Jonas Quinn/Jack - Trust
The dust makes Jack's nose itch as soon as he opens the storage room door. He slips inside and shuts the door, leaning heavily back against it in the musty darkness.
Jack inhales deeply, exacerbating the itch in his nose, and then flips on the light. Brown boxes fill the small room to the ceiling, each one meticulously labelled with black marker. If he had to box the items up again, he would have done it differently. Forget the labelling. Give himself the excuse to indulge in more time going through boxes to find things.
Of course, if he could go back to before the boxes were packed up, there were other choices he'd make differently first. Specifically, choices that would prevent the need to pack up the boxes in the first place.
He opens one. He knows it isn't the right one, but he should have at least a few minutes. An ebony mask sneers up at him, half a dozen stone statuettes are lined up neatly in the bottom of the box next to the mask.
Jack's fingers slide over one of the carved snakes that form a mane around the mask. He can't fathom what they represented to the long-dead people who carved the piece, but he knows there was a deeper meaning to them. It's something he thinks he understood before but never really consciously knew. Like why he doesn't like to look at baseball gloves and toy fire trucks.
He takes another deep breath. His nose itch peaks and he sneezes, loud and abrupt, breaking the deathly stillness of the room. It's almost funny and enough to make him close the box. Enough of this. He's been gone too long. Someone will notice.
A box to the left bears the label 'Field notebooks: P3X-243 to P3X-902'. The cardboard lid scrapes up and Jack pulls out the journal he's looking for. Its contents should help his team figure out a thing or two.
He heads for the door, notebook clutched near his hip. A warm gust of air stops him, and he turns around.
"It's okay," Jack says to the empty room. "We can trust Jonas."
Something - Jack can't explain quite what - stills in the room, even though nothing has moved. He opens the door and flips off the light, hesitating at the threshold of the empty corridor.
"But stick around." His voice cracks at the effort it takes to say those words. But too many things remain left unsaid and he'll be damned if he's not going to learn from past mistakes.
Jack inhales deeply, exacerbating the itch in his nose, and then flips on the light. Brown boxes fill the small room to the ceiling, each one meticulously labelled with black marker. If he had to box the items up again, he would have done it differently. Forget the labelling. Give himself the excuse to indulge in more time going through boxes to find things.
Of course, if he could go back to before the boxes were packed up, there were other choices he'd make differently first. Specifically, choices that would prevent the need to pack up the boxes in the first place.
He opens one. He knows it isn't the right one, but he should have at least a few minutes. An ebony mask sneers up at him, half a dozen stone statuettes are lined up neatly in the bottom of the box next to the mask.
Jack's fingers slide over one of the carved snakes that form a mane around the mask. He can't fathom what they represented to the long-dead people who carved the piece, but he knows there was a deeper meaning to them. It's something he thinks he understood before but never really consciously knew. Like why he doesn't like to look at baseball gloves and toy fire trucks.
He takes another deep breath. His nose itch peaks and he sneezes, loud and abrupt, breaking the deathly stillness of the room. It's almost funny and enough to make him close the box. Enough of this. He's been gone too long. Someone will notice.
A box to the left bears the label 'Field notebooks: P3X-243 to P3X-902'. The cardboard lid scrapes up and Jack pulls out the journal he's looking for. Its contents should help his team figure out a thing or two.
He heads for the door, notebook clutched near his hip. A warm gust of air stops him, and he turns around.
"It's okay," Jack says to the empty room. "We can trust Jonas."
Something - Jack can't explain quite what - stills in the room, even though nothing has moved. He opens the door and flips off the light, hesitating at the threshold of the empty corridor.
"But stick around." His voice cracks at the effort it takes to say those words. But too many things remain left unsaid and he'll be damned if he's not going to learn from past mistakes.