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chapter twenty-five: the light, the heat (in your eyes)

a/n:

a friendly reminder before you read this -- there are several planned alternate endings to rory's story. you just have to be patient enough to recieve them. thank you.

tw(s) -- hans' funeral, relationship drama, you will experience second-hand embarrassment

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"We don't have to go if you don't want to." Rory tentatively breaks the silence as she drags her eyes away from the window.

She wonders if she should've said 'can't' instead of 'want', but writes it off as hindsight being a terrible thing and says nothing more.

Bombay, sitting beside her and behind the wheel of his rental car, clenches his jaw and grips the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white. The two of them have been here for about ten minutes now, stuck in the limbo inside of the idle vehicle, watching the funeral happen from the very back of the procession of empty cars instead of joining the rest of the party. Rory is not at all surprised by this. She could not convince him to get out of bed to go to the wake yesterday, and, after everything that went down with her grandfather's death, she understands him better in this moment than she thinks she ever has. But, sitting here and doing nothing is getting to her. She wants him to do something. Anything. Even if it's running away.

She'll still respect him even if he runs away.

"Nobody will blame you——" Rory pauses. Hindsight, again. Charlie has been throwing blame around like old people throw bread to birds, not even letting people explain themselves to him, so Bombay will probably be blamed for this no matter what she says, nor decision he makes. "I mean, everybody handles grief differently——"

"No." Bombay grinds his words out through the wall of his teeth and flexes his fingers. They make a distinctive pop. "We do. We do have to go."

But, still, he doesn't move a muscle.

Sighing shortly, Rory shuts her eyes and contemplates the situation she's found herself in. It's far too quiet, and the stale air reeks of cigarettes and cheap cologne, and she doesn't want to play hero right now. Not ever. Especially not with him. But, after a beat, she opens her eyes again and sits up, letting her gaze shift back to the outside world. The priest must be practically finished with the service by now, and there's no other chance for Bombay to do anything before Hans is buried after this.

If he won't do something about it, then she's going to.

"...if you insist."

Undoing her seatbelt, the girl sits up and reaches into the backseat to grab the folded-up jersey that sits on the upholstery. Her sudden movements finally catch his attention.

"What are you doing?" Bombay's brows are furrowed.

"Something." She says, exasperated. "Anything. I can't sit here in this hot car with my thoughts, or you, for any longer."

(Please forgive her if she's not exactly understanding of his odd grieving process. He got to skip out on most of the responsibilities of burying a loved one while she had to plan her grandfather's funeral and then, after being dragged from her bed, she had to attend it like everything was fine—— and she's only sixteen.)

(He can cope.)

Bombay grabs for her as she opens the door, misses, and is then forced to follow her as she gets out. Any scolding he might have dished out gets caught in his throat because the group around the grave is in the middle of praying the Our Father. Rory squeezes herself in amongst them and does the sign of the cross, picking up the prayer from where they are with the green jersey tucked under one arm. 

The coach pushes through the people too, glaring down at her as he snatches the jersey back.

(Well. At least she got him out of the car.)

She looks away from him and glances around all the gathered mourners. There are adults that she can only vaguely recognize from the end of the Goodwill Games, and even more people that she doesn't know—— friends and family, members of the team that got culled in the off season before she joined the fray, and their parents, she assumes. Jan, sitting in a wheelchair and blowing his nose into a handkerchief, smiles warmly at her when she meets his gaze, but she can't say the same about everyone else.

"Amen."

The priest starts opens his bible and goes to read the final prayer of the ceremony, but Bombay cuts him off.

"Excuse me, one second."

Rory watches with furrowed brows, the heat of secondhand embarrassment crawling up her neck, as the priest, completely caught off guard, blinks at him once or twice before letting him take the floor. There's a murmur in the crowd as he unveils the number eleven jersey he'd made for his late mentor, and an arm drapes itself around her shoulders as she chews on the inside of her cheek.

When she looks up, she sees Jesse, and she allows him to pull her closer.

As soon as the green fabric is draped on the coffin, Bombay says, "Every time you touch the ice, remember that it was Hans who taught us to fly."

