Thanks for reviewing, folks. Much appreciated (: Well, I got a voluntary job on a farm- should be fun! Also I got another job at a vet's surgery which is good seeing as that's what I wanna be some day. This chapter is loosely inspired by the song 'Ungodly Hour' by The Fray. Give it a listen while you read. Enjoy! =D
It's been three days since he left Ronnie sobbing over the body of their dead child.
It's been three days, but for all he knows several years might have passed.
He no longer has any sense of time and every time he looks at the clock only minutes have elapsed, but somehow each minute has become an hour and each hour a year. So now he avoids the frosty glare of the clock, instead nursing a cup of coffee as if somehow the steam will cleanse away his heart rendering guilt and pain.
But nothing works; it is impossible to carry the weight of what he has done and erase the sight of their baby's body laid out like a piece of meat ready to be cut on an inhospitable slab of metal. Every time he closes his eyes he imagines how cold he must have felt on the icy silver and he regrets not picking him and drawing him into the warmth of his body.
And he sees Ronnie in everything too, the evidence around their home of her painful to look at, each object holding a tragically beautiful memory; a few months ago they had chosen a new sofa after Ronnie decided that the cream leather wouldn't be suitable once the baby arrived so together they bought a new one and now Jack remembers how he they had sat there while he teased her about wanting to name the child Jim if it was a boy after a family tradition and her giving him a playful swipe saying that under no circumstance she would call the baby Jim. Furiously, he tries to blink the memory away but it strangles his heart in a struggle to keep taunting him. He half wishes he had never met Ronnie so his life would still be the same and he would never have felt this way, but even more he needs to cling onto the blissful memory so there's still a chance that all of this might not be over. As long as she remembers all the good times like he does, maybe she can forgive him even if he doesn't deserve it.
Earlier, he had managed to convince himself that leaving Ronnie was for the best, that it was what they both needed, but now he knows he was wrong and only fooling himself; as usual, he was being selfish. He knows that Ronnie still needs him and without him she might not make it through this, but he just couldn't face being with her after what he did. He will make it up to her though; he will have to.
Raking his hands through his hair, he releases the breath he hadn't know he was holding and drags himself up from the kitchen table. He carefully tucks under the chair and his arms stiffen when he realises that this is the same chair Ronnie knocked over when they'd argued and he'd stormed out. They have argued before, but never like that, and although they both said things they didn't mean, Jack knows he could still have behaved better; he should have been taking care of her, not turning against her.
If he could turn back time, he would do it without hesitation, but he can't; he can't go back to the start when everything was happy as much as he wishes it.
It's too late and his eyes burn with tears when he realises he has probably screwed them up forever.
Ronnie pauses at the bottom of the stone steps, her mind freezing at the sight of the door that only four nights ago Jack slammed behind him and left her sobbing on the floor. The moment it closed an unbreakable wall of betrayal and distrust rose up between them and now Ronnie doubts if either of them will ever be able to climb over it again. She doesn't want to see Jack because he only serves as a painful reminder of what has happened, but she can't help that every inch of her skin aches to be in his arms where she can look into his eyes and loose herself in them. No matter what he has done, she can't just stop herself from feeling something towards him.
She doesn't love him, she can't after what he told her.
But that doesn't mean she's stopped caring about him; she knows that to hate someone, to hate him as much as she does now, you have to care about them first.
Sucking in a deep breath, she tucks her blonde waterfall of hair behind her ears and hobbles to the door, hardly noticing the searing pain from her caesarean rippling across her stomach. She hardly notices anything anymore apart from her grief. It takes all her willpower not to turn and run from the place where she was almost reunited with her baby, where she could nearly feel the gentle weight of him moving around inside her stomach again before her sister cruelly snatched them apart. Now she can hardly remember what if felt like to have another heart beating so close to hers, and the memory of his small cherub face is already beginning to fade from her memories, the more she tries to cling on, the further away it slips.
