The window is broken. The glittering shards of glass are all Jules can see over the police officer's shoulder, and there is a strong late night breeze coming in through the new opening. Jeremiah is cuddled up against her hip, his sleepy head resting against her jaw. On the opposite arm, her stitches have pulled and a knot of old blood stains her t-shirt. There is blood amongst the glass pieces, too. She can see them from where she's standing, small but unmistakably dark. There is chaos around her, furniture turned on end, an old lamp she'd found at an estate sale laying on the floor, broken but still lit, sending strange shadows across the room. They'd met her downstairs, but have escorted her back up now that it's clear there is no one left in the apartment. Jules slides her gaze to the other officers in the room, and she catches one of them looking back at her, incredulous. Confused. She can understand that look. She's having trouble concentrating as the police officer asks her questions, specifics that she doesn't know the answer to. Does she have any one who would try to hurt her? What did the man look like? What happened here?
She's woken up in her own bed, perhaps a bit reluctantly. All she can remember is Jessica tapping on her brain, quietly reminding her that another month has passed. For the first time, she'd been relieved to go. Happy to reliquish control to the person inside her head if only to escape the hell of knowing too much. But the knowledge has returned to her, crashing into her consciousness, waking her out of a sweaty sleep. She can not remember Jeremiah crawling into bed with her, but she supposes Jessica would like to keep Gerry close, and Jules allows it. Her head is filled with flashes of green and the ghost of a pain she never actually felt. The weight of a newborn in her arms was four years forgotten until a week ago, and she curls herself around Jeremiah's sprawling little form to remind herself of her baby. Her own trauma that feels like standing on Earth now, weighted by gravity.
She can just taste sleep when the metallic sound of her front door handle cracks through the quiet. She's lived alone long enough to know that, sometimes, people are drunk and lost or just teenagers doing things without thinking. As she lies frozen, her muscles twitching with anticipation, she reminds herself of the time in college when a loud knock on her front door in the middle of the night had been a group of annoying but harmless freshmen exploring the night. But this is not that. The pile of her living room carpet is just high enough that she can hear the door swinging open. She is out of bed in one quick movement, her reflexes heightened through fear and spider abilities that she has yet to come to grips with. Jeremiah wakes with this movement and he stares at her, his eyes wide as she presses her hand against his mouth. She hates the fear on his face and she can tell he would like to cry. She presses a finger to her lips, indicating that it is quiet time as she leads him to her bedroom closet, brimming with things she's tried to throw away but can not bring herself to part with. When Jeremiah is nestled in amongst a pile of sweaters, she kisses him on the forehead and whispers that he should stay right where he is. No matter what.
"And then the bad man was gone!" Jeremiah is awake now, bouncing on his toes beside the emergency room bed the hospital staff have insisted she rest on. He has already regaled the nurses with the story, but now he's recounting it to his father, which is stickier. More difficult. Slightly more dangerous. Every now and again, Jeremiah's father looks over at her in alarm, and she has to sigh and insist that their son really didn't see anything. She's only asked him to meet her here because her arm was bleeding again and she doesn't want the child out of bed any longer than necessary. But Cooper insists on staying. On waiting for the x-ray result for her hand. For her arm to be restitched. She wants to remind him of what Jeremiah can be like when he doesn't get enough sleep, that all of Sunday will be spent fighting with a preschooler if he doesn't get into bed soon.
Cooper is a good man. Though they could never make any relationship work, she likes being in his company. She reminds herself that he cares because he always wants their roles as parents to be smooth and happy. And equal. If he knew any of the things she'd been considering over the past five months, he'd be angry at her. For her. She can't even bring herself to tell him about Jessica because she's afraid the shock will turn him against her and he will make all of those things she's been considering into a reality. And Jeremiah would be safer with his father. This night is proof. But the urge to tell him passes quickly as the partition between her bed and the rest of the emergency room flutters with the arrival of another nurse.
She is waiting for him for ages. Years. Ten thousand heartbeats. She can't risk opening the door herself because it will alert the intruder to her presence. She has already called 911, and the operator is insistent she hide or find an escape route. But neither of these things seems possible. If this is a robbery, she would like him to stick to the valuable electronics in the living room and leave the rest of the apartment alone, but she can feel the man slowly searching each room. His footfalls are quiet but she can see the layout of the apartment in her head as tiny creaks give him away. After more than a minute of whispered information to the operator, she knows this person is not in her home to rob her. He is practiced but not elite, however, which is why, when he opens her bedroom door, she is ready for him. She drops the cell phone, the sound of the operator's voice audible for just another moment before she pushes him backward with all of the force she has yet to properly explore.
Her goal is to get him away from the bedroom and away from Jeremiah. This is the only plan that she has because she has never once been the kind of person to fight. Confrontation at work is different and easy. It is all about advocating for the security and wellness of a patient. But now there is a spark in her that would like to hurt. It is new and terrible, but effective. The man is larger than she is by a good foot and a hundred and fifty pounds, but she pushes him back into the living room and over her couch, her favorite lamp falling to the floor. When he stands again, he looks at her as if he knows her, as if he's been expecting this and this is exactly why he's come.
"I thought I'd be too late, girlie."
