Jason offers a few more distant nods as he turns his attention back to the gift. He doesn't seem to be in any rush to move, however. After a few moments of looking the package over, he gives a small tilt of his head. "Could be something for the baby..." he muses aloud, his tone that of someone trying to feel out whether or not that consideration changes anything for her.
#RedrockAgency – March 19, 2021
Vasquez stiffens a little, swallowing hard. "Maybe." she acknowledges in an almost inaudible mumble, eyes still on the floor in front of her.
Jason sucks in his lips, gaze still firmly on the package in his hand. A number of moments pass before, finally, he lets out a deep breath and drops onto the bed beside her, tilting his gaze her way. "Linda-... C'mon." he offers gently, doing his best to keep that hint of frustration from creeping into his tone, "Talk to me."
Vasquez is jostled slightly as Jason's weight shifts the bed under her, but she doesn't really react. His words cause her to frown. "There's nothing to talk about." she snaps at him, but she almost immediately regrets her tone, wincing a little. She doesn't want an argument. Not today.
Jason draws in a breath, giving a small, disappointed nod of his head as he turns his gaze back to the package now resting against his knee. "Right..." he says quietly, almost as if to himself. "So-... uhh-... what was all that about 'being better'?" he asks as he looks back to her, a frustrated smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "No more bullshit, right? Gotta say-..." he sniffs at the air a few times for emphasis,
Vasquez slumps a little further, bringing one hand up to rub her face with a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry." she says, the words quiet, spoken without looking at him.
Jason seems to relent when Vasquez doesn't put up any fight, exhaling a small puff of air through his nose. That small semblance of an annoyed smile slips away, replaced by a frown creeping into his features. And then, more silence. The last thing he wanted was to end this day frustrated with each other. After a few moments, he reaches out to drop a gingerbread cookie onto her leg in a silent acceptance of her apology, popping the
Vasquez blinks, shooting the cookie a puzzled look. For a moment, she maintains the silence, but then a snort slips out, a small smile crossing her lips as she picks it up, turning it over to study before taking a bite. Chewing. More silence. A faint frown, thoughtful. "They are good." she agrees with a nod, before shooting him a slightly apprehensive look.
Jason gives a mumbled "Mmhmm." in agreement as he chews, gaze fixed on the back of the couch as his thoughts wander. This time of year has always been a lowpoint. It's hard not to think about everything he's lost. But this year was supposed to be different. This year they have so much to celebrate. For once. After so much loss. Still, it's hard enough to keep those intrusive thoughts out on any given day. Sitting here with a
Christmas gift on his lap from his wife's dead mother isn't exactly making it any easier. He gives the leg of his pants a quick pat with his now-free hand in case there's any crumbs, seemingly unconcerned with wherever they'll be brushed off to. When he feels Vasquez' gaze on him, he tilts his attention her way. As he studies her features, his own expression softens, whatever lingering frustration that remained slipping away
with another heavy breath. "You know, I-... umm-... I remember the night of my old man's funeral..." he says, turning his focus back towards the gift in his lap when holding Vasquez' gaze becomes too uncomfortable, as if worried she might see more behind his eyes than he's willing to give.
Vasquez ' attention lingers on the side of Jason's face for a moment before following his gaze to the gift, nondescript plastic wrapping revealing nothing about the contents. She doesn't interrupt, but her hand shifts over to his leg, a soft touch, thumb stroking gently back and forth.
Jason gives a few distant nods, brows furrowing into a focused look. "I couldn't sleep that night. Just-... laid there in bed at my uncle's house. Staring at the ceiling." he continues, an empty smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. It's almost surprising how clear the memory is. That cold, white guest room that would become his bedroom. The room was almost barren. A nightstand. A lamp. A few paintings on the wall. The sort of
mass produced, impersonal paintings that could be bought at any furniture store. The whole house had that feel. Nice, but unlived in. Like it was just for show. The house of a single military man who devoted every waking moment to his career. His uncle didn't have time to live in his house, let alone give it any personality. But there was something comforting about the thought of his uncle standing in a warehouse, a
painting in each hand as he agonized over which one would look best in the empty room that he was never expecting to use anyway. It humanized him in a way that the uniform he always wore never quite did. "It was-... uhh-... probably around two in the morning when I went downstairs to get a glass of water. My uncle was in the kitchen. He was on a call with someone-... with a-... with a friend." he corrects with a dismissive
shake of his head, realizing it's not an important detail. "He was-... crying." he recalls, blue eyes scanning back and forth across the surface of the package just to have somewhere to look. He had never seen his uncle cry before. Neither his uncle nor his father were the sort to wear their emotions on their sleeves. Repress it with a stiff drink. Move on. Deal with the crushing weight later. Or don't... Let it build up
until it becomes too much... "And I heard him say, Why? Why would he take his own life? Why wouldn't he just reach out to me? Why wouldn't he talk to me? It doesn't make sense. I was, what? Twelve? Thirteen? Still, I knew right away that he was talking about my dad..." As the words leave his mouth, he swallows at the lump in his throat. An 'incident during a live fire
training drill' the Alliance had called it. The media would've had a field day with it and they couldn't have that. Best to just sweep it under the rug.
