not what you want to hear

Who: Jesse and Jessie
When: Very early morning
Where: Their house

Jessie couldn't really sleep. She got this way every time something was on her mind and something was definitely on her mind right now. Her night had been full of fitful attempts to sleep and in the end, Jessie dragged out of her bed carefully, trying not to disturb Leo as he slept and purred by her side, and headed to the kitchen. Once there, she worked on making pancakes and while this was usually a weekend breakfast for them, JJ was up so early that it didn't really matter. She had time to waste and cooking would help keep her mind off of her thoughts.

Jesse still wasn't sleeping all that well. He was getting used to the whole having a bed thing, but it was taking time, and he still only slept for little snatches of sleep at a time. So when he was awake again at a stupid hour, but smelled something cooking, he got up to go investigate. When he spotted his daughter in there, he frowned lightly. "...I know for a fact you don't have to be up yet, Baby J." he said. "What's going on?"

Jessie looked up at her father when he entered the room, but instantly back down at the pancakes she was more like massacring than actually cooking. Sighing at another burnt one that she ended up tossing aside on a plate of like burnt pancakes, she poured the batter in and started the process over once more. "Lots of stuff...Or well..more like one really big thing." The pancake still had a little bit longer in the skillet before she could turn it, so she turned her back on it and looked at him. "You're gonna want to sit down for this."

There was an immediate sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was blindsiding, but those were words one never wanted to hear from their daughter. Still, he complied, walking over to the kitchen table, and he pulled out a chair to sit. "Talk to me." he said, eyes scanning over her to be sure he didn't see anything obviously wrong.

Jessie took the skillet off the heat, knowing that one more ruined pancake wasn't going to hurt anything. She pulled up a chair and sat across him, feeling fidgety for a moment because she knew what she was about to say was going to change things. She didn't want her father worried, but she had to tell him this. It wasn't something she could gloss over or not tell him. This was important. "I ran into Dodge yesterday. That rumor going around that he's dead? Not true. He's alive, but he's like..faked his own death in order to start over or something. But none of that is what I need to tell you. He told me that I needed to be careful, that there were people out there that could want to hurt him and that he was worried that they might come after me to do it. He says that as long as he stays in line and I forget I even knew him, there shouldn't be a problem, but..the whole thing was really weird and I don't know what to think anymore."

Well that was one of the last things he thought he'd hear. and he tried to process it quickly, and he did--just not especially well. "Why exactly would they come after you to do it? And who are these people?" he asked, voice flat. Tension was completely singing through him and there were a lot of things he could think of. And one of the first things that came to mind was that pissant hadn't showed even a sliver of respect or anything else to him, so he wondered who he'd pissed off. Or, possibly, if he was lying to gain Jessie's sympathy, because hey--that would work.

"I'm not sure. He said something people who would do anything to hurt him and how he didn't want me to get hurt because of it. Something about him still caring about me, but it wasn't just me they apparently threatened. It was Maddy too. I asked him who they were, he said he didn't know. That the guy was the brother of some girl he was talking to. And I yelled at him and asked him if he had learned anything at all, and he said he was just talking to her but that this was...weighing on his mind or something and he wanted me to be careful. Which apparently means keeping I know him at all to myself, but basically forgetting I ever knew him in the first place..." Jessie felt like she was rambling and she hoped that she was getting all the words right, she hoped she wasn't changing or altering them. She'd played it back so much in her head, but things changed from when they were happening to when they became memories.

Jesse frowned and watched his daughter struggling with everything. "So let me get this straight." he said. "A boy who had problems with your boundaries before and who you've stopped spending any time with randomly comes up to you to tell you he's in danger from some unknown, faceless 'enemy', and they're so interested in him that they might hurt you and someone else to get to him." he repeated. "That's his story?"

