it don't hit me quite the same
summary: "The worst feelings are the warm, anxious burning that portends your heart breaking followed by the wave of numbness that asphyxiates your soul." —Ken Piorot. / Or, the collision of what Jack thought he knew and what was right in front of him. [slight AU]
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Nope. Title is a lyric from Beyonce's, Pray You Catch Me.
Author's Note: I wrote this again because my imagination ran away with me and it was a writing exercise in trying to write someone else I haven't really. I wanted to get Jack's feelings. His point of view and sometimes, when something like that happens, people do react this way and have a delayed one. I needed Jack to say things he wouldn't possibly get to on the show. Finally, if you don't like Jack, this is not for you. Hit the back button on your browser. Immediately. I will not be angry.

Now, there are typos, I'm sure. But I had to post this before I leave for work. I will do a thorough edit when I come back later. But all the same, happy reading.

-Erika

"People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy."

–James Baldwin, Another Country

People had this misconception about being shot. They believed it was loud, external event that left the victim screaming because everything was being felt – the warmth of blood between fingers, the sensation of metal barrelling through flesh, the pain that screamed louder than the victim and then the quiet part where everything was still and quiet. Everything felt like being submerged in a fish tank.

Jack Abbott had been shot five times in his lifetime. He knew. Being shot was actually very silent experience even the bullet left the barrel loudly. It wasn't as long as people made it out to be. Being shot was quick – a blink and you'll miss it moment. The bullet barrelled through the body, breaking whatever bone, artery and organ was in its path. It destroyed muscle and tissue. Then by some act of mercy, the body would fall, and the vision would be cloudy until darkness was welcomed and strangely comfortable.

He had been shot five times: three bullets that shot through his chest and somehow missed his heart, once that caused a bullet to lacerate his kidney, shatter his spine and his ability to walk and a constant battle of what he wanted, needed against what he already had.

The sixth time Jack was shot, it was different. There was no metal. There was no blood and there was no darkness. On the contrary, there were bright lights. Claps of light flashed all around him. If there was sound, Jack could not hear it and if he was trying to truly see things as they were, he was still trying to focus it. He wasn't trying to see things with the two eyes on his face, but with the one in his mind. Jack stared at Billy and then shifted his gaze over to Phyllis.

In his mind, Jack allowed the claps of light to illuminate every moment that intensified the feeling of dread in his stomach. It never left him. It never softened, but always present. If it did subside, it returned with the force of stronger than last. It twisted around like a boa constrictor and squeezed but Jack waved it off, because that notion was absurd. Of course, Billy and Phyllis couldn't possible do that to him. Never them. Not them. In this moment, where Jack as if he'd stepped outside of his body. He saw it. He saw them. The denial melted away, and he ran through every moment that didn't seem congruent with anything: every conversation with Billy that had undertones of knife blades. Jack thought of every moment that seemed as if Billy could widen the gap of his marriage further, while pushing himself closer to Phyllis at the same time. It almost felt as if Billy could shove back under into rough waters where Jack could do nothing but keep his air in his lungs and his head above water.

Every clap of light sounded like the bombs that left dark clouds over the skies of Vietnam. Jack stood there in the Athletic Club for the world to see as the sound blew every bit of denial and every rationalization he ever made. It was as if he had stretched every ounce of mental capacity rationalizing every moment he tried to look into Phyllis' beautiful eyes and she couldn't meet his. When they did catch his gaze, they were tear filled or the woman he married wasn't there. She was dealing with things in her own way and Jack wasn't going to push, he told himself to settle the sharp feeling in his chest. Jack flipped back to every moment, he had touched her and she jumped away from him, every fight they had and how afterwards, he did agree with her but barely caught her red hair as she barrelled towards somewhere he wasn't.

There was no rationalization or conversation with hidden context Jack had to force himself to cover anymore. Having told his fair share of lies and committed his share of infidelities, he knew deceit and truth always intersected. One didn't function without the other. A person couldn't lie unless they stretched it so much, it did become truth. There was no commercial flight to Montreal and an off-handed joke Ashley had thrown with a laugh had become something that was humourless. Every time he had stupidly left them together, Jack realized it was happening. This shifting of his wife's heart and body into his brother's bed while Jack lay awake in a bed wider and colder than usual.