Ronnie remembers all the times she shared with Jack in there; the night they made love when Charlie was conceived on top of the covers, their mouths crashing together, bodies arching in unison and how he held her close afterwards and told her he loved her, told her he needed her. Deep down, she knows she is here because she needs to see him one last time even though it will only rub salt in the wound instead of bringing closure. When she was younger, she had sworn to herself that she would never become reliant on anyone, but then Jack came along and he saw straight through her icy facade and she has loved and hated him for that. He had laughed with her at her best, cried with her at her worst and she needs to make the end of this final before she can start rebuilding that wall around her.
She raises her hand then and she knocks, her knuckles stinging at the sudden contact. It feels odd not just getting out a key and walking in like she used to, but it isn't her home anymore. Her possessions might still be in there and it might be her house, but a home is something that defines you, somewhere you feel you can always return to when there's no where left to go; a home isn't just bricks and mortar. Everything that made it her home is gone: her relationship with Jack is dead, their baby is dead and she wishes that she was dead. She doesn't have a home anymore and she can't even summon the energy to care.
"Jack, it's me. Please will you let me in?"
The curtains that are closed flutter briefly and then she hears his footsteps thudding towards the door, then the mechanical sound of the key twisting in the lock. Like her, Jack has erected a barrier around himself to shut out the rest of the world, the only difference being his is a physical barrier whereas she has just completely shut down. She wants to turn back, not even sure why she has come when she could have just sent Roxy to get her things.
Hinges groaning, the door swings open and she stares fixedly at the floor. She can't stand to look him in the eye. Facing him will meaning accepting what he has done, accepting the betrayal and accepting that she can't stay with him anymore.
The silence is deafening and she wants to say something, anything just to break it because it reminds her far too much of that moment when the nurse ran the heart monitor across her stomach and only nothing greeted her.
"So they discharged you?" he asks, clearing his throat, unaware of the shiver spiralling down Ronnie's spine at the sound of his voice.
It feels as if the breath has been knocked from her as she hears his voice and it goes against every instinct in her body not just to fling her arms around his neck and cry into his shirt while he holds her. She shuts her eyes, shuts him out.
Closing her eyes to stop her seeing something she doesn't want to is always an option, but she can't close her heart to shut out her feelings. It just isn't possible. Earlier, she had fooled herself into believing that she no longer loves him, but she does love him. Just because he slept with another woman, she can't bring herself not to love the man who held her hand, who kissed her, who created a life with her.
"Ronnie?" he steps forward and takes her hand in his, caressing the back of it.
Her eyes widen and she stumbles backwards, knowing that if she lets Jack catch her she will sink into a state of empty existence with him looking after her and won't be able to get back up again.
"Can I come in? I need to get my things," she still won't look him in the eye and she quickly side steps him and enters his home. "I won't be long,"
Jack lets her pass, his silence speaking volumes, stiffening as if an icy buffet of cold air has winded him. Seeing what he's done to her is almost too much; her voice is flat and cold, her hair straggly around her face and she can't even bare for him to touch her. Although her abdomen is still swollen, she looks so tiny and alone just like Charlie did back in the hospital.
"Look, Ron, i'm really-"
"I don't want to hear it," she cuts across him, forcing as much contempt in her voice as possible, sharp, cold.
Final.
He falls silent again, stung by the bluntness of her words with the realisation that Ronnie will never forgive him for what he has done. She was already broken beyond repair, but he had just collected the pieces and thrown into a deep gulf where no one can find them.
Wrapping her arms around her waist, she heads into the bedroom she can no longer think of as hers. She wishes she could sink into the soft covers and curl up into a ball and just sleep for hours without disturbance. Jack trails behind her, his shoulders hunched and his eyes weary and sad. A part of her feels guilty for doing this to him, shutting him out when he needs her almost as much as she needs him. But she shouldn't feel guilty and she can't go back there, back to her dead baby's father. She pulls out a suitcase from under the bed, a small cry escaping her lips when a tiny woollen sock appears along with it. Ronnie bends down to pick it up and she turns it gently over in her hands.
