Caroline MacMillan crossed the courtyard that the All Saints staff frequently patroned for their lunch breaks and stop when she saw her ex-boyfriend Jack Quade. She went to wave hello – their break-up had been as reasoned and amicable as any break-up could be – but stopped when she saw he was with a woman. Or more specifically, a woman she didn't recognise and a woman she immediately got a bad vibe off despite the fact they were a good five meters away. So that must be his new girlfriend, Ali, she thought. She had heard he was dating someone new – gossip was rife amount the hospital staff, and wasn't about to be confined to the ED Department where Jack was a doctor, and besides, there were plenty of catty people there who loved to make sure Caroline knew Jack was dating someone new – but she wasn't jealous. Matter of fact, she was happy for Jack. If this Ali was good for him, more trusting of him than she had been – well, good for him. He deserved someone special – that someone special just wasn't going to be her.
Jack had her back to her, hugging Ali, and Ali had her head down, draped over Jack's shoulder. Suddenly she jerked it up so she was looking directly at Caroline. Caroline blanched. Could Ali know who she was? Possible, but unlikely. Ali didn't work at the hospital and Jack wasn't type to go pointing out exes. She knew this because he had been reluctant to show her any photos when she'd asked. He didn't see the point in being constantly reminded of past relationships.
So it was improbable that Ali knew who she was – but why was she looking at her like that? With resentment – with jealousy? Caroline shrugged it off and went on her way.
She was taking some pathology results to the ED – in the two months she and Jack had been dating, she'd gotten to know the staff well and always took the opportunity to deliver results personally. Gabrielle Jaeger, the Nursing Unit Manager as well as Jack's close friend and housemate, was manning triage. Caroline smiled when she saw the woman. "Conner Black's pathology results," she said, hanging them over, who in turn handed them to Bart West.
"You look like you've been sucking on lemons," Gabrielle noted.
"Saw Jack. With who I assume is Ali."
Gabrielle chuckled knowingly at that. "She's not the easiest person in the world to get along with," she conceded tactfully.
Caroline laughed at that. "You were never big on tact," she pointed out. "Tell me what you really think."
"I don't like her," Gabrielle admitted. "He's really scared to express himself sexually right now, and I think she knows that, and is playing the religious card – all pure and touch-me-not. There's something really insincere about her – I don't think she's all sugar-and-sunshine that she makes out to be. When I see them together, he just doesn't gel with her – like he did with you. I miss you, you were good for him. Why did you break up? He'd never tell me."
Yeah, Gabrielle and the rest of the world wanted to know. Jack had been the epitome of tact when it had come to their breakup, simply saying that it had been a mutual decision and that it was none of anyone's business. Caroline had made a point not to give anyone any more information than that, but she trusted Gabrielle and besides, she had thought he would have told her, his best friend and housemate. She was kind of touched that his loyalty to the privacy of their relationship extended to Gabrielle. "I wouldn't have sex with him," she admitted. "With his reputation – even though I knew this totally different Jack – I could never get past the idea that he would lose interest in me after I'd slept with him. He was really understanding about it, but he pointed out that there was no point in us having a relationship if I couldn't trust him." She shrugged. "He had a point and he was far more mature about it than I was."
Gabrielle nodded. Jack had spent most of last year screwing any woman who would have him – including one of the best temp nurses she had ever had, Rachel Simms, and humiliating her into quitting. That was the part everyone knew. The part only a handful knew – herself, Jack's current boss Frank Campion, head of the ED and his former boss Mike Vlasek, head of Surgery, and Jack's old housemate Dan Goldman – was that Jack had been sexually abused for two years in his adolescence and last year, through sheer dumb luck, the guy had reappeared in his life. It had set off a series of traumatic, tragic events that had ended with Jack using women and alcohol as comfort.
Gabrielle had found this all out when Jack had woken up screaming for the forth night in a row. It seemed he didn't sleep well in beds he wasn't familiar with. He had confided everything in her, and everything had made so much more sense after that. His determination to prove his sexuality, his homophobia, his lacking in skills when it came to emotional intimacy – they were all the hallmarks of someone who had been abused by the very people who were supposed to have nurtured him as a child. For anyone who knew this, he was doing remarkably well in his emotional and psychological recovery.