In retrospect, several conversations that seemed like nothing were everything. The double meanings started to combine themselves. There were gazes that lasted too long, the three of them in a room where Jack felt a small nagging telling him he didn't belong there. You and Phyllis are cut from the same cloth. Are you drawn to my brother? Keep my wife company. God, what a fool he'd been.

Jack looked into Phyllis' tearful eyes and then Billy, guilt written all over his face yet semi-relaxed with something like relief in it. A painfully familiar word beat itself into his skull until it fractured. Cuckold. The weight of it gave it a gravitational not bound by conventional properties rooted in physics but rather, emotional intensity. Cuckold. It set his throat on fire as it pushed downward. Cuckold. It cracked his sternum in half and tore through his heart until it was a bloody, fleshy mess of cut veins, sliced arteries and every dream or hope carried there for nothing.

The force of its two syllables punched Jack's gut in rapid succession he swore his lungs felt like balloons blown beyond its limits about to burst.

You are the cuckold. You've always been the cuckold. His arms broke and the bones in Jack's legs felt like twigs. Miraculously, he was still standing for what felt like five years frozen in this horrible scenario yet it was only five minutes. This was the monster that tore and clawed its way through the Athletic Club – glass shattered, tables and chairs flipped over, dinner utensils clattered and expensive dinner plates broke. This was the monster that breathed and grew over several months until Jack could see it now and hears its loud crystal. It blew through the Abbott Family picture until it broke right in front of his blue eyes.

He tried to breathe, every breath in feeling like a newly fire with the sting of acid until it consumed him. Jack prayed the psychological aspect of mercy would grant him darkness. He did not want lights of the camera flashes. He did not the clap clap clap of tabloid cameras. Jack did not want the mental pictures anymore. He didn't want anything. Jack only wanted the comfortable darkness that would enclose him like a blanket and let him sink and not come up for air. Please. Please. Please.

Then it came. It was as if another passenger had stepped into the driver's seat and put every emotional reaction in park. Jack felt in that moment, he'd been ripped in half and watched himself through different eyes. Like he had taken on the role of just another patron-turned-spectator instead of one third of the main event. He saw Billy's mouth move yet he couldn't hear the words. He could see Phyllis' mouth moving, her words probably barrelling at him with passion behind them. He couldn't read her lips, or hear the words being formed by them. He stared at her mouth a little longer and wondered. How many times did she put that mouth on Billy, only to come home and put that same mouth on him? How many lies did she form with that pretty mouth as they slid off that razor sharp tongue effortlessly?

Like a sniper who aiming their gun at their target with zen like patience and aiming with just the right amount of precision, Jack now saw his fist coming down like a club. Something cracked. Something broke and he thought it was another part of him. What the hell else could be broken when it was just skin and the thin threads of sanity keeping him together? But no, it wasn't him for the out of body experience didn't last long. Jack glanced at his red and cracked knuckles with a cold calm that scared him.

Then he looked up and saw it. A river of crimson that ran down Billy's face as now Ashley's scream was the loudest of all and she asked the waiter for a towel to stop the bleeding. Billy's face was bloody, the blood of the same man rushed through their veins and his had stopped cold.

"Jack! Stop it, please. I never wanted it to come out like this! I'm sorry I broke your heart! I love you and I never wanted to hurt you this way. You can take it or leave it!" Phyllis cried, as a sob broke the barrage of her words. "I swear, but don't attack Billy for something we both did! It's not fair!" she laughed, tearfully and Phyllis finally looked him in the eye and hissed, "You have a part in this, Jack. Don't you dare behave as if we," she gestured between her and Billy, "are the devils!"

Jack studied her, intently. She was right in way, weighing the legitimacy of that statement in his head. He could have done better. Maybe he could have fought harder, understood better and protected her better. Hell, Jack could have apologized for the mistakes he knew he was making, and the ones he didn't. Still, there was no contrition in him. He was a hollow shell, waiting to be filled to the brim with fury. Jack waited to be run over with despondency. But his mind remained merciful and built fortress around his emotions. For that, he was grateful. He wasn't ready for it to crumble just yet. Not when Jack's own ordeal still twisted in his own mind. The sounds, the smells, the helplessness and the acute awareness of his mortality etched deeply inside of him. Kelly.

