J O N A S

By the time the weekend had passed and Monday rolled around, Jonas was in a bad mood, that he couldn't come up with one single source for. It was more of a medley of frustrating things.

For one thing, his leg was still sore from using the prosthesis last week. When the amount of phantom pain he usually had increased due to over-exertion, his mom lectured him about how he needed to build up to using the prosthetic leg more slowly. Because he hadn't told her about the accident and the resultant walking, she just assumed he'd walked around more than he said he had when he took Taylor her permission slip.

He sat and half listened to her lecture, growing more frustrated by the minute. It wasn't as if she knew anything about missing half of one of your limbs, so how would she know how it felt?

Jonas almost wanted to put the leg on again and walk all the way around his neighborhood, just to spite his mom (who was just trying her best really, he conceded eventually) and his own body (weak, weak body that couldn't cooperate with what he wanted to do).

His bad mood wasn't helped by the arrival of two letters from Washington University, one with his housing assignment and one bearing the news that the labs for the Anatomy and Physiology class he had tried to sign up for were full and he had been put on a waiting list. Regarding the A&P letter, he wasn't that upset. He supposed it was what he got for signing up for classes long after everyone else had. He'd just take A&P the next semester, if he took it at all. He still hadn't decided what he was going to do, now that he'd given up on being a doctor. The housing assignment itself also wasn't that bad, but the big deal that his mom made over it was. There were tears, lots of them. His mom had been excessively overprotective since the accident, and she hadn't been too sure about him going to a college that was out of town, even if it was only a few hours away (far enough to be away but not far enough that it was unreachable should there be an emergency). The letter brought on a whole new round of her trying to convince him that it might be best just to stay home (I can take care of you, Bird), and Jonas insisting that he'd be fine (I'm not your little Bird anymore, mom) and then him trying to comfort her because he hadn't meant it that way, he just needed away from anyone who knew him before, because then maybe he could become someone else without the pressure that came with having everyone from before watching him now...

Eventually his mom had just broken down and kissed his cheek and hugged him, saying how proud she was of him, while ruffling his hair.

Now Jonas was back in his room, watching Star Wars Episode IV.

Someone was banging on his door.

He paused the movie.

"Who is it?" he yelled, his voice tinged with irritation.

"Taylor!" came the timid voice on the other side of the door.

Of course it was her. His parents had probably left for work by now, and Rhys was, as per his usual, gone.

"What do you want?" He tried to make his voice a little less irritated.

"My library books are due today, and dad said you could take me to return them!"

"Stop yelling and open the door!" Jonas huffed. Frustration was creeping back into his voice.

Taylor opened the door. His little sister was fourteen, and had been the apple of their parents' eye, until Jonas had lost a leg, because apparently that was enough to take him from unnoticed middle child to doted upon, most envied sibling status.

"Are you going to take me or not?" asked Taylor, keeping her head down. "Because I know your leg has been bothering you. Dad said to take me, but I'm ok if you can't."

When is it not bothering me? thought Jonas. Taylor seemed to be watching him carefully, from under her dark bangs, trying to see what he was thinking.

"I'll take you," he huffed, shutting off the tv. "Just go out and let me get ready."

Taylor rolled her eyes, but retreated, shutting the door behind her.

Jonas exchanged his pajamas for jeans and his Wash U sweatshirt, plus the hated prosthetic leg.

He took the crutches along too, because he certainly wasn't going to go it alone with the fake leg, without them as backup.

Since the humid air outside lay over everything like a hot, wet blanket, and the Bus didn't have air conditioning, Jonas was hot and frustrated. By the time they reached the library, Taylor was as irritated at him as he was at everything else.

If it weren't for the no-air-conditioning dilemma, he would have waited outside; as it was, he was forced to go into the library and tail Taylor from section to section, sighing in irritation every once and a while and telling her to hurry up, much to her annoyance.

