a/n So, here is my next Louise/Jackson fic. I hope you like it! :) It will be about 4 chapters long and I'll be updating every Sunday from now until its finished!
This is set in the book-universe, after When Will There Be Good News? and completely disregards a lot of the stuff that is mentioned in Started Early, Took My Dog. (Mainly because I was only like forty pages into that when I started writing this).
(I apologise for any mistakes in advance!)
...
It was two in the morning and Jackson was lying in bed, his mind unable to stop racing at one million miles per hour. It had been a long day and it had not gone well. He had been hired to find a lost dog – not something he would have chosen if he had a choice. But he didn't. He was running out of money fast. Truth be told, Jackson still hadn't got used to the fact that all of Binky Rain's money was gone now. That Tessa had taken it. Tessa who had been his wife.
God. He sighed and stretched out in the bed. Jackson wasn't sure why he had found himself back in Edinburgh. It hadn't been a conscious decision, he'd just found himself on the train and hadn't been able to get off it. That had been four months ago now, and he still hadn't left yet.
Jackson had been picking up any cases he could find, lost dogs included. He was bored if he was being honest, but he couldn't find anything else to do with his life. All those years spent doing nothing had taken their toll on him. He didn't have much anymore, a small flat on the edge of the city and not much else. Josie and his daughter were living somewhere near Manchester having returned from New Zealand, without David Lastingham. That had made his day, to say the least.
The phone rang and Jackson reached out and picked it up. He wondered who it could be. He knew nobody in Edinburgh anymore, except from Louise, and she wouldn't call him. Especially not at two in morning. Would she?
They hadn't talked in about a year, or maybe even longer. Jackson wasn't quite sure why that was the case, but it was probably something to do with what had happened the last time they had met. When he'd been in the train crash and had been roped into finding Joanna Hunter.
"Jackson Brodie," he said, sharply. He was tired and just wanted to sleep, not be on the phone to a stranger, probably who would try and get him to buy double glazed windows. That was the only person who would call him in the early hours of the morning. It made him a little sad, to be honest.
"Um, hello, Mr Brodie." The voice on the other end of the line was hesitant, and Jackson just hoped to god that it wasn't a shy old woman who wanted him to find her missing cat. "This is Nurse Carter at the Clifford Hospital in Edinburgh." Jackson frowned, why was Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital phoning him at two am? What could she possibly want? "I'm sorry to disturb you at this time, but your number is down as the next of kin, and we're supposed to call if something's happened, just to inform you." The nurse sounded frazzled and tired, but her voice was clear. He was somebody's next of kin. Jackson could think of no one who would put him as the next of kin. Marlee's next of kin was Josie and Nathan's Julia so it couldn't be one of his children. Who hell could it be?
Jackson sat up and flicked the lamp next to his bed on, as he talked into the phone. "Who?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr Brodie, I should have told you to start with. Louise Munroe has been involved in a car accident." Jackson felt the pit of his stomach lurch painfully. It had to be Louise. The one person he didn't want to be hurt and it was her, lying in a hospital bed somewhere. He didn't dwell on the fact he was down as her next of kin.
"Is she okay?"
"Um, she's in a stable condition at the moment and the doctors are keeping a close eye on her," Nurse Carter replied, and Jackson realised that she told him nothing, really, about how she was. The skill of an artful nurse, he guessed. They probably teach them how to do it in Medical school. "May I ask how you know Ms Munroe? She didn't put it on the form. Are you her husband? If you're not, do you know his name or number so we can track him down?" Jackson swung his legs out of the side of the bed. He was sure that Patrick, Louise's husband, was in America, and nowhere near his wife. Maybe that was why Jackson was down as her next of kin, she didn't have anyone else – though he was a rather desperate last choice, seeing as Louise still thought he lived in London and he had a habit of being nowhere near where he said he would be.
He thought about Louise for a second, about everything that had happened to them over the years, and realised that he wished he could say yes to Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital's question. So he did. For once, Bad Jackson won. He said loudly and clearly into the phone, "Yeah, I'm her husband." The words sounded strange coming out of his mouth in regards to Louise, but he liked the tingling feeling it created in his stomach. It was only a little lie, it couldn't hurt anyone – except maybe himself when Louise found out what he'd done and hit him. And anyway, he'd always wanted to know what it would be like if they'd made different decisions and chose each other.
