"Ashelin, I'm sorry..."
Baby we can talk all night
But that ain't getting us nowhere
I told you everything I possibly can
There's nothing left inside of here
Resting his face in his hands, Jak drew in a deep breath and gathered the strength to whisper a few more words, "I didn't- I don't want to hurt you, but I can't lie to you either." He paused to bring in another shuddering breath, "I can't return your feelings; not now, not ever. There's really nothing more I can say, I told you everything."
The tears streaming down her face, Ashelin looked at Jak with something akin to betrayal on her features, "You jerk! If you didn't love me then and you don't love me now, why did you kiss me in the desert?" She banged her fist down on a table, "What good did you think would come of it?"
Still hiding his face in his hands, Jak's voice drifted to Ashelin's ears, "That's just it… I didn't think." His voice dropped even lower, "You don't understand, only a few days before I met you out there, I lost someone important to me." Jak finally looked up at the woman he had unwillingly hurt, "Right then, I needed someone else."
Ashelin rapidly blinked away her tears, "So you were using me! I was your rebound!" Standing up, Ashelin shoved her chair away so hard it fell over and hit the floor, "I can't believe you would do that to me! I had faith in you; I thought you were better than that!"
Snapping her finger up and out, Ashelin pointed at the door, "Get the hell out of here, right now! Don't ever come back!"
And maybe you can cry all night
But that'll never change the way that I feel
The snow is really piling up outside
I wish you wouldn't make me leave here
"Ashelin-"
"No Jak! No more talk!" Ashelin's finger was still aimed at the door, "I told you to get out!"
He stood up, but he didn't head for the door. Instead Jak walked around the table until he was standing next to the governess before he gently reached up and covered her hand with his both of his own, "Please, Ash, don't get me wrong. I care about you; you mean the world to me." Jak took one small step back, "I just don't love you."
A slight look of uncertainty crossed the woman's face, but she shook it off as fast as it came on. Violently, she ripped her hand away from Jak's, "No." Turning away, she presented him with the cold view of her back, "No. If you cared about me, this wouldn't be happening. You're lying again."
Although it hurt Jak to know that Ashelin thought him nothing more than a base liar, he knew he had to try again, "No Ashelin, I'm not." The hero couldn't just let things end like this, Jak had to convince her that he was sincere, "I do care about you. We've been through so much together, Metal Kor and Cyborg Erol, rebuilding Haven; after all that, I don't want to lose your friendship."
Even though Jak couldn't see, more tears welled up in Ashelin's eyes, but all she did was shake her head once. Even though it killed her to be having this conversation, Ashelin had felt it coming for a long time. Her whole relationship with Jak had felt… odd, right from the beginning, and Ashelin had somehow known it would end this way.
But that didn't mean she could prepare herself for it.
I poured it on and I poured it out
I tried to show you just how much I care
I'm tired of words and I'm too hoarse to shout
But you've been cold to me so long
I'm crying icicles instead of tears
When Jak saw Ashelin shake her head, he almost lost it. He had tried so hard to make her understand, but now there was absolutely nothing else he could do. "Ashelin," Jak began, his voice cracking as he lost control of it, "I did everything I could to make you see that I cared, but it didn't work."
Now Jak finally turned his back on her, "I don't know why you're being so cold, but I tried." Clenching his fist, Jak started toward the door, "I'm sick of it, you've acted like this for too long. You want me to leave, I will."
Shaking with pent up emotions, her hurt, anger and fear all running rampant though her system, Ashelin whipped around when she heard Jak's hand rattle the doorknob. Finally letting all of her feelings out, she let Jak know exactly what she was going through, "Are you trying to say you're the wronged one? That's bull, and you know it!"
Now Ashelin curled her fist up to match Jak's. With a strange look of mixed hurt and hate on her face, she approached him, "Don't you dare try to make me out as the cruel one, because that's you, Jak."
