VELVETEEN PRESENTS JACQUELINE CLAUS vs. The Lost and the Found #3
The Princess sighed and stepped to the side. Action Dude stepped over the threshold into the castle, offering a genial nod to Jack. “Hi,” he said. “How’s things?”
“Things are okay, I guess,” said Jack. She searched his face for some sign that he didn’t know her, that he thought she was a servant or something. She didn’t find it. Instead, she found recognition born of a shared history that had never really existed.
This world was like treacle. It was pulling her deeper with every minute that passed, and it wouldn’t be long before she was sunk so deep that she would never get out.
“Cool.” Action Dude waited for the Princess to close the door before he turned to her and said, “I am not here as a representative of The Super Patriots, Inc. I’m not here to get in the way, either.
I’m here because I’m as worried about Vel as you are, and I wanted to know how she was doing. That’s it. That’s all.”
“And where was all this concern when she was running for her life and fighting for her sanity, huh?” The Princess crossed her arms again.
Jack found herself profoundly glad that the Night Shift had already gone to look after Velveteen.
Getting sucked into the middle of a superpowered throw-down wasn’t going to encourage better medical care.
“I fucked up, okay?” Action Dude shook his head, looking frustrated. “You really want to stand there and tell me that you’ve never made a mistake, Cara? That you’re the only person in the world who’s always been perfect? Because I don’t buy it.”
“At least when I fucked up, I didn’t break anybody’s heart but my own,” the Princess shot back. “You damn near killed her. Maybe you never raised a hand against her, but you damn near killed her all the same. You think you can just walk back in here and have me forgive you for that?”
“No,” said Action Dude.
The Princess, who had been gearing up to yell at him some more, stopped. “Well, all right then,” she finally said. “I suppose you can’t hurt anything by seeing her. But if she wakes up and doesn’t want you here, you’re gone. You got that? Gone.”
“If she doesn’t want me here, I’ll never come back,” said Action Dude.
“Good,” snapped the Princess, and swept off down the hall, moving with the sort of elegant grandeur that only came with having a ball gown and a castle to wear it in.
Action Dude and Jack followed at a more normal, less regal pace. Action Dude glanced at her several times, apparently steeling up the nerve to speak.
He’s going to do it, she thought giddily. He was just waiting for us to be alone so he wouldn’t have to worry about upsetting me. He’s going to do it.
“So, uh, how’ve you been?” Action Dude reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “I haven’t really seen you since, you know. Everything got weird.”
“You mean since Papa had you put on the Naughty List for breaking Vel’s heart,” she said, with automatic primness. He didn’t know that she wasn’t supposed to be here. He didn’t remember Jackie. That felt weirdly like a betrayal. “I’ve been good, I guess. How’ve you been?”
“Awful,” he said. “But I guess that’s what I deserve.”
They walked on in silence for a little bit.
Jack wanted to tell him it hadn’t been his fault; that he’d been a child, listening to people he should have been able to trust, people who should have had his best interests at heart.
She wanted to tell him that he’d done a lot of good and saved a lot of lives.
She couldn’t. She was a good liar, but she was a good friend, too, and she remembered Velveteen’s face when she had walked away from her entire life because of him.
“Is it still ‘Jack,’ or do you prefer ‘Jacqueline’ these days?” he asked finally.
“Jack is fine,” she said.
“All the press calls you ‘Jacqueline.’”
“That’s because I’m Santa’s daughter, and they don’t want to print anything that might offend him.
” But oh, how they skirted the line. If she’d had half the romantic assignations they’d penned for her, she’d be just about the most popular girl in the world.
Instead, she spent her weekends home alone with the penguins and Lucy, or helping the elves build toys, or playing video games with the Princess. Normal things. Nice things.
She just wished they didn’t all feel like they’d been stolen from someone else. This life wasn’t hers. And she didn’t know how to give it back.
When they reached the recovery room, the pumpkin was gone.
Instead, Velveteen was lying on the bed, sheet pulled up her collarbone, still wearing her mask.
It was a small piece of professional courtesy: officially, the Night Shift didn’t know her secret identity.
As for the Night Shift herself (herselves?), she was everywhere, hanging IV bags, checking vitals, feeding data into a laptop computer while also picking up printouts and mixing medications.
Jack and Action Dude stopped in the doorway, taking it all in.
