A/N: Well I believe an apology is in order for the very long wait on this chapter, and the continuation of this story. I humbly ask for your forgiveness. And to be honest I haven't been motivated as I am on strike from the show. I'm not liking the season or the new characters. Hopefully they will turn it around and I can find joy in watching again.
This is mostly a filler chapter, but necessary in moving the story line forward. As always reviews are like mana to my soul, and I greatly appreciate them. So if you have a moment please leave me a little note (reviews are the best motivator for a writer).
Kaya, this is all for you. Enjoy!
Chapter 10: A Debt Owed
She was cold, so damn cold, icy tendrils reached inside her, snaking through her muscles, her blood, her bones, all the way to her core. The cold, and the unknown, made her shiver; but it was the absolute darkness that terrified her, and set her heart to racing. She was going to die, she was going to die right here, right now, and there was no one to hear her screams, no one to save her.
She heard the whispers of a thousand different voices, at first, far away, but with each breath she took, they drew closer, they grew louder. The whispers turned to hushed murmurs, then loud babbling, then a constant stream of gibberish, and finally to a roaring crescendo that immobilized her. She was rooted to the spot, her feet unmoving, her mind seized by terror. This wasn't real, this wasn't real. It was a dream, it had to be, because if it wasn't, she was screwed.
They were going to kill her, bath in blood, her blood. They wanted blood, they needed blood; they were going to kill her. No, no, wait, not her, not her, some one else. They wanted some one else, not her, never her. She would live, they wouldn't kill her, but she needed to learn, there were lessons to be taught, so they would kill some one else. Some one she cared about, some one she loved.
Rachel's breath exploded out of her, her lungs burning, her heart hammering, and her mind filling with images of her friends, of her family being slaughtered as the voices screamed for blood. She wanted the voices to stop, she begged for them to stop, but the more she pleaded, the more they screamed. She cursed, and they screamed. She bargained, and they screamed. She demanded, and they screamed.
In frustration, and with rising feelings of anger, anxiety, and helplessness, she gave in. Rachel bellowed louder than all the voices combined. She drew air from the very depths of her soul, and bellowed. "Yes! Yes damn it, take one! Take which ever one you want, just SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
Silence. Absolute silence. As the echoes of her screams faded away, Rachel found the silence disturbing, unsettling. She peered into the darkness, praying for light, praying for her life. The voices were gone, or at the very least quite; yet apprehension still gripped her. She wanted to wake up, wanted this nightmare to end. She wanted...
Her thoughts skidded to a stop, as image after image flashed through her mind with lightning speed. She was barely able to make out details of the images, the rapid fire pace making her dizzy, and nauseous. She was able to glimpse an image of Quinn, and then Quinn with Puck, closely followed by images of Puck and Finn. She drew in a sharp breath when images of Aubrey began to flash by, followed by images of Annie, then Taylor and Trace.
Which one? Which one? Which one? Which one? The voices were back, chanting softly as the images in her mind sped up. The chanting grew louder, increasing in volume as the pictures increased in speed, making it impossible for Rachel to discern any details of the pictures. She threw her hands over her ears in an attempt to drown out the voices, but the chanting only grew louder, and Rachel began to get dizzy as heart pounded in her chest.
Which one? WHICH one! WHICH ONE?!
"Stop," she pleaded brokenly, her vision blurring as she desperately blinked back tears. The voices continued to rise in volume, her pleas ignored.
"Stop, stop, STOP!" Rachel screamed, her voice thundering, like the boom of a canon.
The voices and images stop simultaneously, and Rachel opens her eyes slowly, trying to peer through the darkness. A small flicker of light catches her attention, causing her to turn slightly, and take one hesitant towards it. With each small step she realizes the light gets brighter, and the desire to run towards that small light overwhelms her. In her rush to get to the safety the light presents, she stumbles, and falls. Refusing to give in or up, she struggles back onto her feet, and surges forward. As she draws closer, she realizes the light is centered on a framed photo, a silver plated photo frame, a picture of...
Somewhere,, some one is screaming, and Rachel tries to cover her ears to block out the sound, but it only gets louder. She closes her, scrunching them tightly together in a feeble attempt to block out the sight, the sight of Jesse laying in a pool of blood on the floor, as she desperately clutched a large hunting knife that dripped drops of blood, Jessie's blood at her feet.