Vasquez listens in silence, gaze still fixed on the package, but as Jason continues her attention shifts back to his face in surprise. This is new. She swallows, a faint frown on her face as the gears turn in her head. A missing piece of Jason's past fitting into place. It's hard to get away from how close to home it hits, her grip on his leg tightening briefly before she gets her reaction under control. She's chewing on the
inside of her cheek, catching scar tissue between her teeth as she tries to summon a response, even opening her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a quiet breath. At least at first. Her eyes fall to the gift as she tries again. "You never told me he..." she trails off. Not that she ever asked. She's rarely eager to prod at the past. Not with her own being what it is. Full of pain for both of them.
Jason forces a smile that doesn't wear out its welcome. A hollow, bitter little thing that quickly retreats. "I never told anyone." he admits quietly. He's had nearly 20 years to process it. A fact that's reflected in his tone. It's not that he's indifferent towards it. Not at all. Evident by his inability to look his own wife in the eye as he speaks about it. The emotions have just been picked at and prodded to the point that
they've developed scar tissue of their own, no different than the gash in Vasquez' cheek. Hardened and dulled by time. "Even my uncle." he continues. "He looked like a deer caught in the headlights when I walked in. But I just-..." he shakes his head, "...got a glass of water and went back to my room. I don't know. Maybe he thought I didn't hear him. Or maybe he just-..." he shrugs, the disappointment in his body language
giving away that he believes this to be the more likely of scenarios, "...thought we were better off pretending it never happened..." Just continue the cycle. Pretend everything is okay. Don't voice the questions that are gnawing away at you. Don't address it and hope it doesn't quietly burn you from the inside. His gaze turns to the hand on his leg. His instinct is to reach for it. To hold it in his own. But that doesn't
quite bring the comfort it once did. So he settles for placing his hand over hers. "...So that's what we did."
Vasquez ' gaze darts to their hands for a moment, nodding faintly before looking up to study the side of Jason's face. She frees her hand, bringing it to his far shoulder in a sidehug as she leans over to press a soft kiss against his neck, saying nothing.
Jason brings his hand to the inside of Vasquez' leg closest to him and gives it a gentle squeeze when she leans in for a kiss. "I-... uhh-..." he swallows, brows furrowing briefly, perhaps giving away his discomfort, "...spent a long time wondering what I did-..." he trails off, gaze tilting down a bit more before turning right back to the package to have something to focus on. "Why I wasn't enough for him to want to-... to-..."
he shakes his head, unsure how to even put his thoughts into words, "...fight." With age comes wisdom and, with it, a better understanding that it doesn't work that way. But lingering questions and an unhealthy amount of self-doubt still make the thought sting, a fact reflected in the glassiness in his eyes that he's quick to blink away before it can gain any footing. He's shed enough tears over that self-doubt throughout
the years. It doesn't deserve any more. He's shed enough blood over it, too. That self-doubt pushed him to fulfill some backwards desire to live up to an image that was never real in the first place. To make a man that pretended to be something he wasn't proud. "And then-... I spent a long time being angry at him. For giving up. For-... for leaving me..." he continues quietly. That anger ignited a fire in his chest. A fire
that pushed him to prove that he was better than the man that abandoned him. "And-..." he tilts his head, idly nuzzling the side of his head against Vasquez, looking towards the wall, "...at my lowest, I guess I even spent some time... understanding him. Who he was. Why he-... he-..." he trails off with a shake of his head. Those dark times are best left in the past. A time when it felt like the weight on his chest might
just suffocate him. But Vasquez was the light at the end of that tunnel. And it led him here. "But now? Now I just feel-... sorry for him." he says, an odd sincerity entering his voice. The man who caused him so much pain. So much sadness. So much heartache. The man who seemed so indestructible when he was a child. Now, in hindsight, he just seems so... fragile. He finally shifts to try and catch Vasquez' gaze. "He gave up
the chance to hold his grandchild. To-... meet his incredible daughter-in-law." That one draws a small tug of a smile back to the corner of his mouth, but it quickly falls away. "To be a father." He swallows, the shrug he offers against Vasquez' body almost apologetic. "And I can't help but feel the same way about Amel..."
