April 10th, 1891 — Bartonburg

Daniel was dead.

As was protocol, another ministry official had requested to speak with her privately and informed her in the middle of her work day that her brother — her handsome, young, aspiring cook, brother — had perished in the shipwreck. Fallon had detached from her body almost immediately, seemingly watching from above as she blankly stared at the official. She went through the motions, telling Gabe in inexcusable blunt terms why she needed to leave so suddenly, and flooed to Kieran's where she had had to tell him. Their mother presumably knew already, she hoped, as Fallon hadn't spoken to her in years it felt like. Not since graduation, maybe. Maybe shortly after? It didn't matter now, she would have to speak to her mother at Daniel's funeral. And Seamus — Seamus would be distraught.

Seamus would have to somehow pass his OWLs a month after losing his brother.

Fuck.

Fallon left Kieran's early, still too in shock to tolerate her brother's immediate turn to drunkenness. She looked for Malou at home, already thinking of flowery ways to describe death to the woman who knew more of it than Fallon ever hoped to, but couldn't find her roommate anywhere. Daniel was dead, gone. A nibbled on corpse unceremoniously fished from the sea. If anyone could understand it was Malou. Or Jesse.

A sharp pang ran tore through her heart as she thought of her (former?) fiancé. It'd been a month since their argument and they hadn't spoken, though that was more due to her unexpected tour of rural Ireland than it was avoidance of him. Gabe and she had had to leave for Ireland mid-afternoon the second week of March and had only returned two days ago. Thankfully, it wasn't trafficked muggles this time but an actual smuggling plan. They had handled it swiftly enough, but the mountains of paperwork in the aftermath were yet another deterrent from speaking to Jesse.

She had a plan for how they moved forward, a compromise discussed over and over with Gabe until it was fine tuned and agreeable to all parties. But, it didn't matter now because Daniel was dead.

It was still early when Fallon arrived in Jesse's flat, too early to have expected him to be home from work already. Numbly, she sat on the edge of the bed with his bedroom door wide open for an indiscernible amount of time. If Kirke walked past she hadn't noticed, if Jesse was in the other room she didn't know. Daniel was dead and she could think of nothing else.

  

Jess had spent the better part of the last month keeping busy, being Gabe, since his brother and Fallon had been sent on an assignment and he and Molly were left to fend for themselves. Molly would never say anything and Jess knew better than to actually ask, because he truthfully didn't mind helping out his sister-in-law and seeing the kids, but it was like salt in the wound. He saw what it did to their family. He was tucking in kids for someone else, just like he'd predicted.

And he was willing to walk right into that for himself.

For as stubborn as he was, he didn't want Fallon to have to give up her career for a life together so he was wanted to be able to compromise, but he didn't want to entirely give up what he wanted out of life either. It was a mess already and they weren't even married yet. Maybe wouldn't. He couldn't tell what Fallon was thinking at this point, but he'd left it up to her, again.

Now the shipwreck was taking priority and though Jesse didn't have much to do with it, the ministry seemed to be all hands on deck, no pun in tended. Survivors were coming in and Jess had volunteered to help get everyone organized and where they needed to be, whether it was the hospital or home, but then Gabe's inter-office owl had showed up and it took all of his willpower not to abandon work and head straight to Fallon's. One of her brother's had been lose in the wreckage, a pain Jess was all too familiar with.

As soon as he could, he passed duties off to someone else, later than he would have on a normal day, but he didn't even know where to find her. He'd flooed to her flat originally but nobody was home so he'd decided to send her an owl. Jess headed back to his own, dropping his things unceremoniously beside the fireplace. He need a minute to think over where she might go, only to find her sitting on the edge of his bed. He knew exactly what was going through her head, exactly what she was feeling and he knew there was nothing he could really do for her. Without a word, he sat down beside her and pulled her in. "I'm sorry," He whispered after a moment.

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Jesse was here, and Fallon sagged against him without a moment's pause. He was her comfort, her love, her home. Even when they were angry with one another, even when there were mountains of issues to work through, they belonged to one another as surely as Paris and Helen. She loved him.

