a_fools_errand | Damages (Waitress Fic)

Title: Damages
Pairings: Both married couples, and Jim/Jenna
Rating: PG13
Genres: Gen, Angst
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine *sniffle*
Summary: The film ends with Jenna successful and happy. Here's what happened to Jim.

Okay, I was falling in love with her, had fallen in love with her by that stage, and she left. Just like that, even gave me one of her damn pies when she did it, like it was something good and right and normal. You would have loved to see it all happen.

Now it doesn't excuse this, I know, and it don't make it anywhere near healthy and acceptable either and I know that too, but it happened.

I guess it's what finally pushed me to end it with Francine. She never suspected a thing of course, was just as trusting as Jenna had said she was, and she believed me when I said I wasn't myself and didn't know who I was supposed to or even wanted to be, and that it just wasn't fair on her. It was half the truth at least, the rest being that I couldn't live with the guilt a moment longer if I kept piling on things to feel guilty about.

So I didn't tell her the truth and wait for her to walk out. I broke it off with her and made it seem like I was doing the noble thing in the midst of my own personal crisis, watched her leave our small quiet town with everyone thinking I was still a good guy, including her.

I think there's only one person who knows just how much damn damage I did.

*

Dr Pomatter drives away from his nice, empty house in Stanton Grove with all the trees (which, you know, who doesn't like trees? Except maybe Mrs Hunterson, who either didn't like the idea of living in a place with trees or a place with Jim, she never said which, never told him much besides Bye-bye.) He drives out of the neighbourhood and away, doesn't really pay attention to the road and where he is going until he realises he's outside her house, or what used to be her house, he guesses.

He pulls over and sits in his car and looks at the place for a while, thinking he's never seen it before at night, thinking about a whole bunch of useless things like light, wavy hair instead of straight red hair, and sad sad eyes and Lonely Chicago pie. He sits there until he remembers that for Jenna to have been Mrs Hunterson there must have been a Mr Hunterson, and he sees the car in the drive and leaves for home because he knows he couldn't win in a fight against this man. He doesn't notice Earl sitting on the porch in the dark, and gets home and into bed a good hour before his wife is due home from the night shift. He never once thinks to check the time.

Francine Pomatter likes to work the night shift because she feels like she's doing more to help. She's been out every evening and will be out for many evenings more during the next few months. She tells Jim that it will be perfect once she's finished her residency, she'll be home every night and they can open a practice and always spend time together, and he pretends to be convinced for both their sakes. He likes to think that there will be an end to his strange behaviour and that that end is in sight and perfectly dated.

When Mrs Pomatter is out that evening, Jim takes his car out again, but this time he goes in the opposite direction to the one he drove in last night, deliberately away from Mr Hunterson's house, even though it's the only place he can look at that has happy memories of Jenna and doesn't stink of disinfectant at the same time. He turns on the radio when he hears himself humming about pies with hearts in their middles, and drives and drives, thinking that if he ever saw a pie with a heart in the middle he'd want to cut out that heart and stomp violently on it till it was a smudge so far removed from what it had been before it could hardly recognise itself in the mirror.

He ends up going past the house anyway. It's after he has spent the better part of an hour reciting medical terminology to himself in alphabetical order and speeding a little, finally managing to clear his head of thoughts because of it, and he looks up to have all that hard work and gas count for nothing because he's outside her house again and the whole sorry episode has tired him out. He parks his big black car and rubs his eyes because his vision is blurry with sudden exhaustion, rests his forehead on the steering wheel and thinks that this is bad for his health, and thinks that he should know because he's a doctor and that's what he does. He almost dozes for a moment, then shakes himself awake and drives home bleary-eyed. He doesn't notice the pair of eyes following his car from the dark porch of Mr Hunterson's house.

Jim finds himself doing it almost every evening, driving past Jenna's tired house in the gloom without consciously deciding to. He can't do it on Mrs Pomatter's nights off though. She treats him to dinners out or takes him to bed early, and he's always thankful that he can smile and get it up even though he feels sick afterwards because it's only another lie on top of all the others. He wishes she smelled like dark chocolate and berries, or custard and cinnamon and pastry, instead of expensive perfume over antibacterial soap.