But Caroline didn't know; Jack had never told her. So Caroline had never understood where his infamous promiscuity came from, and how hard Jack was working to overcome that. And when every other person in the hospital was all-too-eager to tell you about just how many women your boyfriend had slept with, well, Gabrielle couldn't blame Caroline for being nervous about taking that step with Jack. "Pity," she said. "You were good for him. Much better than Ali is."
She and Caroline chatted for a few minutes before Caroline got going. It wasn't that much longer after that that Jack returned from his lunch break. "You missed Caroline," Gabrielle said. "Apparently she saw you and Ali."
"Oh. Whoops. Was she upset?"
Gabrielle laughed. If Jack were anyone else, she would have thought he was supremely arrogant to assume that Caroline was so cut-up about the end of their two-month relationship (over three months ago) that seeing him with his new girlfriend would send her into a spin. But it was just Jack trying to do the right thing by a woman he had broken up with. "She was fine with it. Probably would have come and said hi – if Ali hadn't given her a death-glare."
"What are you talking about? She doesn't know who Caroline is."
Says you. But Ali, Gabrielle had found, had a way of finding out stuff. She had caught her going through Jack's stuff once; she had claimed to be looking for a pen. There was, in Gabrielle's opinion, something very off about Ali, and it wasn't just the no-sex-until-we-get-to-know-each-other pseudo-Christian stuff. She had made it clear she didn't like Gabrielle – or Charlotte – or Cate – or Rebecca – anyone else in Jack's life, as a matter of fact. She was possessive with a barely-concealed jealousy streak.
Instead of saying this, Gabrielle just shrugged. She had learnt not to criticise Ali; Jack had a blind spot when it came to her. "If you say so," she said. "You seeing her tonight?"
Jack smiled, and for a second, Gabrielle was a little bit jealous that such a grating piece like Ali could make him smile like that. God knew, he deserved to be happy after all that he'd gone through, but why did it have to be with someone that no-one but him liked? Wasn't it a universal law of friendship that if no-one in your circle of friends liked your partner, then maybe the problem was with your partner, not all your friends? "Yeah," he said. "I'm meeting her parents. I hope it goes well."
Of course he was hoping it would go well. It was one of the conditions Ali had put on their relationship; she wouldn't sleep with him until he had met her parents approval. It was a compromise between her strong Christian values and his cynical atheist beliefs. And compromise, in Gabrielle's opinion, usual led to no-one being happy. Did Jack really think that a nineteen-year-old virgin with strong Christian beliefs would be happy compromising them? Did Ali think she was going to be able to keep up with Jack sexually? They were going to end up massively colliding over their different beliefs, and neither of them seemed to get that.
Actually, scratch that. Gabrielle had a feeling Ali knew it – and that she was just playing Jack. She had no idea what the younger woman hoped to achieve though. The only thing Gabrielle could come up with was marriage, and Jack wasn't about to marry her... was he? Certainly, he was excited by Dan and Erica's wedding plans. Could he have seriously taken their happiness onboard?
If he had, there was no doubt Ali was playing on that. God, what Jack saw in her was beyond Gabrielle's comprehension. Or maybe not. Here was this pure, virginal young woman from a strong family home – exactly what Jack had craved since he had been young enough to realise that his family life wasn't the same as everyone else's. And Ali's no-sex edict put the brakes on Jack's sexuality; a sexuality he was a little afraid of, given how promiscuous he had been last year and how much emotional destruction that had wreaked on his soul. Taking sex off the table took the pressure off him.
It wasn't the right way to do it, Gabrielle knew. He was a sexual man, and using his girlfriend's spiritual beliefs to keep that in check wasn't healthy. Perhaps if Caroline had trusted him more, they would right now be in a healthy, loving sexual relationship – but that was done and he was with Ali now, and Gabrielle just hoped he saw how incompatible they were before things went too badly wrong.