"Kind of how you laid the blame for Billy's self-induced accident between Victoria and me at the hospital while we were the most worried he'd die. Kind of how you vilified us while I faced the prospect of burying my brother next our father and two innocent could have been without a father?" he questioned her, just as forcefully. He tossed a glance at Billy, and said flippantly. "What a waste of time."

"Was our marriage a waste?"

"Yeah. A $500 million one," he replied and smirked. "Just because I just realized that I don't have to protect you anymore. I don't owe you anything. I don't give you anything and therefore, you don't get anything. You're a big girl so you'll figure it out after Chelsea knows."

Phyllis sharply inhaled, and narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't…"

He shrugged, pretending to ponder it when he already knew what course of action he was going to take. "To be continued, sweetheart. Your knight in rusty armor will save you from that mean, stupid, misunderstanding husband of yours. That's the narrative. Let Billy save you because you're the kind of woman who needs it now. I'm free of you," Jack continued on, calmly. "What a wonderful feeling it is to discover that. I was the one trapped in this vortex of deceit, stumbling around blindly in the dark. You will never, ever do this to me again."

Phyllis shot him that defiant look once more, before it cracked and it was tearful, guilty. "I'm sorry. That's all I've got. Take it or leave it, but…" Phyllis trailed off, to stop a sob in her throat.

At some point, Summer appeared and steered her away. Jack expected nothing less. Her eyes were angry, sad yet she looked at him with eyes that were apologetic for him before leaving. Her face said she was angry all around and she could see a type of understanding in it that was too young to know. Why do people cheat? If two people love each other, why isn't that enough? Why hurt someone else and tear someone to pieces with the lies, and the wasted time? Why is it never enough? Jack remembered her red face, streaked with tears and a voice that trembled and shook. Summer was too young to feel the sting of being cheated on and Jack was too seasoned to be acquainted with it by now.

He caught a glint of the ring on her finger as Phyllis left with her daughter. It glittered even now. He he remembered when picking it out. Jack had been filled with optimism and sure he did want Phyllis to be his forever. Even with Kelly weaving herself in between them, he had been sure this ring belonged on her finger. Jack remembered smiling to himself at the diamond and glinted as if it were fire in a box. Fiery, passionately beautiful and a woman that had captured his mind, heart, body and soul all over again. He was filled with a sense of anticipation.

The ring seemed to Jack now an expensive piece of scrapyard metal.

His was a farce in the form of jewellery.

Even right now, Jack noticed the way Phyllis looked at Billy and finally understood that she wasn't sorry nor did she love him anymore.

Clarity. Resolution. An epiphany.

—

Jack then trained his gaze on Billy and stared into the eyes of a man he'd loved, been there for, went against everything he believed in and even suffocated under his guilt to protect him. He'd remember when he was at the bottom this time in the throes of a pill addiction even at this very moment wanted him to give up and be selfish for one moment, one hour, one day, one week.

Jack had remembered the frustration and hating this prison of a wheelchair he was confined to. Then he remembered Billy coming in like a spark before a firecracker of hope, looked him in the eye and told him to fight because he was John Abbott's kid. He was John Abbot, Jr. and Abbotts never, ever quit. It was a moment that cemented their brotherhood.

Now here he was, face to face and Jack realized that the brother who had helped him climb out of the dirt would indeed kick him back into a pit even dirtier than the last. The little brother he had agonized over as life and death playing a tug and war with Billy's soul, would truly end his life with all the callousness in the world. He'd probably screw Phyllis on top of his fresh covered grave. Yes. They would, Jack, a new dark voice in the outer edges of his head spoke as a whisper and carried through his entire body like a cold winter chill.

