The Home Front

Jack didn't know what else to do but talk to him. There was nothing to reverse an Imperius curse, nothing to protect her from his attacks. Her wand was across the room, her hands were blocked, her support was currently locked in a room upstairs. And that was okay. The odds were against her, yes, but they had even against her before and she hadn’t assumed that life would ever get easier. She had expected adversity.

She just hadn’t expected it from Max.

This wasn’t Max though. It was no secret that people were out to get her. It could be the people she and Brian had gone after. It could be James Blood – hell, any werewolf who felt like she had snuck her snout where it didn’t belong. It could be the Death Eaters, as she was an ever present threat. It could be any number of the criminals who were wary of the Knight’s Watch. It could be someone from the Ministry who thought she was opposing Robert, or someone who thought she was too supportive – hell, it could really be anyone. She was very popular for being an enemy.

She couldn’t think about that now. Knowing who was trying to kill her wouldn’t keep them from killing her. Not that they would succeed. No, this is not where she died. Not in her home, confused, with her family terrified and torn apart.

It seemed something in her words had found a footing, for she felt the grip loosen. She took the momentary weakness to pull her hand free, reaching for his forearm as well. But his strength was back. And though the world turned over once more, Jack couldn’t breathe. Hands gripped her neck, pushing hard. She had to think – he had made sure he couldn’t act. Given a few more long moments, she would black out. Longer, and she would be gone. Just like someone wanted.

Someone who probably knew something of her, knew what to expect out of her. She had to surprise Max, and she had to surprise his puppeteer.

Bloody… f*cking hell.

Jack leaned forward, reaching her hands up. One hand slipped under his hands, between his grasp and her neck. The other hand threaded into his hair, as she forced her air-robbed lips onto his. She couldn’t really kiss him, but she could press her lips into his. And if this didn’t work, it would be the one way she had not imagined when she had considered dying.

Jack had gotten her hands free, sending the pair into a match of pushing and pulling and tugging and twisting as they fought on the floor. One hand found it's way into his hair and Max was surprised not to feel an angry tug but instead be pulled towards his target. He froze as her lips touched his, his conductor as shocked by the action as Max himself had been on Divorce Day. Jack Dyllan kissing Maximus Morrison was enough to stop anything, even a murder attempt, in it's tracks. 

After a moment of confusion, Max's hands reached down and forcefully pushed himself up and away. The slender man scampered across the floor on hands and knees, grabbing at his wand that has bounced under the coffee table wreckage during the fall. 

This was taking too long. The whole point of using Max Morrison as a Trojan horse had been the surprise of the maneuver, an element that was now officially gone. If they had wanted a fistfight or dual this skinny body with average-at-best magical abilities would certainly have not been the first pick. It at to be finished quickly. After Jack, they could deal with the nosey children. 

Jack counted three of her heartbeats, wondering which, if any of them, would be her last. Each one felt so different, so individual, so precious, even though she knew better. Each heart beat was the exact same and served the same purpose. There wasn't one that was more special, more sacred than the others. But adrenaline did something to her, made her suddenly feel in a way her tired, anxiety-ridden life as a busybody would not let her feel. These heartbeats were not special, and they were not going to be her last.

No offense to the guy, but she was not going to die a death by Maximus Merlin Morrison.

The kiss worked. Just enough. She wasn't thinking long term, just babysteps. She needed some freedom, some space. Some time to figure out the next step. And she must have freaked out her attacker enough to earn just that. He shoved her and skittered away, looking for his wand. But it was all over, for Jack had just spotted the frying pan.

She reached out and grabbed it, rolling to her stomach. She jumped up, took one step forward, and as Max dove for his wand, she hit him upside the back of his head. His body immediately fell to the floor.

Jack counted to five. No movement. She sighed and dropped the frying pan, running her hand through her hair. She looked around and spotted her wand. She quickly snatched it up and approached Max. She rolled him over - he looked peaceful, just like any other night. She took his pulse, which was normal.