"You were great," Alexis – Ali – Nelson said to Jack later that evening in the bedroom of her studio apartment. Despite being a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, Jack had been raised Catholic – or at least raised in a Catholic environment, because when you were raised being beaten by an angry, cuckolded step-mother and raped by a paedophile tended to make you question God's existence – and he knew all the lip service. Her parents had loved him, and he had deflected questions about embracing Christianity with tact and charm so they hadn't been aware that he hadn't actually answered the question.
But Ali had been aware. She was frustrated by Jack's lack of interest in religion. Science was not a religion. But she was sure she could change that eventually. After all, she had already changed him, hadn't she? Hadn't he been a notorious skirt-chaser until they had met? Hadn't he screwed everything in a skirt – including that friend of his, Charlotte Beaumont?
And look where that got her, Ali thought viciously. A single mother, never married. That's what she got for putting out without a ring on her finger. Which was something she had no intention of doing with Jack – he just didn't know it yet.
Jack pushed her onto her back so he was on top of her and started kissing her in earnest. She did love the way he kissed. She had always known he would be a good kisser – way better than the silly high university boys that she usually dated. Jack was twenty-eight; the perfect age for her. And the perfect age to be married. She had known all this the first time she had met him at a university bash that he had reluctantly attended because of his sister. Ali had been vaguely acquainted with Rebecca Rowe, but after that night, she had made a point to ingratiate herself with the other girl until they were close friends – close enough for Rebecca to include her in her thoughts of her brother, that what he really needed was a good woman to be in a relationship with.
Ali had heartily agreed, and worked to be everything Rebecca said Jack liked in a woman – intelligence, just a little sophisticated (but not a snob) – and most importantly, pure and innocent. It had set her apart from other women, and when Jack had first had a one-on-one conversation with her, he had been impressed with her intelligence and deep faith. Not to mention her wholesomeness; there had been something untainted about her that he had been drawn to. Just as Ali had intended.
So he had taken her out for dinner and been further impressed by her intelligence, sophistication and faith. Not to mention her sunny good looks. She was a young Jennifer Hawkins incarnate, all clear, fair skin, blue eyes and light blond hair. Not to mention slim, toned legs that could tangle up in his without being inappropriately sexual and delicate fingers that could run over his bare skin in that super-affectionate way that was only the slightest bit erotic.
She had been upfront with him about being a virgin, and that while she wasn't that old-fashioned that she believed in holding out for marriage in a world where so many marriages ended in divorce anyway, she wasn't the type to jump into bed with just anyone. Jack had been happy to wait, and three months of a far more traditional courtship than Jack was used to had ensued, until she had told him that if he met her parent's approval, that would seal the deal for her.
So here they were. Jack was surprisingly nervous. Unused to waiting so long before he went to be with someone – it had never been more than two dates for him, he was a firm believer in making sure that you had chemistry before you invested any time in dating – it had, at times, been frustrating. The most he had ever gotten out of Ali was a hand-job. But conversely, he liked having that restraint. He liked knowing that it wasn't going to happen, that he was free to pursue a relationship for the sake of a relationship.
But he was still looking forward to sleeping with her. And kind of in awe, because he had never been with a virgin – like attracted like and jaded people attracted jaded people – and the thought was – well, something he couldn't put into words. But he was honoured that this was something Ali wanted to do with him, especially since he couldn't return the honour.
He kissed her face, neck and collarbone and began undoing the buttons of her silk blouse. She had excellent taste in clothing – delightfully conservative but still stylish. He inched the material down to expose the red satin-and-lace bra that she wore underneath. It had enchanted Jack from the beginning how she could wear something so sexy under something so conservative. It was, he thought, a sure sign of the animal sexuality that lay dormant within her. "You're so sexy," he murmured huskily. He was becoming aroused, more than what he usually was when they were alone like this.
She felt his erection through his pants and smiled knowingly. Jack was just a man, when you got down to it. An older, smart, more sophisticated man, but a man nonetheless, who could be strung along with a few promises and hand-jobs. Actually – she hadn't wanted to go that far but Jack had pretty much insisted, and she hadn't wanted to deny him too much, given what he was used to. And when he had the flavour...