She sank further into the embrace. "I know we have a lot we need to talk about, I know we're not okay. But ... can we be? Just for tonight?" Fallon pleaded quietly, almost certain he would grant her it. She didn't want to talk about Daniel, not really. She didn't want to elaborate on how they found him quickly, which meant the fish wouldn't have had too much time to nibble on his corpse. She didn't want to talk about the overwhelming funeral they would now have to have or that she would have to face her mother for the first time in years.

She just wanted to be here with Jesse and somehow come to terms with the fact that her brother was dead.

  

"We're okay." He reassured her quietly, tightening his grip on her. They did have some things to talk about, but they would be okay. He rubbed a hand over her upper arm, lost in his own thoughts, in the silence for a moment. A sigh echoed around the room, as he tried to think of something, anything he could say, but he distinctly remembered after losing Mercy that nothing anybody had tried to tell him had sunk in, let alone made him feel any better. It took time, a long time, and this was fresh, hearing it would be alright one day didn't do anything now.

And so he would sit in the quiet with her and worry and fret in a manner that would make his mother proud. When she was ready they could talk about it. "Have you eaten?" He asked after a few moments. He remembered having to make sure his mother had eaten after Mercy's death. It was a straightforward thing, but grief messed with a person's head in the strangest of ways. Jess wasn't much of a cook, but he could scrape together some snacks and a bottle of wine, if she was hungry.

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Fallon released a trembling breath, more relieved by his acceptance of her plea than she had even imagined. He had denied her pleas once before, back when things were supposed to be different. Then again, it wasn't his heart that was breaking right now. There was no urgent need for one memory of closeness. Jesse was hers, for better or for worse. He had to listen to her pleas now.

The silence stretched between them. He lost a sister years ago, so he had to know the pain she was currently suffering through. The sudden, abrupt loss of a life that felt like a certainty. Fallon saw horrific things day in and day out, but even her profession couldn't have prepared her for this.

She shook her head against his chest. "No, not since yesterday." First it was because she got caught up with paperwork, then it was because she was too stressed with worry and fear to focus. "I'm, uh, I'm not hungry."

  

Even in his fatigue, his mind was racing, miles a minute, and hers probably was too, but there was nothing to say that would help absolve some of this pain she was feeling. It wasn't going to go away, not any time soon, not ever, but the ache dulled with time. It got a little easier to breathe, to function and he'd see her through every step of the way.

He was starving, but he could wait, after she fell asleep or wherever he found a moment. He hoped anyway.

Jess turned a little bit, effectivity pulling her into his lap so he could more comfortably keep his hold on her. He brushed some stray tendrils if hair from her face and kissed the top of her head, before resuming rubbing his hand on her arm, anything he could think of that would be some kind of comforting, no matter how small it seemed.

* * *

He wasn't sure just how much time had passed in the silence, but he hadn't moved, nor had she when his stomach growled so viciously it was hard to miss. He winced, but there was no more avoiding it. "Why don't we have a little something before we go to bed?" He nudged her gently. She needed to eat too, he knew she wouldn't unless pushed at this point.

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Fallon could have remained curled up on Jesse's lap until the end of time without complaint. Despite having skipped at least three meals, the thought of eating curdled her stomach. Truthfully, her foremost desire was to sleep for a year and move beyond this grief. Her thoughts were moving too quickly for her to rest comfortably though. Too much guilt (when had she last visited Daniel?) to squash the thoughts without the aid of alcohol, too.

The grumble of Jesse's stomach was impossible to miss. It had to be near dinner time by now, or had that time come and gone? Fallon squeezed his hand and laid heavily against him for a second longer before wordlessly rising on unsteady legs. "Wouldn't mind a drink," she more mumbled than anything. Drinking had always been a coping mechanism in her family, Merlin knew Daniel could easily outdrink her.

  

Standing up beside her, he ran a comforting hand up and down her back. "No booze until you've eaten something." He decided as he started toward the kitchen. He highly doubted she wanted to add feeling sick or hungover to the heartache.

Jess was no master chef, but he could whip up pancakes pretty quickly in a pinch. Plus they had some fresh fruit and honey his mother had dropped off recently. He pulled the ingredients together quickly and started measuring into a bowl, heating up the stove top whole he worked. "Pancakes or eggs and toast?" He would at least give her the choice, but he wasn't pouring booze until she had something in her stomach.

He would persist in this until she gave in because he didn't really know what else to do.

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