What he had to hope was that her real husband didn't turn up and ruin Jackson's pretend world. He had read in the newspaper that the esteemed Orthopaedic surgeon Patrick Brennan was attending a month long medical conference in LA. America. A long time to spend away from your wife in a foreign country. Jackson wouldn't be surprised to find that the couple were having a trial separation. Whatever the case, Patrick wouldn't know about Louise if no one told him.
He was being Bad Jackson but he didn't care. Louise had been hurt so not much else mattered anymore. He wasn't thinking straight but then again he never thought straight where Louise was involved.
"Well, are you going to come in, Mr Brodie?"
...
She didn't look very good when he arrived at her bed, and his heart sunk in his chest. She looked pale and her eyes were tight shut and she had cuts and bruises on her face and he realised he'd never seen her hurt before. Louise had seen him hurt – because he always got hurt – but she'd always seemed indestructible.
Jackson sat down heavily in the chair next to bed and stared at her for a minute. He was tired, unshaven and grumpy, but he hadn't even had to think about whether he was going to come and see her. It didn't need the thought. The answer always would be yes. No matter what. Well, if he was in different county, then things would be difficult, but Jackson knew he'd fly around the world for her, not that he'd ever have to. Or she'd want him to.
He'd slipped on his old wedding ring before he'd come out to complete the deception. Jackson had considered what would happen if he turned up claiming to be her husband and she was awake and clear and hit him in the face the moment he first said it. But something about the tone of Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital on the phone made him think this was more serious than just concussion and now he was being proved right.
Louise's car had been involved in a twelve car pile-up on the motorway and she had been badly injured. She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for a good few hours and they'd had to keep a close eye on her. They weren't quite sure what was wrong and it made Jackson's dread a thousand times worse. Louise would be fine, right? She was a fighter; of course she'd be fine. She was Louise. She had to be fine. For Jackson as well as herself.
Jackson leant back in his chair and looked at the woman lying in the bed. They hadn't seen each other for a year, not because he didn't want to see her, no, just...just because. He had a feeling it was because neither of them wanted to talk about what was always simmering beneath the surface, what had always been there but neither of them had acted on or even acknowledged.
He sighed and put his head in his hands. He loved her. God he loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone in his life. And yet, to him, she was the one who got away. Never touched or kissed, nothing, and yet the mere mentioned of her name made his heart ache. Snap out of it, Jackson.
A nurse walked into the room and he looked up. "I'm Nurse Carter. We talked on the phone. You must be Mr Brodie." Jackson nodded as Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital busied herself doing something that nurses do. Now he thought about it, what did nurses do? He'd been in and out of hospitals quite a lot over his life; he should have paid more attention. "Have the doctors filled you in on her condition?" Again Jackson nodded. "How long have you been married?" Jackson gave the nurse a small smile and looked down at his hand, at the wedding ring on his finger, cold and alien. Then his eyes flicked to Louise's hand and instead of feeling dull inside, like he had the only time he'd seen her wearing the ring before, he felt happiness threatening to overwhelm him. He looked back at his hand and the ring suddenly didn't feel so cold and so alien, because in his head, the rings linked them, till death do us part - and that couldn't fail to make him feel happy.
"Not long," Jackson replied, repeating the story he'd told himself in the car many times on the way here. "We met a long time ago though. Didn't realise what was in front of me though," he continued, because Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital, as he couldn't stop calling her in his head, was looking at him with a stare that just begged him to tell her more. "Both met other people. Both got married." Jackson looked down at his hand again, realising with a pang that the lie he was fabricating had too much truth in it for his liking. Though then again didn't someone tell him once that the best lies were the ones that were based in truth? Well, this lie was based in truth. The lie part was the fact that they had never actually confronted their latent feelings and too many times it had gone unsaid. They hadn't finally seen what was in front of them and married. "My marriage collapsed first. My wife wasn't who I thought she was." Another truth, bleeding through. "Then hers did. If it hadn't, well..." He paused, realising that Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital was hanging on his every word. "It doesn't bear thinking about," he finished with a rakish smile and the nurse beamed back at him. "Louise and I, I think it was always there, from the first day we met." In the Cramond Inn near the banks of the Firth of Forth, when he'd been damp and naked save a blanket - because he'd just jumped into a river to save a corpse, of course - and she'd interviewed him not believing a word he said. Jackson smiled at the memory. It was three years ago now and he hadn't forgotten any of it. "I've always loved her, I think." Jackson said, wondering if Louise would wake up at this very moment and hear his heartfelt words. No such luck. She slept through the whole thing.