Ali lay back, enjoying Jack's kisses. She had no doubt Jack was a fantastic lover who gave as much as he got. She was looking forward to finding out – once she got that ring on her finger.
Jack undid the last button of her blouse and ran his fingers along her flat, toned stomach for a few seconds before starting on the buttons of her pants. She tensed up at that. He knew not to go there. "Jack," she protested. He didn't stop. "Jack, slow down," she directed him.
"Sweetheart, it's fine," he reassured her. "Don't be nervous." Although he knew just how pointless it was telling her that. But at least he could make it the least awkward, most loving experience it could possibly be for her.
"Jack, it's not. I want you to stop."
Hearing the tone in her voice more than the word itself, Jack stopped and scooted up the bed, propping himself up on his elbow. "What's up?"he asked, trying not to sound disappointed. She had a right to be nervous.
"I don't want to do this."
"What do you mean?" Jack looked directly at Ali, seeing for the first time that her expression wasn't as open and honest as he had always thought. There was something crafty there. Jack stared at Ali more searchingly, his mind ticking over. And it hit him that she had never intended on sleeping with him – at least not before she had something far bigger than a simple meeting with her parents. "What are you playing at?" he demanded to know.
Ali tried to look beguiling. "What are you talking about?" she asked innocently.
"You know damn well what I'm talking about. You never planned on sleeping with me, did you?" Ali shrank back slightly from him, sinking into the mattress at his tone. He was angry. She hadn't planned for him to be angry. She had planned for him to be so infatuated with her by now that he didn't care about waiting a bit longer. "Why didn't you just tell me that from the beginning?"
"Because you never would have gone out with me then," Ali said matter-of-factly, as if promising sex you had no intention of delivering on to found a relationship was not only common sense, but perfectly acceptable.
Angrily, Jack got up off the bed. For the first time, he was really seeing Ali – or at least a more truthful version of Ali than the one she had been showing him for the last three months. He was furious. Had she really thought he would marry her over sex? Had he really thought he would buy that much into things he had no belief in?
Yes, she had, he realised. She had thought that a few kisses and promises of something more down the track would have him hook, line and sinker. She had thought she could impress him enough with her prettiness and intelligence and innocence – which wasn't as innocent as he had thought – so he wouldn't mind when she told him she'd been lying to him all along.
"I'm going home," he said. "This is over."
"Good idea," she said, misunderstanding what he meant. "You should go have a cold shower."
He wanted to smack her. He had known that girls like her existed, but he had never actually come across one. A prick-tease, that's what she was. With delusions of grandeur. He should have listened to Gabrielle when she had said she had liked Caroline much better. Hell, at least Caroline had been upfront with her reasons for not wanting to sleep with him. "No, I mean This. Is. Over. This relationship."
Ali looked at him like a child being told there would be no dessert as punishment. "You're breaking up with me?" she asked plaintively.
"Yeah."
She pouted. "Because I won't sleep with you?" she asked.
"No, because you lied to me." Although she was correct enough. He would never have started dating her if he had known she had no intention of sleeping with him outside of marriage, but the lying bothered him more than anything. If she had simply changed her mind, he could have dealt. But to lie all along – he had instantly lost all respect for her and what kind of relationship could you have without respect and honesty?
She scrunched up her face and started to cry. "Ali, please – " he said, trying to swallow his irritation. Although he didn't know why he had expected more of her, given she was immature enough to resort to lying.
"You're breaking my heart, Jack," she sobbed. "You can't leave me – you can't." She threw herself into his arms, flinging her arms around his neck possessively. He had one found it charming the way she would hold him so tightly, but now he found it claustrophobic. She had lied about sex so he would continue to go out with her. What did that say about her? What did that say about what she would do for keep a boyfriend?
Thankgod he was getting out after three months.
He pushed her away as gently as he could. "Ali, please. This won't help. Look, I've got to go, but – I'll call you soon, OK?" he said, knowing that he would have to know even though he really wasn't interested in seeing her again – or speaking to her again. But maybe he'd feel different in a few days, once he'd had time to clear his head. Hell, maybe this would eventually be funny.