Rory feels the burn of tears and toes at the dirt in an attempt to distract herself.

Part of her wants to roll her eyes. He spent so much time sitting silently, moping around, just to come up with that? Where is the grandeur? The big words, the meaningful metaphors? How is this the same man who united all of them time and time again in Los Angeles with just his words? But she knows that she's just being bitter. It obviously means something to all of the Ducks, new and old, gathered around and, a few months ago, it probably would've meant a lot to her, too. 

Jesse squeezes her tightly. (If she looked up, then, she would have seen the look he was giving everyone else, and she would've been able to infer what had transgressed between old friends the night before. She would have known that her savior, the person unabashedly in her corner, unafraid to stick up for her, had finally arrived in the form of Jesse Hall.)

Charlie, eyes glittering with tears and face scrunched with emotion, storms off. He's angry. Rory thinks, for the first time, that she doesn't actually blame him this time. She considers going after him, but decides against it, knowing that her presence would only hurt him even more. 

Besides, Adam, with one glance at his parents and Casey and then, finally, Rory, does go, and she is confident that Adam will be able to look after him.

Bombay sighs as the funeral comes to a close (about Charlie? About Hans? Some strange mix of both?) and everybody starts to crowd around him. He's greeted with hugs and questions, but no hostility, and it makes the bitter part of Rory even worse. 

After a few minutes, she unwinds Jesse's arm from her and turns to face him, gesturing with her head to the crowd behind her. "You should go talk to them. They're your friends. They probably have all kinds of questions for you, too."

Jesse just smiles crookedly. "Nah. I'm good where I'm at." A shrug. "Besides, I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said."

Rory is a little confused by that but doesn't press the issue. Instead, she looks back over her shoulder.

"Who are half of those kids?"

"Oh, I forgot you weren't OG." Jesse snickers, slightly, when she rolls her eyes, and then leans in close so he can point to each of them. "That's Peter Mark, that's Dave Karp, that is Tammy Duncan and her brother Tommy, and that's my little brother, Terry. They were all on the team before you guys got here. No clue why none of them continued."

She nods thoughtfully, soaking in each and every face. She's only ever heard those names once or twice. 

I am just like you, she wants to say to each of them. They tossed me aside and forgot about me, too.

But her thoughts come to a screeching halt when Fulton (!?!?!!?) approaches her.

For a brief second, she wonders if she's hallucinating. But then, he's hugging her, and she knows that this is, as weird as it is, actually happening.

Standing there like a deer staring down the headlights of an oncoming car, her brain lagging as it processes the first real interaction she's had with Fulton in God knows how long, she doesn't do anything as she's held in the most bone crushing embrace that she's ever experienced.

"Hi?" Rory asks more than she says it. "I'm very sorry for your loss, Fulton."

He squeezes her a bit more, if that's even possible, and blubbers out a thank you. Jesse pats Fulton on the back.

"S'whatever, Fulton. Really"

It is, in fact, not whatever. But she's not going to call attention to that.

"I can't breathe." She tacks on awkwardly, voice raspy from the lack of air.

Immediately, with a little extra probing from Jesse, the mountainous boy releases her, staring down at her with widened eyes like he can't believe he just did that. Apologies start fumbling past his lips, apologies that she dismisses with a tight smile and a hesitant yet gentle hand on his arm. The other kids, with his breaching the space between them, approach her, too. There are more expressions of gratitude, more awkward embraces that she doesn't appreciate, and, in the end, she actually finds herself walking back to the cars with Julie, Connie, and Tammy, who tells them all about her figure skating endeavors. Rory is both unsettled and comforted by the way the pieces just fall into place, and she eagerly listens to someone tell a story that is so unscathed by everything in the past few months. 

When they reach the parking lot, Rory finds Averman in the crowd. He's standing by Fulton's old pickup with Fulton, Guy, and Jesse, and he seems to be uncomfortable with whatever Jesse, who is animatedly waving his hands around, has to say. (The other two boys, though, seem to be agreeing.)

"I wonder what that's about." Rory muses, the feeling that something bad is going to happen in the back of her mind.

Connie jumps at the sound of her voice, like she wasn't expecting Rory to actually speak to them, and then turns to her. 

