Jack stood there, not fully comprehending the meaning behind Steve's words. He braced against his desk, repeating them in his mind: You did it. It's true. I loved you. Steve looked hurt and lost and Jack was at a loss trying to understand what was bothering him. Steve sat in a chair on the other side of Jack's desk, just staring at his hands, like he was trying to contemplate what to do next. Like Steve was deciding what to do with those hands. Suddenly Jack felt very wary.

When Steve finally looked up, Jack got even more confused and worried. Fire and anger burned in Steve's eyes. He knew those eyes. He had seen those hard, hating eyes often enough, but not for the last year. The last year, his relationship with Steve had grown so much, he felt secure in it, and thought they had been cemented as brothers during Steve's hospital stay after the boat explosion. Jack kept his eyes on Steve, but slowly, deliberately, he opened his center desk drawer.

Steve bolted out of the chair and lunged at Jack, and gave him a strong jab at his jaw. Jack fell backwards from the hit, but was stopped when Steve grabbed his suit lapels from across the desk. "You are sick. You are damaged. I will go to Roman and guarantee that you go to jail this time. You're not getting off this time on a plea bargain. And you are dead to me, you filthy pig."

Jack got even more confused by Steve's words, but they were like daggers to his heart. He had thought he had come so far with Jennifer and with Steve and now he knew that was all an illusion. But Jack knew this wasn't a time for thinking, but for doing. Jack grabbed his gun from his center desk drawer and held it under Steve's chin.

"Back up," Jack ordered. Steve eyed and felt the cool metal barrel on his skin, measured Jack's look and did as he was told. For once, the older brother obeyed his baby brother.

"What are you talking about? Jail? For Kayla?" Jack still couldn't believe Steve was resurrecting this after all that had happened. "You can't send me to jail for Kayla. Double jeopardy applies. Remember?" Snarky Jack was back with Steve too.

"Not for Kayla, you unimaginable bastard—."

"You realize by calling me 'bastard' that you're insulting our mother more than me, right?"

"Shut up!" Steve silenced him. "For Jennifer. For raping Jennifer."

"What? I didn't rape Jennifer. I would never—." He stopped that sentence, but kept his gun squarely pointed at Steve's chest. "We haven't even been together in months, not that that's any of your business. Since before you got injured. Do you think we would've gotten engaged at Christmas if I'd raped her in October?"

"I know what I heard," Steve countered.

"I don't know what you heard," Jack snapped, matching the edge in Steve's voice. "She called me a rapist and we broke up. That's it."

"No. No," Steve wouldn't accept that. "That's not what I heard. She said that she was raped. I don't know whatever garbage you're saying, but it can't change those facts."

Jack didn't hear Steve's last sentence.

"Jennifer was raped?" Jack repeated.

Memories swirled in his mind. The myriad of times she had flinched and pulled away. The nightmare she claimed to have when he caught her with Frankie. Her struggling against him the night before when he pulled her into a kiss and it ended with her slapping him. Lawrence suggestively saying, "the other night" when they were in Alamania. Jennifer saying last night, 'I wasn't even talking about you!' and his screaming, heart-rending reply of 'Who were you talking about if you weren't talking about me? Who?'

Lawrence.

"Lawrence," Jack repeated aloud. In that moment, he knew. Clarity and truth came completely, sickenly, inexorably in that moment.

Lawrence had done this awful thing to her just like he had done…. Jennifer had endured that hell… This amazing woman he loved with his whole being had gone through something horrific and she couldn't even tell him because he was also this monstrous….

Jack couldn't finish his thought. He dropped the gun on the desk and ran to the side door that had his private bathroom. He just barely made it, before he retched into the toilet.

888888888888888888888888888888

Steve stood there for a moment; he had seen the horror plainly in his brother's eyes. Jack had named Lawrence. Steve saw the truth too in that moment. It wasn't Jack. Jennifer had been raped, but not by Jack and he felt guilt-stricken and shamed to his core that he had ever thought otherwise. He had certainly betrayed his brother in thought and somewhat in word and deed. Steve struggled to understand everything that happened. Jennifer hadn't told Jack. He could understand that. Kayla had trouble telling Steve and they had nothing like Jack's history. Oh god, this is going to be so tough on both of them and they looked so happy at Christmas. Did it happen since or was Jennifer covering it up? Probably that. It probably happened in Alamania when she was under Lawrence's control. It's the only reason he could think of that Jennifer hadn't immediately accepted Jack's rooftop proposal.