"He didn't randomly come up to me. I was walking on the street and I saw him, so since I thought he might be dead, I figured it would be a good idea to make sure he wasn't. And it lead to all this..." Jessie sighed, shaking her head. "I don't know. It could be a lie but it didn't seem like it. It seemed serious. He seemed different. I thought I probably shouldn't take something like that too lightly." Jessie looked back at her father and the worry was there in her eyes. It was why she hadn't slept, it was why she was sitting here with him now. She didn't know if she should be taking it lightly or not, she didn't really know much. All she did know was that it was important her dad knew too.

He looked at his daughter, and again was just struck with the fact that she was a shell of who she used to be. All that shit he'd been bringing up lately with Evie, or Becky, it was so plainly in front of him. It was heartbreaking, in it's own way. And in the end he looked away. "I'll look into it." he said. "If you're feeling worried about being here, stay with your grandparents. Or your aunt, uncle and cousin. It wouldn't be the first place anyone would look. I don't think anyone can really trace us here, but I don't know that for a fact, either." he stood, feeling a general loss.

Jessie watched her father as confusion set in on her face. "Dad..Don't get me wrong, I love everyone, but there's no way I'd feel safer with them than I do with you. You're my Dad. It's not like I even know who this random guy is and Dodge doesn't even know that we moved, so there's no way he could end up telling that other guy anything." She leaned back in her seat a little, noticing the way her father's expression changed, a sadness washing over her at the way his voice sounded. "I just thought I should tell you. Maybe it's all just one big nothing, you know? Dodge was worried about me telling you. He said that the way you'd solve it would be to actually kill him, but I told him that wasn't true. It's just a weird situation. I never really thought I'd end up having someone threaten me, especially because I didn't even do anything..."

"Two seconds ago, you were telling me all of this like it was the end of the world and you believed every word out of that punk's mouth." Jesse said, not shouting, far from it, but there was a tension in his voice. "And now you're going to turn around and say basically the polar opposite?" he asked. "Don't tell me that you 'just thought you should tell me' because that wasn't your intention. You're worried, because you believe in the threat, so of course you're going to tell me." He shook his head and walked towards the window in order not to say something to the absolutely fucking ridiculous notion that he'd put in her head that he'd up and murder a child for anything. Jesse wasn't a murderer. Never had been never planned on being one either. Again he wondered how it was his daughter could ever see anything worth spending time with when she'd come upon the little creep to begin with, and that just made that depression over things worse. "I think you're going to have to go stay with your aunt." he said. In the end, that would be the impossible trace. She didn't even have the same last name anymore. It wasn't anything like a real connection that people outside the family could follow properly, so it'd be the last place anyone would look--and yet it would still be with family.

"Well, yeah I'm worried. You're worried too, I can tell. It's not everyday that something like this happens." Jessie was going to protest more, was going to try and say that the way he phrased things earlier hadn't sounded like he believed in the threat when she first told him. To her, it initially sounded like he thought Dodge had made up some story, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she sighed as he walked away, staying quiet while he got time to breathe and think and then he spoke again, but it wasn't what she wanted to hear. "What? Dad, I want to stay here with you!"

And now she was flipflopping back to her first impression, of being worried. She really didn't have any consistency in this conversation, and he didn't know what to do about that. He'd never run into it before with her. Evie occasionally, sure, but not Baby J. "No, it's not every day that something like this happens, and if you're worried then you need to be someplace safe, while I go and see what I can find out." he said. "You said you believe him. Then you turned around and said it was nothing big, right after which you said apparently this kid thinks I'm a killer. So far he's not wracking up a whole lot in the way of credibility here, and with the history I know about and I'm sure that's not even the half of it, I'm pretty certain that he'd tell you anything so long as he thought you'd buy it, and feel bad for him again. It's not like he hasn't done it before. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to blow it off, either. I'll look into it. And until I figure out if he's just fucking with your head, or there really is a threat and it stops being a threat, you're going to be where people can't find you."

