The day was May 13th, a Monday, and Jesse found himself caught in a bout of deja-vu. The warm late spring air blew in through the open garage door, and his radio was playing quietly in the corner. It was that fateful day from over a year ago all over again. Well, almost. He was hunched over his workbench, an overhead lamp switched on to compensate for the far gentler lighting of the garage. Jack's staff lay across its wooden surface, the splintered fragments carefully and meticulously arranged.
Jesse let out a heavy sigh and let his head fall into the palms of his hands, closing his weary eyes. He'd pieced together more cars than he could count, and built a watch from scratch when he was twelve. How could a piece of wood present such a challenge? He shook his head. Deep down he knew it was more than just the physical pieces that were giving him a hard time. In many ways piecing together the staff was a painful symbol of how difficult it was trying to fix the contention between him and Jack. There were so many little parts that never seemed to fit quite right no matter how he tried, and parts that were so fragile they felt like they would break at any given moment. Things had been a nonstop nightmare since the night Fletcher had gotten possessed, and he was sick of the reminder this task was of the fact. He wanted to forget everything that had happened. He wanted to move on. But he knew he couldn't leave things the way they were. Peeking up from between his fingers, he confronted the puzzle in front of him again.
Fifth time's a charm. He thought, and with a deep breath he grabbed the wood glue and started putting the pieces together.
His worst trait had always been his explosive temper. The thing was that he had a very long fuse, and it took a long time for things to reach their boiling point. So long, in fact, that he never got a chance to realize what was happening before it was too late. His emotions always flew under his radar, building and building on each other, just waiting for the perfect catalyst to come along and light the whole thing up. Or maybe he did notice them. He would feel twinges of things here and there. But he never let them stay long. He would never get anything done if he did. Emotions were a burdensome thing. Some people seemed to get along with theirs just fine. But his? They were nothing but dead weight. They slowed him down, clouded his mind. They made it impossible to get anything done. They let him get hurt. They hurt others. Jesse clenched his jaw. Why couldn't they just leave him altogether?
He reached for another piece of the staff, but to his surprise he found only the surface of his work bench. He'd been so busy ruminating he hadn't realized it had actually been coming together. Now here it was, and all that was left to do was let the glue set. Still skeptical, he gently picked it up and turned it around in his hands. Everything was looking good! A small sense of pride started to swell in his chest. And then something made him stop. He furrowed a brow and peered closer. He blinked again just to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing.
There was a hole in the staff. How on Earth was there a hole in the staff? In exasperation he double checked around the table. He hadn't forgotten any pieces. But eveything else lined up so well, how could he possibly not be missing a piece? He wracked his brain for an answer, trying to think back through all his memories to the night he'd nearly beat Jack up. What had he said again?
Something tells me that's not the only thing you acted out on.
How had he known to correlate him with the broken staff?
Unless...
He glanced down at the missing chunk again, a thought coming to his mind. Who was to say he had every piece? He knew it had been Wren or Simon who'd gathered the shards together the night the whole thing had taken place. Jack's staff had been very similar to the colour of the floorboards. In the dark of the power outage, anyone could have missed a piece laying out of sight. Maybe Jack had found it? He grimaced at the thought. If that was true then it would mean searching his room for it, and Jesse was sure that even Simon could tell Jack didn't want him anywhere near there. He mulled things over in his head for a while. If he wanted to fix the staff, he'd have to take his chances and look around. But not tonight. He couldn't let Jack see him. He was hoping giving him space would allow his anger to settle. So he switched off his lamp and headed for the house, making sure to close the garage door and turn off the room lights on his way. The missing piece would be tomorrow's mission. For now it was time for bed.