But what about the 'Once a rapist, always a rapist' comment that Jack made? He vaguely recalled that Jack had just said something like that Jennifer had called him, Jack, a rapist. It was a few moments ago, but so much was happening and Steve had been feeling so much at once: anger, betrayal, the overwhelming need for justice and vigilantism. And now that's all turned, flipped on its head, and Steve felt dizzy from all the fast moving circumstances and shifting changes in fortune. In Steve's mind, in the few moments of this meeting thus far, Jack went from being Steve's beloved brother to a vile serial rapist and now a hurting, vomiting brother. A brother that he could not abandon.

Steve stepped to the desk and picked up Jack's gun. Now having a chance to properly examine it, he gave a small smile (the only one he would get that evening) and pulled the trigger. Out squirted water. From a distance it did look real. Only Jack would threaten someone with a water pistol. He walked over to the small table with a water pitcher, poured a glass and brought it into the bathroom for his brother.

Jack was sitting on the floor of the bathroom. Obviously heartbroken and trying to fend off another wave of nausea. Steve offered him the glass of water to rinse his mouth and put his arms around his shoulders. Jack flinched and shoved him off and Steve gave him his space.

"I'm sorry," Steve offered. So much was covered in that apology. For accusing him, for hitting him, for Jack having to endure this nightmare at all. Steve knew what Jack was feeling all too well. He would have to relive all that tonight with Jack and it was going to be tough—it was going to be damn tough to relive it and not give in to the old anger—but he would not abandon his brother tonight. He had promised his baby brother that he would always stand beside him and if that meant sitting beside him and a toilet on the tile floor of his office bathroom and witness Jack's hell and relive his own memories of learning of Kayla's hell, then so be it. Steve would control his anger about the past tonight. He had failed his baby brother enough for one day.

"I can't believe this happened to her. She's so idealistic—always believing the best in people. That was taken from her. And in this way. This worst way possible. God, Steve, she was a virgin with me." Steve was surprised to hear that last bit; he had assumed that Jennifer had slept with Frankie or Emilio. She was engaged to Emilio even. Steve shook off that speculation. It was irrelevant at this point.

"That's why we waited so long in the first place. Me and who I am with her and who she is. How could I not see? How could I not know? She flinched when I touched her, she turned to Frankie, she acted so skittish around Lawrence, she didn't want to go away with me this weekend. This has been going on for weeks, months even and she couldn't tell me. She couldn't get any help of all because of me, because of what I am."

Steve fought an inner battle with himself. How much should he tell about how it had been for himself and Kayla in the aftermath of her rape. How much could he reveal before it was a betrayal of Kayla's privacy?

"And Lawrence," Jack continued as he sipped the water Steve had offered. "I should have seen what he was. I should have recognized. I should have known. A dog knows its own, right?" Jack tried to push himself up. "I have to get out of here."

"No you don't. You're going to stay here with me and you and I will talk this out. I'll stay here all night with you if you want."

"I can't stay."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do Steve!"

I don't know what I'm going to do Kayla! Steve remembered yelling to Kayla on the awful morning he learned about her rape. He had hated Jack and wanted to kill him that day. The old Jack that he despised, Steve reminded himself. And here sat new Jack, Billy Jack, the brother he loved. Steve had always compartmentalized the old Jack and Billy Jack in his mind. Could never mix the two. That's why he never wanted to discuss the awful history with his brother because he just didn't want to deal with the reality that these two persons were one. And now tonight he had to. He couldn't leave his brother now, especially with the accusations he had hurled and blood still showing on Jack's lip from when he had hit him earlier.

"To see Jennifer?" Steve asked. "You can't. Not until you've calmed down enough to know that when you talk to her, that you talk about her. This is about her and her pain—it's not about you. I know—I know—," giving more intensity than he had intended, "what you are going through, but I promise that it's nothing compared to what Jennifer is going through." Jack shook his head, indicating he wouldn't go to Jennifer's place.

"Then where. To see Lawrence? He is cold and calculating and so must you be. If you go now when you're distraught and not thinking then you will get hurt—badly and I won't let you."

Jack harrumphed. "Don't worry. I'm not going to go toss him off a roof or something. I swore to myself that I'd never be violent again—unless it's in defense of someone I care about. Even then, I feel just god-awful. But that's the only way I could go on with my life after—after everything that happened. I'm like an alcoholic who can never take another drink. I can never allow myself to indulge in that part of myself. Lawrence is lucky that I am forever bound to not touch him. He has nothing to worry about from me—physically. I'll try to ruin him, sure, but my justice will not come with my fists."