Jessie took a moment and just closed her eyes, giving herself a chance to take a breath like he had earlier. "Dad, I don't know what to think. Yes, initially I was freaked out, but I tell you and you sort of sound like you think he's just making it all up. So then I start to think, well maybe he is making it up. I didn’t say it was nothing big, I said it might not be anything big. But I don't know and I can't be sure. And I told him that was a stupid thing to think. I told him you'd never do something like that. Why are we arguing over this anyway? We shouldn't be. I don’t want to argue with you." Jessie hated this feeling. This was the last thing she wanted to feel when she talked to her father. He was the last person in the world she wanted to argue with. It was this same sort of feeling she'd felt for days now and she just wanted it gone. But she knew that there were times to argue with her dad and there were times she needed to just listen to him and that tone in his voice told her this was a time for the latter. It didn't need to be a repeat of the time she didn't go to her grandparents' when he asked her to. "Ok, fine. I'll go stay with Aunt Evie. Am I still going to school or does that stop too?"

"Not Evie." he said. "I didn't say Evie. Besides, she's been staying here. Or she said she was going to stay here, I don't know if she actually did or not, or what's going on with that." he admitted. "I said your aunt and your uncle. Your cousin. You'll stay with them. As for school, no. I'll call it in for you. You just got very ill. I'm sure your aunt or Becky can go collect homework for you."

Nodding again, Jessie slumped a little more in her chair as she thought about it. "Ok," She said, letting it stand for everything he just said. So Evie might also be staying with them? Or, well, staying in her house while she stayed with her cousin for a while. It sucked. She was just getting used to the house, getting excited about decorating and settling in, and all this bullshit happened. Standing up, Jessie moved back to the stove to try her attempt at pancakes again, feeling like she needed to be doing something. "How long do you think this will take?"

"I don't know." Jesse said honestly. "Guess it depends on what I find." Hopefully nothing. He really really hoped that it was nothing. That this was just more bullshit that kid was slinging around. He didn't want his daughter getting played but the idea of her getting told a line was better than the idea of her getting hurt because of that troublemaking ass. He started to head for the door. "Have Becky or Evie get you over there." he said.

"Uhm, excuse me," She said, following him out towards the door. "You don't think you're getting out of here without giving me a hug, do you?" Yes, she knew he had important things to do like make sure there wasn't actually a threat against her life, but Jessie needed a hug and she wasn't about to let him leave without giving her one. "Will you come over later and let me know if you found anything? Or call them or something?"

"I'm seriously doubting that I'll magically find answers in a single day, Jessie." he said, but he did give her a hug. "But I'll call later." he added, figuring that he could do. But digging things up took time. So, he'd have to put that in before he got to the bottom of things.

At least she gotten the hug, but there was something in his demeanor that made her wonder. Was he upset with her or just the situation? If she hadn't run into Dodge today, none of this would be happening...but she also wouldn't know about the threat. "I'm sorry this is happening, Dad. I wish it wasn't and I wish you didn't have to go out there and fix it. Be safe, ok?"

"Jessie--don't take responsibility for shit that isn't your fault. You didn't put yourself into this situation, so you don't apologize for it." he told her. "I'll be careful. But don't apologize. This isn't on you."

Even though it wasn't, she still wanted him to know that she wasn't really happy with this situation. Sighing, she nodded and went in for another hug. "I'm gonna take Leo with me...Unless you think they wouldn't want him there." In her mind, if she couldn't be here with her dad, at least she could bring something of home with her and besides, Leo was her responsibility anyway.

"They won't mind." he said, sure of that. "Take him with, I'm sure you'll need something to occupy your attention." he said, and he kissed the top of her head when he hugged her back a second time. "Now go pack up, after you eat something. I'll talk to you soon." he promised.

Jessie relaxed a little in his grip, especially after the kiss and the second hug. That was what she needed, to know that he'd be talking to her soon and to get that second reassurance from him. "All right. Love you, Dad." She said as she detangled from his hug but didn't move back to the kitchen. She was going to stand here and watch him leave.

“Love you too, Baby J.” he said. “Don’t worry, things’ll get worked out.” He didn’t know how, but he’d do his best. Then he turned to head to his room, to grab a few things before he walked out.