The sight of Charlie lying there on that slab of metal is an image Ronnie has somehow managed to avoid, but the little sock in her hand brings the realisation that he is gone forever and that she will never see him again come crashing back. She didn't even say goodbye; she held him and sang him a lullaby, but she never said goodbye because if she didn't then maybe there was a chance he might still wake up. Now an ache that has nothing to do with her operation throbs throughout her entire body and shakes her soul with regret. She begins to tremble, tears once again staining her face. Ronnie will wipe them away, but it doesn't make any difference as they have already given her a permanent mark of sorrow.
Jack watches her, not sure how to react; he wants to hold her, but he knows she won't let him and he wants to leave, almost resenting what this has done to them. The baby is a dead shadow between them, forcing them apart as much as they need to be together, but you can't touch a shadow and Jack doesn't know how to beat it without hurting them both.
"I can't do this," she begins to back away, just another thing she is running away from in her life. She has to escape but she gets caught in a prison of her own anguish. She doesn't know where to go, but she knows it can't be here. "I'll get Roxy to come over,"
"Don't go," he moves towards her and for the first time she looks at him, looks him in the eye. It is something that will haunt her for a long time. She sees all the things she expected to see, love, regret, sadness, but there is also a flicker of something else, something she recognises from when her dad took Amy out of her arms: anger. "Please don't leave, you don't have to"
He blames her. Jack blames her for their son dying. He blames her and that's why he left her. He blames her and now he wants her to stay so he can keep hurting her and punishing her.
"Yes, yes I do," she says, gulping hard and fighting another outburst of tears.
Jack blocks her path to the door, his body now unbearably close to hers. She can feel his breath against her, is warmed by the heat radiating from his body. He grabs her wrists, gently, forcefully, and pulls her impossibly close.
"I love you," he whispers. "I can't do this on my own. I'm sorry about what happened, really sorry. Let me make it up to you. Just don't leave, ok?" he presses his forehead against hers, an arm encircling her waist.
She tries to move away from him, but he won't let her. And she doesn't really want to move away from him, but she desperately needs to escape.
"You love me so much you slept with another woman. You love me so much, that while we were saying goodbye to our baby you told me you screwed another woman,"
He steps back, startled. It is the first time Ronnie has acknowledged that he cheated on her and it makes it somehow all more real, more raw. That terrible feeling of guilt and horror once again returns, ensnaring all his senses in its vicious grasp. What if she'd have died? What would he have done had he returned and found her dead on the floor? What if he'd had to look at her body with their son's and he had to bury Ronnie too? All the thoughts spin around his head with malice and he has to force away the sight of her lying there like a child in the bathroom.
Suddenly, he can't think clearly, the drums in his head pounding. Reality and fiction become blurred and he is hardly sure if the woman stood before him is a ghost. He wouldn't, couldn't possibly forgiven himself if she'd have succeeded in killing herself. If he hadn't have left then she wouldn't have tussled with death. But it doesn't really matter because Charlie would still be dead and Ronnie still wouldn't want to live; she would have tried to take her own life all the same eventually, but he can't stop blaming himself.
"I know," he takes her chin in his hand, tilting her face towards his to remind him that she really is still alive. "It was a goddamn stupid and awful drunken mistake. I didn't mean to hurt you. I love you and i'm so sorry," pulling her towards him, he tries to urge her to understand by kissing her and showing her how much he loves her, but she flinches and wrenches herself away from him.
He grimaces at her rejection, the small chasm between them widening further. It fills him with sadness to know that they used to be so close, but now she won't even let him hold her.
"I know why you did it, Jack," she sounds oddly acceptant as she speaks, finally regaining some of her composure now she has escaped Jack's arms. She can think clearly again now without him whispering meaningless promises in her ear. "You think it's my fault Charlie died. You wanted to punish us both,"
A cloak of silence descends upon the room then.
Time snags like a zip.
"You think I blame you?" he breathes, incredulous. "Of course I don't blame you, Ron. It's no one's fault," A spark of anger fizzles inside him for the first time and he can't explain it. "And not everything is about the baby! I was angry at you for pushing me away when I needed you,"
"So you're saying it's my fault now are you, Jack? You're saying that me grieving gave you a cause to go and screw another woman? I needed you and where were you? Out banging some whore in a seedy B&B and that's supposed to be my fault!"