When Jak didn't turn around, Ashelin hit him hard on a shoulder blade, "You're wrong! I did try, Jak! I did everything I could to make this relationship work!" Now Ashelin's voice got even louder, "No matter what you say, I did love you! The Precursors witness it Jak, I still do!"
All the sudden, Ashelin's eyes got huge. Mortified at the fact she had just let those last few words slip out, she whipped both her hands up to her mouth and covered it. It was now that Jak finally decided to turn around, and all Ashelin could do was shake in anger at herself and him when he looked at her.
Sighing, Jak reclaimed his place at the table, "Ash, please. You have to forgive me…"
And all I can do is keep on telling you
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way
I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
"You have a wonderful life, and there is someone we both know that would do anything for you." He ran one hand through his shaggy blond/green hair, "You don't need me screwing that up." Jak paused to lower his head and cradle the back of his neck in his hands, "I'm a renegade and an outcast, I can't offer you anything."
Slowly, Ashelin moved until she was sitting next to Jak. Reaching out, she drew her fingers over the fist his hand still formed. With small, precision strokes, she kept doing it until his muscles finally relaxed and his palm now lay open, "Jak, that doesn't matter. Everything I want, you have." She placed her hand in his, "Like your love."
After a long, interminable moment during which Jak still started intently at the floor, he squeezed Ashelin's hand once, very gently, and then he slid his palm out from under hers, "Ash, I can't. I'm not the guy for you, all I would do is bring you down." He looked up slightly and caressed her cheek once, "You can do better than me, and we both know it. I want what's best for you; I can't let you waste your life by spending the rest of it with me."
Although Ashelin felt like crying again, she couldn't produce the tears, "Why, Jak? I just don't understand." She placed a hand under his chin and pulled until he was looking straight into her eyes, "Explain it to me. Tell me why life with you would be such a waste."
Swiftly, she bent in and kissed him on the lips, "I have to know."
You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach
You'll never drill for oil on a city street
I know you're looking for a ruby
In a mountain of rocks
But there ain't no Coupe de Ville hiding
At the bottom of a Cracker Jack box
Ashelin's move startled Jak, but once she withdrew her lips he answered her as best he could, "I don't- I'm not the man for you. You're a governess, a ruler; you're important." He interlocked his fingers in an unconscious move, "Compared to you, I'm nothing. Ashelin, you live in the palace and my home belongs in the slums."
"We're just two completely different people," Jak told her. "You could dress me differently and stick me in a fancy room, but truth be told I'd feel more comfortable in the prison cells."
Jak stopped talking for a few minutes, and Ashelin could see that he was thinking. Finally he opened his mouth again, "I'm not going to lie to you. I can't tell you I'd fit into your world, because that's not true."
"But, Jak," Ashelin started to protest, "that's not true. Ever since your banishment to the wasteland was repealed, you've been in the palace a ton of times. It's not like the people don't trust you anymore, you're welcome there now." She reached out to him again, "It could be your home."
Sadly, he pushed Ashelin away again, "No, it can't." Jak wished the woman beside him would understand because every word he spoke caused him pain, but he couldn't change his feeling just to suite her, "Ash, I just can't give you what I don't have."
"Do you get it?"
I can't lie
I can't tell you that I'm something I'm not
No matter how I try
I'll never be able to give you something
Something that I just haven't got
Ashelin had understood what Jak was saying since the first time it came out of his mouth, but she wasn't yet ready to accept it. Just because she knew what Jak meant, that didn't mean Ashelin knew why, and that's what she planned to find out.
"Yeah," Ashelin said, the sorrow in her voice heavy, "I get it." She paused to pull in a sob, "I get it." Standing up, the governess walked around to the other side of the table to put some distance between herself and Jak, "But what I don't know is why. At the very least, you owe me that explanation."
Jak knew she was right, but the entire night he had concentrated on doing everything he could to avoid telling Ashelin that one thing. The hero knew that the tale would hurt her even more, and above all Jak did not want to cause her more pain because he had done that way too much as it was.
