thelongdormantcop | and after the bombs subside

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grace faraday

and after the bombs subside

For a long time, Jerry has considered himself lucky. It isn't like his life has been as easy as all that — if anything, it's the exact opposite — but that, he thinks, is all the more reason to. He's made it through shit a lot of people haven't, before and during and after the war, a childhood spent barely knowing if there'd even be enough to eat and time overseas marked by too many close calls to count, things he tries to bury as much as possible. Even then, he's a lot better off than others. He knows too many guys who got killed over there, even more still who came home and ate their guns, or who went looking for trouble just so somebody else would end it, or who spent even more time looking for answers at the bottom of bottles than he did, drinking to try to forget it all instead of just to cope. Besides, it isn't just the war that set him off; it was what he came back to. Too many others never came back at all, either physically or mentally.

Showing up here has given him a good deal of distance from all of that, anyway. At least, that's what he thought, that he'd never be rid of it but that it was farther away, not just the past but history. Besides, he's learned to deal with it. Maybe his way of doing so involves a hell of a lot of not dealing, but it beats most of the other alternatives. The same goes for the other war, the one he'd walked away from fighting the night he showed up here. Though aspects of it are always present, it's easier to keep all of that pushed aside, to focus on the fact that, from here, he won. He's safe and so is Grace, and there's no one here who would do him any harm. If that means not letting himself think about Keeler or Jack or Connie O'Mara or all the innocent lives lost when they got something wrong, everything that went to hell that last night, then he's alright with that. There's enough else here that needs his attention anyway. Dwelling on the past would accomplish nothing.

That is, maybe, all the more reason why, when he walks right into it, it catches him by surprise. Heading through the park on his way back to his apartment, wrapped in a heavy coat to combat the snow, he hears it first, the faint sound of explosions making him more uneasy than he cares to admit to. There could be any number of reasons for it, but it could be trouble, too, which is, maybe, why he heads in that direction, aware of his gun in his holster, though he doesn't reach for it. He isn't on duty, but shit like this is why he stays armed anyway, so he'll be ready if he needs to be.

It isn't any sort of trouble he finds, though, but a festival of some sort, booths crowded with people who look plenty happy to be there. He doesn't really see them, though. His gaze fixes instead on the red paper lanterns strung overhead, a too-familiar sight even with the snow coating the ground, and with the sound of firecrackers ringing in his ears, he finds that it makes his head spin, his chest tighten. It's all he can do not to pull his gun out after all, though he knows there's nothing happening here. He can still see it, the bodies littering the ground because they walked into a setup, because he wasn't there in time to stop it, because they failed.

He doesn't know how long it takes to get back to his apartment; he doesn't really remember walking there at all until he's by his door, fumbling for a key so he can get the door unlocked, letting it slam shut again behind him. There's nothing happening and none of that's followed him here, but he feels like he's still back in Chinatown anyway, hands shaking as he lights himself a cigarette. It doesn't calm his nerves like he wishes it would, making him no less unsteady when he goes to the kitchen to pour himself a much-needed drink. They're the only ways he's got to battle this, an old habit founded mostly in the days when he first got back from the Pacific, more fucked in the head than he wanted to tell anyone, something that's just as true now. He just needs to remember how to breathe again and he'll be just fine, even if just a couple sips of scotch leave him doubled over his kitchen sink, thinking he's about to be sick. At least he isn't, though, the one thing this has over the last war he was left with memories of being in. It isn't much of a reassurance.

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Grace stifles a sigh, fingers moving restlessly against his shoulder, as much to soothe herself as him. What's happened has happened, and there isn't a thing she can do to change or fix it. How she can help him to feel better about it, she doesn't know. Her instinct is to try and take his mind off of it instead, to distract him from what's got him shaken up, but the thought of doing so makes her uncomfortable.

"That isn't on you," she says, quietly cautious, looking slowly over at him. She wants so badly not to make this worse than it already is. "Jerry, you — you couldn't have gotten there any faster or told them or — or known what to expect." All she'd known was that Cohen knew about them. It's not like that was information enough to put things right. There isn't a thing either of them could have done.

"I know," Jerry says, nodding slowly, voice low. Though he still can't quite make himself look at her, he does mean it. Deep down, he knows there isn't really anything he could have done. He tried damn hard to take care of everything that night, and he wasn't without some measure of success, though he doesn't think he can really credit himself at all with Grace's being able to get away. That hasn't stopped him from replaying it over and over in his head, like some kind of self-inflicted punishment, trying desperately to figure out where he fell short, what he could have done differently. If he'd driven just a little faster, chosen a different route, shown up a matter of moments sooner, maybe he could have given everything a better outcome, except he couldn't have known that then. For what he did know, he did everything he could.