She let out a sigh. This was gonna be complicated.


She had left him tied up in the kitchen to a chair and was currently upstairs. She had tended to Charlie, calmed the kids down, and was putting them to bed. Jack made Charlie promise to relax and leave it alone until the next day.

The house had not recovered its peace, but it was calm at the least.

Jack slowly descended the stairs, looking at the slumped figure of Max Morrison with traces of suspicion. She had the beginnings of bruises on her throat, cheek, and eye. A cut on her lip kept reopening. But she had never been a fan of magical healing, preferring the natural route.

She began looking through the freezer for one of their ice pack. They had a ton because they always needed them, but they always managed to get misplaced.

Max let out a low, long groan from his spot on the chair. 

His head hurt. In fact, his whole body hurt. The dull, universal ache grew with every passing moment as Max worked himself up from a unconsciousness. He felt submerged, as if the intellectual barrier had moved from a fog to the ocean, heavy and panic-inducing as it held him down. Max's eyes opened a sliver and winced as light and color flooded into his spongy brain. The only thing he could compare this to was the morning after going out with Gabby but even that paled in comparison.. this felt twenty times worse than any hangover he had ever had. 

The world was slowly coming in to focus. Max lifted his chin from where it had come to rest on his chest and swallowed as he tried to open his eyes more fully. The sight of yellow walls told him he was in the kitchen. Someone was with him, standing by the fridge. Max tried to readjust himself to look around the room but quickly came to realize this was no longer an option. His thoughts came frantically now as he tried to orient himself, to understand, to remember. 

"Jack?" Max's eyes were open now and his gaze had immediately centered on the back of his wife's head as he looked to her for clarity. He moved again, tugging at his restrained wrists in an effort to confirm his situation. "What -?" The panic was edging into his voice now as Max realized that something was absolutely, 100% wrong. 

Jack heard a groan from her behind her and she paused. There was the trace worry that perhaps the attacker was still lurking behind Max's eyes, trying another tactic to get to her or the family. She wanted to assume that all was fine and dandy once more (right, like thing were ever that happy or easy) but she knew too much about the sort of people who wanted to mess with her to assume the best out of them. Assuming the worst was the way to stay alive.

He called her name just as her hands found the ice pack. She was sure his headache was much worse than her bruising, so she turned and walked over to him. She had to make sure though. She squared off with him and lowered herself so she was eye level with him, grabbing his chin to hold his head steady. She looked deep into his eyes, her browns furrowed, looking a bit fierce. She was sure she looked quite the sight, and the fact that she wasn't explaining what was going on was probably incredibly unsettling.

But searching those blue eyes, sh found nothing but fear and confusion. She let him go and straightened up. She walked around to the back of the chair and pulled the ropes loose before pressing the pack to his head. "Take that," she said, waiting for him to take it before returning to the fridge to look for her own ice pack. "Seems like someone is unhappy with me - big surprise there." She located the pack and walked over to the table, plopping into a chair across from Max.

"You were Imperius-ed," Jack stated, pressing to pack to her throat. "Nobody was really hurt. Charlie got hurt but it was minor, she's fine now." She lifted the ice pack to show off her bruises. "And this isn't worse than my outings, so - y'know."

Jack turned and Max froze. He sat immobile as she approached him, every step making the cuts and bruises on her face more visible. She took his chin in her hand and he stared forward horror-struck at her wounds. 

It wasn't the gore of it all. In fact, Max had seen worse battle scars come from a visit to Charlie's greenhouse in the back. The Dyllan-Morrison family was no stranger to cuts, burns, bloody eyes, broken bones, or band aids. No, the wrenching in Max's gut stemmed entirely from the unknown of his situation. Even after a long night of waiting up worrying, Jack returning home with some sort of injury could be instantly explained in his mind as a consequence of her missions, 'friends', or any number of adventures. 