Helplessly, he left Ali crying. She'd get over it in a few days, he told himself. It wasn't like theirs had been an epic romance. It had been three months – and it wasn't even like they had slept together.
Needless to say, Gabrielle was surprised to see Jack home just a few hours after he had left. "Forgot something?" she asked innocently, then immediately regretted it. He could very well have forgotten something – like condoms. Jack flopped down on the couch, where Gabrielle was watching Buffy – no, it was Angel, he realised on second glance – for the umpteenth time. Gabrielle cocked her head, momentarily distracted from Alexis Romanoff, and looked directly at Jack. He looked down. "Things didn't go as well as you hoped?" she asked.
"You could say that," Jack said dryly, and found himself telling Gabrielle everything.
"You're joking," Gabrielle said, although come to think of it, that didn't surprise her at all. There was something very off about Ali – the usual limits when it came to relationships didn't apply to her. If she wanted to snoop around to find pictures of ex, she did, and if she thought lying about sex would land her a boyfriend, she would. "I'm sorry," she said as sincerely as she could manage.
He grinned at her. "No, you're not," he said. "I know you didn't like her."
Gabrielle grinned back. "Was it that obvious?" Jack nodded, and Gabrielle shrugged, caught out. "OK, I didn't," she admitted. "She wasn't right for you. The Christianity thing was a big part of it. I think a big part of the appeal for you was knowing that you didn't have to worry about sex for a while – that the possibility was taken out of your hands. I think part of her appeal was this wholesome, virginal young woman from a happy family – everything you didn't have when you were twenty... or thirteen." Jack turned his head slightly so she couldn't see his face, and she knew she had got it in one. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so presumptive."
"You're not being presumptive. You're right. I mean, I like her – liked her – liked whatever part of herself she chose to show me – but yeah... I liked the option of sex taken from me. I liked being able to just date and not worry about sex."
"You don't have to date a Christian to get that from a relationship, Jack. You can go at your own pace."
"You're kidding, right?" Jack asked ruefully. "This is me. If I date anyone from the hospital or anyone who knows someone who knows someone from the hospital and I don't go to bed with them on the first date, it eventually gets back to me that something was deeply wrong with them that I did." Actually, there was no 'eventual' about it. Things like that got around pretty quickly.
"Jack, you need to get out more. You need to find someone who cares about you and doesn't expect anything from you – and doesn't care about anything that's happened in the past."
That, he thought, was easier said than done. Having been sexually abused for two years as a teenager was not something you could talk about in the same vein as having gotten into a bit of trouble as school. (Ironically a problem that Jack had never had.) "I don't have anyone like that – other than you," he said.
She looked at him sympathetically. She couldn't fathom how hard it was for him to make friends, let alone be able to confide in them what had happened to him. The only reason why the people who knew did was because things had become too much for him to bear. "If it means anything, you do have me," she said. "You'll always have me."
He smiled at her. She had always been there for him – well, in the last few months that they'd been living together. He had something with Gabrielle that he'd never had before – an open and honest friendship. He could tell her anything and knew she wouldn't judge him. She knew all his favourite foods and the way he liked having his hair stroked when they watched a DVD. She was his best friend, and she knew him better than – well, than anyone he could remember. Even his sister, because no matter that they had been adults (well, almost – she had been seventeen) when they had first met, Bec was still his kid sister, whereas Gabrielle was his equal – in every way.
Suddenly he found himself looking at her in a way he never had before. He had known her for over two years and she had always been Gabrielle to him – Deanna's replacement, nurse, housemate, friend – Gabrielle, who always had his back and who knew him inside out and loved him anyway and just got him.
How could he have missed it all along?
Gabrielle shivered under the intensity of Jack's look, but she didn't divert her eyes. She didn't want to. She had never realised how charismatic Jack was – but then, he had never looked at her in that way. All of a sudden she remembered just how much fun they had together – how he had this knack of making her feel good about herself and making her feel attractive and not the least bit too tall – just the right height for him. Not to mention the way he had a habit of looking at her like all the qualities she prided in herself – her intelligence, her loyalty, her professionalism – were being projected outward to create their own kind of beauty. "Jack," she whispered, suddenly very aware of how attracted she was to him.
