"Aren't you going to invite me in?" Talia asked after she had been standing in the door for several seconds. "I brought your car back for you."

"Uh... thanks," Jack said, not knowing what else to say. He stepped away from the door so she could step inside. She eyed the place. It was bigger than what she was used to, but a little drab, and she said so. Just like Gabrielle, she thought.

She spotted Claire on the couch. By now, the young nurse had taken notice of Jack and Talia – she recognised the beautiful woman from her photo, which didn't do her justice – and taken her headphones off her ears. The two women inspected each other.

"You're right, she's very plain," Talia said. "I thought you said she was a blond."

Claire felt an immediately flush of resentment. She knew Talia had mistaken her for Gabrielle, but still, no girl liked to be called plain. She wondered what Jack had said about Gabrielle.

Ignoring Claire, Talia turned to Jack. "I've missed you," she cooed coyly. She toyed with the buttons on his shirt in a way that left no doubt to either Jack or Claire what she wanted.

"Jack," Claire said, "I'll do you a deal. I'll keep an eye out on Gabrielle if you take it to your room."

Talia scowled at Claire. Jack was living with another woman? Well, she was pretty plain, too. "Thanks," Jack said, and he led Talia to his room.

"Who's she?" Talia asked as soon as the door was shut behind them.

"A friend of Gabrielle's."

"Why isn't she looking after her?"

"Talia, are we really going to start this after we haven't seen each other for so long?" Jack asked. He could barely believe she was here. He had spoken to her a few days ago, and she had given no hint that she would be coming down. He wondered if she had even intended to come at that time, or if she had decided after that it had been enough time.

Talia flashed him a smile that he knew all too well. "No," she said. She reached for the buttons on his shirt and expertly undid the first two, sliding her hand down his bare chest in a way she knew he liked. He sighed with pleasure, knowing what was coming.

She pushed him slightly so he was forced onto the bed and she straddled him. He grabbed her hips and flipped her easily onto her back. "You know I like to be on top," he said with a grin, kissing her deeply. "God, I've missed you," he said as she ran her hands down his back and inside his shirt...

Several hours later, he stirred guiltily. He had let himself get carried away when he was supposed to be keeping an eye on Gabrielle. Claire had said she would do it, but that had been a while ago.

Talia responded by running her fingers along his chest. He groaned, partly in desire and partly in frustration that she wasn't letting him do what he was supposed to. "Babe, I've got to at least check that things are OK."

"That chick said she'd do it."

"That chick's name is Claire, and it's not fair for me to dump my responsibilities on her," Jack said. "It will just take a few minutes." He dressed and padded into the main room. "Everything OK?" he asked Claire.

"She's sleeping." Claire looked quizzically at Jack. "Did you know she was coming?"

"No."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I have no idea. Look, sorry for what she said to you before. She thought you were Gabrielle."

Claire didn't say anything at that. She had figured from the comment about being a blond that it had been directed at Gabrielle, but still – whatever resentment Jack had held towards Gabrielle, however he had been hurting over it when he had started seeing Talia and whatever hurts he had confided in her, common bloody decency dictated that you didn't say something like that with the intention of a person hearing it. And it did hurt a little to be called plain.

Something told her she wasn't going to like Talia much.

Talia, as it turned out, had intended of staying with Jack if Jack refused to come back to the community with her. She had had enough of Jack spending time with Gabrielle – and now that she had found out there was another woman staying in the house, well, she wasn't going to stand for it, at least without her being here to claim her turf.

"Talia, you can't stay here," Jack protested weakly when she first told him of her intentions.

"Then we'll get a place together," she suggested calmly, as if he didn't actually need to be within close proximity of Gabrielle. "Or better yet, come back to the clinic. You can do so much more there than babysitting some brat who won't get over her boyfriend."