It's after the third, self-absorbed week of what has become a ritual, that Dr Pomatter notices Earl Hunterson on the porch. He can't believe he never wondered all these past evenings why the place was always dark though the car was in the drive, and thinks that maybe he only noticed Mr Hunterson this evening because he isn't wearing a shirt in the heat. His skin dully reflects the doctor's headlights, and Jim sees his head turn in the direction of the car.

He has no idea if it's been like this for weeks or just days or if this is the first night he has been watched but still can't bring himself to be more careful or considerate on the following nights. He justifies it to himself by thinking that Earl can't have an idea of whose car it is, and that that fact keeps both men safe from different things. Still, this is the night he ends it with Francine.

Dr Pomatter drives away from his nice, empty house in Stanton Grove, and thinks it's pretty significant that it doesn't feel that much different without Francine living in it. She tried to talk to him, tried to work things out, but he was determined, and she got herself transferred God knows where and smiled a watery smile at him as she walked out the door. And all he could think was how her eyes may have been just as sad as Jenna's used to be, and wishes he could have found the meaning of his life in them, and feels guilty that he put the sadness there and guilty that he could be so selfish about it, even just in his thoughts. He stays home for the next week until he goes back to driving.

One late afternoon Jim gets straight into the car after a particularly busy day at work. He wants to drive to the diner for some pie, knows that it would probably be healthier than another frozen meal at dinner, at least for his body. He doesn't think his heart will be able to take it, though, and he drives right up the road just to turn around in case she catches a glimpse of his car and his desperation. He is on her road earlier than usual, and he sees Mr Hunterson watching from the porch in the fading light with the shadows growing all around him, bruising his bare skin and dampening the sparks in his eyes.

Dr Pomatter is tired though, and he rubs his face with his hands trying to coax life back into it, never noticing Earl as he gets into his own car to follow him back to his Stanton Grove house and its trees. It's night when he finally gets off the car, fumbling for his door keys through the exhaustion of futile wanting and the dark, and all he wants to do is crawl into bed and sleep.

And Jim Pomatter gets his wish one way or another. Mr Hunterson walks into the house behind him, purposeful as he's ever been, and hits him on the head with something blunt maybe three times. Jim can't tell, he passes out before it's done, but he heard the heavy breathing and pathetic sobs, and he knows who it is and he knows that he should not have been surprised.

Dr Mueller finds Jim the next morning after he was over an hour late for work and nobody could get a hold of him, and she sits him down inside and gives him ice for his pounding head. The shallow cut is already closed with congealed blood and she wants to find out first, if he thinks he knows, who did this, so she can tell the police, she says. She says she'll drive him to work afterwards and clean him up, but he risks shaking his head through the pain, and says no because he doesn't want the police involved and partly because he doesn't think he can really be made clean after this. Dr Pomatter holds the ice to his bruised, swollen scalp, and is thankful for the cold that numbs each throb enough to make it bearable, and he looks at Dr Mueller and he tells her. He leaves out Jenna's singing and his baking and the heavy golden pie dish from that afternoon in his office and the sex, but he tells her all about Mr and Mrs Hunterson, and Francine, and the driving. She guesses the rest though and doesn't say much after that, just drives him to work and fixes his head, and doesn't offer to take him home when he leaves to get the bus. She has a disapproving look in her eye the entire time, but he doesn't think it is just meant for him.

Dr Jim Pomatter packs up his things and leaves. It's not because he is scared, because from what he's heard about him it probably took a lot for insecure, angry Earl to come out to Stanton Grove and see the trees that everybody but Mrs Hunterson seems to like so much, and he doesn't think he'd come back again. But there are only so many places you can go in a small town, and four of his five options are out because he can't go back to Mr Hunterson's house and he can't go to the diner, he doesn't want to see his house anymore and he can't face Dr Mueller and the look in her eyes. So the only place left is away, where he can find a new place to work and a place to stay, though maybe with fewer trees this time, and hopefully forget about Jenna and her baby and those damn pies. He manages one week before he is humming under his breath, baking Lonely Chicago pie in his new empty kitchen at midnight.