Brother. That word was meaningless now. It was hollow and empty. Jack always believed and said that no matter how many times Billy messed up, or made mistakes, he always believed in him. The love he had for him was unconditional and regardless of anything, they would forever be brothers. Jack searched inside of himself, scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything. If he couldn't find anger and lost despair, how would he hold on to love when it slipped through his fingers like grains of sand?

"You think of that," Jack pointed to Billy's bloody nose, possibly broken, "whenever you wear those cufflinks and think to call me brother. Change your medical proxy, Billy. Because next time you put yourself in a life or death situation, I will pull the plug. I don't care whether you live or die. I don't."

"It's the same song and dance. Beat me up. Break another part of me but I won't be sorry in saying that you weren't there for her…" he rebutted.

"Oh, you seemed to have written the manual of husbandry? Tell me. Have you had Chloe or even Victoria, proofread it? Or, any other woman with the misfortune of being involved with you? You, who treated Chloe like gum under your shoe, and put Victoria through more than enough, want to enlighten me on being a good husband. That's really rich coming from you," Jack's chuckle was hollow, full of a scorn that went against what he wanted: indifference.

"You've never slept with another man's wife? You never made mistakes with a woman because the history books you slept with my mother while married to Dad. Don't act like you didn't cheat on Patty all those years ago with Diane."

"Where is Patty right now, Billy?" Jack asked, looking Billy in the eye. "Where is she? I'll tell you! In a mental facility so far gone from reality because of my part in it. Were you shot five times by her because of a mind I helped splinter to pieces? I will bear those scars for the rest of my life but it would have been better for you if I'd died, right?"

Ashley's gasp broke through the verbal volley of back and forth, and she exclaimed, aghast, "No! Jack… no!"

"Oh, he didn't tell you."

"Jack…"

"Shut up," he snapped, coldly and then looked at Ashley. "It seems our brother here, feels strongly that I should have died on that island because you know, poor stupid, useless me can't possibly live."

Ashley whipped around to meet Billy's gaze. "Oh my God," she groaned. "This cannot be happening. Is this what our family's been reduced to? All because you," she shot a pointed look at Jack, "married her! And you," the same gaze went to Billy, "couldn't stay away from her! I can't judge," Ashley conceded, and then the tears formed her eyes again. "I seriously can't. But I've been on both sides and this destroys families! It ruins lives! And it's seriously ruining ours?" she questioned, tearfully, more to herself than them, it seemed. "I'm grateful Dad isn't here to see this."

Billy shrugged, "Yep. Black sheep does it again. Me. The ever consistent family screw up. That's the history, right Jack?"

Jack narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, Ashley between them so tightly, it looked like a human sandwich. "No. More like self-fulfilling prophecy. Since you bring up history, let me clear things up for you. The difference between this and that – you and I – I actually felt guilty. And it was only once. I never, ever wanted to hurt Dad. I did, regardless, because of my needs. A woman is dead because of my choices. A woman is dead because I nearly died and fought to come home. I own my mistakes when you choose to stay neck deep in yours and take everyone down with you. That is what separates us."

"Of course, because you're the sainted one. You're the bright and shining one, blameless while the rest of us are dirty and gross in your presence. I'd bow or even curtsy but a skirt doesn't show off my legs all that great."

Jack watched his sister Ashley whip around and scream at him. "Shut up, Billy! You don't get to be a smartass right now!"

"Ash, I don't care!" Billy snapped at her and then looked at him when anger flashing in his eyes. "Where, Jack? Victor has shit on the name Abbott for years and he will continue to shit on us until we're ground to dust or dead. You are the one I was expecting to fight the hardest. We were going to fight that old, mumbling vampire with stakes to the heart once and for all and do it together! He violated Phyllis in the worst way! If anyone did that to Katie, I would kill the bastard and sleep just fine! Where were you? When do you decide to lay down your arms when you know Victor would shoot us dead? He shot you! He is responsible for Colleen's death and has her heart inside of him!" Billy sighed at the end of his tirade threw up arms, and let them fall. He continued on, tone lower. "Yes. I slept with your wife. Multiple times. You're looking at me like you don't know me. Like you hate me and actually could mean it. Fine. But you know I'm right. I was looking for my big brother to step up and he wasn't there…"

He had been there all along. That's where he was. Jack was alive. He hadn't died on an island strapped to a bed while his freedom, and his mind were at risk of being lost. He wasn't negotiating his freedom with yet another woman he had helped break. Jack wasn't experiencing the pangs of hunger get more and more intense every day as the lines of what was true and what wasn't became blurred. He hadn't died on a boat where men he'd never seen before beat and tortured him because of the sins of another man – a ruthless man he had been startled to realize was a mirror copy of him.