Jack tried to remember if Talia had always been this possessive. Maybe being with her own people in her own culture kept it at bay more. He knew she had never liked big towns, let alone Sydney. He wondered how different things would be between them now that they were on his turf. "You know I can't leave," he reminded her. "And this isn't my home. I can't just install whoever I like."

"So her feelings mean more to your than mine?" she asked in a hurt mood.

"Of course not, don't be stupid."

"Now I'm being stupid?"

Jack sighed. Something told him this was not going to be easy.


"I've never known you to get drunk, Claire," Adam commented with a wry smile. They all knew how badly Ian's abusive alcoholism had affected her; if she and Talia had got off on the right foot, they might have ended up bonding over seeing the destruction it could wreak on the people they loved.

Claire made a face and downed the last of her vodka, waving at Amy to get her another one while she was at the bar. "If I drink enough, the dugite won't bother me," she said.

"Claire! I can't believe you just said that! That's incredibly racist!" Charlotte admonished her.

Claire made another face. "If you met her, you'd know it's not racist if you deserve it."

"I don't get it, what's a dugite?" Bart asked.

"It's a venomous snake, mostly dark, native to WA," Charlotte explained. "Jack's girlfriend is part-Aboriginal."

"Part Aboriginal, part vampire, part bitch," Claire sang, repeating Jack's initial description of her but adding her own. Since insulting her within a minute of entering the home, Talia had seen no reason to try and get along with Claire, and had been hostile towards her ever since. The feeling was mutual. And she missed Jack's company. She hadn't realised until now how comfortable she felt around him, which said a lot given how skittish she had been after Ian's attack. But now he spent all his free time with Talia. She found herself taking up a lot of his slack in looking after Gabrielle, which she didn't mind, but still...

"She's supposed to be a good doctor," Charlotte said.

Claire shrugged. "I wouldn't let her treat me." She remembered something Talia said about having excellent skills as a physician and betting she could treat Gabrielle better than Jack could. It had been the way she had said it that had sent a shiver down Claire's spine, but Talia had pretended to looked shocked that she had made Claire uncomfortable, and blamed it on her poor delivery.

Yeah, right. Talia spoke better English than most of the people she had grown up with in state housing, but Claire bet she liked to fall back on it as an excuse for a bitchy remark. My English, it poor...

"Jack seems to like her," Charlotte remarked casually, except everyone at the table knew it wasn't a casual remark. It was a warning; if Jack felt like he had to choose, his loyalty would always be to his girlfriend. Weather it was Terri or Deanna or Talia, he would always go with the girlfriend.

"I know. I just think he could do better. Maybe she's not like this in her community, but she doesn't seem like his type at all. She's beautiful and smart, but she's mean."

That reminded Charlotte of something. "You really think she's no good for him?" she asked. Claire nodded. Charlotte was inclined to agree without having even met the woman. Something told her that no-one would ever be good for him, not when Gabrielle was still alive. "How dirty are you willing to play?" she asked. "Hypothetically, of course."

"Very," Claire said. There was something about Talia that got her back up, something predatory and unreasonable that reminded her of growing up in Perth. Talia would never accept that women and men could ever be friends, just like Ian never could, other women would always be competition, just like Ian had seen every man who looked at her twice. Jack deserved better than her. And she wanted her mate back.

"'Cos I know someone who's just as beautiful, just as smart, can be just as mean, I'm sure... and I'm willing to bet that Jack adores her even more than he does Talia."


Talia made the mistake of thinking the beautiful blond was another of Jack's friends, and treated her nastily. Rebecca had always gotten on with Gabrielle, and she hit it off quickly with Claire. Not only that, but Gabrielle was far more inclined to let Claire help her into the living room for a girl's afternoon in than she was have Jack take her into the backyard. Because she didn't have the same humiliating history, because Claire had never had to change her bedpan, she felt more relaxed with her, and Rebecca's feisty wit could always make her laugh. The three of them were in the family room playing scrabble when Claire let Talia in. She resented that Jack wouldn't give her a key, but at that he drew the line. He knew he had been pushing his luck to get Russel to agree to have her stay, and wasn't about to press for her to have access to the house.

