Welcome To Whatever The Fuck This Is..

you had to cancel three of your university lectures and move an entire afternoon lab session just to be here today.

which means somewhere across pittsburgh a lecture hall full of confused engineering students are currently celebrating chase's suspension without even knowing it.

jack knows better than to point that out right now.

you are more dressed up than usual for a school meeting. not overly so, but enough that it came to the forefront of his attention. a nicer blouse. new earrings. the faint smell of your perfume when you slid into the passenger seat earlier.

then there's your left hand resting against your knee. glaringly bare. jack notices that too.

the absence of your wedding ring feels almost louder than anything else in the room.

you stopped wearing it a months ago. quietly with no announcement and no conversation attached to it.

one day it was simply gone.

jack still wears his but mostly because taking it off felt worse somehow. now, sitting beside you while your bare hand rests in plain sight between the two of you, he suddenly feels really stupid for it. like maybe he missed the point somewhere.

his thumb absently brushes against the ring where it still sits warm against his finger before he looks away quickly.

across from both of you, chase is slouched so low in her chair she looks halfway melted into it. she let out a silent yawn that makes her disinterest quite obvious.

"charlotte has demonstrated repeated behavioural issues this term," the year head says carefully, glancing down at a file thick enough to make jack vaguely impressed.

"she skipped double maths twice," sister agnes adds.

"it was single maths twice," chase mutters.

jack shifts slightly in his chair, adjusting his prosthetic beneath the table. he adjusts it with the subtle irritation of someone who's spent years pretending it doesn't bother him when it does.

"you okay?" your voice becomes warm automatically as you ask him the question and jack hates how much that still affects him.

"i'm one mention of 'academic potential' away from dying instantly," he murmurs back to you.

your mouth twitches despite yourself and sister agnes notices immediately. she does not look at all amused.

"i fail to see what is so funny, mrs abbot."

she says it like it still belongs to you and you freeze for half a second. it's small but jack catches it immediately. the way your posture tightens before you force it back into place.

it shouldn't still do that because you stopped using it a while ago. it wasn't really a big deal it was just your name gradually slipping back into the version of yourself that existed before him.

on paperwork, on emails, on conference registrations—you corrected it where it mattered.

professionally, you were back to yourself.

but not on paper everywhere, not in every room and definitely not in places like this, where people assume continuity because it's easier than updating reality.

you clear your throat lightly. "nothing, sister. i'm sorry."

you're really not sorry.

chase notices that too. you can tell by the tiny smile she's trying to hide behind the sleeve of her hoodie.

the year head clears his throat awkwardly.

"the more serious concern is the physical altercation."

jack leans back in his chair with a sigh. here we go.

"the boy sustained a broken nose," sister agnes says firmly.

"tragic," chase mutters.

jack presses his lips together hard enough to stop himself laughing. you kick his good ankle lightly beneath the desk without looking at him. he looks at you immediately and your expression says behave yourself. his expression says our daughter is objectively funny.

for a second your eyes meet properly for the first time all morning and something strange flickers there. you look away first.

unfortunately, chase inherited both your sarcasm and jack's inability to keep inappropriate comments inside his own head. a very dangerous combination.

the year head crosses his arms slowly.

"violence is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances."

"agreed," you say calmly.

jack glances at you sideways. that tone means you're about to become professionally polite instead of emotionally polite, which is always worse.

"however," you continue smoothly, "i do think a bit of context matters."

sister agnes sighs softly like she already knows where this is going.

"the context," she says firmly, "is that your daughter punched another student."

"after he repeatedly harassed her," jack says flatly.

"verbally," the year head corrects.

jack stares at him for a second. he looks too exhausted now for any of his usual diplomatic bedside manner.

"with all due respect," he says, "i work in an emergency room. i've stitched up enough teenage boys to know a broken nose builds character."

you make a strangled noise beside him that is definitely not a laugh. sister agnes looks horrified and the year head looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh. chase outright snorts.

"dad."

jack shrugs tiredly. "what? i'm just saying."

"dr abbot—"

"he called her a freak," jack interrupts suddenly, all traces of humour instantly disappearing. "and apparently decided making comments about our family situation was a good idea."

the room quiets slightly after that and sister agnes exchanges a look with the year head.

"we understand charlotte has been under emotional strain recently," he says carefully.

chase groans dramatically. "if one more person says emotional strain i'm genuinely gonna start biting people."

"chase," you warn automatically.

"sorry."

"look," jack says more calmly now, "we're not saying she should've hit him."

"thank you," sister agnes says tightly.

"we're saying," you continue smoothly, "that perhaps the school should have addressed the repeated bullying before it escalated."

the year head shifts awkwardly in his chair.

"there were no formal reports made."

"because she doesn't report things," you reply immediately.

jack glances at chase knowingly before muttering under his breath, "she gets that from you."

you look offended at once. "absolutely not."

"you once threatened a dean over budget cuts."

"that was different."

"you called him intellectually dishonest."

"because he was."

chase is visibly trying not to grin now and sister agnes looks deeply exhausted by all three of you.

"this is precisely the issue," she says firmly. "charlotte appears to view confrontation as completely acceptable."

jack blinks slowly. "well, to be fair, sometimes people are extremely punchable."

"jack," you hiss.