"Ah, that's so sweet," Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital gushed. "I wish...oh, I wish..." She continued, wistfully. "I bet you don't wish, Mr Brodie, you have every thing you've ever wanted," she added, without a trace of bitterness, a moment later. Jackson smiled at her again, but it was only on the outside. Inside he was thinking that she didn't know - how could she? – that every night he lay in bed and wished and wished until the stars fell down and morning came that Louise Munroe would walk back into his life.
And today, it had happened. Not in quite the way he had expected or wanted, but it had happened.
Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital muttered something that Jackson failed to catch that was probably goodbye and then left the room, leaving Jackson alone with Louise. "Hello, stranger." He wasn't quite sure why his first words to her were these two, but he had a fuzzy recollection of her saying to them to him when the situation was flipped. Except Louise had never visited him in hospital and had surely not opened with the very words he was saying now. Had she?
No. It must have been a dream.
It had to be, because he also had a blurry memory that that conversation had ended with him telling her he loved her.
So it was dream, then.
It was an impulse, and one he couldn't control, that led to him reaching out across what seemed to be acres of space between the two beating hearts in the room and taking her hand. Suddenly, he remembered the last - and first and only – time he'd held her hand. They'd been in her car, on the way back from the hospital in Darlington – who knew that there was hospital in Darlington? Not Jackson. They'd shared a moment. A moment of what, Jackson wasn't sure then and wasn't sure now.
God, he'd like to be inside Louise's head, to know what she was thinking. Maybe then they wouldn't have messed things up quite so badly. Maybe then he wouldn't have proposed to an – almost – stranger the day after Louise texted him to say she was getting married. He sighed, and continued holding her hand in the slight gloom of the Clifford Hospital. It was another hospital that Jackson didn't know had existed.
...
It had been two days and Jackson, to put it bluntly, stank. He hadn't been home in those two days, sleeping by her bedside, only leaving the room once – and that had been to call her son and that had been out of guilt. Oh, and Julia had called him, angry that he'd forgotten about the fact he was supposed to be taking Nathan to the science museum. Jackson had explained and things were fine.
It was okay Patrick not knowing in Jackson's eyes, but Archie... Jackson knew what it was like to have a child. He had Marlee. And Nathan of course, but he was only small, whereas Marlee on the other hand was not small any longer. If Marlee had been seventeen – which, scarily, she would be in only a few short years – he'd want her to know if he'd been hurt. When she was younger however, he would have wanted to shield her from the truth, like he would do with Nathan now, but as his daughter grew older, he realised that as they lived in different parts of the country, he'd want someone to tell her if he'd had an accident and couldn't himself. So therefore, he figured Louise would be the same.
Jackson got the number from Louise's phone, which the nurse had given him, along with the rest of her possessions she'd had on her when she'd been in the crash. Jackson had assumed that Archie would be at school when he called, but he phoned anyway, knowing that if he didn't call soon, he'd forget and he didn't want to let Louise down on this. Someone else had answered and had promptly informed him that Archie was in lessons and therefore could not take the call. To his surprise, Jackson was told a few seconds later that Archie was currently attending boarding school, something that he hadn't known before. He had impressed upon the woman on the other end of the line that this call was important, that Archie's mother had been involved in a serious accident.
That had been when they'd pulled Archie out of his lesson and put him on the line. He had introduced himself as Jackson Brodie after Archie had said his own name clearly into the phone. When Jackson had finished, Archie had replied with a comment that had made the standing Jackson sit down.
"Oh. I guess you're why she called the dog Jackson." He hadn't thought about that dog in a long time, probably since he dropped it off on Louise's front door step. So she'd worked it out then - that it had been him who had anonymously given her a dog. Well, it hadn't been a great leap of deduction, because who else would give her a dog? It had to be Jackson. He wished he'd looked back now, because he could almost imagine her standing in the road, willing him to come back and explain why he just left a dog on her doorstep.
He had left the dog because he'd wanted her to know he cared, but didn't want to say out loud. So Jackson had given her a dog, hoping she'd realise but not minding if she didn't. It was still a dog either way. Instead, she'd just replied back, in a roundabout way, that she cared about him too. Louise had called the dog he'd given her Jackson. Is that who she saw when she called the dog, him?
He sighed.