The beautiful blond represented everything Talia hated about whites. Slim figure, long flowing blond hair, obviously confident. Really, was this the sort of girl Jack hung around with? And so she used the particularly vicious side of her tongue. And Rebecca, when provoked, could be just as vicious.

Gabrielle and Claire were enjoying the slanging match far too much to inform Talia who she was insulting. They exchanged a look; let her dig her hole that little bit deeper. Gabrielle liked Talia no more than Claire did; if anything, she had even more reason to dislike the woman, since once Talia had worked out who Gabrielle was, she had been even more nasty to her than she had been Claire. Neither of them liked having her around, and Gabrielle in particular resented having the woman in her house, but her dad had insisted. Jack would stay only if Talia stayed. (That Jack had been bluffing on that one was something Russell would never know.) So Talia stayed, and Gabrielle wasn't in a position to do much about it.

So seeing Talia and Rebecca at each other's throats with Talia having no idea who she was insulting was a treat for both of them.

Jack returned home over an hour later. He and Claire had an arrangement that she'd keep an eye on Gabrielle for a few hours at a time if he wanted to go out. He'd been out with Charlotte and Zach, and thankfully, Talia had found her own thing to do. He had been too grateful to have time with Charlotte and Zach to realise that Talia's 'own thing' was to come back shortly after so she could terrorise Claire and Gabrielle without Jack to keep her on a leash. The last thing she had expected was to come across yet another one of Jack's female acquaintances who turned out to be more than a match for her in intelligence and bitchiness.

"Bec!" he admonished his sister. "Did mum tell you to respect your elders?"

"Yeah," she said, flashing him a cheeky grin that he never failed to make him smile – including this time. "She also said you should only ever date women who got along with your sister."

Gabrielle bit down hard enough on her lip to bleed and Claire had to fake a coughing fit to stop from laughing at the look on Talia's face. "Talia, I take it you've met my sister Rebecca," Jack said, making the introductions an hour or so too late.

Rebecca, who had known who Talia was – there for giving her an advantage – searched the other woman's face for signs of blushing. Damn dark skin. Well, she liked to think she was blushing, anyway. "Talia, I'll be with you in a sec," Jack said, which was code for my room. Now. Talia went. She had no desire to stay in the same room as those three women who were obviously trying to conceal their laughter at her expense.

Jack glowered at the three women, who even now were struggling with their laughter. He had a feeling they had planned this – and that Charlotte had something to do with it, because no-one but Charlotte would have known that Talia and Rebecca were both used to being the number-one woman in his life, and as such, it was going to take a lot of good timing and diplomacy to get them to like each other, and that the most innocuous of comments would set them at each other's throats – but he couldn't prove it. "Why didn't any of you say something?" he asked. It was clear they had let Talia carry on being nasty to Rebecca without bothering to tell her that she was Jack's beloved sister, the only family member who meant anything to him.

"Sorry, Jack," Claire said. "But I've witnessed too many squabbles between women over a man to get involved." He sent all three of them a dirty look a went to placate Talia.

"I can't believe you let her treat me like that!" Talia proclaimed tearfully.

"I wasn't here, babe, I hardly let her treat you like that," he defended himself. "Besides, I've showed you a photo of Bec. She certainly knew who you were."

Yeah, because those two bitches made sure she knew, Talia thought. She hated being in Sydney. She hated Jack being in a place where he had so many roots. She was more aware than ever that she couldn't compete with that, and she wanted to get him out of here ASAP.

In the living room, the three women had retired for the night. Claire had seen Gabrielle to bed and Rebecca stayed with her for a bit. "You don't like Steve much, do you?" she asked. Rebecca had made a few comments here and there that made Gabrielle think she didn't think much of the older doctor. Gabrielle was sure it meant Jack had told her what had happened between them.

"No," Rebecca said honestly.