Red flashes before her eyes, anger erupting inside her for the first time. For the first time, the full force of Jack's betrayal hits her. She has been concentrating on her grief, but now she finally registers that he really did leave and really did abandon and deceive her in the worst way he could ever have done,
"Of course it isn't your fault," he exclaims furiously, shutting his eyes and trying to remember that it is him who has done with to them, not Ronnie. But she can't act like she is completely blameless because she isn't; she told him to get out, told him to leave her. And now she is acting like he is the only one who has made a mistake.
They both fall silent and she watches Jack breathe heavily in an attempt to regain control of his temper. It seems an alien thought to her that she once laid her head on his chest when now the thought of him holding her makes her feel sick. Ronnie doesn't understand how the gentle man who made her feel so in love can be so selfish; she doesn't understand how he can tarnish the memory of their baby and not even seem to care. In this instant, she knows it really is over for them. She can never forgive him now.
"How come we always end up fighting each other, Ron? I love you, but maybe it was for the best Charlie died if he'd have grown up surrounded by this," the callous words slip from his mouth before he can stop them and he instantly regrets them, not meaning a single word of what he said. A small part of him wants to wound Ronnie though, wants her to hurt just a bit more for being so selfish.
Fury contorts her face and before either of them have time to prepare, she is hurtling towards him and her open palm collides with his cheek. The sound of her skin like a whip against his resounds, simmering in the air. Immediately, red bursts across his skin and he touches a hand to the place where she struck him, burning him to the very core to know that this is the last time Ronnie will ever touch him again.
"He was my baby and if you'd have been there or not I loved him, so don't you dare say that this was for the best! Don't you ever even suggest it, you bastard!"
"Oh God, Ronnie. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. You know I didn't mean that,"
She storms past him, clutching the doorframe as she goes to stop herself from collapsing in tears to the floor where she won't be able to drag herself back up from. The pain in her abdomen now clouds her thoughts, the pain so completely raw as the doctor said it would be if she over exerted herself. Vaguely, she hears Jack calling after her, but she shuts out his words, not even caring what he has to say. She doesn't ever want to see him again, doesn't ever want to hear his voice. Not even her father had said it was a good thing that Charlie died. Before, there was a small chance that maybe they could be saved, but not now. Not ever. The damage is irreparable.
So she keeps running, clutching her stomach as if it will somehow stop the throbbing. She keeps running, leaving behind Jack and everything to do with her old life, but she doesn't really have anywhere new to run to. Her hair flops around her face and it begins to rain, the droplets catching on her bare arms. A shiver seizes her, but she doesn't stop running until all her limbs scream in protest and it is physically impossible to go any further. She sinks to the floor, not caring where she is, not caring she's in the middle of a path. She doesn't even have the energy to cry anymore.
A door opens behind her.
"Veronica?" her eyes widen; she hadn't realised that she was outside her father's house. "Has something happened, darling? Come inside, you'll catch your death out here," he gestures behind him, a smile that could be kind or could be devious breaking out on his face. She doesn't really care which it is anymore.
Ronnie only has one choice now. She has been locked in a room with only one door out, so to speak. She can't go back to Jack and maybe it is finally time that she accepts that maybe her Dad did only take Amy for her own good. He, at least, has tried to be there for her unlike Jack. Heaving herself to her feet, she walks towards him, happy for the first time since she was a little girl that her Dad is here.
Archie's smile remains fixed in place and when Ronnie reaches him he wraps an arm around her shoulders and she lets him, leaning into him because there is no one else left to lean on.
In order to move forward, she has to leave behind everything in her old life, in her past.
She has to create a new identity for herself.
She can't be Ronnie Mitchell anymore: mother of a stillborn baby, ex of Jack Branning.
This is her home now and she is nothing but the daughter of Archie:
Veronica.
He shuts the door behind them.
And she walks willingly into hell with the devil as company.
Well, I waffled far too much in this. I know this is going slow, but it should pick up pace within the next couple of chapters. Jack totally deserved that- the selfish git 0.o Hey, guess what, I bought the Cats original cast recording at last and now I have 20 items in my Sarah Brightman collection =D Only another like 100 things to go. Next i'm gonna get Nightingale.