Vasquez remains close, hand on Jason's shoulder, thumb brushing back and forth across his neck in an attempt at providing a comforting touch as she listens. She leans her against his, half-nuzzling the crook of his neck, a frown etched into her face as she looks down at the package. When Jason shifts so does she, hand withdrawing to his back and head lifting to meet his gaze. His description of her makes her let out a quiet
breath through her noise, the faintest shadow of a smile on her face, really just a brief twist of the corner of her mouth. Her mother's name makes her gaze fall away from Jason's, down to the gift again, frown hardening, but her expression softens just as quickly, and she sucks in her lips. "She made her choice a decade ago." she says quietly, unable to muster much in the way of anger right now. Bitterness, maybe, and
sadness. "When she abandoned us. Lied to us. So she could-..." she trails off and shakes her head with a sigh. She'd left them to pursue her grim work. The work she claimed was for them, her family. As if that made it better. As if it made up for the absence and the lies, or made her any less of a monster.
Jason gives the smallest of nods as he studies Vasquez. "She did." he agrees quietly with her assessment. "But it's not about her." he continues, searching her face for some sign that she understands what he's saying. "What she did-... who she is?" he shrugs his shoulders, "That's on her. But-..." he trips over his words, his own ineloquence causing him to trail off, gaze sinking to the bed slightly. He lets a frustrated puff of
air out through his nose at his inability to find the right words. Drawing in a breath, he turns his attention back to Vasquez. "...We're about to have a child, Linda. A child that, one day, is gonna have a whole lot of questions about grandma and grandpa and why they're not around. And I am not looking forward to that day. Because your mom is a lying, terrorist shitbag that kidnapped her own daughter and owes me an arm."
he gives a humorless snort, hoping the sheer ridiculousness of the situation is enough to bring some levity to it, a heavy smirk weighing down the corner of his mouth. "And my old man was a coward who, on any given day, I don't know if I wish I was in your shoes just so I had one more chance to hug him, or break his jaw." His smile tempers into something a bit more sincere and he leans a bit heavier against Vasquez. "But I'd
like to think that when that if that day comes-... when that day comes, whatever we decide tell them isn't going to be influenced by some chip we've been carrying around on our shoulders for half our lives. A chip we pass on to them. We need to be better. Besides-..." With a small shrug of his broad shoulders, he shifts the gift into Vasquez' lap, eyes briefly darting down to it before resting back on Vasquez.
Vasquez can't help a slight, surprised snort of her own at the absurd mess that is their lives, a joyless smile flashing briefly across her lips. The just keeps looking at the package as she listens, a heavy sigh sounding as Jason falls silent, reluctantly accepting the gift as it's shifted over to her. She remains silent, staring at it for a few moments before nodding faintly and withdrawing her other hand from Jason's back. She
draws in a long breath and forces out an admission of "...you're right.", but she still hesitates, hands just feeling the contents through the plain plastic that reveals nothing. She looks... nervous.
Jason watches Vasquez as she studies the gift. Sure. Maybe his words of wisdom are a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. After all, who is he to be giving anyone parental advice. But that doesn't make them any less sincere or well-intentioned. "And, if it's a terrible gift?" he says, giving another shrug of his shoulders as he slips an arm back around Vasquez' waist, her apprehension not having gone unnoticed, "We can
Vasquez lets out a surprised snort, a brief - but genuine - smile crossing her lips. Jason was always good at that. Making her smile. Even if it's just through a stupid joke. Sometimes she needs that. She draws in a breath, blinking hard, and then she nods, starting to tear the plastic wrapping open. The contents are quickly revealed. Soft, fuzzy fabric, an off dark gray that was probably black once, specked with stars and the
occasional ringed planet, or comet. And a lone, retro-style rocketship blazing a path across the darkness. A baby blanket, a worn one, but well taken care of. Vasquez' reaction is immediate as she pulls it out of the plastic, feeling the fabric. A quiet inhale, and then she sucks in her lips, blinking a few times to many. She doesn't say anything, gaze fixed on the starscape motif.
Jason snickers along with Vasquez when he gets a smile out of her. As she begins to unwrap the present, his brows furrow. It takes him a bit longer to realize what it is she's holding, the implication not settling in until she has removed it fully from the plastic. A soft smile slowly spreads across his face, his blue eyes turning from the blanket to Vasquez as he gives her a small squeeze, just to remind her of his presence.
Vasquez nods faintly in confirmation of the obvious, spreading the blanket a little between her hands as she keeps staring at it. Her face is an odd, soft grimace, trying and failing to keep out sentiment she'd rather not acknowledge.
Jason looks over the keepsake. He doesn't point out the obvious. Amel kept it. All these years. Instead, he finds himself studying the side of his wife's face in silence. "...Should probably enjoy it while you can." he eventually says, a soft fondness in his voice. "It's not gonna be yours much longer."