Jackson had told Archie about what had happened to his mother and he'd wanted to come down immediately but he'd told her that as he would be in the midst of his A levels, it wasn't worth the disruption, especially as it was just a waiting game at the moment. Jackson had told him that if anything - however small or unimportant - happened, he'd call and tell him. Archie had considered Jackson's proposal for a second, then accepted it. They'd said an awkward goodbye, ended the call and then he'd come back inside.
And here he had been since. Louise's condition hadn't changed at all. They'd told him when he had first arrived that she had been having conscious moments but since Jackson had arrived, she hadn't had a single one. She just seemed to be sleeping the whole time but she wouldn't wake up. Jackson begged her every day to wake up because if she didn't wake up... If she didn't wake up, if Louise Munroe died, what would he do with himself then?
Jackson had seen death many times and in many different guises and yet this would be the first death in nearly forty years that would affect him in any way resembling grief. The deaths of his family had hit him hard but for the next four decades, he'd seen more dead bodies that he could have ever imagined, and yet none of them had been people he knew, people he cared about. Louise was the first person since his mother, Niamh and Francis had died that someone he loved would be knocking on death's door.
And it had to bloody be Louise. The woman he loved more than the world itself.
He sighed again and squeezed her hand, which was held in his, silently wishing her to wake up.
But she didn't. And Jackson felt like crying.
Jackson didn't cry. But over Louise Munroe, he did.
...
The procession of doctors who had come into the room over the last half an hour had all smiled at him with sad little smiles that did nothing for his all ready rock bottom confidence that everything would be okay. Their words hadn't been much help, either, a repetition of what he'd been told when he'd arrived, three days ago now. There was no apparent head trauma that would result in her being like this. Again, it was just a waiting game and Jackson hated it.
Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital had tried to get him to go home several times over the last couple of hours, but Jackson knew he couldn't. Louise needed him here even if she didn't know he was here. He had to be here when she woke up, she had to see a familiar face, had to feel safe.
Jackson was holding her hand again. He felt much better when he held it, feeling closer to her. Hopefully it would also make her feel less alone. He knew that if he'd been Louise's place, he'd be terrified of waking up alone, with a crowd of strangers.
He'd talked to her as well. He figured that it didn't matter if she could hear him, because it also had benefits for Jackson. He finally got to say everything he had never said to her before. Except that he loved her. Jackson still couldn't find the words.
Jackson leant back into his chair, still holding her hand and fought the urge to close his eyes. His neck was sore from sleeping in awkward positions and he was tired because said awkward positions did not lead to a fulfilling sleep.
He was tired, but he didn't dare close his eyes. Jackson had to be here, awake, when she woke up. He could feel sleep calling him.
But then Louise squeezed his hand.
And all thoughts of sleep disappeared from his mind.
...
The first thing Louise thought when she woke up was that somebody was holding her hand. Her head was pounding and aching and she couldn't concentrate on anything, except from the hand that held hers. She wondered whose hand it was.
She felt like she had woken up after the longest sleep of her life, felt like she was coming out of fog into the light of day. So why couldn't she open her eyes? And why did she still feel so tired?
Panic threatened to overwhelm her when a few seconds passed and her eyes still wouldn't open. She couldn't speak either, the words refusing to come out of her mouth. The person holding her hand wouldn't know she was awake, she thought to herself. They would still think she was asleep. The panic was still there, resting somewhere near her stomach now, beating as if it had its own pulse, or like a butterfly trapped in cage.
Louise wondered if the rest of her life was going to be spent like this, trapped inside her own head, begging and wishing to wake up but never being able to. She tried to talk again, tried to move, to open her eyes, but she couldn't. Nothing could move, or would move.
The person holding her hand obviously cared about her, for they were holding her hand gently. Was it Archie? No, the skin was too rough, too old to be teenage Archie. Was it Patrick? Patrick was in America, it wasn't him. She drew a blank for who else it could be.
She just wanted them to know she was in here, somewhere. That she was alive and fighting. Not to give up on her. No, please don't give up on me...
It took all her strength, the darkness threatening to overwhelm her, but a moment later, her hand gave a twitch within the soft grasp of whoever it was holding her hand.
The darkness opened its warm arms and Louise fell into its embrace.
...
She had squeezed his hand. Jackson was sure. He stared at her for a long moment, waiting for something else to happen, but nothing did. Louise was still lying flat on the bed, and if he wasn't certain that she had squeezed his hand, he would have thought maybe he'd imagined it. It had been such a little thing, but it had made his heart soar in his chest.