"Jesse, uh, has some reservations about what's been going on." Julie admits, not really meeting her eye.

Rory nods, gaze trained once more on the boys. Guy catches her staring and waves, and then smacks Averman on the arm.

When her ex-boyfriend waves at her, Rory waves back.

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Funerals for happy people, Rory finds, are incredibly overwhelming. 

The only way that she could possibly describe how it feels to stand in Hans and Jans' house with all of these people who love them would be going from a too-warm, bubbling jacuzzi to the cool stillness of pool water. She can't help but think that she's completely alienated, surrounded on all sides by the Ducks and their parents and friends of the deceased, and the mere idea of the Ducks talking to her again, being a little too comfortable around her for her liking, has her on edge. Rory is not entirely sure that she forgives them for everything. But, because it's not socially acceptable to say anything right now, she just stands there and takes it. 

With Bombay dedicating all of his focus to staring moonily at Casey from across the room, and Adam and Charlie still not having returned from wherever they went after Charlie's mid-funeral breakdown, Rory clings to Jesse like he's a life saver ring in the middle of the ocean. 

Together, they pick at the food (humbly catered by Goldberg's parents) and make small talk. She catches up with Jan and avoids the Averman family altogether until, after a bite of cheese doesn't sit well with her tongue and sends her to the kitchen to wash it down with a can of soda, she can't physically avoid them any longer.

"Lorelei?"

She cringes, slowly turning on her heel to look Mrs. Averman in the eye, wishing that Jesse was there to walk her through this.

"Hi..."

"Uff da, hon. Look at you."

Rory winces slightly as the woman crosses the room, gently touching her face before holding her bruised knuckles in one hand.

"How've ya been? Have you been eating? Some of the kids told me what's been happening——they say you've been... struggling... because of it all."

Struggling is certainly a nice way to put it.

"I'm... alright, Mrs. Averman." She feels her heartbeat in her throat. "I'm coping."

The woman looks at Rory skeptically.

"I'm being honest. I promise." Maybe she's getting too good at lying. "In fact, I was just going to go back to Bombay's—— I'll eat there and get some sleep."

That, on the other hand, isn't entirely a lie, and she breezes right through it. She plans to shovel some of the groceries they bought into her face and then get some much-deserved rest before she returns to Eden Hall tomorrow, and then drives her little car all the way back to Michigan right after that.

"Oh." Mrs. Averman's face falls a little. She looks out the window. "It's already dark out, can't Les just drive you?"

Her stomach drops. "No, it's fine. Really. I like walking, and I don't want to be a burden."

"No, it's really not a problem—— Les, be a dear?"

God.

But, before she can protest any further, Les is interrupting.

"...Sure."

Averman waits for her by the door, his hands shoved into his pockets and a far-off look in his eyes, while she gathers her things and says quick goodbyes. They walk out together, and Rory almost instinctively reaches for his hand, so she shoves hers into her pockets, too, and only takes them out when they're in his parents' car.

The first minutes of the drive are silent. Painfully silent.

But then——

"What the hell happened to your hand?" He asks suddenly.

"What?"

"Your hand. It's all messed up."

"Oh. That... I had it out with Tara."

Les nods, contemplative, and then says nothing more.

He's incredibly warm as he sits next to her. Rory realizes with a wince that, after everything, she actually misses his company.

"I'm sorry... about Hans..."

He nods, mumbling a thanks, and doesn't look at her.

"I know it hurts..."

Again, nothing.

There's this conflict evident in his face. She really has to look at him to see it, but it's there: evident in the pinch of his brows and squint of his eyes. 

Rory wishes that he'd just come out and say what he wants to say.

So, she says something that she knows will get a reaction.

"I dropped out of Eden Hall."

The car, unsurprisingly, comes to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. Rory's heart beats rapidly in her chest as her back hits the seat again and she stares at him with wide eyes as the car that was behind them honks, driving around them, hurling curses out the window all the while.

"What!?"

"I'm getting my stuff tomorrow." Her tongue is numb. She didn't know such a thing was possible. "I wanted to just go back to my old school, but my dad's—— my people think it'll look better on my transcript if they send me to this all girl's place in Europe."