"Is it because of what happened between Jack and I?"

"I have no idea what happened, all I know is he left suddenly and sent me a letter telling me he was OK but out of contact."

Gabrielle's brow furrowed. "Then why – "

"It doesn't matter anymore."

If Claire had been there, she could have told Gabrielle it was the same tone Jack had used when realising she hadn't known about Steve and Gabrielle. They were uncannily alike in a lot of ways. "If it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter if you tell me," Gabrielle insisted.

"He hit on me once," Rebecca admitted. When Gabrielle looked confused – after all, she was an attractive blond of twenty-two, men hit on her at the time – she figured she may as well explain. "It was at Cougars one night, I was waiting for Jack. He just... kept on at it. And he was, like, thirty-five."

"What did Jack say?"

"I didn't know who he was at the time. I just thought he was some creepy older guy looking to score with someone practically young enough to be his daughter. I saw him later with all of you – he pretended not to know me – and, well, I know Jack's temper when it comes to women that he cares about. I like not having him in jail, thankyouverymuch."

Gabrielle remembered Jack's temper, too. She remembered the way he had decked Steve when Steve had been a little too persistent and rough with her. She had realised later that he couldn't stand seeing violence committed against smaller, weaker people, particularly women – it was part of what made him so good with Claire – and that he had done it because he was fond of her and didn't like seeing her manhandled. She felt a lump in her throat at the thought. There had been a time when Jack had cared about her enough to deck someone who manhandled her. "When was this?" she asked in a small voice, a sinking feeling that she knew the answer.

"Um... would have been about the time he started. Jack said something about them getting in a new doctor to replace the one that died, and that he didn't like him much."

"Oh."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"It doesn't matter anymore." Now it was her turn to say the words.

"You guys were together then, weren't you?" she asked insightfully. Gabrielle nodded, trying not to cry. It was eighteen months ago now, but still – if he had persistently hit on a woman who had been more girl than woman to his over-thirty. "I'm sorry," she said. "If I had known –"

"You wouldn't have told me?" Gabrielle asked. Rebecca looked away guiltily. She realised why she had been so fond of Jack, why Claire was so taken with him. He and Rebecca had a tendancy of telling the truth without any thought of who might get hurt because of the web of lies that others had woven before them.

God, but Rebecca would make one hell of a sister-in-law one day. But only to a woman who deserved them both. Which reminded her... "You don't like Talia much either, do you?" she asked.

"Nope. It's not just the way she treated me – well, it's the way she treated me not knowing who I was. I'm sure she would have been nicer if she'd known I was Jack's sister. I don't care to have someone like that in his life. And I already dispatched a girlfriend who thought like that," she added with a gleefully malicious glint in her eyes.

Gabrielle laughed. She had heard about the way Rebecca had gotten Deanna Richardson drunk and then reduced her to tears at Jack's birthday party. "Something tells me that people don't last long who don't respect the strength of your relationship," she said.

"No, they don't." And there was an undertone there that Gabrielle didn't quite understand, except something in her grasped that Rebecca wouldn't be here if she didn't at least think that Gabrielle could rise to that challenge.


Talia let herself into Gabrielle's room early in the morning. Jack was asleep and she wanted to see the woman who held his attention so captively. She didn't understand it. She had broken Jack's heart and yet here he was, taking care of her... Talia scowled to think about how close he must have to get to Gabrielle at times. Why had he agreed to this? What kind of hold did she have on him that he still cared after all these months?

The woman was so plain. Talia knew she was beautiful. Enough men had told her that. At times, she hated her beauty. But now, she didn't understand why Jack was so fascinated by this plain woman who couldn't even go to the toilet on her own. And she hated her for it.

Gabrielle stirred and woke, aware that there was a presence in her room. She was used to Jack and Claire coming in whenever either of them woke to get a drink or go to the toilet and checked up on her while they did. She could sense that somehow; some called it a terrific sense of smell, others a sixth sense. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn't either of them. And there was only one other person in the house. God knew, Jack and Claire's hyper-sensitivity to security had seen to the fact that unless invited in, you pretty much had to blow out the front door to get through it. "Talia," she said groggily.