Even as Jack jumped in literal unknown waters and the heat of the boat explosion dusted his back, he wasn't dead. He wasn't gone. He was alive and fighting with a woman that had become his friend. Marisa. When he had been fighting for his life all the way home, Jack figured the years of battling The Moustache were so inconsequential. Of course, old fury took hold of his headspace and Jack wanted nothing more than to rip Colleen's heart out of his chest. He wanted nothing more than slit Marco's throat and then he saw a bigger picture. One that was scarier and much bleaker. Jack could have marked himself – his very soul – as a killer but then like a spark, he realized it. Why kill himself on the inside when he had every chance to be outside being in the world, rather than between here and there?

Billy glanced down and looked back at with locked jaw. He sighed.

"The rest of the world will drag me through the mud. They're strangers. I don't care but you're my big brother. I screwed up. You know I love attention," Billy said sadly, with a mirthless chuckle. "I'm sorry."

"You aren't. You used to sling tabloid trash and a living."

"Jack, stop it!" Ashley yelled, angrily, standing in the middle of them. She shielded Billy, yet protected Jack. He would expect nothing less from her. "You don't mean it. This is our family!"

"Ashley, he's sorry he got caught. He's sorry he's created another abyss to suck everyone into – while we agonize and think poor, misunderstood Billy. He's sorry he's about to blow his life to crap," Jack said, saying the words like additional blows and hoped they cut Billy to the deepest parts of himself. It wasn't because in that moment, they would be brothers sharing in the same kind of pain. Perhaps, it was a sadistic – hell, it was but also very human to think this. It was because Jack was with his pain on pause. He was controlling when he wanted to feel it and how much he could bear. Jack could learn from this pain while he would watch Billy drowning in his. "He's not sorry. If he could do this all over again, he would and we'd still be right here. That is what this comes to. At least, he didn't insult me by calling it a mistake. We all know it wasn't."

Ashley was his best friend, his truest confidant, and the one he could trust with his own life and he did. With her, she knew how he felt.

"Ash, it's not our family. Not anymore," he said, honestly and sincerely. He allowed himself to smile with her because it was always him, her and Traci. Even he remembered his mother leaving his sisters, him and their own father. Jack wasn't quite a man yet a boy. He vowed to protect Ashley and Traci and they were the Three Abbott Musketeers now, sealed with a three-way pink swear. Jack's emotional fortress cracked a little and the moment of sadness trickled in. She stared at him through green tear-filled eyes. Jack looked with her with a look that said he'd meant it, it was final and for the sole reason that it broke her heart and would break Traci's, he was sorry. He pulled her into a familiar hug, thanking her, pulling away and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "I'll see you at home. It's a bit crowded here."

Jack glanced once more at the explosion and all that was left was smoke and carnage. There was also clarity as he turned away and exited the club from the back entrance to escape the horde of journalistic bloodhounds, waiting to tear at his flesh.

Was there anything to for them to tear off him when he had been bleeding this entire time? No, Jack answered in his mind as he stepped out through the back and made it outside. The sun was just beginning its descent. It was a night saturated in the last remnants of summer before the colourful foliage of fall engulfed it.

He couldn't remember how many steps it took for him to get to his car. Jack couldn't consciously remember when he got into his car. In truth, he felt the indifference start to melt away, the anger rediscovered. The leather of his steering wheel remained in a white knuckled grip. Jack breathed in deeply to get rid of the pounding in his head and his nerves like guitar strings wound tight beyond rational comprehension.

