#robin and maud ARE in mourning technically for most of the series. ouch!

[jadeandquartzes]

i'm back on my bullshit (aka more last binding prompts): #2 for maud and jack

It's not an easy anniversary, which is something Jack intimately understands. Each time it rolls around, he makes a point of extending the same courtesies to Robin and Maud that he always appreciates people extending to him about Elsie. Act like it's a normal day. Make a point of spending time in the same space, doing nice, quiet, engagingly idle tasks. Give the grief room to live, but not enough room to fester.

It's a little easier this year because Robin and Edwin are out of town at a conference, so Jack's attention can go solely to the younger of the two. When he walks through the front door of the old Blythe residence, a few minutes early for four o'clock tea, she's not in the library.

Unperturbed, he ghosts his way along the baseboards to the smallest sitting room. Maud perches in an armchair beneath the Sargent-painted portrait of her mother, her legs crossed and a book in her hands. From the look in her eyes, she hasn't really read a word of it.

"Am I too early?" he says, playing at nonchalance.

Apparently, he didn't creak the door loudly enough to announce his presence. When Maud starts and looks up at him, her eyes are misty. He's not sure if the tears are grief or fury. Perhaps a bit of both.

"Damn it," she says. "Oh, I lost track of time. Fuck. I completely forgot."

"Watch your language, Maud," Jack mutters. "You'll get some comments outside, if you carry on like that."

Immediately, half of his thoughts insist that sarcasm and biting comments are not the right move towards a young woman who's still processing the loss of her parents. The other half of his thoughts is proven correct when Maud laughs, the reprimand pulling a half-smile out of her, mischievous and contrary. It's only there for a second, but still. That's something, at the very least.

"Well, the world can go fuck itself too," she says breezily, snapping the book shut and tossing it to the floor. She swishes past Jack and out into the hallway, making a beeline for the dining room. "We'll have to make do with yesterday's leftovers, Lord Hawthorne. I'm sure you won't mind."

"Not at all," Jack says, when what he's really thinking is you're too young to hate the world. It's not like he has any grounds to make such a claim. He's been exactly as furious at everyone and everything for almost as long as Maud has. Loss will do that to you, no matter who the people were. "Lead the way."