Well, A Spider's Web is annoying the hell out of me due to frustration at the characters, plot and just in general really, so in the meantime I decided to write this one-shot to get rid of my writer's block. This came to me randomly while watching Lost. Clearly, it is set after Jack got shot. Oh, a bold word at the start of a sentence indicates a change in time/scene. Enjoy!
There is a couple of cases of the 'f' word being used. So you know. If you are a young innocent kiddie or whatever try and avoid it or don't read!
Disclaimer: I don't own Eastenders. If I did it would be a bit more cheerful! And all the credit for the song goes completely to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber (:
When he dives to the ground with a thud, he isn't thinking of Chelsea, the woman who has stuck to his side like glue all night while calling herself his girlfriend; he isn't thinking of his brother Max who is frantically searching for his two daughters amid the screaming crowd; he isn't even thinking of how the mother of his one year old little baby is in here and how if anything happened Amy would grow up without a mother.
Where do we go from here?
He is only thinking of her: Ronnie.
Because she is always a shadow in his mind, an echo of the relationship that is is almost just a memory but one that in his heart he doesn't want to be just a memory. He never wants to forget what it feels like to hold her, how it stops the earth spinning when her lips press against his and the way her voice is the only thing that can truly make him know what it feels like to love. The events of earlier flash before his eyes and he hardly notices the bullet blast a hole in his head so hard that it embeds itself firmly in the bone of his skull; all he can think of is the way he treated her, the terrible things he said and how alone he must have made her feel. Jack has treated the woman he would do almost anything for no better than he would his worst enemy, but now he might never be given the chance to tell her how sorry he is and how much she means to him.
This isn't where we intended to be, we had it all, you believed in me, I believed in you.
Now he might never get the chance to tell her he loves her and that even if she is damaged goods it doesn't matter to him because it's partly his fault she's like that.
Then he tastes the blood, his own blood, and as he takes in its metallic feel he becomes aware of a throbbing pain running right to the core of his body unlike anything he has ever felt before. Miraculously, it seems dull in comparison with the agony he feels at the thought that if he dies all the things he should have said to Ronnie will die with him. His body is rigid on top of another and he feels his nephew's, the man's life he has just saved, heart beating against his, wild and fast, and again he thinks of her and the all the things that should have been but somehow weren't. Funny how in saving one life, his own is probably about to come to an end.
Pain sweeps through his entire body just like the way the metal of the bullet splintered inside his skull; it is pain from the gunshot, but mostly pain at the thought of what he is leaving behind. Jack has never been afraid of death, but he has always feared dying and hot having said all things he wanted to say to the people he cares about.
Certainty has disappeared, what do we do for our dreams to survive?
From beneath him, he can feel Billy struggling to shift away from him and he is aware of a cool hand pressing against his forehead while calling his name with the kind of frantic desperation that only someone closely acquainted with death can hold. Screams attack him from all angles, but they are fading just like the frenzied voice and soon he is only aware of the pain and the fact his is lying in a flood of crimson seeping from the gaping hole in his head. He tries to fight it, but that remorseless pain springs ever closer to snatching away his consciousness.
Again he thinks of Ronnie; he hears her voice inside his head, recalls the first time they met and how he had thought her stuck up and cold, remembers their first maddening kiss, sees the hurt strangle her face as he breaks her time and time again and in that instant Jack vows that if he lives to see another day he will tell her exactly how he feels and will somehow make up for all his stupid mistakes.
How do we keep all our passions alive as we used to do?
He sees her as clearly as he has ever seen anything.
In his mind, he reaches for the light but he can't quite grab it.
Then there is nothing.
Blackness.
His eyelids flutter open and Jack is greeted by an empty room with light dancing on bland walls. It takes him a moment to realise that he isn't dead, that he is in hospital. Turning his head, he takes in his surroundings. Jack has always loathed hospitals ever since he got his dislocated shoulder fitted back in place when he was a kid, and this one is no exception. The white walls loom over him, seeming far closer than they are while confined to a bed. From beside him he can hear the droning but certain beat from the heart monitor and eventually it will become a noise that is a blessing and a curse; it is an irritant, kind of like that ringing in your ears that sometimes persists in keeping you awake at night, and it is a constant reminder that he is alive but will never quite live again. But at least it proves he is alive, the steady rhythm the only thing to keep him company in miserable and too sterile hospital room.
Deep in my heart i'm concealing the things that i'm longing to say.
