her candle. Jared, on her other side, watched smiling as Mac blew along with her, and a cheer went up when the small flame went out.

Jensen watched the children grow up, right before his eyes. He watched the families, his and Jared's, welcome JJ home, and each of the milestones Jared had documented for him. There were random videos and photos, too, of afternoons in the park, or a picnic in the back yard, of Mac on a swing, pushing for all he was worth and yelling happily into the sky. There was Shannon having words with JJ over some perceived misdeed--she really had started early with the bossy and the cranky, Jensen smiled at his girl. There was JJ beating his stuffed dolphin with a set of plastic spoons and squealing gleefully at the camera. All his kids, all his babies, all their lives here on the screen, all the time before he'd met them, before he'd come into their lives. He would come back to these later, many times, when he could look carefully and take note of every detail. But now, he rushed through the photos, the videos, wanting to see everything he had missed. He didn't really notice when his fingertips went out to touch the faces on the screen, or when they swiped at the moisture on his face.

He had hated being pregnant, had ignored it as long and as much as he could, denied it when he couldn't ignore it, and refused to concede accommodation to more than his physical limitations and requirements. He had refused to wonder, to dream about the little person inside him. He'd been afraid that if he acknowledged what was happening to him, granting attention to the process would be the same as having agreed to it, as having given his consent to be used as a vessel whether he wanted that or not. And he couldn't--he wouldn't do that.

So all those awarenesses: of how the child moved, times of day when it was active, when it was quiet, when it seemed to be content to listen to him play guitar, the belly of the instrument against his own, the sound conducting through his body. Or when he ate something the child disliked, or something it seemed to want more of. The way it turned within him, reacted to his voice, to Jared's voice when they lay quiet in bed at night, he locked all those away.

Jensen had put all that behind a wall, a barrier of denial, and pretended it never happened, that he'd never noticed, because it hadn't mattered to him. They were not his children, would never be his, not fathered by him. He was just the convenient receptacle, a vessel to nurture and protect them until they were ready to be born to Jared, who wanted them and loved them unconditionally. Nothing to do with Jensen.

Except now it was unarguably apparent he hadn't been successful in denying everything. He did remember, he had felt those kicks, those slow rolls, those punches and twitches and hiccups. And he could look at Mac now and remember how quiet and low key he'd been, in comparison with Shannon, who had been restless and bouncy and relentlessly energetic before she was born. The one thing that got her going had been the music--if Jensen had worked on an upbeat song, she would roll and punch and kick. If it was a slow, dreamy ballad it would quiet her. JJ had been easy; there had been things that got him going--he seemed to be fond of pizza, and Jensen laughing would set JJ tumbling for a few minutes.

And Jensen remembered the fourth pregnancy, the one where he felt stretched and achy, where all his joints hurt and no matter how the baby lay, he seemed to press on all the achiest spots. How strong and fierce he had seemed, Tristan, how impatient at his confinement. He seemed forever pushing, struggling at the tiny place he inhabited, eager to stretch and reach for wider spaces. Jensen knew he was being imaginative, but he did remember each pregnancy, when he allowed it. And, hand on the flat stomach he had worked hard to regain, forever bisected by that branched-lightning scar, he accepted that he was the only one who had ever held Tristan, alive. He had been the only one to feel him move, to have any idea of the personality of his child, of who the boy might have grown to be.

There were no pictures of that boy, and there never would be.

Grateful he was alone, that there were no claims on his time for the next hour or two, he let the last barriers down. He cried, as he had not done when his life was turned upside down, not before nor during his first, awful, frightening pregnancy. He wept for the man he had been and the life he'd had taken away, for the future he had feared and his helplessness to retrieve or prevent any of it.

He cried for those spans of time he could never recover with each of his children, their precious babyhoods. He knew there was nothing else he could have done at the time and survived it, but he regretted and sorrowed for the lost time with them. And he cried for the child he would never know. He knew, he knew the fault was not his, that there was nothing he could have done to prevent losing Tristan. But for the first time, he let himself think of the baby as a person, as a child, his child, his and Jared's, and he mourned the loss of what would have been.

***

Jared parked and walked up the path between the headstones. He didn't know why he kept coming here, but he knew he felt a little better after his visits, so he continued to make the trip. It was warm and sunny today, and the wide-spreading branches of the live oaks filtered the light to dappled shade and brilliant sunlight. Something pale flickered at the foot of the family headstone; Jared thought at first it was a flash of light. When he got closer, he saw it was a small floral arrangement, set carefully in front of Tristan's name and date. Made from white and yellow flowers, three of them with deep brown centers, it was shaped like a puppy. It was very cute, but there was no card to say who it was from. His mom, maybe? Or Jensen's mom? Megan or Mackenzie, perhaps. He'd have to ask, and thank whoever had brought it. It was thoughtful as well as cute.

The caretakers were very good, there was really no upkeep needed, but Jared knelt and touched the stone, warm where the sun had touched it, and laid a small pebble there in remembrance. He rarely found one he'd left before. He had no idea what had happened to them, he assumed the groundskeepers cleared them away when they tidied around the graves. His fingers on the warm stone, he spoke a few silent words to the son he never got to meet, telling him a little about his older brothers and sister, and what they'd all been up to since Jared's last visit. He told Tristan he missed him, and how much they all would have loved him had they ever got to meet him. And he told his boy he loved him, before he rose and turned to walk away.

He'd taken a few steps back toward the car when he registered the presence of someone at the end of the aisle of graves. He glanced up, not wanting to intrude on someone else's grief.

It was Jensen. "Hi."

"Hey." Jared cleared the tears off his cheeks with a swipe of his hand, and searched his husband's face. "What are you doing here?"

Jensen was very still, almost apprehensive. "I thought it was time I came to..." his voice failed, and he gulped, searching for a word. "Visit," he finished.

The penny dropped. "The flowers--you?"

Jensen regarded him uncertainly, and nodded. "Yeah. Is that--is that okay?"

"Jensen, of course it's okay. He was your son, too."

He gave a short nod, his lips pressed tight together, and Jared saw the tears flood his eyes. He stepped close enough to get his arms around his husband, who instantly leaned into him and shuddered, the tears spilling over.

After a minute or two, Jensen took a deep breath and leaned back enough to look Jared in the face. "Ours," he said, his arms tightening where they circled Jared's waist. "Our son."
Jared squeezed back. "Yeah."

end

If you enjoyed this further glimpse into the world of More Than Words, there will be more coming in late July, as part of the 2012 SPN J2 Big Bang.