week 8 | monday morning (super early)

[baptizer]

[ Elizabeth doesn't think Jason needs to know why she left his room. It was... PG 13, okay. Nothing happened, but she definitely requested to stay in his room after a few nightmares plagued her. He was one of the few people she could trust and after his last adventure? She's keeping an eye on him when he can't.

HA.

Anyway.

Elizabeth had foregone her pajamas, dressed more for the rest of the day. She's stealthy, waiting for anyone who passes her to go on. She's by Jack's room, a sturdy knock without announcing herself.

It had to still be odd. She looked older - tormented by her own guilt with her hair cut short and skin more exposed. This wasn't the little girl he had saw so much "potential" in. ]

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[refactor]

[ As he'd started to explain the story, Jack had quickly decided for himself that her reaction didn't actually matter too much. It was probably just a way to protect himself, because these memories pull out something vulnerable, even for him who they don't truly belong to. So, why explain it? It's a question he's wondering even as he's speaking. He doesn't have to open up these wounds or feel that incredible heaviness again when he speaks of the deaths that he does feel grief over, because as he looks at Elizabeth's calm, if uncomfortable demeanor, he knows he won't change her mind. He probably knew that when he started explaining.

But he hates it. He hates when people look at him like he's a monster when they know about Angel, because he knows exactly what they're thinking. He's a father that doesn't love his daughter. He's doing something wrong to her, as if he had other choices. So that really is just it. He'll open those wounds again, because at least one person should know just how much he loves his daughter.

Of course, he's not capable of looking outside of his own perception here. He is doing something wrong. Many things wrong. But to his dying breath, he'll never understand it.

So when Elizabeth says there are "other ways," Jack's brow knits together, because he knows he hadn't explained it as well as he'd like. His explanation was supposed to provide that context and understanding to know that he had no other choice here-- But as has been the case in his adult life, things he'd never even imagined have a way of providing new doors. ]