Now though, he knew Ashelin had him backed into a corner and the only thing Jak could do was tell her the truth, no matter how heartbreaking it was. "Fine Ash," he sighed, "I'll tell you." Jak gestured to the chair next to him, "Can I ask you a favor though? Will you please sit down?"
Ashelin was so relieved that Jak was finally going to tell her the truth; that was all she wanted. Sitting down was an easy price to pay, and she did it without hesitation. Taking the seat next to Jak, she was slightly shocked when he reached out and grabbed her hand, but she relaxed once he looked into her eyes.
Giving her warm hand one reassuring, farewell squeeze, Jak launched into his story, "Ashelin, the night before I defeated Cyborg Erol, I got a letter from Keira… I don't know if you knew, but we were together. We had been ever since I killed Metal Kor."
"Keira split with me because she said it was too hard on her, dating an outcast." Jak bit his lip in an unconscious move, "And I know she's always been scared of Dark; so she couldn't love all of me. I… I just couldn't deal, she meant everything to me."
"At that moment, I needed someone else."
There's only one girl that I have ever loved
And that was so many years ago
And though I know I'll never get her out of my heart
She never loved me back, ooh I know
I remember how she left me on a stormy night
She kissed me and got out of our bed
And though I pleaded and I begged her
Not to walk out that door
She packed her bags and turned right away
All of the sudden, Ashelin felt her world begin to spin. What was this, and why would Jak want to be with Keira when he could have any woman in the world? Wrestling with these questions, Ashelin tried to ignore the fact that deep down she knew the reason.
Gasping in a sharp breath, Ashelin fought to control the mounting anger she felt because she knew it was irrational. When Jak opened his mouth to speak, she cut him off with a violent snap of her wrist as she did everything she could to relax. Whispering to herself, she repeated the words, "It's alright, somehow I knew this would happen," over and over in her mind until she could face Jak again.
Looking up, she gathered all her strength, straightened her back, and then stared Jak straight in the eyes, "So I was right earlier." Ashelin made it a statement, not a question, "I was nothing but your rebound." When Jak tried to tear himself away from her gaze, Ashelin called him back with a few more words, "How could you do that to me?"
Inside, Jak's emotions were boiling over. When he told Ashelin about Keira, he could see her double over in pain as though hit by an actual, physical force, and that half killed him. He didn't want to hurt Ashelin, she was important to him, more important than she knew. "Ash," he murmured, "I don't know."
The woman gave Jak a strange look. Crossing her arms in front of her, she stopped him from breaking their gaze again, "What do you mean?"
Jak drew in a deep breath and brought all of his thoughts together. Reaching over, he grabbed one of her hands and pulled her arms out of their crossed position, "Ashelin, what I mean is I don't know how I could have done that to you."
This time, Ashelin could feel Jak's eyes bore into hers; he had stopped trying to break their connection, "I care about you so much. You mean more to me than you know, and for some reason the asshole in me forgot that for a moment." He covered one of her hands in both of his, "Please Ash, I don't want to loose you. I know if I don't let you move on, I'm going to."
"The only thing I can do is tell you the same thing Keira told me," he whispered as he squeezed Ashelin's hand, "I want you and I need you. Please don't be sad, but it's just, I can't love you." Jak finally lowered his head, "Two out of three isn't bad, but I'm still sorry."
And she kept on telling me
She kept on telling me
She kept on telling me
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way
I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
Don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
Ashelin drew her hand away from Jak. Slowly, she stood up and walked to the door before turning around for one last time, "Yeah, but it's not going to get us any where."
Baby we can talk all night
But that ain't getting us nowhere...
And, just so you all know, the italicized words are a song, and that song belongs to Meatloaf. I know we're not suppose to write song-fics, and usually I do take my lyrics out before I post, but this story loses something without them, so I couldn't delete them.
Sull