Autumn in Philadelphia Trilogy

Saudade: Better Days

Happy 2024, everyone. I hope the new year has been good for you so far.

Apologies for the delay. I've been dealing a plagiarizer and harasser on AO3 and FFN for the past year. I needed to take last month to recover from dealing with them. Hopefully, it's all over now.

Since there was no update last month, this flashback is extra-long and indulges in the final family moments with Shondrey while Shawn is still a teen. It will be split into three parts. Part two of this chapter will be (hopefully) posted next week.

One of the things I have planned for AiP this year is a series of one-shots exploring Jon's attachment to Springsteen. While this is touched on at various times throughout Saudade, the series will take a more in-depth look at this.

About this chapter's title: From Song Facts

"One of Bruce Springsteen's more personal songs, "Better Days" (1992) reflects his transition to family man, which happened in the early '90s when he started having children and married Patti Scialfa, his second wife.

In the liner notes to his Greatest Hits compilation, Springsteen wrote: "With a young son and about to get married (for the last time) I was feelin' like a happy guy who has his rough days rather than vice versa."

Many thanks to my sweet friend, Yotsubadancesintherain5 (on AO3), for helping me overcome a block I had in this chapter. Her Christmas gift, If You Love Someone, centers around Shawn fixing breakfast for Jon and Audrey and it inspired Shawn's dinner scene in this chapter.

The camera Shawn brings with him is the one mentioned in chapter 32 of the Return and in Christmas to Last a Lifetime.

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The view from the roof wasn't quite the same as Shawn remembered but then he never paid attention to the skyline back then.

Not really.

From this roof, he once watched Jon's ex-girlfriend, Melanie, frantically search for him from his hidden vantage point behind the parapet.

When Audrey would leave them to visit her father on long weekends, he and Jon would take dinner, usually junk food take away Audrey wasn't fond of, and a couple of beach chairs to watch the sunset.

Sometimes they talked.

Often they didn't.

Either way it was something he looked forward to when she had to be gone.

The roof, when he was fifteen, was also a place of escape where he could get away from whatever was bothering him without breaking Jon's rule about leaving the premises without permission.

It was a place of daydreams and fantasy- a world of his creation and under his control.

Many times after Chet called to spin yet another lie about where he was, why he wasn't looking for Virna, and dodging the question of when he'd be back, he would escape to the rooftop and scream his rage at the stars above.

One time this happened while Audrey was gone, and Jon was asleep.

Chet called just after midnight and left Shawn with the dial tone buzzing in his ear before he could even say, "Hey, Dad."

A terrible rage consumed him and he ran to the roof. Using every foul word in every language he knew; he screamed his fury at the heavens.

Neither Jon nor Audrey would have approved of this.

Especially Audrey.

The moment the last word left his mouth, the heavens immediately reprimanded him with a meteor shower that came so close he swore he could feel the heat of its passing.