Talia's dark eyes flashed angrily. "That's me," she said. "Tell me, what do you think you'll achieve with this stunt? You really think you can make Jack love a pathetic invalid?"

"I'm not – "

"Yes, you are. You won't even try to get moving. You're pathetic, you really are. You're such a princess. You think just because you're white and blond that someone will always be around to rescue you. You – "

"What the hell are you doing here?" Claire, on her way back from the toilet, had heard voices coming from Gabrielle's room and gone to investigate. She had had a bad feeling from the first second, Two female voices. Apart from her, there were only two other women staying here. And they were best left apart.

Talia flashed her dark eyes at Claire. "This is none of your fucking business," she said, in as articulate English as if she had majored in it at uni.

So now you decide to speak good English, Claire thought. "Get out," Claire instructed.

"Go to hell, white girl."

"JACK!" Claire screamed at top of her lungs, and God knew, she could scream. She had screamed when her step-father had started beating her, she had screamed when Ian had started raping her. Only now, there was no-one to cover her mouth. It felt oddly cathartic to scream for help loud and long enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear.

Jack came running from his room. He took one look at the situation and his heart sank as he realised what had happened. He had known Talia didn't like him staying with Gabrielle, but to come into her room – it didn't matter what she had meant it for, that she had invaded Gabrielle's personal space over a grudge. "Get out," he said abruptly. Claire started to go. "Not you," he said. He looked directly at Talia. "Pack your things and get out. I'll pay for your taxi to the station and your ticket and have someone pick you up."

Both Claire's and Gabrielle's hearts soared that Jack was actually making her leave. Talia looked at Jack plaintively. "You don't really want me to – " she started.

"Yeah, I do," he interrupted her. Being with her in Sydney had made her see her for what she was. She had so much capacity to care, but she was also deeply insecure and carried a lot of resentment around with her. Being in Sydney and realising that she hated every woman he was friendly with had made him realise that things would never work out between them.

"I'm sorry," Jack said later that day to Gabrielle when he had seen Talia go. "She shouldn't have said those things."

Gabrielle turned her head. Her bruises had long since healed, but it had become something of a habit. Talia's words had hurt. She was weak, and she was plain. Talia may have been an insecure bitch, but there had been truth to her words...


"I'm sorry you and Talia broke up," Claire said as sincerely as she could.

Jack handed her a beer. It sucked to drink alone, and God knew, he needed it. "No, you're not."

Claire grinned sheepishly. "OK... I'm not. She was too possessive." And insecure, and a cow, she thought mentally. But leave that to Jack to figure out for himself.

Jack settled into the couch. "That's part of what I liked about her," he admitted. "I equated possessive with passionate, and it had been a while since a woman was truly passionate about me."

Claire was quite for a moment, lost in thought. "It can be an easy thing to do," she admitted. "For a long time, I thought the fact Ian was insanely jealous when another guy looked at me twice was a compliment to me... now I realise it was just a comment on how insecure and possessive he was."

"It must've been hard," he commented.

"It was...only I didn't realise it at the time." It was hard for her to admit to it, but a lot easier given that whatever abuse she could complain about, Jack got it.

He held out his arm so she could cuddle in to him, and she accepted it. They were both abused souls who took comfort in being with another abused soul.


Gabrielle lay in her bed, feeling sorry for herself as she had done since Talia had confronted her. Intellectually, she got that Talia had just been insecure and vicious, but in her heart... Part of her had always wondered if Steve had cheated on her because she wasn't pretty enough, and all her insecurities were coming flooding back.

After two days of her newest despondency, Jack had had enough and marched into her room early in the morning. "We're going out," he declared firmly. "Have Ali dress you in something presentable or so help me God, I'll do it myself." There was a glint in his eyes that told her he was more than capable of stripping her naked to get his own way.