Max could only name one or two occasions that any of the trouble in Jack's professional world had spilled over into the bubble of Layabout Lane. But here he was - tied to a chair, in pain, facing his bloody wife in their own kitchen. And he couldn't remember any of it. 

That wasn't entirely true, Max realized. Much like his drunken escapades with Gabby, there were small flashes. A scream, the cracking of glass, a sharp pain at the back of his head. But none of it made any sense. Jack was staring him down, examining him in a way that made him grateful he had never been on the receiving end of a full Jack fury. His panicked eyes locked with her determined ones. Max reached up for the ice pack, his muscles sighing with relief at the movement, and pressed the cold to his head. One pinprick of relief appeared within the nervous man - whatever had happened, Jack had won. 

And then she spoke. 

"What?" 

Jack was pressing an ice pack to her throat and Max began to breathe more quickly, his gaze flicking between her bloody lip, the light rope lines on his wrists, and her neck. 

"That's.. not possible. I - I don't understand." Max swallowed and began looking around the room as if searching for some other explanation. But even in his denial, Max could feel the truth of her words. The story was bringing back more flashes of his haze. Max remembered the lunching fall to the ground, the green flash of a curse flying, a rogue elbow hitting him in the gut. He could feel the aches of the fight throughout his body and could already see the bruises forming. 

He had almost hurt them. No, he had hurt them. It wasn't possible. 

"Charlie? What did I do?" The question was panicked and Max wasn't sure he could actually handle an answer. Jack was saying everyone was okay but she wasn't okay - he could see that from here. She was showing him her bruises, playing it off, and Max could feel his eyes heating with the threat of tears as he tried to keep himself together. What had he done? 

"Oh my god." It came out as a whisper. Max closed his eyes and tried to stop his body from shaking.

There was such nervous uncertainty in the Morrison man's eyes as she looked into them. She was used to shades of this emotion, as she typically had a terrifying affect on the easy-going man. It was not the first time that he had stared at her with fear-mingled apprehension, and she was certain it would not be the last. But this was different, for he wasn't fearful of what she was going to do... not exactly. He seemed more fearful of what she might say, about the implications that would weigh upon him if her words applied blame to him.

Her words did not bring relief.

"Unfortunately, it's very possible," Jack said, still as matter of fact as anything, leaning back in her chair. Sure, last night adrenaline had pumped through her veins. The looks on the faces of the youngsters of the house had nearly crushed Jack's spirit, and it hadn't been any better when she had snuck downstairs to look at her husband's form, slumped in a chair, bruising and exhaustion becoming ever more evident. "It's pretty easy to get at someone in the Ministry. Set schedules, offices, blah blah blah..."

He inquired after Charlie and she tried to not flinch outwardly. Honestly, Jack had been jarred to see Charlie's reaction to the whole situation. Charlie hadn't seemed surprised nor offended - just ready to be hurt. It had made Jack reconsider whether or not Layabout Lane was a safe place for young people to grow up. She didn't like what it seemed to have done to her cousin. "She's fine. It was a weird burn, but half of her plants can be used for healing burns, so she's all better now. There won't even be a scar." Hopefully.

Jack's plan to brush the evening under the rug went out the window as Max closed his eyes. He was obviously horrified by what had happened, and she wasn't helping. She leaned forward, setting the ice pack on the table. "Hey," she said softly. "It's fine. It's not your fault. I'm a trouble magnet. It could have been you, Charlie, Gabby, anyone."

Every word out of Jack's mouth only made Max's stomach sink lower and lower. 

The thing was, Max was not a Gabby. He wasn't a Charlie. He wasn't a Kip or a Millie or even a Maisie. He didn't cause great waves of social change or fight in glorious battles or make an impression at all. He would never be gossiped about at parties or even be invited to parties in the first place. When he died, Maximus Morrison would be forgotten faster than most, lost to the ages after only a few years. Max had accepted, if not embraced, his insignificance many years ago. He had always been happy at his small job, with his small group of friends, in his small house, never striving to be anything beyond his station. 