He stood up and left the room. Someone else had to be told.
...
The doctor had come and looked Louise over but had shaken his head almost instantly. No change. Jackson had objected, she'd squeezed his hand, didn't that mean something? The doctor had shaken his head again and then walked out of the room. Jackson had to swallow the urge to punch him.
Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital sat next to him after that and tried to get him to admit that he might have imagined it. Jackson could be stubborn with the best, and it didn't fail him now. And anyway, it had happened. He hadn't imagined it.
"Mr Brodie, I know you love your wife very much, but as the doctor just told you-" Nurse Carter said, smiling gently at him, but he couldn't help but interrupt her.
"She squeezed my hand, I promise you that," he paused, flicking his eyes shut for a moment. "Louise is a fighter. I know that for sure. I know her." It was not a lie. Being in love with someone helped you to understand a lot about them. Jackson knew Louise, knew what made her tick, and in return, she knew what made him tick. That didn't mean, however, that they couldn't surprise and infuriate each other.
"Mr Brodie, I am sorry-" Even the sincerity in Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital tone didn't stop the anger from welling up inside him. None of these people knew her. Jackson knew her. He loved her. They didn't.
"And she hasn't given up yet, like you all seem to have," he replied, angrily. He stood and crossed the room to the window. It looked out on the drab autumn day, with leaves blowing gently across the courtyard and the sun attempting, unsuccessfully, to break through the clouds. Nurse Carter from the Clifford Hospital sighed, frustrated. Without another word, she left Jackson on his own with Louise.
Jackson had not prayed for a long time, if ever, that he could remember, but standing by the window, Louise lying unconscious in the bed, hanging on to life by her stubborn fingernails, he did. He clasped his hands together and begged whoever was up there to save Louise, to bring her back to him. Don't let her die. You can't let her die, or else you'll have me to worry about.
When he turned around, Louise was still lying still in the bed.
His prayers had not been answered.
...
The dark released her. Her head was pounding again and already she wanted to sleep, even though it felt like she'd been sleeping for eternity. She could feel motion in the room around her. People were moving next to her and speaking quietly. The comforting hand was still there, holding hers tightly, as if it was a lifeline. Louise was glad for it. It was a connection to the outside world, the only one she had now that her eyes wouldn't open and her limbs wouldn't move.
After a few moments, the room suddenly went much quieter and she figured that people had left.
"I think you need to consider the fact you might have imagined it." The voice of a young woman rang out a good few minutes later, and it surprised Louise completely because she hadn't been expecting it. The room had been silent before the words and Louise had thought that everybody but the mysterious hand-holder had left. This voice came from her left, and she realised that unless the woman was talking to her, there were at least two people in the room.
"I didn't. She was awake. She squeezed my hand." The deep voice that replied shocked Louise even more than the woman speaking out of nowhere a few seconds before. She recognised it clearly, and her heart ached just at the sound of his voice. Louise would have smiled if she had control of her facial muscles, but she didn't. Jackson Brodie was the mysterious hand-holder.
She should have realised. A few months ago, not anticipating she'd have an accident any time soon, she'd changed her next of kin. She'd picked Jackson. There was more than sentimentality behind her choice, there was spite too, and an actual realisation that if she was hurt, that she'd want Jackson to know. For Jackson to be there, holding her hand, like he was now. Not that she'd expected him too. It had all been wishful thinking if she was being honest.
Louise had changed her next of kin for one simple reason. Her husband had buggered off to bloody America for a month and it didn't seem like he was coming back, so it would be useless to have him as her contact point if she was injured. No, much more useful to have Jackson.
The reason her husband had run off to America? That was Jackson too. Louise had given her husband her phone to check what she'd texted Archie about their plans for Christmas, months ago now. Patrick had stumbled across Jackson's number at the top of her speed-dial, above himself and even Archie – no; Louise wasn't quite sure why or how that had happened, either. It hadn't been a conscious decision, of that she was sure.
There had been a handy button at the bottom of Jackson's contacts that read 'messages sent to this number'. Louise didn't know why that button was even needed, and now cursed its very existence. Patrick had found her drunk – though Patrick didn't know that – texts to Jackson. The last one, the very last one, had read:
You bastard. You didn't say goodbye.
Or something like that. Louise had sent it the last day she'd seen him. It had been the wrong side of midnight and she'd been drinking herself to oblivion when she'd realised that Jackson's last words to her had been 'You should go home' and that he hadn't even said goodbye. So she grabbed her phone and told him this, via the medium of text.
