Chasing Fate (Sentinel & Guide)

Chapter 62

[[It's not just Jack whose upset. Unedited]]

The dark night sky outside of the hospital startled Jack. It was hard to measure time in the isolation of the ICU. He checked his phone, ignoring the hundreds of notifications in his texts and missed calls. Fate had been in the hospital for three days, four in the morning. 

The hospital back parking lot was quiet. There were probably paps hiding out somewhere towards the front where his car was still parked. He'd traded keys to take Elliot's porsche, nondescript for a high paid sentinel doctor.

As he adjusted the rear view mirror he finally saw himself. It wasn't a pretty sight. Days without sleep left his eyes dark and hollow, bloodshot with unshed tears. His hair ws greasy and his beard looked like a qilderness, with bits of food and scruff climbing over his cheeks. Cheeks that were a little hollower with days of half-eaten meals. 

<<If Fate had woken up to this kind of face I'd have scared her back into a coma>> he thought ruefully as he started the car and peeled from the driveway. He frowned as he passed a few familiar "nondescript" vans parked in one of the usually empty satelite lots, a big lens flickering towards the hospital entrance. Paps camping out for information. 

Jack could feel the exhaustion striking him as he pulled out of the city into the suburbs. It was almost an hour's drive to the Hammond estate and the last thing he needed was to end up in his own ICU bed due to a crash. He blinked a few times and placed his phone in the dock. Late night radio wasn't going to keep him up. He may as well check his messages.  

"Alexis, what happened while I was Out?"

The AI started reviewing his missed calls and messages. As expected a huge portion were from the clan group chat, though no small amount was attributed to Kaylee Ann. Most of hers were straightforward, he could hear her frustration in the voice messages. The stories were ruining his image. He needed to make a statement. He'd become a paraiah, get cancelled, blah blah blah. He sped through deleting them. 

As he got into the older messages he noticed a few from Anton directly, only a few hours after he and Fate entered the ICU. They were all straight and to the point, the same message over and over. 

"Jack, I know this isn't a good time, but please call me when you can." 

He left 5 spearate messages like this. At a stop light Jack opened his messages and checked. The texts were much of the same. Hundreds of links from Kaylee Anne, hundreds of coordinating messages in the clan group chat. A few words of support and condolence from his more distant friends.

And three times a day from Anton since the day Fate had fainted: 

Jack, Call as soon as you can. 

Jack furrowed his brow and pressed the call button. It rang for a long while but didn't pick up. That meant Anton wasn't at home, even at this time of night. He tried Emma, but hers went straight to voicemail as well. It was strange, but Jack hoped it wasn't too urgent. The case work had been handled by Wyatt and a few other young sentinels while he was busy. But if Anton still called him , knowing what was going on, it had to be something extremely important. 

Maybe he remembered how Fate knew his name, or why they'd met. 

But what was important now was to get inside and read the file. Jack diialed Anton once more, getting his voicemail. 

"Anton, this is Jack. I guess whatever you need to tell me is too sensitive for voice or text. I'll be heading back to the hospital tomorrow, I can stop by before then. Let me know." 

With the phone jingling its hang up tone Jack pulled into the estate. He parked Elliot's car in its customary place before stepping into the building. He could smell the fresh scent of soup wafting from the kitchen. Bread was baking. The array of spices and smells was Martha's signature.  His mother cooked under stress. 

"Come on this way," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. The sounds of cooking muffled her voice a bit since Jack was standing two rooms away, but he could hear how cracked and scratchy her voice was. She'd been crying. The whole house dripped with melancholy, residue of an unhappy guide. 

Jack made his way into the kitchen. Martha was under the solitary lamp over the stove, cooking a pot of soup in her pajamas and robe. Italian wedding, one of his favorites. a loaf of bread cooled on the table. There was evidence all over the kitchen of how stressed she'd been. Usually a meticulous cleaner as well as cook, there were specks of flour all over from where she'd kneaded the dough in a frenzy, and her prized heirloom pasta roller sat half-disassembled in the sink next to the meat grinder. 

The last time she'd brought those ancient tools out out for Jack to see, he'd been ten and his father was in the hospital for heat stroke. She was worried beyond belief. Jack's heart twinged. This was hard on all of them, but he wasn't suffering alone. He'd never had to suffer alone. 

But the weight of the box in ihs hand seemed to increase. How long had Fate struggled with no one to help? What happened that made her so unwilling to accept their support?

"Mom," Jack let out in a broken sigh before he felt himself collapsing to his kneeds, sobs wracking his body. There was a clatter as Martha dropped her ladle to come gather him into her arms, rocking him gently like a child even if he was nearly twice her size. 

He let it all go in his mother's arms, crying like a child afraid of the dark while his mother carded her fingers gently through his hair. She whispered nothing words, coddling him like she had decades ago until his desperate sobbing waned to sniffles. Asa wareness returned Jack could now notice that his own hair was wet in places. Martha had been crying too. 

She pulled back, dabbing her eyes with the arm of her robe as she carefulyl went to the stove again. She piddled around the kitchen silently for a few moments, gathering utensils. 

"Sigmund, you aren't going to like what you find in there," she whispered. She never called him by his first name except in the most grave of circumstances, "But you have to. It's... It's the only way you'll be able to get Fate back." 

Martha quickly poured him a huge bowl of soup and put the bread on the tray with a bottle of ElectricAde. It looked a lot like a meal for a cold, btu he supposed he'd lost a lot of salt through his tears.  

"You're going to need your strength to save her Jack. This isn't anything we trained you for... I know," Martha bit her lip as she finally began to move to clean up the kitchen, "And I.. I'm honestly not sure we could have. This is bigger than anything your father and I have ever seen. And we've seen quite a bit." 

"The NOGS don't want you to have this. They don't want Fate to remember. They don't want whatever is in there to get out. And as of this morning, they don't know we have it yet." 

The same dangerous glint flashed through Martha's eyes, "When you and Fate are settled down, we'll worry about those consequences. But you need to address what's in that box. I felt it earlier. There's... There's something terrible in there. Something terrible enough to make the whole government shake. But hiding it has hurt your guide, and it's hurt OUR clan. "

Martha gave him a meaningful look from over the kitchen sink. Despite the petite frame wrapped in a duck-motif robe, Jack was suddenly very aware of his mother's power. The faint light from the stovetop lamp glinted in her eyes, and the dish scrubber could have been a knife. 

Jack felt some of that vicious resolve bleed into him as he gripped teh tray a little tighter. 

"Our clan is our jurisdiction alone."