Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jolyne cries, backtracking until she could grab onto the pant leg of her father as the ocean reaches up the shore, the sound of waves crashing against the distant rocks and turning over themselves like the roar of a monster.

“Jolyne, it’s not scary,” Her father states, reaching down to pat her head.

He settles his hand between her twin buns, tilting her head up just a little to offer a faint smile. Jolyne drags her forearm across her face, wiping her nose and effectively covering her face with the sand that had gotten on her whilst playing.

The girl shakes her head and knocks her forehead back against his leg with a whine. It was scary! It was big, and cold, and dark, if she were to go in it, it would swallow her whole and she wouldn’t be able to see her mom ever again.

Tears waterfall from her eyes at the thought, and she sobs against her dad’s pant leg.

Her father manages to peel her away, just enough to kneel before her. He tips up his white cap, the sunlight lighting the left half of his face enough to be seen.

Jolyne looks him in the eyes, hiccups and sniffles as she studies them for something. They have the same eyes, like the shiny rocks her dad calls glass that weave between the rocks and sand of the beach, and the sky.

“If anything happens, I’ll always be here to save you, Jolyne,” He says, the rumble of his voice just loud enough over the roar of the ocean behind her. She skews her eyes shut, balling her fists by her sides. She sniffs, furrowing her eyebrows.

“No you won’t!” Jolyne accuses, crossing her tiny arms stubbornly, and glancing down at the sand beneath her.

“When haven’t I?” Her father asks, tilting his head a little to keep her lowered gaze.

“When you go away! you leave me all the time, and you’re not gonna save me,” She says, voice shaking as she does as such. Her nose is running once more, and Her dad brings a sleeve up to wipe it for her before setting his hand back atop her head.
She looks up, and there he is again, still there.

“Im sorry…” There’s hesitation before he speaks again, and Jolyne scrunches her face up trying to figure out why, “But I won’t now, I wouldn’t leave right now for anything or anyone. I’ll always be here when you need me, because you’re important to me. More important than work.”
Jolyne’s face softens, and her lip begins to shake again before she’s crying once more, wiping her eyes harshly before throwing herself forward to hug her dad, wiping her wet eyes into the shoulder of his jacket. After a moment, his arms wrap around her and he rubs her back until she calms down.
She’s not sure why she’s crying, now. She wasn’t scared, or sad, or really happy, it felt foreign.

“C’mon, I’ll hold your hand,” Her father says, pulling away from her and rising from his knee with a groan.
Just as he said, he offers a hand to the toddler, and Jolyne takes it, holding it as tight as she can as he leads her out to the sea.
She’s shaking when the water begins to rise again, and as the icy cold reaches her ankles she tenses. But then it’s gone, and she opens her eyes to look at the water that did not, in fact swallow her whole.

Jolyne looks up to her dad, who is already looking down at her fondly, and he looks back up to the blue water.
The girl does the same, looking back out at the sea and following as she’s guided in until it reaches her knees, and dirties the white of her father’s clothes.
It’s cold, yes, but not scary. It’s not a monster, and for the first time she’s sure if it was, her dad would be there to save her.

———

It took the deadbeat 8 years to visit.
8 years and a 15 year long sentence to prison for him to show up and tell her that she was of any relevance in his life.
Jolyne couldn’t believe the nerve on Jotaro, showing up like he just- just *could*! Like he had any right to.
And just as his arrival, he left like he had the right to, like he could waltz back into her life and die on the same day. She still had shit to say to him, she had to tear him a new one for all the years he was gone, and all that he left behind without the common decency to call.

“I always…cared about you, Jolyne,” Jotaro had said— what he had planned to be the last thing he ever said, apparently. It pissed Jolyne off, how dare he?

Jolyne’s breathing is ragged, and her words catch in her throat when she tries to speak, coming out more as angry grunts as she hauls the limp, forty-something year old across the sand.

She could hear the prison’s dogs being let out, and the distance hollering of pigs with fancy guns. Every sound was like a clock ticking.
“I made it to the beach! You asshole— where are they?!” She screamed, glancing out at the ocean as she drags them both into the end of a river, the water murky further back from where it meets the ocean.

Frantically, Jolyne looks around, heart rapid when she sees air rising;g to the surface. It’s here! They’re out of here, now! Jolyne looks down to the man she called her father.

His eyes are open and distant, blue like the stars that sprinkle the ocean as the sun hits it. Blue, like her own. He’s not moving, mouth his agape as the clear water around him turns red as blood spills from the hole in his chest like the first miracle.
The world around her keeps moving yet it falls on deaf ears, a lifeless cold body just like Jotaro’s.
It couldn’t be real, this wasn’t happening— it was a dream, and she’d wake up in her room with her mom waiting for her just down in the kitchen, holding the same melancholy look she always did. Or she’d wake up in that same, cold, fifthly cell with her roommate watching over her like a science project— anywhere but here.

She’d wake up because this wasn’t real.

Jolyne falls to her knees, fury curtailing her features as she drags Jotaro out of the water by his collar, slapping him back down on the ground with little regard before putting both hands to his chest, over where his wound lay.