Jack couldn't remember how he drove into the wide driveway, pulled himself out of his car and entered his childhood home. He could remember willing his hand to stop shaking long enough to turn the key in. When he did enter into his – just his – home, he paused and gazed around. Every Abbott had left a piece of them here, even those physically not here. He remembered every breakfast at the table, every Christmas with ugly sweaters, every Thanksgiving where the tradition of breaking the wishbone had gone on. Recently, it had been nice to have children here. He remembered Delia's joy and giggles as she took an instant liking to Mrs. Martinez and learned a new Spanish phrase every time. He remembered John bouncing on his knee, and holding every little Abbott with love. Even in a moment that seemed so dark, Jack loved having Johnny and Kate here.

Johnny's silliness brought the laughs back in this house. Kate's stubborn and sassy behaviour with a smile that illuminated the room, amazed him. A couple weeks ago, Billy had needed to see for this or that but he had brought Kate along because it was his day but she would go with Victoria at the end of the business day. Jack had returned from his meeting to find Billy, chuckling. When Jack had followed his gaze, there sat his young niece in his CEO chair colouring on paper with ever changing crayons in her little grasp. Kate was sitting in this chair concentrated and focused on a task that seemed so trivial to them, but so important and paramount to her. For the first time in weeks, he had shared a laugh with his brother. A true, real laugh.

"I think we know who's gonna be running this place in a couple decades. Isn't that right, baby? You're gonna run Jabot when you're a grown up, right?" Billy directed at his daughter. Only then did Kate look up, brown eyes with that Abbott twinkle in her eye and smile broadly.

"Hey, Kate," Jack walked over, greeting his niece warmly.

"Hi…" she replied, as well as a girl her age could and smiled at him.

"You liking Uncle Jack's chair?"

"Uh-huh," Kate replied with a nod. She stopped drawing and handed the paper, filled with multi-coloured swirls and loops. Some colours stopped where others ended and it was the most beautiful drawing he'd ever seen. Kate pushed the paper toward him.

"For me?"

Kate nodded yes. Jack looked down at this drawing his niece had given him. It wasn't so much the content but it was that, it was something that came from her. Jack looked at her and knelt to her level.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

Jack felt little arms go around his neck, and he returned it. He scooped the little girl in his arms and picked her up. "You know what? This is so beautiful I want everyone to see it. This is going to be framed and put on my wall."

"Look at that, Katie. You're on the CEOs wall. Good hustle," Billy said, and offered his daughter his palm with a grin, to which the little girl still happy in his arms, slapped.

Jack chuckled and planting a kiss in her hair before setting the little girl down on her feet. She strode over to her father and tucked her hand safely in his. Dad would love this. Billy turned to him, and said, "We're off to see Mommy. I got pictures of Katie at that desk. I'll send them to you. To Victoria. The family," and a smirk and mischievous glint landed in Billy's eyes. "Several to Victor…"

Jack had playfully rolled his eyes, and Billy bid him goodbye with a promise to do lunch, strode out the door with Kate and they were gone.

Jack remembered the laughter and smiles here, the tears shed and the heartbreak. Yet love shined through. It always did and the Abbotts always stuck together.

Now, this house with love in it felt strange and foreign to him.

The only thing familiar to Jack was the emptiness. It became a sad constant now.

Dad,

I've failed and for that, I'm sorry.

I tried to be the better person. I tried to be the person who didn't obsess over Victor because it just wasn't worth it anymore.

All that got me was this family shattered beyond repair and pain so intense, I can't bear it. It's always the same kind of pain especially the third time around. You told me to be Houdini. To fight, to escape.

I can't fight anymore. I can't fight for something that was long dead. I see that now.

I can only fight for myself. I'll do some things. I'll say some things, many of which you will never approve of. I will get revenge and push myself into darkness. But it's where I have to be until I can believe that light exists again. I can see your look of disapproval clearly and I can hear myself telling you to leave me alone.

But I need you. I miss you. When did you stop coming around, and why?

Jack

—

Ashley,

You're my best friend.

As I write this letter, please know I appreciate you for supporting me and hope you will continue to. Things are shifting. Things are about to change – some of them because I made them. I know what I am doing, and it's part of a bigger purpose. I need your support more than ever. Nobody knows how important it is to protect the company our father built than us. I need a couple of days to think things through and figure out my next move. You're my sister but you are my power of attorney and I know you will run this company as I would and with as much passion and heart. That's what I am asking you to do. Hold down the fort while I'm out of town.