Then he starts to remember some doctor pumping him full of pain relief last night. Jack lifts a hand a brushes his head, feeling the rough bandage covering the huge hole inside of his head. It comes to him how close he actually came to dying, so close that he can still feel death's presence in the room. Before, Jack Branning was strong, muscular and intimidating. Now he can't even move his leg, or give a slight twitch of his fingers on the left half of his body.
He is a fucking cripple. A cripple who everyone will pity, who no one will ever look at the same again.
And he remembers thinking of Ronnie right before the world disappeared before his eyes, right before that gun ripped his flesh apart with a sickening bang.
But now he can't bare to think of her; it only brings more pain than one stupid bullet ever could. Now he can never tell her how he feels even though he knows she feels the same.
Scared to confess what i'm feeling.
Because it would trap her, bind her to his side and leave her feeling like she has to stay with him out of guilt, but Jack can't do that to the woman he loves. Better to let her think he hates her than force her into a life of misery caring for some pathetic looser that can't even bathe himself. He wants her more than ever, wants to tell her how much he needs her and has always needed her, but that would be so completely selfish of him. All those thoughts, all those feelings, will have to remained buried deep within his heart now. From this moment forward, Jack will be alone so he doesn't have to burden anyone, make anyone suffer with him. Like he has seen Ronnie do so many times, he will close his emotions to everyone and build up an impenetrable wall so no one can truly see him or help him while he is at his worst. It would probably have been better if the bullet had finished its job; in some ways, it almost seems cruel that death has left him useless and for the first time in his life, Jack wishes he was dead.
Slowly, the power of the drugs begin to ebb away and the pain comes back as quickly as it left, a dull, deep throb pounding against his temple like a raging storm.
Again, he tries to fight it, but it is just another battle he can't win.
He thinks of Ronnie and how she will think him so goddamn pitiable being bruised and frail in a way she has never seen him before in a hospital bed.
Frightened you'll slip away.
Then he asks God why the fuck did he have to go and get paralyzed when he was doing something good?
He forces her image from his mind and then the nothing descends.
Blackness.
Jack awakes when he feels a cool hand brush his forehead tentatively, as if afraid to break him any further. He knows instantly it isn't one of the nurses; they never change his dressing with such tenderness, but he is half afraid of opening his eyes because deep down he already knows who is with him, who is at his side as she has been all week. Even in his comatose state, he has known it was her. But he can't face her yet, can't face the pity in her eyes like the rest of his families' hold because he is sick of the pity; sick of it seeing it etched into their faces. Ronnie is the one person he has wanted to see but forced himself not to speak to, even it means always pretending to be asleep. He doesn't want to shout until he is hoarse like he has at the others because shouting shows he cares. Jack is determined just to ignore her until he is ready to speak a few cold words that will make that pity turn to loathing. If she looks at him the way his family does, it will destroy the remaining thread of his sanity. Instead, he savours the touch of her skin and knows that all too soon he will have to end it; he refuses to let Ronnie look after him, fools himself into thinking that she is only here because she feels sorry for the cripple. He won't have the woman he loves caring for someone who will never be able to give her enough.
You must love me, you must love me.
"Jack? I know you can hear me because Max told me you bellowed at him this morning. Please wake up for me. I need to hear your voice. Just get better so then we can..." her voice becomes hoarse and trails off and he pictures her startling blue eyes swimming with tears as she takes hold of his good hand.
Jack opens his eyes suddenly, not wanting her to be here, pretending she still loves him when he is like this. He wants her gone, gone before he traps her in his gloom and before she sees the true depth of his vulnerability. She is sat down now with her head in her hands, her long hair unkempt hair falling down over her shoulders.
"So we can what?" somehow, the words claw their way from his dry throat, burning on their exit. "Get back to where we left off a while ago? I don't think so. Look at me, for Christ sakes, Ron. I can't even move,"
But she can't look at him, only lifts her head and stares away from him into the blank wall, her expression unreadable apart from the shock on her face at hearing him speak at last. He doesn't blame her. He wouldn't want to look at a pathetic cripple either, wouldn't want to take care of one. Now he understands that guilt has brought her to his side and that she probably only wants him awake so she can tell him she wants nothing more to do with him.
Why are you at my side? How can I be any use to you now?
"Just get out. I don't want you here and I know you don't want to be in here with me. Go on, what are you waiting for? Get out!" he tries to yell, but that steady throb in his head stops him from doing anything more than talking loudly.