"I don't feel like going out," she whined.

"It will be good for you," he insisted. "You've been feeling sorry for yourself ever since Talia left. I would have thought you'd be pleased."

Gabrielle glared at him. Pleased that the woman had insulted her and made her feel like nothing? "She had no right to say those things," she said. She felt uglier and more aware of her invalidity than ever.

"No, she didn't – but that doesn't mean it wasn't true," he goaded her. Gabrielle glared even more hatefully, with some of the spirit she used to possess in abundance. "And I did not wreck my relationship and jeopardise my job so you can lie here all day feeling sorry for yourself. I'm taking you out."

"In case you hadn't noticed, I can't exactly go far. What if I need to go to the toilet?" she whined.

"We're not going far, just to the park. I'm serious, Gabrielle. Have Ali get you into something decent or I'll do it myself, and I have a feeling you'd prefer Ali. Oh, and do something with your hair. I've seen oil spills with less grease." And he left Gabrielle fuming but unable to do anything.

When he came back after Ali was finishing up, she looked almost presentable. He hadn't had any intention of dragging her back into the bath to wash her hair but the important thing was that she thought he was capable of it and so had had Ali help her with it. She was in a skirt and t-shirt with her hair washed and combed, and even with the bulky casts, she looked far better than she had a few hours ago.

She could get into her wheelchair on her own – at least, when she felt like it, and after Jack had found out that she could do it, he made her do it all the time and they walked to the park nearby. Jack liked it because it had an artificial lake which attracted a lot of birds and an expansive play area that attracted a lot of parents with their children. He used to love coming here and think about bringing his own family here one day.

"Bet your dad would have loved you for presenting him with part-Aboriginal grandkids," Gabrielle couldn't resist saying.

"All the more reason to have done it," Jack replied with a grin. He had known being outside would do her the world of good. "Maybe he would have considered me a lost cause once and for all. I wouldn't want to bring up a family in the community, though. I know it sounds snobbish but the amount of bad influences and the little opportunity for education – come to think of it, my dad would have been right at home. My brothers, too."

"God, no wonder you and Claire get along so well. You guys should get drunk one night and start a pissing contest of who has the shittier parents."

"Wouldn't surprise me," he said. He had found he tended to click well with people who'd come from neglectful homes that thrived on ignorance and bad influences but who had made something of themselves. Only those same people understood the drive to get away from the dirt you had come from. It had been a big part of his attraction to Talia.

"I'm sorry you broke up," Gabrielle said when she asked Jack what he was thinking and he told her.

He grinned. "You and Claire both like to insult my intelligence, don't you? I know neither of you could stand her."

Caught out in a lie, Gabrielle grinned sheepishly. "She didn't seem right for you. Too possessive, too jealous."

"Honestly, that was a big part of why I liked her," Jack admitted. He found himself telling her about dating Terri Sullivan and how he could sense it when she was lying in his arms and thinking about her late husband. "When I told her about me and Charlotte, she took it so calmly, like the fact I'd slept with her best friend and gotten her pregnant meant nothing to her. I wanted her to yell at me and hit me – do something to show that she was angry, 'cos at least that would have proven she cared – well, that was my logic, anyway," he added ruefully. He had long since come to understand that Terri wasn't the type to get angry when getting angry wouldn't change anything. "So for a while having this gorgeous, intelligent woman make herself available for me whenever I wanted and who would slap me if I so much as perved at Angelina Jolie for too long was good for my ego, made me think she was crazy about me. I'm beginning to realise she was just crazy-possessive and crazy-insecure."