"Jessie!" The word exploded from Rachel in a rush, causing her to damn near scream her head off, as pain ripped through her chest, and her heart began its imitation of prize winning race horse.
"You are OK Rachel," a deep rumble of a voice soothed her. "It was a dream, nothing more."
Rachel turned her head to look at the mountain of a man Finn had introduced as Jack. The tears swimming in her eyes made him a bit blurry, but they did nothing to diminish the sheer size, or ferocity of this man. Finn claimed this Jack was soft as a marshmallow, but she had to wonder if maybe Finn had been speaking another language, cause there was no way in hell this man would be anyone's idea of soft, gooey fluff.
"I'm probably not giving you a very good first impression," she said, thinking about this man had just heard her scream Jessie's name. She was sure that before the end of the night came, Jack would tell Finn all about this little episode.
"You don't need to worry about making any impressions, good or bad for me," he said to her, his blue-green eyes dancing merrily.
"So you don't think that my subconscious mind is trying to tell me that I'm worried about Jessie, so he's the one I really love?" She asked him as she struggled to sit up.
"Hold on there," Jack replied, getting to his feet to assist her. "After the pretty boy left, I gave you a little something we use in the field. It speeds the healing process up tremendously, and vastly subdues pain."
"Ah, that explains why I don't feel quite like I got hit by a freight train," she said as he gently helped her to sit up, and prop several pillows behind her. She smiled to herself, because he was gentle, his hand were large, firm, confident, but soft and so very gentle.
"I'm sure it can also be argued that maybe you're not all that sure about Jessie, and your subconscious mind is trying to give you a little insight, or a little warning," he said, drawing her gaze as he settled back into the chair.
"Jessie St James isn't the type of person one needs to be concerned about," she stated. "For me the scariest thing about him is that he owns more shoes than most women I know, including myself, and I'm a certified shoe hoe according to Mercedes."
"Perish the thought," Jack replied, a look of utter horror on his face. "Nothing good can be said about a man who has more shoes than the woman in his life."
Rachel laughed, and something inside her loosened. She knew she was going to like Finn's friend, and that gave her a measure of comfort. She worried about Finn everyday, knowing that he literally put his life on the line to rescue people from some of the worse places in the world. It felt good to know that some one like Jack was out there with him, helping him, protecting him, keeping him safe.
"Who are you really?" she asked him suddenly, realizing there was a lot more to Jack than one could see on the surface.
"I'm just a simple man really, trying to repay a debt," was his reply.
"I think not," Rachel replied giving him an appraising look. "So you knew Finn's father then?"
Jack was quietly studying her for so long, Rachel began to feel as if she may have pushed too far, too fast. The silence stretched for several minutes, and she felt like he was taking her measure, deciding how much he wished to divulge.
"It shouldn't surprise me that you would deduce that," he said, finally releasing her from his intense scrutiny.
"Yes, I knew Finn's father," he answered simply.
"So you served with him in the military?" Rachel asked. She knew she should back off a little, but her overly curious nature just wouldn't let her close her damn mouth.
"No."
That one word barely whispered, gave Rachel a lot of insight about Jack, and Finn's father, the most obvious one being he didn't want to talk about it. Which also meant he felt some how responsible for what had happened to Christopher Hudson, and that sense of responsibility was his catalyst in watching out for Finn.
"I'm sorry," Rachel apologized. "I have no right to pry into your personal life. Sometimes I just don't know when to shut up, and mind my own business."
"I wasn't in the military," he said, a far away look in eyes. "Thirty two years ago, I was a very privileged, very stupid young man who believed daddy's money could get him out of any situation. That sentiment tended to lead me into doing some really stupid things, and eventually that reckless behavior landed me on the wrong side of a notoriously vicious arms dealer."
"While doing routine patrols, Hudson's unit stumbled upon one of Aban's compounds, it just so happened to be the one in which I, and four other unlucky bastards were being held. Their unit came under heavy attack, eventually being forced to retreat, but not before losing three soldiers, and having two more taken by Aban's men. Christopher Hudson was one them."
"To make a very long story short," he said looking at her, his eyes revealing a wealth of emotions that tugged at her heart. "Their first attempt at escape was very short lived, and wholly my fault. I slowed them down, and Aban's men were able to catch up with us. Aban was a very sadistic bastard, and his forms of punishment and torture tended to be quite brutal."
