JAL
Sometimes Jal still felt like he was falling.
Docs said he was healing up decent, for being a couple weeks off a near-death experience. Better than anticipated, they kept telling him, except for Nash, who mostly just slugged him on the shoulder with some variation on good job not dying, dumbass. Maybe his spiffed-up genes had a thing or two to do with it, but the docs seemed pretty happy to take the credit and he was pretty happy to let them. Compared to the scavs and their duct tape medicine, the folks at the Guild’s outer station were a goddamn dream. They’d unscrambled his egg, patched all the holes he wasn’t born with. Knee was still a work in progress, but the bone scans stopped looking like when he dropped his mama’s nice porcelain, so he’d call it progress.
That feeling, though … it stuck with him. Crept up when he dozed off, jolted him awake with his heart in his throat. It came when the room got too small or the noise got too big or the stink of antiseptic brought him back to that ammonia-soaked scav sick bay.
He had it now, that feeling like the ground beneath his feet wasn’t really there. Like one of Bitsie’s cartoons—the second he looked down and saw the great big nothing underneath him, he’d drop all over again.
“If you’re gonna be sick again, you wanna warn a guy?” Of course, Jal couldn’t be falling, because Saint stood right there in front of him. Had an eyebrow ticked up toward his hairline and a teasing quirk to one side of his mouth, and a scrutinizing stare that said he kind of meant it, though. “These’re my nice boots.”
These’re my only boots. Jal looked down at himself awkwardly. Somebody’d shined them up pretty and stitched the tears in his coat, and he could still smell the packaging on his new shirt and pants. He still felt like folks could tell, though. Not just by the brace on his knee or the bruises still yellowing around his eyes—it was him. He was scuffed-up and threadbare, and they could stitch up his clothes and put a shine back on his boots, but they couldn’t do the same for the rest of him. Hadn’t mattered so much when he was on the run, but now … it’d just take some getting used to, was all.
“Chin up,” Saint said.
Jal rolled his eyes. Every chance Saint couldn’t see it with the lights down low, but it felt good to do it. “Relax, old man. I’m fine.”
“No.” Saint snorted and tugged his collar. “Lift up your chin, kid. I can’t see this last button.” When he’d walked in and realized Jal had done his shirt up wrong, he’d kindly offered to redo it. Which for him meant huffing and hawing and charging up like he was gonna take a swing, but that shirt wasn’t gonna fix itself, and Jal’s hands were shakier’n shit on a good day.
He angled up his chin. “When’d you say the Guild ship was supposed to get here?” Trying to sound casual, but yeah, all right, it did sound kind of queasy.
“Ship’s already here,” Saint said, straightening Jal’s coat and stepping back. He’d had a bit of a limp himself there for a while, but there was barely a trace of it anymore. “They’re on their way up.”
Oh. He swallowed and hoped it was nowhere near as loud as he thought it was. Never thought he’d miss the beep and trill of all those damn monitors. “So, this is it, then.” He’d played it out in his head for days now. Rehearsed what he’d say, how he’d say it. But if he’d learned anything stumbling onto the Ambit, it was that practice didn’t mean shit when the show went live. You got need of an extra hand? Poor dumb bastard hadn’t had a clue what he’d gotten himself into.
“This is it,” Saint agreed. “Sure you’re not gonna be sick? You’re looking kind of—”
“Shit-scared?”
“I was gonna say peaked.” The corner of Saint’s mouth quirked again. “But yours works, too. Hey.” He put a hand on Jal’s shoulder, dipping his head to catch Jal’s eyes. “The hard part’s done. The Council’s seen the footage. They’re out for blood, but it ain’t gonna be yours. Still trying to get a lead on whoever else was involved; half the crew’s gone private sector, so they’re harder to track down. We’ll find them, though. And I hear Fenton’s already on a shuttle back to the center spiral. They won’t tell me when he’s getting in.”
“Probably smart,” Jal said.
“Probably so. Still, I wouldn’t mind a chance to introduce myself.”
With the business end of a balled-up fist, most likely. Or something a little more permanent. Jal shook his head. “He ain’t worth it.”
“But you are,” Saint said, with a weight in the words that dared him to do anything but believe it. I said it, and I meant it, said the jut of his jaw, so you’d best just accept it. And then he cleared his throat and carried on like he hadn’t said anything at all. “Listen, you just take a deep breath, stop fussing with your hair”—Jal dropped his hand from the fuzzy patch they’d shaved behind his ear; couldn’t seem to stop prodding the seam of fresh-healed skin in the middle of it—“and quit worrying so much. All you have to do now is stand there, look pretty, and keep your head on straight. Nobody’s gonna expect any answers you’re not ready to give.”
Jal started to snort, but his ribs had some strong opinions about it. Negative ones. Real negative. “You sure about that?”
Saint’s heavy brows bunched, drawing those lines across his forehead that Jal wished he could just reach up and smudge smooth again. “You want me to talk to them first?”
“Nah, I think you’ve spoken for me enough, old man.” Smile to take the edge off; it was supposed to be a friendly jab, not a dig. There were nuances to conversations that he hadn’t gotten back yet. “You remember it? Jalsen Red will either be the reason you die, or the reason you live.” Even after all these years, he’d never forgotten a word. “Folks used to ask me about that, you know. Every time I got shipped off somewhere new, captain or XO or somebody’d always say, What’s that about, anyway? Never really knew how to answer them.”