Steve thought back to all the times that he had gotten in Jack's face or done the lapel-grabbing move while Jack just stood there and never defended himself. Jack never gave anything back. Steve tried to provoke him many times back then and the more that Jack just stood there, the harder that Steve tried. He felt ashamed once more that he had considered Jack cowardly or weak in those moments when he was really fighting to maintain control of his own version of sobriety.

"Jack," Steve started slowly, "you can't assume that Jennifer pulled away because of your past." Could Steve speak of his experience with Kayla? How much could he say before it was a betrayal of Kayla's privacy? He had never discussed that incredibly intimate conversation between Kayla and him with anyone—not even Marcus or Jo. How could he give voice to that awful day when he discovered Kayla's bruises and she had admitted all. And to Jack of all people? Normally, he never would. He would never consider it, but this wasn't a normal circumstance. His brother Jack in agony. Steve would continue on he decided. Jack was drowning.

"Kayla," Steve started. At the sound of Kayla's name, Jack winced and squeezed his eyes tight shut. His body stayed rigid, almost suspended in time. "Kayla," Steve began again, "didn't choose to tell me when she did. She avoided it for as long as possible. It had been almost a week. It probably would've been longer if it had been her choice." Steve stopped and loudly exhaled, debating his next sentence. "She only told me when she did because she felt cornered; I insisted knowing everything once I saw…the bruises."

"Oh God," Jack turned away.

"I know the past isn't pretty. This is damn tough for me too, but I owe you…I mean, I want to be here for you. Afterwards, she didn't want me to hold her; she wanted to talk to her therapist instead of me. It was a long time before she was ready for…" Steve stopped pursuing that train of thought. He hoped he said enough to get his point across to Jack, but not too much that he'd violated his wife's privacy. If Steve spoke of it again, he would speak only of his own feelings and how he had felt. "Anyway, Jennifer not telling you the truth, shying away from you happens in most, if not all, relationships affected by rape. Jennifer does love you. I swear to you that I can avow to that truth. I doubt she would be very different if her boyfriend was anyone else. Hear me. Hear me on this one. Her actions and reactions are more likely because you are, simply, a man and not because you are a man who has raped."

Jack was very still and didn't say anything in response, but Steve knew he had his brother's attention and was listening, Tepidly, Steve trudged forward, "I know what you're going through right now."

Jack turned back round to him. "You shouldn't. God, you shouldn't know any of this. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Steve. I apologized to Kayla, but I've never apologized to you. I am amazed you can be here at all with me. I doubt I will ever feel anything but hatred for Lawrence, ever!"

"You're right, I shouldn't know. It should never have happened. But..it..did. Now all we can do is move forward with the current hand that we're dealt. Like I was saying, I know how you are feeling, but that day was one of the toughest of my life. I love that woman more than my own life and I had wanted to protect Kayla from all of life's pain. I couldn't protect her and I had failed her. I was drunk singing with Marcus on the night after the election and being all stupid and foolish while Kayla was enduring hell. When I learned the truth, my heart was aching for her. I cried from frustration, from knowing that this wonderful idealistic person was traveling a very dark road. A road that I could try to walk beside her, but I could not carry her, I could not deviate her off that dark path, I could not clear the way before her. The best thing I could do—the only thing I could do, is continue on beside her. And obviously, that's what you have to do now—with Jennifer."

Jack's hands were balled up into fists in frustration. "Steve, I love Jennifer. It took me forever to say it—a whole year after I first knew it. She's amazing. She's vivacious, idealistic, genuine, and goodhearted. She challenges me and inspires me like no other—ever. Just knowing that she went through that hell—that something this awful happened to her. I, too, wanted to spare her from all the bad things in life. Just imagining what she went through. I wish I could block it all from my mind. The horror of the dawning realization that this violent violation was going to occur, the struggle to keep covered as he rips the clothes from her body, the terrified look like a wounded animal as his hands take their free reign, turning her eyes away from him so that she can deny him that one tiny bit of knowledge, the nausea and the whimper as he penetrates and steals what should only ever be given.

"STOP."

A knife-edged sharpness ran through Steve's command. The iron-willed tone called Jack out of his spell. Fear overtook Jack as he realized what he had done. What he had said. He had spoken about the actual rape and his memories of Kayla under the aegis of Jennifer's rape. Steve knew it and Jack was deeply shamed.

"God, I'm sorry," Jack said immediately. "I should never speak of her in that context. Ever."

"Damn straight. Don't you ever speak like that again."

8888888888888888888888899898888

Steve and Jack stayed silent for a while. Each lost in their thoughts of everything that had happened three years prior and in the last three months and the last three minutes. Neither felt comfortable bridging the chasm that Jack had just created. Ultimately, Steve, remembering all the awful things he had said earlier that evening, decided to just let it go.