She stomped into one of the back aisles, empty except for an armchair at the opposite end, and turned to face him, hands on her hips. "Go sit in that chair over there and wait for me." Jonas might have laughed if he wasn't so hot and inexplicably angry (forget gray days; this one must be red), because his sister was four years younger and about half a foot shorter than he was, and yet she was ordering him around, but instead he just glared at her.

"Fine!" he snapped.

"Good!" she snapped back, before whirling around and leaving him alone.

It was pretty quiet in the back aisle, and Jonas finally felt like he could think clearly.

He felt bad for his grumpy attitude. It wasn't Taylor's fault that her books were due today and she couldn't drive herself to take them back. And Taylor had nothing to do with the college thing, or the leg thing, or the Jonas-being-afraid-to-drive thing. He made up his mind to apologize to her whenever they were back out in the car.

He thought of his dad. He thought he might have been frustrated with his dad for making him take Taylor, but even that wasn't actually what was bothering him. His dad was only trying to get Jonas to move on. Elliot Avery wasn't as passive as his wife, however, and Jonas could tell he was starting to get frustrated with Jonas's lack of response to gentle attempts at persuasion. Jonas couldn't blame him for that; he was frustrated at himself too.

He glanced at the book covers in the aisle he was in. It was teen fiction of some sort.

He wondered when Taylor would be done.

When he turned to the side, there was that chair in the back corner. Jonas looked down at his leg, and then at the chair.

He gingerly extended the prosthetic leg until it was straight and rested his foot on the ground, so that his weight was still on the crutches, but he was sort of standing. He looked down, studying his leg. It looked normal, just like it had the other day, when he'd looked at it after getting out at the scene of the fender bender.

Jonas carefully transferred his weight from the crutches to his own feet. Sore, still, but not completely unbearable. And there was that feeling, from the other day, where his heartrate picked up and he felt like he was on the verge of something—of being better, maybe, finally.

He took a careful step forward towards the chair. Not too bad. Maybe he could get used to this in time for college, after all. Maybe he could even try stairs. Another few steps. He started to doubt the validity of that thought. Wishful thinking, maybe. Walking hurt.

He leaned one of the crutches against the shelf, continuing on with only the left crutch to support his leg. He frowned in concentration and pressed on, trying to keep his gait as normal as possible, but beginning to limp more the more he walked.

Suddenly, pain shot like a lightening bolt through his leg, from his nonexistent foot all the way through his hip. He caught his breath and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and massaging his thigh until the pain subsided to a dull ache. He kept his eyes closed. Too soon, Jonas, he admonished himself.

"Aren't you supposed to keep your weight off your leg if you've torn your ACL?"

Jonas jumped and opened his eyes, dropping his remaining crutch (and probably his remaining dignity) as he almost fell over.

"You!" he snapped, his irritated mood returning in full force. "Why are you everywhere I turn?"

Brennan rolled her eyes. "Last time I checked, I'm allowed to visit the library. And it's not like this is a huge town; we're bound to cross paths occasionally. If you hadn't rear-ended me, you wouldn't even have any reason to notice me." Her face was turning red again. Jonas thought it did that quite a bit...whenever she talked to him, really. He wondered if she thought she was that forgettable.

He made an attempt to bend down and retrieve his fallen crutch, but another wave of pain shot through him at the movement. He gritted his teeth, straightening once more against the wall. He made an effort to look as casual as possible, and turned to Brennan.

"It's not like I wanted to rear-end you," he said.

"Most people don't want to rear-end someone," she retorted, softly. Her eyes went to his crutch. "Need help?"

"No, I do not need help." Jonas forced the words out, refusing to look at her and glaring resolutely at the bookshelf in front of him. "I'm fine. Fine." Fine.

Brennan was silent for a moment (Jonas was inwardly willing her to go away), until she wasn't. "You need help, don't you." A statement, not a question.

Jonas didn't respond. He wished Brennan would just leave. Go away, and leave him to feel humiliated, pick up his pride (and his crutches), and move on.