She hadn't sent him another text after that, not even one in the year that had passed. That was mainly because she had no clue want to write. The things she wanted to say could not be texted. They had to be said, if she told him at all. Which she shouldn't because she had a husband.
A husband who had flown off the handle when he'd read her texts to Jackson. Looking back on it, she wondered why. They were all almost six months old and nothing too scandalous was contained within in them. Just a lot of drunken swearing and the odd inquiry to where the hell he was. Jackson nearly never replied to her texts. And yet, Patrick had flipped reading them. Which he shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
They'd had the most explosive argument Louise had had for years, and all over a few texts. Patrick seemed to think that she was sleeping with this Jackson Brodie – something that had made Louise nearly laugh, because she might have given serious thought to sleeping with him in the past, but it had never happened. They'd never even kissed. Didn't mean they hadn't wanted to.
But Louise hadn't told her husband that, however. She couldn't see how it would have helped.
Patrick had stormed out of the house at the end of the argument, a rush of angry limbs and slamming doors. Louise was glad that Archie had been at school then, because it hadn't been pretty. And yet, afterwards, it had made Louise feel like she was a bird that had been freed from a cage.
A month had passed without contact from Patrick, before he turned up on their doorstep and asked to be let in. Louise had relented, made him a cup of tea and had been more honest with him than she had ever been in her entire life. She had told him that she didn't love him, at least not like she should, and that there was someone else – Patrick had started seething in his seat then - and Louise had hurriedly explained that nothing had every actually happened between them, that she had just, slowly, fallen in love with him. It was the first time she had ever said it out loud.
When Patrick had left, that evening, he had asked her if the man she was in love with was Jackson Brodie.
Louise hadn't answered. She hadn't needed too. And anyway, she didn't think she could have found the words.
A month later and the divorce papers had arrived in the post. Another month and Patrick was in LA on a month long conference. In another month, Archie would be home from boarding school.
She suddenly flicked her attention back to what was going on in the room around her, the thoughts of Jackson, Patrick and Archie making her sad. The woman was talking again, and Louise got the impression she had missed a few lines of conversation.
"Mr Brodie, I know you love your wife very much, but as the doctor just told you-" Louise's thoughts stopped dead in their tracks.
The woman had referred to Jackson had her husband.
Why the hell was she doing that?
Her mind went blank, just as Jackson cut in. "She squeezed my hand, I promise you that." She heard him pause; breathing in deeply and she felt her heart ache so much. Jackson was sitting no more than a foot away from her. "Louise is a fighter. I know that for sure. I know her." Louise's mind was racing too fast for her to keep up. But she did know that Jackson hadn't refuted the woman's claim that he was her husband and she his wife.
How long had she been in here? Why was she here? Where was here? So many questions and not a single answer. Was she suffering from amnesia and had she forgotten marrying Jackson? Could she forget marrying him if she had at all? Was Jackson just playing a cruel trick on her? Even more questions without answers. She couldn't seem to remember anything.
"Mr Brodie, I am sorry-" The woman, who Louise was certain she didn't know, said, but Jackson cut her off and instantly, she could tell he was angry. Louise had seen him angry enough times to be able to tell.
"And she hasn't given up yet, like you all seem to have." Again Louise would have smiled at his words, at his defence of her, but she still didn't have control of her mouth. She heard someone stand up and move across the room. Jackson's hand was no longer in hers so she figured it was him. A few seconds later she heard the door swing open and footsteps. Only one set though. Someone was still in the room.
Louise hoped to God – not that she was religious – that it was Jackson.
The darkness was coming calling again, she realised, as the silence stretched out. Louise had the sudden feeling she was drowning. If she died now, no one would ever know she had been able to hear this conversation, that she didn't give in that easily.
And she'd never know why Jackson was claiming to be married to her. It was the only question she really wanted the answer to.
One thing was certain, Louise Munroe was not giving up easily, and not giving up at all if she had a choice.
The darkness came again, and Louise, fighting till the last second, was unable to stop it.
...
Jackson was standing by the window again, staring out at the courtyard. Louise was still unconscious behind him. Over the last few hours – of the fourth day of his vigil by her bedside – he had started to consider what would happen when she woke up. How he would explain that he was passing himself off as her husband. She would probably hit him and, Jackson hoped, it would probably lead to some sort of conversation about their feelings and why he was pretending to be her husband.