"what? i'm really tired."

chase finally laughs outright. the sound softens the room for a second because despite everything else, it's obvious that she's loved. deeply. completely. even when she's difficult.

you think maybe people don't understand that sometimes.

they see the attitude. the sharp mouth and defensive posture and assume she's just another difficult teenager. they don't see the years before her.

the heartbreak. the desperation that nearly swallowed both you and jack whole before chase ever existed.

there was a time before her where your bathroom counter was covered in medication schedules and syringes and pregnancy tests that never showed what you wanted them to.

a time where jack sat on the cold tile floor beside the bathtub still wearing scrubs after a fourteen-hour shift while you cried so hard you could barely breathe.

"i can't do this anymore," you whispered brokenly, your face buried in your hands.

jack sat quietly in front of you holding the syringe carefully between his fingers. tired. so unbelievably tired but gentle anyway. he was always gentle with you.

"okay," he said softly.

you looked up immediately.

"okay?"

"if you wanna stop, we stop."

your chest ached so badly it felt unbearable.

"but i know how much we want this."

jack's expression cracked a little at that, because he wanted it too. god, he wanted it too.

he reached forward slowly, brushing damp hair back from your face with one careful hand.

"i want you okay more than this."

that almost made you cry harder but instead you shook your head and laughed weakly through tears. jack had smiled sadly.

sixteen months later, chase made her entrance into the world.

it was much earlier than expected actually.

you went into labor five weeks early while dropping off coffee for jack during an overnight shift. one minute you are standing in the emergency department complaining about parking near the ambulance bay. and then the next you were doubled over gripping the front of jack's scrubs while he held you and stared at you in absolute horror.

"no," he said immediately, like he could personally negotiate with biology and the universe. "no, no, no. it's too early."

"jack," you gasped through clenched teeth, "i am actively having this baby regardless of your opinion."

jack had cried harder than you did when they handed her to him. you would never forget that. the look on his face. the absolute awe. like after years of grief and disappointment and wanting, he finally got proof that miracles were real after all.

chase had been your impossible thing. your hard-won thing. your greatest thing. and even now, sitting in a principal's office because she punched a boy in the mouth, you know with absolute certainty there is nothing either of you would change about her.

not one damn thing.

sister agnes' expression softens slightly despite herself.

"charlotte," she says more gently now, "you're clearly very bright. but you seem angry lately."

chase's posture changes to defensive now.

jack notices first and he leans forward slightly, forearms resting against his knees.

"hey," he says quietly.

chase looks at him reluctantly.

"you wanna tell them what's going on?"

for the first time during the entire meeting, she looks like a young child both tired and hurt.

her eyes flick between you and jack before dropping to her lap.

"he kept talking about you guys," she mutters finally.

jack's jaw tightens slightly while you stay very still beside him.

"what exactly did he say?" you ask carefully.

chase shrugs too quickly. "just some stupid stuff."

"chase."

she sighs hard. "he said dad left because you guys couldn't stand each other or me anymore."

the room goes painfully quiet.

jack stares at the floor for a second and you feel something twist sharply in your chest. you and jack had always tried to make sure chase understood the divorce was never about her.

you had just slowly became two exhausted people orbiting separate spaces, separate schedules and separate lives. missed dinners turned into missed conversations. missed conversations turned into silence.

and somewhere along the way, jack moved out because it was easier than standing beside you in the kitchen pretending you both didn't feel the distance growing wider every month.

chase blamed jack first. not loudly, not in one clean accusation, but in the quiet way she pulled away from him. missed calls she didn't return on the phone she had begged him to buy her.

conversations that became both shorter and flatter. she stayed closer to you by default, like you were the constant and her father was the variable that had changed the equation.

and in some ways, that tightened something between you and chase. not against him exactly, but beside him. you became the safer orbit. the one she didn't have to translate her anger for.

jack noticed but he just didn't know how to step back into something that already felt rewritten without him.

so he and chase had to rebuild what they used to have in pieces. awkward visits that started like negotiations. conversations that didn't know where to land. moments where she would almost soften, then remember she wasn't sure she was allowed to yet.

you were in the middle of it all, steadying things without meaning to. absorbing the blame she wouldn't fully say out loud.

correcting misunderstandings before they hardened into distance that couldn't be undone.

it made you and chase closer in a way that wasn't planned. protective, almost instinctive. two people on the same side of something neither of you had fully named.

jack watched that happen too. he watched the space between him and his daughter widen before he figured out how to cross it again.

and still, somehow, over time, you all started learning how to exist in the same frame again without everything breaking. not at all repaired and definitely not fixed. just carefully, repeatedly rebuilt in smaller, quieter ways than either of you expected.

jack's head lifts.

"okay," he says flatly. "yeah. no. i would have punched the shit out of him too."

even you laugh quietly at that one, mostly because you know he means it.

chase looks at him then and something in her expression mellows.

because underneath all the confusion and tension and anger, her father still showed up. even though he was tired, grumpy and visibly running on no sleep whatsoever.

but here, always here.

the year head clears his throat awkwardly.

"regardless, suspension remains necessary."

"fine," jack says.

"fine," you echo.

chase groans loudly. "seriously?"

you finally turn fully toward her. "you cannot hit people at school."

"outside school though?" she asks hopefully.

"chase," you and jack say at the exact same time.