Jack brought his hands to his face, covering them, biting his lip and trying to ward off the tears. Jack was not a crier—that's another thing he envied about Steve. He never allowed himself that release. Harper had taught him to bite his lip when he felt like crying and to focus on the pain of the bitten lip. He was good at it too—throughout all the slings and arrows of his life, where were too many to count at this moment, he had reacted with anger, stone-cold silence, or sullenness, but he had never cried. He was sure that he never would either.

Palms flat on the tile floor, Jack pushed himself up and rose to his feet. He stepped past Steve and went to the sink. Steve offered out his hand which Jack waved off. "I'm okay. I just need some water."

Jack gripped the edge of the sink for a few seconds before he swung on the faucet. He splashed some on his face. The water felt cold and slightly jolted him out of his melancholy. Water always seemed to be so essential, so necessary to wash away life's horrors. He remembered Kayla had run to the shower after the rape and stayed there a long time—trying to wash him and his touch away, he supposed. Had Jennifer done the same thing? Ran to the shower after Lawrence had…. He was trying now to wash everything away too right now, but of course he knew how ridiculous was the whole notion. He looked up at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He saw the split lip and the bruise on his jaw. He had forgotten Steve's words, accusations, and the hit when the tidal wave of Jennifer's truth was revealed.

He put his hand up to the busted lip and could see with his peripheral vision that Steve went pale and suddenly looked guilty.

"You hit me," Jack offered. It was said more in disbelief than as accusation. "You'd thought it was me. That's what you came here for." That whole ugly part of the evening was flooding back into Jack's mind now.

"Yes, yes, and yes." Steve replied, remorse plain on his face. "I didn't want to believe it, but from what I overheard and how you acted last night…"

"You said you'd see me sent to jail. That I was dead to you. Maybe I shouldn't expect anything different. I mean it is me, smiling Jack, the used car salesman who would act like your best friend, best man, or best brother and screw you when your defenses were down."

"I have no defense. I screwed up royally. I took what was going to be an awful situation for you and made it worse. But I am here—with you. Now. Despite everything. I hope that counts for something."

Jack stayed silent, trying to decide how to respond. He needed his brother definitely, but did he still want him here?

"I'm not perfect," Steve continued when Jack didn't answer. "I know…I know that you've looked up to me….recently, of course. And I really am glad to be your big brother, but this issue, this…thing…you're dealing with right now, it's a real touchstone for me. Still. Can you accept that and overlook the moments I lost faith?" Thinking of Jack's colossal, almost unforgivable blunder moments earlier, Steve added, "And I'll overlook other thoughtless statements."

Jack looked over at Steve, measuring him. Of course, he'd forgive him. How could he not? Both Steve and Kayla had lifetime 'Get forgiven for anything and everything for free' cards from Jack. However, it was just one more bit of proof that Jack still was exactly what Jennifer had named him. Steve had been convinced that Jack was capable of raping Jennifer. How could he possibly be the one to help her move on with her life? How could she possibly recover from being raped while being with someone capable of that very act?

"Besides, I know that you're not the same person anymore, Jack. You would never react now like you did three years ago. You have proven it."

"Yeah?" Jack scoffed, "when did I do that?"

"When you did not react about Jennifer and Franklin. She asked Franklin to move in. Franklin told me you caught them in some questionable situations. I'm sure you wondered about them, didn't you?"

"Yes, but.."

"But nothing, did you use their relationship as a trigger to get violent?"

"No."

"Did you try to hurt Franklin?"

"No."

"Did you try to hurt Jennifer?"

"No."

"So don't you see? You're different so your reactions are different too."

Jack stayed silent a few moments, debating in his mind over Steve's assertions. "How did you find out?" Jack was genuinely curious; in retrospect, he had seen so many indicators but didn't (or couldn't) put all the pieces together. Some investigative reporter I am, Jack thought ruefully, always on the job, always in journalist mode.

"By accident, really," Steve answered. "I went to the loft to see Jennifer. I wasn't going to say anything explicit about last night when you came over of course, but I just wanted to see how she was."

"To see if I had hurt her?" Jack prodded.

"No, of course not. Just to make sure that things were okay between you. I remember well how I looked and felt when Kayla and I were on the outs and that's how you looked last night. That's all."

"And she told you what?" Jack was getting pissed at having to drag the answers out of Steve. It was all too familiar of his recent talks with Jennifer.