And that, he thinks, is part of what makes it so fucking difficult. If he could pin it down to one thing he got wrong, a mistake or an obvious oversight, he could blame himself and have that be that. It would be a lot easier to swallow than the idea that it was all inevitable, that all of that fighting was for nothing. Even now, it makes his stomach turn. "I know, Grace. But I — I still wish I could have."

"I know you do," Grace says quietly, though it isn't as if she's given that night much thought before now. Not his end of things, at least, not what he went through that night. She's been too busy trying not to think about any of it, too likely to remember her own part of what happened to give Chinatown any consideration. That doesn't make it less true. She knows he would have done whatever it took to set everything right if he could have. "But you did what you could, darling. You can't change what happened, so why beat yourself up about it?"

It isn't as easy as that, she knows, but maybe she can at least get him to believe that for tonight. If he's reacted this badly now, it's going to take a while for her to make him believe it for longer than that.

It isn't just that, Jerry wants to say. It's so much more than the part he might have played in the whole thing, the fact that, if he'd been just a few moments sooner, he might have been able to stop it. He never was cut out to go to war, not back when he enlisted and not really when he showed up for O'Mara and the others. That was just a hell of a lot easier, when they had the advantage the whole time. Busting up Cohen's clubs wasn't all that different from his usual job, except it was working towards one concrete goal, something necessary, a cause that had come to mean a lot to him. With the tables turned, though, and them being the ones under fire, it was entirely different. He just doesn't know how to tell her that, how to own up to how fucking scary it was, even more after the fact, with time to think about how easily it could have gone much worse. He's gone and made himself look awful enough already. He doesn't need to add to that.

"I just wasn't expecting it," he says, letting out a slow breath. "All of that here, I mean." It's not really an answer to her question, but he hasn't got one, and he doesn't know how to own up to that, either. Finally making himself look up at her again, he frowns. "I am sorry I kept you waiting. I mean that."

"No," Grace says quickly, reaching up to cup his cheek. "Jerry, I told you, it's alright. I don't mind." It isn't like he just up and forgot about her. He had a reason. She's not about to hold this against him. He's got bigger things on her mind, and she doesn't mind admitting that this once. "We'll go out another day, and I'm here now." She isn't about to leave his side either, not until she's sure he's alright. Not even then. Tonight was supposed to be the two of them, and it still can be. If he doesn't want to make a big deal of it, then she's content to follow his lead, cautious with anything more serious between them. As mad as she is about him, there's so much she still isn't sure about. It's easier just to let him point the way.

It isn't alright, not by a long shot. None of it is, not the fact that it happened in the first place or that it has him so thrown now, when Jerry knows he should be able to put it behind him. He's seen much worse things than what played out in Chinatown that night, and he knows that it could have gone a lot worse than it did, too. He wasn't in time to stop it, but it isn't as if he did nothing. That's just a small consolation when faced with such a sudden, clean reminder of it. How he's supposed to say any of that to Grace, though, he doesn't still know, not least when she's already shouldered far more than she should have had to. Besides, she's the only reason they didn't all die there that night, and he doesn't want her to think for a second that he's anything less than grateful for it. That's just all the more reason why he shouldn't have kept her waiting. "Yeah, well, maybe I do," he says, leaning instinctively into her touch even as he drops his gaze to look away from her. "It shouldn't... have to be this big a deal."

Grace can't really understand why that would be the case. Maybe it's different for him, but she can't imagine she'd easily forget something like that, having once been through it. There are enough elements of the last few years she can't let go of, and hardly any of them involved guns going off. "Why not?" she asks. "It was awful, and you and your friends were in such danger. How could that not be a big deal?"

Because he's seen worse. Jerry thinks it immediately, though he'd never want to say as much to Grace, not least when it's so difficult to admit to himself. Even so, it's still true. What played out in Chinatown was nothing compared to a lot of what he saw during the war, and he was in worse danger then, too, at least, the way he sees it. And though getting over all of that hasn't always been the easiest thing, either, that never got to him quite like this. It's just too much to give voice to; he doubts he'd want to be rattled like this no matter what was responsible. Not sure how else to respond, he shrugs, letting out a slow, unsteady breath. "Just shouldn't be."

He's being too hard on himself, Grace thinks, but whatever her inclination might be, she pushes back against it. Tonight, at least, she doesn't want to fight with him. Arms wrapping around his shoulders, she presses a kiss to his cheek, her forehead leaning against the side of his. "But it is," she says. "It's alright, Jerry. It just surprised you." It isn't as if he could have expected to come across something like that in the middle of Darrow. She doesn't recall any advertisements for the party or any warning that it would occur.

