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Unhelpfully, he thought of a memory— one that must have been a million years, and a billion light years away.
“Hey, I'm here for a good time, not a long time," Jeremy said one day.
God, did Mick wish it was the former.
It was a good 9 years together— too long and too short— just them and the kids. Either Jeremy was the stupidest man alive or Mick was the luckiest man alive if he was forgiven after the stunt he pulled. Just… leaving like that. He had more than enough time to make up for it, though, after the reunion. Why didn't it feel like he did?
They had a wake, and a funeral for him, both set up by Mick, Spy, and Jeremy's family. Everyone showed up to both events, in black suits, all with varying degrees of grief. Tavish said his condolences, stone cold sober. Everyone else was mostly speechless. Even Soldier saluted solemnly.
Or maybe that was just what Jeremy was to him. A soldier. A mercenary, lost to battle.
He went back to their home after the service, tucked him and the kids all into one bed early, too exhausted for anything else. In fact, he didn't do much of anything in the following days. Jeremy's ma (who revealed herself to be Donna not long after they met) and brothers handled the stuff that Mick figured should be in their possession, Spy (who has yet to reveal himself) handled the legality of it all, and everything else was taken care of before the funeral. Actually, Spy had a lot to do— forge documents, set a court date— all while the grief no doubt ate him inside out.
Mick mostly just took care of the home and the kids, made sure they ate well, kept the house clean. He wished he could help more than that, but it was far from his field of expertise. He wished he could help Spy with… the grief, all of this, but even that was something he didn't know how to do.
The team sent letters pretty often, maybe once or twice a month. Most of them just asked how he was doing, updated him on the happenings of their lives, all of that. He found out from those letters that Herbert had a second baboon child sometime in the past 9 years— from whom Mick did not want to know. Everyone else couldn't get normal jobs anymore, so they mostly spent their time either having nothing to do or finding something to do. He wanted to reply, truthfully, but every time he sat down and actually tried to write something, anything, he couldn't.
Speaking of the team, they all still tried to arrange the reunion tradition that Jeremy started that smissmas. But the spark was missing. Even if Ms. Pauling showed up that year, it still wasn't the same.
Home wasn't any different either. The usual cheer that filled the home all the day died down to… something he couldn't classify. All of them took it in different ways, but the common denominator seemed to be silence. He wished he could help them more, but it was always Jeremy that was better at this.
Always Jeremy.
After that day, everything in his life, in the lives of everyone who knew him, lost its fire. The reunions, the house, even the little things like breakfast. He had that sort of effect on everyone, a presence that made the entire room light up.
But at that moment, looking around the empty house, cleaned to the point of reflectiveness, the light was dim.
The light he'd maybe never see again.