I'll be okay. Please know that. I need you to. Let Kyle and Traci know that too.

I love you,

Jack

—

Jack set the pen down on the pieces of paper, glanced at the silver wedding band on his finger as he hand shook.

He allowed the tears to collect in his eyes as he pulled it off and set it on the desk.

The silver glinted at him as light bounced off it. Then he forced the tears back in, pushed this pain down past the parts of him that were scarred, bruised and after today, quite raw. He didn't want to feel it. He didn't want to deal with it and he didn't want to decipher or understand it. All he prayed for was that numbness. That act of mercy that came with ripped wide open.

He let his eyes wonder to the glass container, holding the brandy. It was the colour of amber but it could have been liquid gold. Jack could taste it on his tongue, its warmth as it began his descent down his throat and numbed him. It was a cycle of hot and cold, a wonderful cycle that could leave him floating happily in both.

Jack prayed once more for that numbness to come back and if it didn't, he'd get it himself. His finger had a tan line that look like a scar. Every nerve burned with need for that alcohol. He needs for the sounds in his head to stop, reminding him of the bombs of Vietnam.

He stood up, an idea that slowly and carefully formed itself together. It stitched itself together like a quilt of who was friend or foe.

Jack truly saw the thread that held the pieces and knew what he had to do.

—

And then it came.

Like a steady drop of morphine to Jack's veins and a shot of novocaine to his soul, the numbness finally arrived. He left the wedding on the table and he headed upstairs with no intention of looking back.

"Jack…"

"Hi."

A pause. A sigh.

"It's late."

"I know. I understand but it's important I speak to you in a couple days."

Quiet. Two heartbeats.

Another pause before the defense mechanisms went up and the edges around her tone were apparent. Jack expected that. "What about? I won't hear anything related to Billy. No."

"Business," he replied, honestly. Jack was amazed at fast his head spun and put together things of the past, present and even future once the shroud was gone. It was a grand chessboard had formulated in the recesses in his mind, and if the pieces moved around just right, he'd get to his objective. "Just business. We have a common goal."

"Such as…?"

Jack could not help the smirk that tugged at his lips. "Let me leave and get back into town and I'll be happy to tell you."

"Sounds ominous but okay, we'll talk."

"Thank you. Victoria," Jack added as an afterthought although it was an important one he had to emphasize, "Johnny and Kate will always be welcome to the house. They're Abbotts and it's their house too."

"That's very kind of you. You love them and they love their Uncle Jack. I know you're sick of hearing this but I'm sorry for you're going through. I can't imagine it. You don't deserve it. Truly. It isn't much but if you need to talk about anything on top of what you called me for, I'm here."

He was sorry for a lot of things but appreciated her support as well. He and Victoria had somehow fallen into a pattern of defending the other without really think about it.

He wished Victoria goodnight and hung up because it was the easiest thing to do in the middle of all this. He hung up and put his phone back into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and let his weight sink into the plush seats of the Jabot jet. London would be a great change of scenery and perhaps, the view of the Thames would give him some semblance of peace. He needed air. He needed to breathe and frankly, Jack needed to work so checking in on things at Jabot International would be the perfect solution.

The jet rumbled softly, springing to life as it still sat on the airstrip.

Closing his eyes, Jack ran a hand over his face and just wanted to get out of this Genoa City bubble. At least until he knew how to get back into it and shake its landscape. Tomorrow, Jack would be angry. Perhaps, the next day, he'd be terribly sad and after that, he'd be angry all over again. Maybe even on some days, he would rarely understand. But not today.

"Mr. Abbott?"

The pilot's voice snapped Jack out of his reverie. "Hmm?"

"I was arriving to let you know we'll be departing for Heathrow shortly."

"Thank you, Henry."

The pilot departed with a polite nod as Jack brought the tumbler of sparkling water to his lips.

He glanced out the jet's window again, the sun gone and light turned to dark.

—

fin.