Chapter 1 - ("Love conquers all")

His fist collided with Jack's face, and Jack fell to the ground. He felt weak. He could not speak, and he could barely move. He tried to push himself up but he was simply kicked down again. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

"Time to meet that God of yours in Heaven." The man flashed a wicked smile in his face before pulling out a shiny object.

Jack knew that it was a gun and he could feel his heartbeat increasing.

"Please don't!" He begged for his life but the man did not care. He held the gun up and aimed it him.

BOOM!

Jack let out a terrifying scream as he sat up and looked at his surroundings. This was the fourth nightmare that he had had this week. He looked around and immediately found himself confused. Kathleen had been kind enough to allow Jack to stay in the guest house for the past week because he had asked her to after explaining that he could tell that his nightmares disturbed his parents. However, this was definitely not the guest house, or at least it didn't seem like it. He let out short and rasped breaths as he attempted to pull his covers from his body and get up.

When he did this he felt another hand, soft, smooth, and familiar, touching his. He looked at her deep green eyes through the darkness and smiled. It was Grace.

"Grace?"

She reached over by the night stand and turned on the light so that they could see each other more clearly. It was now that he realized that her beautiful face was tired and worn out. There were bags under her eyes and her green eyes, though breathtakingly beautiful, were bloodshot.

"My mom decided to let you stay in your old room, the one you used before you went back to your parents house I mean."

"Why not the guest room?"

She looked down at the bedspread and he waited patiently for her to respond.

"Your nightmares have been waking Tom up lately and so my mom thought it would be best if you stayed here."

He pieced it all together and then he looked at her bloodshot eyes again, "Have I been keeping you up Grace?"

She waved the statement off, "Don't worry about it Jack. You've been through a lot these past few weeks. It's nothing."

"But you can hear me from your room, and I'm waking you up. You look exhausted. Gosh Grace I'm s-"

She shushed him with a kiss, throwing her hands onto his neck. He fell to his back and suddenly forgot what they were talking about. All he could think about was the feeling of her lips on his. It just felt right, despite everything they had been through, despite all of the times that they hurt each other, he still made her smile. He gave her butterflies. And no one could ever make Jack feel the way he felt around Grace.

As he slowly came back to reality, he gently pushed her off of him.

"Grace look you haven't been getting any sleep and-"

"Jack can we please just not talk about this right now?"

Jack sighed, and then placed his hand on Grace's cheek, caressing her slowly, "I just don't want to be the cause of your problems Grace."

She shoved his hand away angrily, "You're not the cause Jack!"

"Grace-"

"That pimp that beat you up is the cause of all of this! And there's nothing that either of us could have done about that!" Grace whispered this to Jack harshly, trying to ensure that her mother didn't wake up.

He could see fresh tears threatening to spill out of her eyes and he felt bad, "Alright Grace, I'm sorry..."

"I just want things to go back to the way they were. I wished none of this had ever happened Jack," she said as she choked back bitter sobs.

"But it did happen Grace, and we're going to have to accept that."

She nodded at this, and then he pulled her towards his chest and the two of them laid down.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I stay here tonight? With you?" She looked up at him with wide eyes and he swore he could get lost in them.

"You really want to stay in here with all of my screaming?" He joked, but inside he was serious.

"Let's just say...you're not the only one that has nightmares Jack," she responded and he looked at her with all of the sympathy in the world.

"We're going to get through this Grace. They'll find the guy who beat me up and everything will be ok." He spoke these words to Grace and she seemed comforted, however, he wasn't sure if he could believe them. He lived in constant fear each day, feeling helpless, and vulnerable, and he didn't know if he could ever get over that.

Grace turned the light off, and the two of them fell asleep after that. Jack realized that with Grace by his side, his nightmares seemed to go away.

A/N: So I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter. This thought just came to me today and I decided to make a story out of it. I do want to let you guys know that this story get's really dark but there will be a happy ending. Thanks for reading!