"Nothing. I was outside the door and heard her on the phone. I heard her say 'I was raped' and then in answer to some question that you two were through."

"That's it? You never talked to her?"

Steve shook his head, "So that coupled with your unexplained behavior last night and then that thing you said tonight, I just assumed the worst. What did you mean by that anyway?"

Jack walked back into his office from the bathroom and dropped into his chair. He stared up, facing the ceiling. "Jennifer, for reasons that were unknown to me, did not want to be…close…in any fashion. If we were watching a video and our hands happened to touch in the popcorn bowl, she'd snatch her hand back. Things like that—weird, unexplained things, and yet would say everything was fine. I had to believe her. She had never lied to me. I knew I could trust her so I had to take her at her word."

Jack grabbed a red marking pencil and started nervously tapping it. "I— This part is hard, Steve."

"It's okay. Go on."

"So last night, I arranged to get a suitcase with some of her things and cleared it with her boss, and arranged to go away to a cabin for a few days. I wasn't trying to push her or test her, but I guess on some level, I did want her to demonstrate that everything was okay as she said. That she wasn't telling me one thing and doing something else with Francois or whoever…behind my back." Jack looked up at Steve; they were dancing perilously close to those long buried memories of Jack's marriage with Kayla.

Steve read that in an instant and shifted in his chair, uncomfortably. All the walls around forbidden subjects were crashing down tonight. Everything about the past and present, old Jack and current Jack, Jack's marriage to Kayla and his future marriage to Jennifer, Kayla's rape and Jennifer's rape, smiley Jack and Billy Jack they were all colliding tonight. Steve had to let go of all his old defense mechanisms that had shut down any hint of discussing the past. He wanted to leave that old Jack, smiley Jack, as though dead like Duke or Harper. And the person who sat before him was his real baby brother who had finally come home. However, that was just a fanciful conceit. The truth was he couldn't pretend that the brother sitting before him now hadn't been guilty of all those awful crimes in the past. And they ultimately, finally did need to deal with the past and with each other.

That whole disastrous marriage idea he had about saving his brother's life by 'offering up' Kayla like she was some Aztec sacrifice to the gods where the priests rip out the hearts still shamed him. In the end, he had managed scarring his brother and likely sullying all of Jack's future relationships so that they would be seen through the lens of distrust and possible lies.

"Anyway, we arrive at the cabin and I could tell she was supremely uncomfortable and all the while saying there wasn't a problem. I wanted a response, so I swept her into my arms and started kissing her. I could feel the pressure against my chest from her hands, but I pressed on anyway."

Jack noticed that Steve suddenly grew very still. "She pushed me away. Slapped me hard and said 'Don't touch me, you rapist.'"

Jack let that sit in the room for several moments before continuing on. "Obviously everything changed in that instant. My words went sharp and my heart went to steel. She was immediately horrified and said she didn't mean it, but the words were said. She sputtered out some weak, almost laughable, explanations about why she said it."

"You do realize—now—that she wasn't talking about you, right?" Steve offered, hoping it would help. "I'm sure that your kiss brought on a flashback and she unwittingly, unwillingly, got swept back to what had happened to her."

"Maybe, but I don't think that matters now," Jack shrugged, resigned, ever the skeptic, and determined to always believe the worst-case scenario.

"Why ever not? She wasn't talking about you! I'm sure of that as I'm sure of you," Steve winced slightly, remembering his words earlier that evening. "Truly."

"Steve, she knows what it's like now. Maybe she could, well not disregard it, but maybe she could not fully recognize how ugly rape is…until now. Now that she knows that, I'm not the guy she should want to help her get over it. She's not ever going to want to make love to a rapist after being raped herself. She wouldn't want some other rapist to be the father of her daughter. It's like making a firefighter out of an arsonist or a cop out of a criminal."

Steve countered, "Well guess what. I was a criminal and now I'm a cop. Any objections?"

Jack shook his head.

Steve leaned forward in his chair, hoping to offer up some genuine hope. "You and Jennifer will work through this. Jennifer will get beyond this. Just like Adrienne. Just like Kayla. It may take some time, months even. If this happened at Lawrence's villa then I know that was months ago, but it appears that she hasn't been dealing with the rape, but buried it instead. And believe me, each day that it stayed buried was a day lost from healing. But you know now and you can and you will help her. Jennifer is a strong woman—I know that just from seeing the way she stands up to you and for you. She's just kept herself isolated. However, she's not a broken woman and you two will get through this just like you've gotten past everything else. I know that—not just because you're my brother but because I've seen what you are capable of accomplishing and conquering. Believe that. Understand that. Know that.