She doesn't move, just takes hold of his hand and threads his fingers between hers. Jack doesn't want her touching him; it will only serve as a painful reminded of what he wants but can never have, but he doesn't have enough energy to pull away his arm. Frustrated, he tried to clench his other fist, but he can only feel nothing, nothing at all. A cry of anger escapes from his lips before he can stop it.
"Get out!" he repeats again. "You can't even look at me,"
Give me a chance and I'll let you see how nothing has changed.
"Shut up," she commands without raising her voice. "Shut up you stupid man. I've been with you all week just waiting for you to say one word. You have no idea how worried i've been about you, and now all you can do is yell at me to get out. Well, i'm not going anywhere. And I can't look at you because it hurts too much Jack- it reminds that you almost...," she folds her arms and looks at him for the first time and he can see her eyes filling with little tears.
Jack is shocked to see that she isn't seeing his vulnerability, that there is no trace of pity on her beautiful face; she is only seeing him, only looking at with an undeniable love. He opens his mouth to speak, but she hushes him and feels powerless against her. Part of him wants to say the things he has longed to say all week, but part of him doesn't want to say anything until he is sure that she really wants to be here and that this isn't some mission of atonement.
Deep in my heart i'm concealing, the things that i'm longing to say.
"You can yell all you like, Jack, but i'm not moving. When I first met you you were so cocky and arrogant and I really didn't like you, and you know what? I've thought getting a bullet blasted into your head might change things but you're every bit as selfish as you were before!" she says all this until she is out of breath. Leaping from the chair, she moves away from him and looks at him with such an intensity that he withers. Somehow, she is making him feel ashamed of himself, but for once not because of his condition, but because she is right.
He is lucky to be alive and yet here he is pushing all the people who care most about him away, determined to suffer alone and he realises then that his family don't pity him, they only want to help because they care. But having his family with him is one thing and he still does not want Ronnie to be the one who has to help him into to bed, to have to deal with his fits of frustrated rage.
Scared to confess what i'm feeling.
"You have no idea how lucky you are to have all these people around you. So don't shut us out Jack, don't block us away like we don't exist. Because i've been there and it just makes you feel even worse. Stop being so- so stupid!"
He stares at her, incredulous and wincing. But he feels refreshed; refreshed and guilty. His family have been worried and he has done nothing to alleviate that. Being told a few home truths instead of being continually fussed over makes him feel better somehow.
"Is hearing what a moron I am supposed to make me feel better?" he smiles then, the first true smile since he got in here. And Ronnie smiles back and suddenly the tense atmosphere seems to have lifted and his thoughts of his paralyzed leg seem a million miles away. She never minces her words and it's one of the things he has always loved about her.
"No, but this is," she whispers, returning to his side and softly kissing his cheek, her hair hanging over him.
He longs to hold her, to say sorry for everything he has ever done to her, but there is still something holding him back. If he never gets better, he is afraid that one day Ronnie will get tired of caring for him, that she will walk out on him. And he knows that would kill him a whole lot more than any wound.
Frightened you'll slip away.
"No, Ron. Please don't. Why are you here, really? What if I don't get better? What if I can't give you everything you want? I don't want you asking yourself in a few years time why you chose to stay with a cripple. I don't want you to feel like you have to care for me out of duty,"
She gives him a dramatic roll of her eyes as if he is an annoying child and pushes her hair back behind her ears, raking her fingers through it until they catch at a knot.
"You called me damaged once, and you were right. But if i'm damaged I need you to fix me, Jack, because I can't do it alone. You're everything I want and it took you getting shot to make me see what I should always have seen. And now you're damaged to, but we can be damaged together can't we? Let me fix you, Jack. I want to. And I thought it was obvious why I was here? It's because I love you,"
Leaning over him again, she presses her lips against his and it is enough. No words are needed because they both know that no matter what that their love will always bring them back together. They have a long way to go and they have so many things they need to sort out, but right now Jack allows himself to forget about them and his stupid leg and kisses her back, feeling alive for the first time since getting shot.
He is only aware of her: Ronnie, the love of his life.
And he can see the light.
You must love me, You must love me.
Oh, no offence meant for people who can't walk or whatever. This isn't me, it's Jack feeling frustrated! Hm. I was pleased with some of this, but once Ronnie came into it, it became awful. Nm. I apologise if this is waffly and has a bunch of errors; I was up writing it last night until about half 2 in the morning as I was determined to get something posted for once. Please point any errors out and constructive criticism is welcomed! Please review and I hoped you liked it!