She took a small step closer, picking up the crutch he'd left leaned against the bookshelf, but not quite daring to come all the way over to him for the other one yet.

"I said I don't need help," he repeated.

"That'd be nice. I don't want to help you that much at this point. But you do need help," she said, her tone holding irritation. She seemed less shy about talking to him now that she was frustrated. She pushed her glasses up on her nose firmly, frowning at him as if she were trying to read him somehow. Her hair was in another knot on top of her head, this one looking even more haphazard than the one she wore to work. Her expressive brows were drawn low over her eyes, and the knuckles of the hand she had used to pick up his crutch were white with the strain of how hard she was gripping the cold metal. So she was still nervous, just trying to hide it.

The pain in Jonas's leg wasn't going away. He kept his teeth gritted, resisting the urge to massage his leg again, in case he drew her attention to it. He closed his eyes again, opening them to find her studying him with concern.

She held out the crutch she was holding, offering it to him, her brown eyes big behind her glasses. After a few seconds of eye contact, he took it from her, still not quite ready to move from his spot on the wall yet.

"I'm...going to pick up the other one, ok?" Brennan told him, cautiously, like Jonas was a dangerous animal and she was trying not to startle him into attacking.

He just nodded, teeth still gritted. The pain seemed to be passing a little now, anyways, fading into a dull ache that he felt a little more control over.

She bent down and retrieved the crutch, handing it to him.

"Thank you," he managed to get out, semi-normally.

"Why were you trying to...trying to walk without them?" she blurted, almost in a single breath. "Didn't your doctor tell you to keep your weight off your knee?"

What did she think he was? Stupid? She'd be right, he reminded himself. If it really was just your ACL. He calmed himself a little.

He was saved from having to answer by the appearance of Taylor. She came into the aisle they were in and stopped, taking in Jonas's slightly pained expression. "Jonas? Are you all right? Is it your leg?"

Jonas shot her a look over Brennan's shoulder. "My knee is just hurting a little, that's all," he said, pointedly.

Taylor gave him a look that said something like what are you on about Jonas; you don't even have a knee. But she shrugged. "Ok," she said. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm about ready to leave. I just have to check my books out."

"Ok," said Jonas. "Go ahead; I'll be there in a little while."

Taylor disappeared, headed back towards the front of the library.

Brennan turned back to study him. "Jonas?" She said. "I'm Brennan. I guess we should probably know one another's names if we're going to keep running into each other."

Jonas rolled his eyes as he put the crutches back under his arms and stood up from against the wall. "I already knew your name," he said. "You were wearing a name tag the day of the crash." He crutched past her.

"Oh," she said, turning red again. "Right."

He stopped. "You don't have to be so embarrassed to talk to me, you know," he said. "It's not like I'm going to judge you too harshly. We did meet when I ran into your car, after all. If anything, I'm the one who should be embarrassed to have that thrown into my face every time we run into one another.

Brennan frowned. "It's not like you're that easy to talk to," she said. "You were fine at the grocery store, but you're being...you're being kind of a jerk today."

He frowned back at her. It would be easier to be angry about the insult, if it weren't true. "It's just...kind of a bad day for me," he said, even though it was a pretty lame excuse for being rude.

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing you could do about it anyways," Jonas muttered, gritting his teeth and taking a few more steps forward with the crutches.

"Well, hopefully your day improves."

"It will, if I can just get home and relax."

"I won't stop you."

"Good."

He continued doggedly away from Brennan, staring straight ahead. He met Taylor by the circulation desk and they left the library.

After they were in the Bus and on the way home, Taylor turned to look at him. He was still frowning, his gaze trained straight ahead and his hands clenched around the steering wheel as he drove.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"No one," he snapped, irritated. "I dropped my crutch, and she helped pick it up. That's all."

"Were you trying to walk?"

"No," he lied.

They were silent the rest of the way home.