If you didn't make waves you didn't knock people over. That was the deal. Somehow, despite never putting a toe out of line, Max had still managed to hurt them. 

Max would never have claimed to be the protector of the house. No, that role fell cleanly on the shoulders of his wife. But like she said, she was also the trouble magnet of the house and nearly every bad thing that had torn through their semi-peaceful world had been directly linked to her. That was just how things were - Jack brought trouble, Jack crushed trouble, Max handed out the band aids. 

It had never been his fault before. 

"I hurt you, that's my fault." Max stated, his voice scratchy as emotion clogged his throat. He was leaning backwards, suddenly scared to touch a bruise that he had put there. "I don't -, I didn't -, I'm so sorry" My fault. 

He was panicking, shutting down. Jack wanted to be irritated by it so she could show him there was absolutely no reason to feel that way, but there was no way she could do that without feeling like a total hypocrite. She couldn’t forget herself, tired and alone, stumbling into The Source for no other reason than for the sake of a newly familiar face. And as her story of betrayal and hatred and bloodshed spilled out, guilt and blame fill her.
 
But Nemo had not let her feel that way. He had reminded her of the inherent evil in the world. He had made her feel strong. Now, she didn’t have the words that Nemo had. But that had come out of mere friendliness, in the beginning of their acquaintance and relationship. She and Max were friend, were connected, were husband and wife. That had to help.
 
Jack stood, crossing around the table to drop into the seat next to Max. She turned, her knees bumping into his. She reached out and grabbed one of his hands, looking firm, looking determined. “Look at me, Max,” she said, giving a gentle command. “Would I be right here if I blamed you? Would you be here if I thought you were a threat to our family?” Our family. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not upset.”

Jack moved around the table and Max continued to shirk into himself. Guilt was clawing at his insides and the urge to jump up and go check on Charlie was growing by the second. He felt fidgety and unsettled to the core, still trying to process what exactly it was that he had done. Jack sat down beside him and reached out, drawing his eyes to lock in with hers. She spoke calmly and clearly, a tone not dissimilar from the one he had so often used on her. The role reversal was not lost on him here - he felt his body shake with fear in the same way hers often shook with adrenaline, her eyes filled with a soft understanding where he normally placed compassion. But this was different.

Max looked down at the hand that had curled into his own. The image pulled another vision out of the recesses of his foggy brain. Max remembered pinning that hand down, forcing it into the carpet until it couldn't move. He remembered pressing hard and harder as she squirmed..

He held her hand lightly now, as if he pressed too hard he would shatter it. He wanted to look away but her command kept him firmly in place. The only times Max had been strong enough to go against Jack had been with Sunny in his corner. Even that first day he had met her, Max remembered being dragged into Aunt Jack's office on their first adventure. The second time, when the girls had disappeared to Eis, it had only been at the call of the little girl that Max had found the inter strength to go after his family. He could have probably used her now too but for the first time Max wondered if it would be better for her to keep a distance for a little while.

Jack might not believe that he was a threat to the family but Max suddenly wasn't so sure.

Max flipped Jack's hand over gently, running his thumb across her callused palm. In all of his years he had never met anyone who worked so hard. She seemed to have more jobs than he could count, always running from Quidditch practice to rescuing werewolves to organizing bands of vigilantes and still making it back in time for family dinners. How could he help but see her as superwoman? It was enormously unfair that, even for a moment, Max had made her life any more difficult than it already was. She wasn't supposed to have the world on her shoulders. He was supposed to help.

"I'm sorry," Max repeated, this time apologizing for something more. He leaned down, pulled her hand lightly towards him, and gingerly kissed the bruises that were beginning to form on her wrist. His lips traveled up their hands to brush her again at the tips of her fingers. His cheek came to a rest near her hand, head hanging softly in thought. "I'm not supposed to be that person," he murmured. "I didn't think I could ever be that person."