// bubbles //

JC finds Joey out on the back lawn with Briahna, the two of them sitting in the sunshine. Briahna shrieks with glee when she sees him, and wriggles out of Joey's lap and runs over to him, holding her arms out wide.

"Up! Up!"

JC stoops down and swoops her up in one swift movement, and she throws two chubby arms round his neck, her skin sunwarm and soft where it touches his. "Hey pretty girl," he breathes against her neck, and she giggles softly.

He sits down beside Joey, Briahna in his lap, her fingers reaching up to play with the curls that almost reach his shoulders. "My daughter loves your hair," grins Joey, "I'm sure she thinks you're the prettiest girl she knows." He laughs as JC flips him off subtly behind Briahna's back.

"Hard at work, I see," says JC, and Joey nods solemnly as he reaches down beside him and picks up a brightly coloured container. He unscrews the lid, and pulls out a long piece of plastic. A bubble wand.

JC smiles. "Dude. I haven't blown bubbles since I was a kid. Can I?"

"Go for it." Joey hands him the wand and the mixture. "C'mon Bri...Uncle JC's gonna blow you some more bubbles, ok?"

Briahna claps and giggles. "Yay! 'k Daddy." She stands up and peers at JC intently. "Bubbles?" she says, hopefully. JC dips the wand into the mixture, brings it to his lips and blows gently, and a myriad of tiny bubbles float into the air around him. He smiles as Briahna starts to chase them, little arms waving hopefully in the air as they drift above her head.

"More!" she calls, inbetween giggles. "More, Jaycee! More!"

He obliges, and watches as the brightly coloured spheres swirl around the three of them, floating on drifts of air and away. Briahna busies herself with attempting to capture them in chubby fingers, stopping every now and again to pluck a daisy from the lawn.

"You missed your calling, C," Joey says, watching as JC sends another drift of bubbles into the air. "Forget the singing and dancing. You're a born bubble-master." He reaches up and pops a bubble with a fingertip.

JC looks at him and smiles. "Yeah. We used to get bubble mixture every Christmas when we were kids. I spent hours just watching them, you know?" He lies back on the grass, stretching out, sends another wandful of bubbles into the air. "The colours-- they all have little rainbows inside them, see?" He points, and Joey follows his finger and nods.

"And they're so...they're so..." JC frowns as he searches for the right word- "so...fragile, right? But then they have to be so they can float. So they can fly." He pauses, and when he speaks again, Joey can hear the sadness in his voice. "And you help them by setting them free. And they're so beautiful...you just want to touch them, but when. When you try, you can't. Because you reach out, and they're always just out of reach. When you touch them, when they touch you...they just disappear." He swallows and then breathes out, a deep, shuddering breath. When he speaks again, it's barely a whisper.

"Sometimes I try and touch him, but he's never really there. I can see him, can see his colours. But he's always just out of reach...just past my fingertips." He brushes a hand across his face. "I helped him fly, but now I just want him back." He closes his eyes. "I just want him back, Joe."

"I know." Joey takes the mixture and wand from JC's hand, and blows another cloud of bubbles for Briahna. "And you will, C. You haven't lost him. I promise." He touches JC's shoulder gently. "He's not as fragile as you think. You'd be surprised."

JC rolls over so he's facing Joey, looks him right in the eye. "But what if he's drifted so far away I can never catch up with him? What if I made him disappear?"

Joey starts to answer, but Briahna's shriek of glee cuts off his words. They look over to where she stands a few feet away. "Bubble!" she says happily, pointing to herself. "Bubble!"

And clinging precariously to her dress is a single perfect rainbow-coloured bubble.

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