Jules stands with her back to the hallway, keeping herself between the man and her bedroom. She is also not elite, and this fact quickly works to her detriment. His quick interested glance over her shoulder pulls her heart into her throat and she turns away from him to push Jeremiah back. Jessica would not have fallen for the feint, and she knows it when she is met face to face with an empty hallway. She hears him moving, but barely catches sight of him before he lifts her above his head, his hand just the size of her throat. The edges of her vision begin vibrating as she panics, her hands covering his, looking for purchase. Her head splits open, and it is very clear that Jessica is screaming at her from the corner of her mind she's nestled into. Grabbing his wrist, Jules squeezes tightly, trying to summon the very height of the strength she knows she possesses, but it is difficult to focus when she is very sure she is going to die. Come on. Come on. Use your head. Jules wants to growl, but it is pinched off in his fist. As she struggles, her foot finds a place on his shoulder and she uses it as leverage to bend his elbow as she puts pressure on the notch just under his thumb, trapzium, scaphoid. The air comes back all at once and she is light-headed as she pushes off his shoulder and onto the ceiling.
She wants to quit, to wait out the police, to go to sleep, but she knows that she has engaged, and that means there is no waiting anything out. Jules takes two gasping breaths before she scrambles over the unfortunate popcorn ceiling, dropping behind the intruder as he cradles his wrist in his hand. Her bare foot comes down hard against the back of his knee and he drops to the floor. She knows better than to wait now, to assume that the right thing to do will come to her. She is already pummeling him and it takes a moment for him to respond, pushing her away from him into the wall. The sound of shattering is far away as her flying body sends furniture across the room. Her adrenaline spikes on the way back up and he bears down on her again. Then, in a moment, everything that was so loud is so still. She knows she was the one to make his head hit the corner of the window sill. She knows that his shoulder, half through the window is bleeding. She knows that when a person stops moving...
She does not stop moving. She is in the bedroom in a moment, taking Jeremiah by the hand and pulling him in close to her hip as they move out to the balcony. She won't remember telling Jeremiah to cover his eyes. Or jumping from her balcony to the one below and down the side of the building. But their feet, dirty and bare make it to the pavement, and she crouches down in front of her son, checking him for injuries as blue and red flashing lights illuminate 201 Duncan Street.
When she is discharged from the hospital, it's 3am and the whole of San Francisco is holding its breath, waiting for sunrise. Streets are empty in a way that she only ever gets to see on the way home from the hospital. With her clothing covered in traces of bodily fluid and the ache in her body and the gentle lilting of late night radio ballads, it could be any night after a twelve hour shift. The night sky is dark and if she turns her head to the left she will be able to see her reflection in the driver's side window as she passes under a bank of street lights.
She drives to Cooper's house, her car idling outside of the building for a few minutes while she waits, making sure all of the lights are out and the occupants are in bed. Next comes Cara, who she would like to curl up with, to cry and to hide. The home she shares with Wyatt is big and unfamiliar. She has the address but hasn't yet visited, and sitting outside of it feels like an intrusion. In one window at the top floor, she can see Chewtwo staring out at her with some interest, but soon she jumps out of view and Jules takes it as a sign that tonight is not the night. Not only is there a long day waiting for them, which she would like to keep focused on her friend's accomplishments, but she's read some of what Jessica has written to her and she is not prepared to face who waits for her inside that home. Not in this moment, at least. Jules considers the home that is soon to be hers, the place where Cara has put so much of her time and love and that feels so much more familiar, but she knows the house is alarmed, and a second conversation with a police officer is too far beyond her limit.
Jules tours San Francisco, passing Nora's place and the hospital. She idles outside of Jason's apartment for a moment, aware that it is a lost cause before she puts on the brake. His car isn't where it usually is, and she can't bring herself to try anymore. She is on the way to Oakland, considering Nasim's apartment, which she has only visited twice, when her gas gauge dips below a quarter tank. Jules knows that filling her tank will be more helpful than staring out at Nasim's gated apartment building, so she parks under the bright artificial lights of a filling station. She trusts and loves so many people, but it doesn't feel good to go to them with this. Not now, not while it's still vibrating in her bones. Other humans feel like a distraction, and she'd like a place to sit with this. It hurts to move, and she feels the prickle of fatigue in all of her joints and just behind her sinuses. She hasn't spoken to anyone in more than an hour, and she doesn't know how she will ever speak again. As her tank fills, she rests her elbow against the hood of her car and stares up at the stars. There are things behind that dark blanket. She guessed before, but she knows now. She contemplates black holes and angry green men until the click of the gas pump brings her attention back to Earth. When she turns to place the nozzle back in its home, her eyes catch the shape of a building towering high in the gas station's windows. Behind her, the Marriott's windows glow gold and she takes in a long, appreciative breath.
The officer asks her a question, but her eyes are still on the glittering glass in the corner. It's where she last saw him, and he's gone. He was gone before they came in. As if he'd evaporated. For a moment, she wonders if she'd dreamed the whole thing. If he had been a nightmare, but the sting in her arm and her hand is real. And if she looks close enough, she knows that the police officer believes her.
"Do you have a safe place to go tonight?"
She can tell he's asked her this question at least once before, that he's asked this question a hundred times before.
"I don't know," she whispers, pressing her face into Jeremiah's hair.
"Ma'am?"
"Yes. Of course. I'll be fine."