She pushes all her weight down on his chest, then retracts, again, and again, and again until she’d feel his heart beating again- until it was all real.
“You can’t leave again- you don’t get to,” Jolyne barks, her voice shaking despite her best efforts. She keeps an unsteady pattern, trying to stay on beat but her crazed state makes it hard.

It never comes, the beating of his heart nor the return of his breathing. Lifeless, Jotaro lies against the beach sand, legs still under the water.
Jolyne finds it hard to believe she’s ever hated him more. How could he?

Her hands are tacky with drying blood and salt water, her hair wild and sticking to the sweat coating her face.

The woman forces air back to her lungs, only to heave it back up. Hyper and ragged breathing leaves her before a scream mangles her throat, escaping from her very core as sobs rack her body, and tears mix with the blood and sweat that seem to line every inch of her being now. Much to her body’s dismay, she gets back onto her feet, tremors shaking her whole body with every step she takes, dragging him back into the water until a man hurriedly leaves the submarine and relieves her of her duty, a stand emerging from his figure to access Joataro.

Painstakingly, Jolyne walks back to the prison, desperately trying to keep still on her feet as the world’s spinning sets her off her step.

There's incoherent yelling all around her and Jolyne puts her hands up before the pigs have the chance to find their target.

She’d fix this. Jotaro didn’t get to walk out again. As much as she hates him, as much as she wanted him dead, he doesn’t get to leave her when she needs him most.

He has a promise to uphold.
She’s got a freaky disk to find.

———

There was yelling, and through the thin walls of her bedroom, Jolyne could hear her mother’s sobbing, and the hum that was her father’s voice. It was scary, but it wasn’t new.

It felt like every time her father came home after his long trips this was the result, and when he started to leave it happened all over again.
Again, and again, and again.

Jolyne presses her eyes into the knees she hugs to her chest, watching the little patterns and colors that dance around behind her eyelids under the pressure.

When it goes quiet, she expects to hear her mother storming past her room, and the slamming of her door, and to make herself dinner while they are separated for the night. But she doesn’t.

A knock echoes through her room, causing Jolyne to stall before she mutters out a small ‘Come in’.

It’s dad this time. He’s dressed as he always is, but he looks tired, exhaustion boring lines into his forehead and circles under his eyes. He takes a step forward, only to freeze in the doorway, tugging his cap down a little.

“May I come in?” He asks quietly, like the vampires in the movies Jolyne watches with him sometimes. Her father doesn’t like vampire movies, ‘says they're inaccurate and that ‘real vampires aren’t romantic’.

Jolyne simply nods, resting her chin atop her knees but not meeting her dad’s gaze as he takes a seat at the end of her twin sized bed, which sinks under his weight.

“Are you…okay?” he asks uncertainly, as though he wasn’t too sure about his own words.

“Mhm…” Jolyne hums, hugging her legs closer to her chest. This Didn’t feel right— it felt out of place. Wrong. A feeling of dread drawls up her spine.

“Right…baby—“

“Im not a baby.”

“Jolyne,” Her dad corrects, tilting his cap down again, and looking off at the teal colored walls almost…nervously. Her dad doesn’t get nervous, though.
“Im going away, again.”

Jolyne frowns, finally looking up fully in surprise. They were supposed to go to the beach this time- he had promised!
“But you just got back?” She blurted, leaning forward a little.

Her dad doesn’t look back at her. Guilt, now. He was guilty and it was eating him in a way Jolyne had never seen any emotion ever do to him.

“I…know. But I don’t think I’m coming back this time. Not for a while,” He mutters, plucking a loose hair from his pants instead of looking to his daughter to see the distress written over her face.

“But- How long! You’re leaving mom and I!?” She exclaims frantically, bringing her knees down into a crisscross.

Her mind ran a thousand miles a minute— why? Did she do something? was it because of the fight?

“I…Dont know how long.” That's all he has to say?

Jolyne feels her eyes burn, and her throat aches from the knot that ties itself there. that’s all? He had to leave, her dad was leaving her and her mom, and all he could say was he didn’t know. She wants to hate him for that alone, but when the first tear falls from where it lied, overfilled in the corner of her eye, He moves forward to hug her first.

She pushes back against his shoulders, nails digging uselessly against his shoulders before she grows weak and hugs him, stifled back sobs making her shake.

“Is it- Is it because you don’t love us anymore?” She asks, the words sounding pathetic to herself as she says them. Like a kid. She wasn’t a kid anymore, she shouldn’t be crying.

And yet…

Her father is silent for a few seconds, like the words were stuck somewhere in his throat, as she can feel as he opens his mouth and nothing escapes him.

“I love you, Jolyne,” He says, holding the back of her head and carefully running his fingers through his hair. Sobs finally escape her, strangled her sucking in labored breaths.

When her mom passes by her door, pausing to glare at Jotaro as he silently removed himself from her, and left the same way he came, Jolyne didn’t know how to feel.

The moment passed her by, and before she had to chance to say goodbye, He had left.