Saint’s mouth did something that wasn’t quite a smile, but wasn’t a frown, either. A little soft around the edges, and his hand stayed a warm, steady weight on Jal’s shoulder. “I was right, though,” he said, and it was such a Saint thing to say that Jal couldn’t help but snort, opinionated ribs be damned. “I’m alive right now because of you.”
“So you were only half right, you smug bastard,” he corrected with a crooked, stupid grin. He had more to add, but the door panel pinged—place that fancy, folks couldn’t just knock—and all that easy humor they’d had going died like one of Regan’s houseplants. Took the air in his lungs with it, too. “Guess that’s them.” He tried not to let the nerves show, but his voice went raspy.
Saint gave a stiff nod. “Guess so.”
“You’re heading out then?”
“Tonight,” Saint said, and it could’ve been Jal projecting, but he swore Saint’s voice sounded a little rough around the edges. “Drestyn’s on a Union station not too far from here, but we’re carting him back to Guild HQ as soon as he’s cleared to make the trip. Cap got voluntold to lend a hand on his protection detail. Gotta say, it’s good to be back on our side of no man’s-land, but I think I’d take another stint in the frontier over babysitting duty.” Said with the air of a man who’d rather take another bullet, if it meant ducking that detail. “Anyway, Nash knows some people in the scrapyards back on base, so she’s good with it. Ambit could use some TLC.”
“Would you thank her for me? For the coat, I mean.” No way in hell that was Saint. The man couldn’t darn worth a damn. Hah. “And, uh. The whole not letting me die thing. Eoan too. I wasn’t always the most gracious guest, but I appreciate them letting me tag along.” Not that they’d given him much choice, at first.
Saint gave another nod, stiffer than the last. Like overcooled metal, Jal thought. He looked all strong and tempered, but a few more knocks and he’d shatter. “Fuck,” he breathed, grip tightening on Jal’s shoulder. In the dark of the room, his eyes still seemed to shine. “I don’t know how many more times I can say goodbye to you, kid.”
Except he hadn’t said it last time. He’d left without a word, and Jal used to hate him for that. Used to think it was just another choice he’d taken away, or, on his more forgiving days, a way to spare them both the pain of saying it aloud.
Standing there, though, seeing that brittle look on Saint’s face … he wondered if he hadn’t been wrong. If maybe Saint hadn’t said it, because despite what he’d done, he hadn’t wanted it to be true. Goodbye was a closing door.
What if he’d just wanted to keep it open?
Jal’s eyes stung, but he smiled. “So let’s don’t say it,” he said, mirroring Saint’s grip on his shoulder and pulling him in. Not a hug, just the touch of their heads. A deep breath. An important stillness. A soft laugh. “Clearly our paths’re meant to cross.” They always had, in one way or another. On a crowded shuttle. In a bustling outpost. Years and scars and a universe apart, in spite of the odds, they’d found each other again. Luck like that never gave out, his mama used to say, because it wasn’t luck at all. “I’ll see you around, old man.”
It was there when they parted—a real Toussaint smile, rare as a diamond-studded moon and tucked into the corners of those every-color eyes of his. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said, with one last squeeze to Jal’s shoulder, and then he pulled away. Step by step, until Jal had to let go, too; but unlike before, it didn’t feel like such a loss. “Just maybe call ahead next time.”
“Aye aye, McBlastinshit.” A lofty salute, and as Saint went to get the door, Jal finally felt ready. He wasn’t shiny, and he wasn’t the same starry-eyed miner boy who’d set out to the frontier all those years ago; he was tired and worn down and full of broken pieces he hadn’t even begun to put back together again. But against the odds, by the skin of his goddamn teeth, he’d made it here. He’d made it back to—
“Uncle Jal!”
Christ, that voice was everything. It was every dream he’d had since he’d lost his way, every smile he’d savored as he fought to find it again. It was all of that, and it was more, because it was finally fucking real, and the sound of it nearly brought him to his knees as the door slid open and Regan and Bitsie came pouring in. There you are. It was more a feeling than a thought, like a compass finally finding its north. A return to right, and the pieces might’ve changed shape a bit—Regan’s face was softer, touched with unfamiliar lines, and Bitsie’d shot up like a sprout and traded her last baby teeth for her mama’s sunny grace—but they still fit just right in that hollow, raw-edged space he’d been carrying.
No hesitation. Big, teary grins all around, and it was gravity—the same gravity that’d kept him going, kept him moving toward home when he thought he had nothing left to carry him. They crossed three years in the span of three seconds, crashing into him with open arms and blotchy cheeks, and Jal choked on a sob and a laugh and all those words he’d practiced saying to get himself through the day. The words didn’t matter, not when he could wrap his arms around them. When he could kiss Regan’s hair and hold Bitsie to his chest. When they were there, right there, finally.
When he was home.
He didn’t see Saint turning to leave. Couldn’t possibly have heard it—not with Regan’s airy, happy laughter and Bitsie’s hiccupping-firm I told them, I knew it, I missed you, and the sound of his own heart coming back together again.
So maybe he just felt it, that open door and Saint with one foot already through it. He raised his head from Bitsie’s wild, tear-damp curls and felt his mending heart give a sad but determined squeeze. “Hey, old man,” he said, and when Saint turned … for a second, Jal was fresh off the mines again. No idea where he was going, no idea what he’d do when he got there, but somehow sure that with that surly stranger with the kind-sad eyes, he’d make it out all right.
No, he decided, it wasn’t goodbye at all. And he knew exactly what to say.
“Good fucking luck.”