For a split second, Jerry wants nothing more than to tell her all of it — more about the shooting in Chinatown than just the fact that it was bad, how they'd already gotten to Keeler, what it was like to call in his body and hear that Jack was dead, knowing that she would have been, too. The moment passes quickly. He's told her the part that really matters, the thing that really left him reeling, and though the rest had just as much if not more to do with how fucking awful that night was, it isn't worth going into detail about now. Instead, he glances up at her, as if only just thinking of something. "You saved my life, you know," he says, one shoulder lifting like that isn't as big a deal as is actually the case, though he can't hide it as well as he'd like. "Probably none of us would've made it out if it weren't for you."

Grace stares at him, breath caught in her throat, confusion flickering across her expression. It feels like he must have made a mistake or maybe he's talking to someone else somehow. That was the end goal, of course, the thing that brought her to Clifton's that day — the need to see him and to be sure he made it out alive. She just hadn't thought of it as something she'd done, something achieved because of her, not least when he'd gone running into danger despite her warning. The words make her head spin a little.

Leaning in again, she rests her head against his once more. "Makes us even then."

Jerry shakes his head, an instinct as much as anything else. Even if it were like that, the sort of thing where there's meant to be some kind of exchange, it wouldn't be true. Warning him about Chinatown wasn't the first time she saved his ass, after all (and he has to wonder how any of the others could have thought his being with her was a bad idea when they only made it out of Cohen's house that night because of it. He can't imagine she would have kept quiet for a stranger carrying a shotgun). Besides, no matter how hard he tried to look out for her, he didn't wind up doing very much good at all. She made it out safely because of Jack, not him, and even that was a close fucking call, from what he's gathered. She'd have been better off leaving him out of the picture entirely, except then, he'd almost certainly be dead.

"Not about even," he murmurs, shutting his eyes for a moment. "You're giving me too much credit, anyway."

"I'm not," Grace protests. "Don't you think I know what you've done for me, Jerry?" She draws back just enough to look at him properly, a little embarrassed, though not enough to keep from going on. He means the world to her, and if she's saved him, then she's glad of it, but she didn't do anything but what was right. Maybe that's more than she would have done for a lot of people, but when she loves him like she does, she couldn't have let herself do anything else, no matter what he'd said the last time she'd seen him. But it's a lot more than his getting her to Jack. "It's as if I was sleepwalking all this time, and you came and woke me up."

It's striking to hear, Jerry can't pretend otherwise, his thumb smoothing along her cheek where he's rested his hand. He still wants to try to shrug it off, to say the two aren't comparable at all, but it means a lot even so to know he might have really done her some good, when he spent a good deal of time wondering what she continued coming around for at all. "Yeah, I know what you mean," he murmurs. She isn't all that's responsible for it — losing Pete accomplished the same, albeit in a different way — but God knows he was a lot worse off before he started seeing her. He'd been coasting for years. "Makes two of us."

Despite his response, Grace finds it embarrassing to have said. Maybe it was evident, maybe it wasn't, but she needn't have admitted to it. Her life wasn't terrible, these last couple years. Anyway, she's survived them just fine. But she means it even so. His presence in her life has turned so much around, more than she could ever have anticipated or hoped for. "I know it isn't the same thing," she says, "not really. But it is to me."

Jerry doesn't know how to respond to that, really, if he's meant to downplay it or acknowledge it or tell her what a surprise it really is to hear. Thinking back on it now, he knows he must have been aware of it on some level, or at least that she had a good reason to keep coming around other than just the sex. After the fight they had, though, and the days she didn't call, he stopped being so sure. Even if it isn't as big a deal as she's making it out to be, when it isn't as if he was doing it knowingly, it's pretty fucking heady, being told he could have done so much for her, if only because he knows that, true or not, she believes it.

Rather than saying anything, he just draws her a little closer at first, arms around her, head lifting so he can press a kiss to her hair. "I guess that's what counts, then," he says. "Gracie, I..." He should say it more clearly, tell her that she woke him up, too, but the words don't come. "I'm glad I found you."

The way he sounds, the way he holds her, it's enough to make Grace's heart just about stop or to bring tears to her eyes. It's so foolish, getting all worked up like this, and she'd feel an awful sap, but she can't help it. Simple though his words may be, no one else has ever said them to her. Certainly no one else has ever made her feel like this.

Hand lifting to rest against his jaw and neck, she lifts her head just a little. "You and me both, handsome," she says throatily, trying to play off the seriousness of it some, though she isn't sure how successful she is.