Velveteen, who had been healthy and strong a week before, if injured from the battle with Supermodel, was suddenly thirty pounds underweight, too pale, with circles under her eyes deep enough to have spread beyond the margins of her mask, like bruises.
Her hair was brittle from malnutrition, and at least six inches longer than it had been.
For all of that, she didn’t appear to have aged: not as they measured aging in the Calendar Country.
Action Dude made a small, choked sound of protest. “What did you do to her?” he asked.
“I don’t know what Spring or Autumn did,” said Jack. “I can’t tell you what Winter did. I’m not allowed, and I don’t know all of it. I wasn’t there for all of it.”
“Because you’re her friend. They knew you’d try to protect her if you saw what they were doing.”
That wasn’t true at all. Jack nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly.”
The Princess walked back over to them. “The Night Shift says she’s malnourished, dehydrated, and exhausted,” she said, without preamble. “Our girl hasn’t been sleeping. For years, apparently, which isn’t possible. She hasn’t been gone that long.”
“Yes, she has,” said Jack. “We don’t do time the way you do, remember?”
“Jack…” The Princess frowned. “I love you like a sister. You know that. But if there’s anything you know that could help us help her, and you don’t tell me right now, so help me Grimm, there are going to be consequences.”
“There are always consequences, Cara.” Jack looked at the taller woman calmly, and shook her head.
“All of this is consequences. Velveteen asked the holidays for a favor, because she wanted to keep the Governor of Oregon on her side. They gave her a dead woman as a gift for a broken-hearted sister, and she agreed to serve them for a year. Not to choose one, necessarily, but to serve them. If they knew they weren’t going to get to keep her, why should they play nicely with her?
I don’t endorse what they did—she was my friend before she was yours—but this is already consequences.
I’m sorry the holidays hurt her. I didn’t do it.
And I can’t do anything to help, so I’m going to get out of the way and let you work. ”
Jack turned and walked away, leaving the Princess staring after her, leaving Velveteen insensate on her bed, leaving the Night Shift to her work.
Action Dude turned to watch her go, grimacing before he looked back to the Princess and said, “I’m just going to…
I’m going to see if she’s all right. Okay? ”
“Okay,” said the Princess.
“Thanks,” he said, and kicked off from the ground, rising into that odd half-jump that almost all fliers used. He quickly straightened out into a more traditional flying position and soared after her.
The Princess waited until he was gone before putting her hands over her face. “And here I was hoping this was going to be one of the good days,” she said, to no one in particular.
Velveteen slept on.
* * *
Jack walked until she was out of sight of the recovery room. Then she broke into a run, heading for the nearest set of tower stairs and plunging straight up them. Her dress didn’t slow her down. Ridiculous finery was something she had long since gotten used to, in her role as Santa’s daugh—
No. No. She wasn’t, she wasn’t, because this wasn’t her life, this wasn’t her world, this wasn’t her. She was supposed to be…she was supposed to…
She was sitting on the edge of the battlements, crying silently into her hands, when Action Dude found her. Her tears glittered silver and gold, like the dusting on a Christmas cake. He landed cautiously a few feet away, clearing his throat to let her know that he was there.
“Bad day?” he asked. He winced. “Um, okay. That didn’t…okay, that didn’t quite come out right. Are you okay?”
“I’ve been asking myself over and over again whether they changed the world and me, or just changed the world and got me from a mirror that no one was using.
” She lowered her hands, looking at him miserably.
“They changed us both. I remember being me and I remember being her, and I was supposed to be her, not me. I know it in my bones. This is my punishment. This is how they make me understand that I broke the rules. And it isn’t fair. ”
She started crying again. Action Dude looked alarmed.
“I, uh, don’t know what to do with that,” he said.
“Yelena never cried.” Not around him, anyway.
He was sure she’d done her share of crying behind closed doors, where no one would see her, or judge her, for being a real person.
“Vel did, but I’d usually kiss her tears away, and I think you’d punch me if I tried that. Justifiably so.”
Jack laughed in surprise, still crying. “You’d be getting coal in your stocking every Christmas for the rest of your life.”
“I’m Jewish.”
“Every Hanukkah, then.”
“That would be a lot of coal. I could probably heat the whole headquarters.”
Jack laughed again. Her tears had virtually stopped. “Papa doesn’t like anyone to go completely empty handed.”