Gabrielle's first thought was that it was no wonder Claire and Jack got along so well, they had grown up in households that not only were neglectful that thrived on ignorance and bad influences, but that were abusive as well. Only a survivor of abuse would understand where their tendencies to date people wrong for them came from. Her second thought was that if Jack was still scarred from Terri treating him the way she had, then how must he feel about the way Gabrielle herself had treated him? "I never realised how important it was for you to know someone loved you," she murmured. Even in the worst days with Steve, she had known that she had her dad and brother – and later on, Jack – and because she had grown up sheltered by Russel and Ben's love, it had never occurred to her that maybe someone she knew had never been secure in the knowledge that they were loved.

And she had compounded his lack of security by making him believe that he would never be more than a warm body when Steve wasn't available. No wonder he had reacted the way he did when she had called the wrong name. "I'm sorry," she said, surprising them both with her sincerity. "I didn't realise it meant that much to you."

"You weren't to know. You don't need to keep apologising, Gabs. I've done a lot of thinking. I thought I had come a long way in my attitudes and beliefs from when I started as an intern to when I left the hospital, but being in the community opened my eyes to how skewered my sense of proportion was. I've seen stuff that I didn't truly believe existed in Australia, I'm not about to start feeling sorry for myself when the girl I like doesn't like me back." He said this with a rueful grin, like his feelings for her had been nothing more than a schoolboy crush – less consequential to a truly mature adult than Bart's being 'in love' with Erica. Gabrielle didn't know why she was so disappointed at the thought.

They stayed in the park for over an hour before Jack started packing lunch away. "I didn't mean to keep you out here for so long," he said.

"But I'm enjoying myself!" she said, surprised at just how much he was.

"I know, but I don't want you to overdo it. Look, we'll do this again soon, OK?" he promised.

"It's a date," she said, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them.


"That Rebecca's handiwork?" Jack asked a few weeks later. The cast had come off her wrist a week before, and the amount of greater mobility and freedom that it allowed her made for a great improvement in Gabrielle's mood. He had come back at the end of Ali's shift to see her on the couch, her nails painted blood red.

"Yeah, she said that since this will probably be the only opportunity to grow my nails long between now and retirement, I should take advantage of it," Gabrielle said. She held out her manicured-and-painted figures. "I've never had nails this long," she said admiringly. Jack had to laugh. It was so unlike Gabrielle to take such pleasure in her appearance that it was amusing. "You want to feel how sharp they are?" she asked, reaching for his arm.

Jack pulled it away. "No thanks, I've felt how long your nails are before," he said, trying not to think although I remember more how tightly you wrapped your legs around my waist. He sat down on the couch. "What are you watching?" he asked.

"Buffy."

"Want me to put it on, or can the High Priestess of the Stubborn manage it?"

She poked her tongue out at him. "She can manage it herself, but the High Priestess of the Stubborn wouldn't mind her head being rubbed." Was she pushing for too much? She remembered how nice it was to put on a DVD and have Jack play with her hair. Things had been going so well lately, almost like old times with their easygoing camaraderie, but she was afraid to ask for too much and have him back off.

"It will be worth it just to see you get from here to the DVD player and back again," he teased.

She managed it, and returned to the couch to lay her head in his lap. He began idly stroking her hair and running his fingers across her scalp. He idly traced the scar on the back of her head, and she found herself moving into him. She had always loved the way Jack did that like it was just another quirk on her body and not a souvenir from her often-volatile relationship with Steve.

Things were lovely between them, and she wanted to tell him it could be like this again, all the time, him and her together, close friends, closer than close friends... she literally bit her tongue to stop from blurting the words out. She had no idea how Jack felt about her. For all she knew, he was just happy to have her not be a bitch all the time and was simply encouraging that. She thought guiltily of all the times she had snapped at him out of her own feelings of helplessness. Now that she could get around a lot on her own – and that included being able to bathe and go to the toilet on her own – she remembered how obnoxious she had been to him in the past. It was one more thing she wanted to apologise for, but she found herself keeping her mouth shut. She didn't want to embarrass herself and have to watch the expression on his face as he apologised for not returning her feelings. That was, if he felt he had anything to apologise for. For all she knew, he could very well see any unrequited feelings as karmic justice