THE FIRST TIME JACKSON EVER WILLINGLY LET SOMEONE GO

SUMMARY: Jackson has kidnapped Lisa Reisert's daughter for collateral, but he's not entirely sure what to do with a homesick nine-year-old.

A/N: I was reading some really great stories where Jackson kidnaps Lisa's daughter, but then I started to think back to all the kids I've baby-sat for. Kidnapping a nine-year-old girl might actually be punishment. ;) This is a parody, not meant to be taken seriously.

XXXXXX

Jackson had kidnapped Lisa's daughter, but unfortunately he wasn't sure what to do with her. She had entered the room bare foot, clutching her favorite stuffed animal. "I miss my mom."

"You... what?" Jackson said, starting to feel uneasy. He knew that in a few seconds, her lower lip would start to tremble, her eyes would water, and then... it was all over.

Jackson could handle assassination attempts, rival attacks on his own organization, and plain survival. The one thing he didn't know how to handle? A nine-year-old girl who missed her mom.

Sure enough, the girl's lower lip trembled, and then tears fell down her cheeks. "I miss my mom!"

"Okay, okay," Jackson said. "Um, um. Just try to go back to sleep, okay?"

The girl wasn't having any of it. "I can't, because every time I go back to my room I close my eyes and then I see my mom and it makes it worse! I just want my mom, please!" She was crying harder.

Smooth, thought Jackson. "I've got a tranquilizer in the back room. I could give it to you and then you wouldn't notice you have insomnia."

"What does insomnia mean?" she asked, sniffling. Her nose was running. Eww.

"It means you can't get sleep at night."

Well, she'd stopped crying momentarily. That was something, at any rate.

There was a long enough pause in which, evidently, the girl remembered why she was so upset. She started wailing again. Christ Almighty.

Another problem Jackson hadn't thought of before the kidnapping was how many questions nine-year-olds were apparently prone to ask.

"Where are we going?"

"What are we doing next?"

"What's all that rope for?"

"Who's Keefe?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

The wailing only got louder, breaking him out of his reverie. "Okay, I can't think with all this noise!" Jackson screamed, putting his hands over his ears. "Who do you think you are, coming in here and ruining my perfectly well-thought out plans to see your mother again?"

The girl looked up at him and sniffled again. She was still crying, but it was more of a whimper. "Why can't I just see my mom?" she asked miserably.

Lord, you would have thought he'd been torturing her. First of all, he might torture a fully grown woman, but he'd never even think about torturing a child. Second of all, even in regards to the job he had going on at the same time, he'd behaved himself. "Why do you want to see your mother so damn much?" he asked. "When I was your age, I was planning how best to kill my mo-- never mind. Anyway, the real question you should be asking is why I can't see your mother."

Her lower lip trembled and Jackson hoped the worst was over. "I'm scared of the dark," she whispered.

Oh, for Christ's sake. "What if I left a crack open in the door?"

"That won't help. I want my mom, because my mom always tells me stories before I go to bed and--" (her lower lip trembled.)

"Please stop crying!" Jackson thundered. "Just, please. For the love of all things holy. Stop. Crying. I will sit outside of your room until you fall asleep. I do not want to hear another whisper."

There was a long pause. "Will you tell me a story?"

"I could tell you the story of how I met your mother."

"Okay," she said, happily.

He made sure she was lying in bed and then promised himself that he would let her go tomorrow. He'd let her mother take care of her.

At this moment of his life, it was the worst form of torture he could think of for Lisa Reisert.