~~Jack~~
The sweeps continued. Until someone managed to find a hint of the hunters, they had no choice but to continue them. But as time went on, Jack's mom started asking about their old home, about visiting it, and getting things they might want. He had a free night tonight, so, time to take a trip through memory lane, knowing full well the hell it'd be.
"You ready for this?" he said.
"I... I don't know." His mom looked at the door, the front door, the threshold, the gate, the barrier between her new life and her old life, and trembled. "I don't know what I'll find."
"A lot of pain, Mom." Not the nicest way to start, but he had to be honest. "I... I've only looked through the windows of this place, and it's always been painful."
"You never snuck in?"
"Hell no." Laughing, he shook his head, and rested his back against the front door of his old house. It was raining, pouring even, as if someone decided this night was the perfect night to dial up the drama. Visiting his old home in the rain was such a perfect balance of sad atmosphere that he couldn't help but be moved. Though, if someone started playing some depressing music, he'd probably kill them.
And, he probably should have brought a partner on this trip. It was the rule, to always travel in pairs when not in the dead center of South Side. His mom didn't exactly count as a partner, considering she'd only been Embraced for a month. But he was strong enough to make up for that weakness.
Ventrue hubris.
"B-But, I thought you had a friend, that Damien fellow, and he could hide things in plain sight?" His mom was dressed in a business suit, the same sort he was, and wearing a long trench coat meant to protect it from the rain. Her umbrella protected her wavy hair. He was in a coat too, but no umbrella of his own. They'd shared. He knew they would.
"Cloak of Night? Yeah, Damien can do that. So can Natasha, and Beatrice. But, the issue was never being stealthy. It... it hurt, you know? Seeing you, and Mary. I never got to say goodbye, and I..." He grit his teeth, turned around, and unlocked the door. Getting the key had been easy enough. After the incident at the hospital, the Invictus had confiscated Mary's stuff, and his mother's. If he wanted to, the Invictus could confiscate the house too. But, no, better to let it go up for sale at some point.
"What, Jack?"
"Nothing."
Samantha sighed, the usual sigh she made when she knew he was just ending a conversation he didn't want to have. They'd had this dance a thousand times, after his dad died. And, stepping into the kitchen of his old home, the muscle memory, patterns, and habits of his old life kicked in as if he'd never left. No doubt, they'd have more conversations where they fell into bad habits, the sort that had led to their distancing. But, he'd try to catch them when he could.
He didn't want to enter the house. It was his old house, but he felt something different about it, something off, something bleak and mean. It was an empty house, scarred by the loss of its family, all four of them. There was a shadow, something dark and heavy about it now, something that had never been there before, as if it was angry at him for coming back dead instead of alive.
He set his hand down against the counter next to the door, the first thing he always noticed when he came home, back when he was alive. It's where he'd throw his keys, and set his headphones. It felt cold, colder than the ambient temperature would have suggested. But, worse than that, was how quiet it was. He was surprised to hear the hum of the fridge; guess no one had bothered to empty it and turn off non-essential circuits or something, since the Invictus had closed the house off. But other than that, it was deathly quiet.
It was a decent house, middle class, with a family room, living room, a few bedrooms, and a couple bathrooms. A four-level split, with a basement split in half for storage and a movie room. The side door they took went into the kitchen, where they were surrounded by cupboards and drawers. Without hesitation, Jack rubbed his shoes back and forth on the old brown mat, and started to undo his shoelaces
He blinked down at his fingers, laughed, stood back up, and walked into the kitchen, shoes still on. No point. No point at all.
"Jack! Take off your... your... oh." His mom laughed as well, quieter, sadder, before she followed him.
He smiled at the tile, white, with little black flowers. He smiled at the cupboards, brown wood, and the slot where a microwave sat above a counter. He smiled at the counters too, and their muted white marble coloring.
The house really was colder than he was used to. He wasn't Blushing Life, so the temperature difference didn't bother his skin so much, but he could tell it was off. Colder in the house than it was outside. Strange. Darker too. It must have been his imagination, or a trick of the light his Kindred eyes were picking up.
No, it was probably the depressing thoughts running through his mind by entering his old home that was doing the trick. It was the home he'd left behind, the home where he left two women shattered and depressed. Fuck him, he could practically feel the misery permeating the walls, made worse by his memories, when he spied on his mom and sister through the windows. Dad dead, him missing, his mom and sister had only each other to recover from that mess.
Jack, give yourself a break. None of it, absolutely none of it, is your fault. You were involved, but none of it happened because of you.
Easy to think the logical thoughts. Harder to internalize them and turn them into a feeling. Deep down, he knew damn well he blamed himself for Mary's death, and nearly losing his mother. It was beyond frustrating, knowing a truth, but not being able to accept it.
He took a deep breath, and let his memories guide him. Before he knew what he was doing, he opened the fridge. It was a nice fridge, big, with a bottom freezer drawer. A little digging exposed some ice cream, and he laughed as he showed it to his mom.
"The super low cal high protein ice cream?"
"Hey! It tastes good."
"And costs five times as much as regular ice cream."
Frowning and scrunching up her nose, she took the ice cream and put it back in the freezer. "I look good, don't I? I had to give up the delicacies to lose the weight."
"You do look good."
She beamed with the compliment, and he rolled his eyes. She was too damn sweet.
"I... I don't know if there's anything I... I should take. Antoinette says I should be careful. If I take memories with me, it'll... it'll be hard, to move on."
Yeah, that was true. He nodded, affirming as he moved past the counter and into the kitchen. There was a wood table, one of those you could pull apart and slip some wood planks into the center to make bigger. The patio doors beside him showed the pouring rain falling onto the wood, and the bench on the patio. On the wall was a painting he did, from his high school days. Apples on a plate, of course.