For a moment, looking down at her, Jerry wonders what he could have said wrong, already trying to think of a way to backtrack before she speaks. This is all just too fragile still, too tenuous, even if only in his own head, and when he still feels guilty for having kept her waiting, in spite of her telling him not to, the last thing he wants is to upset her. It's just easier to assume than the opposite, that it's a misstep rather than meaningful, a mindset he hasn't fully been able to shake since she showed up. It was too dangerous to do anything else before. Now, it just hits that much harder for it.

He thinks fleetingly that he should tell her just how much, but he can't get that out, either. He wouldn't want to say anything like that at a time like this, anyway, when he's been so wrecked over something so stupid. Instead, he just kisses her again, this time on the corner of her mouth. "Must've been the smartest dumb thing I ever did, walking up to you at that bar."

Grace smiles, stroking her thumb along his cheek as she nods. "It was pretty damn stupid," she says, but there's not a note in her voice that indicates she would have wanted anything else. It's astonishing, terrifying, to think how narrowly she could have missed knowing him. Had he come to his senses on the way over, she can't imagine what would have become of her in the weeks that followed. She ducks her head, leaning close to his. "I'm so glad you did."

Leaning into her touch, Jerry nods in turn, seeing no reason to try to pretend like that's any less true for him. No matter what complications they might have faced or what danger they were in, he thinks it's got to be the best decision he's ever made, and not just because she wound up saving his life (though that certainly helps). He just can't really imagine it now, what he'd be like without her, what would have happened if he'd actually listened to Jack and steered clear of her for his own safety. He wouldn't want to. Hell, he doesn't want to think about how she might have wound up, either. There isn't much credit he can give himself for the fact that she wound up unharmed, but she was in deep with some pretty bad people, and he wouldn't have known to try to protect her. At least that one thing he didn't wind up failing at too miserably. "So am I," he says, quiet, though he tries to crack a smile after a moment. "Glad you went for it, too."

Grace laughs, shaking her head at him. "Well, when you were so charming," she teases, "how could I resist?" It was his attitude more than anything he said that got to her, the audacity of his approaching her at all, the sort of presumptuousness with which he carried himself. He must have known there was every chance in the world she'd turn him down, but he still came over like it was no big deal. It would have been hard not to get swept away by that, especially when she'd been treated with so little kindness of late. It's the last thing she wants to talk to him about, though, those days before she knew him. They're over now, and she's done with it.

There are any number of reasons why she could or should have. Though Jerry would like to believe that his charm really was that irresistible, his history's proven otherwise, and she had a hell of a lot better reason to want to turn him down. For most girls, after all, it wouldn't have been putting their lives on the line to go to bed with him. Even so, he isn't sure he needs to know whatever the real reason was she agreed. The important part is that she did, they they both got something so good out of it, that he managed to keep her safe in spite of the risks, no matter how close a call it was. "Don't ask me," he says, as close to teasing as he can get. "I hadn't really thought as far ahead as what I'd do if you tried."

Grace laughs, brow raising at him. "Now why doesn't that surprise me?" she asks, fondly teasing. "You just assumed I'd hear your story about the sharks and go swooning like the other girls?" She assumes, certainly, that there were other girls, and probably plenty of them, before she came along. For all she knows, there were others after they met. Despite the flare of jealousy such an idea provokes, she knows she couldn't really blame him if that were the case, though she doesn't think it was. The thing is, after all, that she's not like the other girls, if only to him.

"Hey, what are you trying to suggest?" Jerry asks, a clear protest, though he's laughing as he says it, knowing full well he can't deny it. Plenty of girls have gone swooning at that story. He doesn't even know if they believed it or not, though he knows he can sell it, but they certainly played along like they did, and that was what mattered. With Grace, knowing that she'd been on the arm of someone else, he had no real reason to expect that she'd fall for it, but then, it still hadn't mattered much. Aside from the risk in approaching her at all, there hadn't been anything to lose, not really. Either she'd have been interested or she wouldn't, and after weeks, one night being rejected wouldn't have made that much of a difference. That she reacted the way she did, though — he would never have expected it, but he's sure now that it's got to be the best thing that ever happened to him. "I don't think that's entirely fair."

"And why not?" Grace asks, leaning back against the couch as she laughs. "You can't expect me to believe I'm the only girl you've tried that on." Of course, it worked, but that had a lot less to do with the story and much more to do with him. Granted, there was also the novelty of being approached by a man for the first time since word got round she was with Mickey, but more than that, there was something unassuming yet charming about him she liked. She wouldn't have risked all that for the first guy to walk her way, except it turned out the first one was something special.

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