Yes, I do know that I shouldn't be posting a new fic up when I have so many others to work on, but I couldn't help it. Please don't shoot me…
You can review though *hopeful grin* If I don't know whether people are enjoying it, I may not continue, so please, just a line or something =)
Woody2792x
Waking from her motorcycle accident, Jac took everything in slowly. She had a vague memory of talking in between her bouts of unconsciousness, and asking for Joseph, but other than that it was all a haze of pain and darkness. To see Joseph in the room with her was a surprise, especially when she had been spying on Faye to dig up some dirt... they exchanged brief greetings, and there was a moment of silence before the conversation started properly, along with a diluted version of snark. There was a brief moment of shock when he mentioned his and Faye's engagement, but it passed quicker than it could have done.
It seemed so easy to slip back into the flow of banter they had shared when they were dating, but there was an extremely tangible barrier present and between them. Jac studied Joseph's face as a silence fell between them; he was very nearly glowing with the recent occasion of his and Faye's engagement. Yet she could tell there was a small part of him that was withdrawn, cussing about letting it slip to his old flame, a tangled mess churning inside him; she did not need to have him verbally or physically show this, she just knew. As soon as the words had left his mouth, Jac knew that Joseph regretted them – Faye would not appreciate her knowing about it. He tried to cover his mistake by being blasé about it, almost shrugging the news off as being a common, daily occurrence.
Jac was split in two; she did not know whether she should let her inner-bitch take control and crow about it to anyone who would listen, or whether she should control the bitch and simply be happy for him. It was not as though she wanted to hurt anyone or push them away, she never did, but that was her self-preservation technique. In her current position of a hospital bed and unable to move, she knew the first option would be difficult to achieve, yet the second was almost going to be impossible. It was going to go against her instinct, going to hurt her, but for the sake of their past together, Jac vowed she would try to appear happy; even if it was only outwardly. So she pulled herself together, put all her feelings to do with Joseph away, and gave him her congratulations. She could not quite manage to keep the surprise, hurt, and snark out of her voice, but it was toned way below her normal. Jac knew he would see through it and think the worst, that she was just trying to gain a foothold to hurt him, but she had to do it this way; she cared too much to hurt him deliberately.
So she had screwed up in the past, when she placed her career in higher esteem than her feelings, ruining her small chance of happiness with Joseph. There was not a single shift she did not regret it, especially since Faye had begun to work at Holby. Every time she saw them together, it was as though a stake was being driven through her chest, through her heart, through her soul; and there was nothing she could do to change it.
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