"What!?"

Another person, honking, drives around them. Averman's eyebrows are at his forehead.

"I have to go to Harvard. CEO's go to Ivy League schools like Harvard. So, I have to go to a good boarding school, too."

Averman looks at her, appearing to be in shock, for another few seconds before he starts driving again. He doesn't say anything else. She's not sure that she wants him to. 

When he drops her off at Bombay's house, he pulls away so fast that she's left on the sidewalk, speechless and unsure of what just happened, but definitely all alone.

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A few hours later, Rory is woken up by Bombay, who shakes her gently.

"Lorelei."

"What?" She grumbles, her eyes still closed and face pressed into the pillow she holds to her face.

"Averman's standing outside with a boombox." He says dryly. "I don't think that he's pulling a John Cusack to serenade me."

Rory's eyebrows pinch together to the center of her forehead, and she sits up on one arm. More awake now than she was a second ago, she can hear it—— the faintest sound of bongos over the wind and the crickets, Peter Gabriel's voice struggling to float up to her window. Her face slackens with horror, and she flops down onto the bed, covering her face with the pillow she was just resting on, wishing that she could just smother herself already.

Bombay rips the pillow out of her arms. "Deal with it so I don't have to call the cops on them, please?"

Rory groans. He leaves her with that, stumbling tiredly out of her room as she presses the heels of her palms into her eyes and still contemplates death.

Her lack of a response makes the boombox volume go up, so she has no other choice than to swing her legs over the side of the bed and grab a sweatshirt.

The sight that greets her outside of Bombay's home looks more like a parody of the scene he's referencing than a recreation of it. Averman, wearing a trench coat that's so big on him that she assumes it must be borrowed from Fulton and has slicked back his hair in a way that he never has before, struggles to hold the device over his head, his arms trembling as he leans back on the hood of the car. Guy and Jesse are both in the front seat of the car, each looking slightly more embarrassed than the last (with Guy actively covering his face as soon as he sees her.)

"What the hell are you doing?" Her whisper-shout wheedles through the night air.

"I, uh," Averman stutters, and then tries to turn the music off. When he proves unable to, he just leaves it playing, putting the boombox on the floor and wiping his hands down the front of his shirt. "I'm here to win you back."

Rory stares on in abject horror. (Of all ways to do it, he picks this one?)

"Les——"

"No. You have to let me talk, okay?" He rushes through the sentence and then swallows thickly. "Please? If I don't get through this, I'll throw up."

Rory, because she has no clue what she'd say and because he really does look like he's on the verge of puking, just nods.

"You said that I didn't know you, but I do. I do know you. I know that you, uh, chew on the skin around your thumb nail when you're nervous, and that you will use anything as a bookmark because you hate ruining the integrity of book pages, and that you have a favorite Latin phrase."

(Oh, god, she thinks.)

"I know that you don't want to do what you're doing. You want to quit hockey and go study history, not sit in some office somewhere for the rest of your life."

(Oh, Lorelei, you stupid fool.)

"And I know that I love you." He swallows again. "I love you more than any other person I have ever met in my entire life."

(You have feelings for him. Still, after everything.)

"I know that I've been an idiot. That I was jealous, and mean, and spiteful. But please don't give up on us because of that. Don't give up on yourself."

(Oh, poor Rick.)

"Lester, I don't," Rory struggles to find the words, tears pricking the corners of her eyes and arms crossed over her chest. "I can't do this again. I can't let myself get comfortable again just to be screwed over again."

"I won't hurt you again. I swear."

Her breathing quickens. She's tiptoeing on the line of panic.

"I can't—— We can't—— I have to talk to Rick."

"What? What are you saying?"

What is she saying?

"I'm saying that," She takes a deep breath, "that we can try. That I'm willing to try."

The look on his face, sweet and saccharine and so relieved, makes something inside of her crumble. 

He kisses her, then. Like, really kisses her. 

And Peter Gabriel keeps on singing in the background.

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a/n:

word count -- 3417

sigh, the next chapter is rough...

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and they motivate me to continue! thank you