It was because he loved her.
Not that he had ever told her that. He didn't know how to.
It had taken him too long to even admit it to himself. That he loved her. Jackson Brodie loved Louise Munroe and yet he always let her go. But then again she had never been his to let go of. They had never been together, not even for a minute, and that was what Jackson was thinking about now.
If she never woke up, if she died, Jackson would never get to kiss her. He'd never get to tell her he loved her. And that was what hurt the most, more than if they had tried and failed. No, they had never started and therefore they never knew what would have happened if they had given their relationship a go.
Jackson crossed the room to the hard plastic seat beside Louise's bed. He reached out and took her hand. He kissed it gently. His head suddenly felt dizzy, and he felt tears prick his eyes.
This was Louise and Louise was dying.
A tear rolled down his cheek. He'd told her a lot of his private inner thoughts over the last few days, but he hadn't said those three little words. Jackson wasn't quite sure why. He had bared his soul on a lot of things to her – even though she almost definitely hadn't heard him – and yet, even now, he was holding back from saying that he loved her.
The idea of her dying without ever knowing how much he cared about her made his heart sink even lower in his chest than it already was. "I..." He started, his voice hoarse and quiet.
Jackson Brodie hadn't cried for long time, and yet in the last few days he had cried more than he had in the last few years combined. It was the company he was sharing. Louise could make him cry, which was a fact he couldn't change, just as much as he couldn't change how much he loved her. "I love you, Louise. Okay? I love you," he said, a sad smile forming on his lips. He just hoped that she'd heard him.
Jackson stared at her face for a long moment afterwards, searching for signs that she'd heard him. There was nothing.
Until her eyes started flickering.
Until she opened them.
...
The dark released her again. This time things felt different. The darkness felt further away from her, as if it was retreating. As if it was letting her go. Her limbs felt different too – less of a concrete weight and more like arms and legs. She still couldn't move or open her eyes, but it felt like she was nearly there, teetering on the edge of something. She didn't know what though.
Jackson wasn't holding her hand anymore and she wondered if he had left. If he was gone and when she woke up he wouldn't be there. The thought made her feel sadder than she thought it would.
She didn't want to wake up to stranger's faces. She wanted to wake up to Jackson.
Her mind started drifting. She wondered if Archie had done his A levels yet. Somewhere in the back of her head, she remembered that he was just about to sit them – but now, she didn't trust her memory, because Jackson was claiming to be her husband, and she certainly couldn't remember that.
And she wanted to. If it had happened, she wanted to remember it. She wanted to know how they'd got together, how they'd finally stopped pretending and been happy. Because Louise hadn't been happy with Patrick. But with Jackson, she was certain everything would fall into place. She wasn't quite sure why, but she just had a good feeling about it.
Jackson's hand slipped back into hers a few minutes later, as if Louise's thoughts had summoned it. A moment later, he kissed it softly and Louise realised that she couldn't remember ever kissing him – if in fact, she ever had. She didn't want to die without kissing Jackson, at least once.
She'd married the wrong man, she knew that now. She should have married Jackson, should have kissed him the first time the urge overtook her, – which, admittedly was pretty soon after they'd met – should have told him how she felt.
She didn't want to die without Jackson knowing that she loved him.
Or maybe she had told him, and she had just forgotten all about it. God, which would be worse? It wasn't really a choice, was it? She'd rather she had told him and they'd got hitched and then she'd forgotten it to not saying a word and that Jackson was trying to mess with her head.
"I..." She heard him start. He sounded worn-out, tired, and Louise wondered how long she'd been like this, in this bed. Maybe it had been years. Maybe marrying Jackson wasn't the only thing she'd forgotten. Where was Archie? Was he alright? Had she missed anything important involving him? She was now doubting how old he was. In her head, Archie was seventeen. But if he was seventeen, then she had definitely not married Jackson. She would have sighed if she could have. Things where far too complicated.
"I love you, Louise. Okay? I love you," Jackson said, and took her breath away. It wasn't quite the first time he'd said he loved her, but the last time he'd been doped up to the eyeballs and he probably didn't mean her. But this time he sounded clear about what he meant and who he meant.
Her limbs suddenly felt even lighter and the darkness seemed to fall away, the harsh lights, in what she assumed was a hospital, filtered through. She wondered what was going on.
It took her a second, but then Louise realised she could open her eyes.
So she did.
...