"Gabrielle," he whispered back, and leaned in to kiss her.
The moment their lips met, there was electricity. She shuddered as his tongue flicked into her mouth, searching out hers. She responded eagerly and brought her hands inside his jacket, up his bare arms, feeling the muscles in his arms tense and relax under her touch. He was so much more sexually experienced than she was, but she didn't feel the least bit inexperienced kissing Jack. She felt like this was what all the movies were about, all hot and sexy but safe and secure at the same time. She was kissing her best friend and it was the sexiest thing in the world.
Jack jerked away abruptly. "Woah," he said. "Did we just –?"
Gabrielle nodded. "Yeah." Pity they didn't show this awkwardness in the movies where the best friends suddenly realised that they were meant for each other so they would have something to go on.
"Ah." Jack leaned back and chewed on his bottom lip. "I've never done that before," he said. "Actually, I've never had a close female friend to do it before."
"So I'm your first?" she asked in her best attempt at a double-entendre.
"Something like that. So, uh – "
"Where do we go from here?" Gabrielle offered.
"Yeah."
"That depends. How do you feel about Ali?" she asked directly. She frowned a little when Jack took a few seconds to respond; the answer was I have no feelings whatsoever. "Jack!" she admonished him, feeling hurt and more than a little cheap. She had just kissed a guy who had broken up with a girl not an hour ago.
"I was just trying to think of the best way to say it. What I feel about her – what I felt about her – isn't at all valid because it wasn't real. This – what we have – this is real. You're my best friend. I don't think there's anything better than falling for your best friend."
She smiled brilliantly at him. It was the most perfect thing to say. "It's why they make so many movies about it," she said knowingly. "Do you – do you want to kiss me again?"
"I'd love to," he said, and leaned in to kiss her. Their second kiss was no less electric then their first. He pushed her gently down onto the couch so she was on her back and he was on top of her, and they started making out. He ran his hands down the sides of her body, resting them at her waist. He paused to take in the sensation of her body moving to her breathing. He brought his hands around her back and then up again, feeling the heat of her skin through her shirt. It was no more erotic than the way he had held Gabrielle dozens of times before, but this was so much more intoxicating.
He nuzzled his face in her neck and she arched it for easier access. She ran her hands down his back and up inside her shirt. He bucked up against her and she revelled in knowing she could make him react like that.
They made out on the couch for a few minutes before he pulled away slightly. "Can we slow down a little?" he asked breathlessly. No matter what lies his relationship with Ali had been founded on, he had enjoyed dating – the pleasure of doing stuff together and holding hands and acting like a couple. "I just don't want it to be about sex straight away," was the best he could do at explaining.
She understood. She had seen how much Jack enjoyed dating, even if she hadn't thought much of Ali. And it would be fun to date – it wasn't something she and Steve had done a lot of. You didn't really 'date' when one-half of the couple was hell-bent on getting as drunk as possible. Yes, dating sounded like fun. "So what do we say at work then?" she asked.
Work. He hadn't thought about that. Christ, the amount of fodder he had given the hospital gossips over his dating colleagues – or simply sleeping with them. Terri, Charlotte, Deanna, Rachel, Caroline. "Can we keep it quiet for a bit?" he asked hopefully. "I just – don't want to chuck you in the deep end until we work out where we stand. You wouldn't believe what people say about me." And he only knew what people dared to say to his face.
She grinned at him. "Yeah, I would. I'm your housemate, remember? Everyone comes to me for the gossip – or to share it."
He poked his tongue out at her. "You'll keep," he said, and he kissed her.
In her apartment, Ali cried and raged for hours after Jack left. She couldn't believe he had broken up with her – he – Alexis Nelson! Things had been going so well between them and then he had broken up with her.
Gradually, she composed herself. This was hardly the first time she had been initially denied something she had set her sights on – but she always got what she wanted in the end. She had been raised not to give up on her goals. And right now, her goal was Jack Quade.
He would be hers.