"Fortunately for me, I was worth a rather large sum of money, so torturing me was not an option for him; but he could and did torture the two soldiers repeatedly. The second escape attempt was successful, at least for me and Finn's father. Hudson's fellow solider, and the four other hostages were killed, and even though I slowed him down tremendously, Chris just wouldn't leave me."
Jack fell silent, immersed in the memories of the young man he had been then, and the solider who had managed to save his sorry ass. He owed Christopher Hudson a debt that could never be fully repaid. He would spend the rest of his life, and family's fortune in his attempt to repay Hudson, but no amount of money would ever be enough to release his from the guilt he struggled with every day of his life.
"Jack," Rachel said in a tentative whisper.
"Rachel," he replied, shoving those long ago memories back into the dim recesses of his soul.
"I can somewhat understand why you may feel a touch of obligation toward Finn's father," she stated. "After all, he did get you out of there, but that alone wouldn't account for the deep sense of guilt you feel, or your life long obligation to watch out for his son."
"Once again, I shouldn't be surprised by how intuitive you are," Jack said, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "I told you Aban was a very cruel, very sadistic man, who was master at psychological warfare and torture. Death was not always the desired outcome of his little torture sessions, and he hated me; he hated me with a passion that probably still burns even though he's been dead, and in hell for the last ten years. He couldn't strike at me personally, so the things Aban wanted to inflict on me, he inflicted on Chris instead."
"I think if he had just beaten Chris, or tortured him physically, we both would have walked away scarred, but we would have recovered, and gotten on with our lives. But that is not how Aban plays, so instead of beating Chris, he got him addicted to heroine, and he repeatedly, reinforced that Chris was taking my punishment therefore making me responsible for what was happening."
"Oh," Rachel said, the sheer horror of what had been done to them rendering her speechless.
Rachel knew that people could be cruel, sometimes for the smallest of reasons or transgressions, and it seemed that those who held power were crueler than most. She couldn't fathom the reasons that would drive a man like this Aban to destroy the life of a man he didn't know, simply to punish another man. She also had a very hard time picturing this giant of a man, as young, brash, impulsive, and to use his own word, stupid.
"I know what you're thinking," he said, drawing her eyes to him. "I wasn't a man then, in actuality I had just turned seventeen about a month before I entered the world inhabited by men like Aban. This one chapter in my life, a chapter that only lasted about three weeks, completely changed who I was, and who I wanted to become. I don't know where life would have taken me had Christopher Hudson not intervened, but he had, and he paid in ways no individual should have to for sins he hadn't committed. So, I have to live the lives of two people, myself, and Chris. Both of us died in that desert, no matter that Chris actually died a short time later stateside, or that I am alive and talking to you. Neither of us can ever get back what we lost."
"Does Finn know?" She asked.
"No," Jack answered so quietly she had to strain to hear him. "I don't want him to, I don't want to see the disappointment in his eyes when he realizes that I'm the reason he had to grow up without his father."
"Jack, you aren't..."
"No Rachel," Jack interrupted her firmly. "No, and let's leave it at that please."
Sensing that she would not be able to sway him in this, Rachel wisely capitulated. She believed Jack was denying not only himself, but Finn as well in keeping silent on the events that would eventually lead to the death of Christopher Hudson. She liked Jack, and she knew just by the way he spoke about him, that Finn admired, and respected this giant of a man. She'd bet her very life that Finn saw Jack as the father he'd lost before he ever got a chance to know him, and there would be little that Jack could do to lose the love Finn had for him. She hoped like hell she'd have enough time with them to see this barrier torn down, so they could truly have the relationship they both deserved.
Before she could ask him about the tattoo on the back of his head, the door to her room opens, and in walked one of the most striking woman she had ever seen. Rachel studied the newcomer for a moment, noting that she was quite tall for a woman, probably close to six feet. Her skin was a rich, golden honey color that perfectly complimented her auburn hair. Her face was exotic, her whiskied colored eyes glowing with sensuality, and a mouth Rachel was sure every man would want to kiss.
"Ah hell," Jack said cursing vehemently
"Hi, you must be Rachel," the woman said, as she approached the bed. "I've heard so much about you, I feel like we're old friends already. Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Finn's fiance, Layla Davenport."