It was not as if Jack had never worried about the presence of Lilith before – he had, because she was a pain in the ass and tenacious as all hell. He would be an idiot, not to mention a piss poor excuse for a serial killer if he didn't worry about someone trying to oust him every now and then.

The thing was that Lilith had been irrelevant in his life for so long that he had almost forgot about her, so much so that she could have violently and publicly died in front of his building and he wouldn't have even registered her existence – that was how little he had thought of her over the past few years.

For Lilith to just appear out of nowhere and start harassing Rhys – who had never done much of anything wrong and really didn't deserve to be lumped in with the convoluted, messy history that he had with that woman – seemed like the only way that she could have come back into his life.

Lilith was a firestorm of destruction in and of herself and she was obsessed with the idea of him being the one that killed her cop boyfriend and was so intent on seeing him behind bars that she refused to understand that Jack would never kill a cop. He had no reason to and even if he did, only drugged out idiots did that sort of thing.

He was lucky enough that he found out pretty quickly after the fact – if a little annoyed by the fact that Rhys didn't feel safe enough to let him know himself. Jack looked over at his soul mate and daughter as they all lay together, packed in tight on Jacks' sofa for a movie night as a final note of one of Jacks' rare days off.

Angel was fast asleep and Rhys wasn't far behind her, his eyes fluttering open and shut as he tried to fight his sleep. Jack smirked and looked over at his soul mate, "Hey there cupcake." he hummed, smiling more as Rhys almost unconsciously perked up at Jacks' voice. "Enjoying the movie?"

"Hey there." Rhys parroted in a volume loud enough for Jack to hear but soft enough not to awaken the sleeping girl curled up between the two of them. "Are you alright?" he asked, furrowing his brows in concern at the older man, "You look… pensive."

He let out a chuckle at that, "Shit. Do I?" he asked in a joking tone, "I'm fine. Don't worry about me, alright? I'm just thinking about the whole… Lilith situation."

"Oh…" Rhys exclaimed softly, "Did you do it?" he had to ask, because knowing Jack it was definitely within the realm of possibility. The simple fact was that his soul mate killed people as a way to wind down and relax and even if Jack hadn't done it, Lilith could end up being the canary in the coal mine.

"No." he replied in a quick, almost flippant tone. He almost didn't believe that Rhys would even have to ask, "I didn't."

"Alright." Rhys hummed, "I know you wouldn't lie to me, I just… had to ask." he paused as he tried to word what he wanted to ask the right way, "Is she as bad as Gaige made her out to be… I mean, should I be worried about her trying to hurt Angel or me?"

"I don't think that she would hurt either of you." Jack reassured but he wasn't entirely sure of it. All he knew for sure was that if Lilith hurt either of the important people in his life – he would kill her and it didn't matter to him if he ended up in prison for the rest of his life. "But…"

Rhys snorted as he interjected, "There's always a but."

"Buuuuuuuut," Jack continued on, giving Rhys a mockery of a dirty look. "I'm not leaving Angels safety or your safety up to chance." he said, "So I'm calling in someone to protect the two of you just in case I won't be able to."

"Wait," Rhys interjected, worrying his lower lip nervously. "um, Jack why wouldn't you be able to protect us?"

Jack gave Rhys a strange sort of look, like he knew exactly where Rhys' train of thought was going and he wanted to nip that in the bud before the younger man ended up panicking again. "I don't know." he admitted, "but something might happen to me or I might not be there with you if something happens and I promised you a long time ago that I would protect you no matter what." he kissed the corner of Rhys' mouth. "Please don't make a liar outta me, Rhysie."

Rhys took a moment to think about everything before he inevitably agreed, "Am I going to meet this guy or…"

"I'll have you two meet, so you know his face. But he'll be shadowing you or Angel whenever you two are out." Jack explained, "With any luck you won't even know he's there."

Rhys hummed affirmatively, "Okay, that's fine." he said, "Can we watchA New Hope next?" he asked with a subtle sort of desperation to change the subject. Jack looked over at his soul mate and gave the younger man a pleased grin, "Sure thing, sugar."

The three of them watched cheesy movies together until Rhys and Angel had fallen asleep, then Jack took the opportunity to gently disentangle himself from the two of them. He stood up and walked off to his study, securing the door closed and locked once he was in there.

Jack dug his phone out of his pocket and sighed, tapping on his brothers' number. Truthfully, he didn't expect much to come of it – Tim didn't want a thing to do with him since he had killed their grandmother and Jack had never been able to blame him for it.

Jack knew that that just wasn't something most people would be able to move past and it was an anomaly that Rhys had so quickly forgiven him and accepted that his soul mate was a killer. To his surprise, someone answered the call with a groggy, "Hello?"

"Tim?" he exclaimed in a questioning tone, "Is this Timothy Lawrence?"

"Yeah, who is this?"

"Uh, your twin brother." Jack replied, half affronted that Timothy didn't even seem to remember him at all and half delighted that he even answered. "Remember me? Jack? We grew up together, got our asses beat every day by our Nana?" his voice became a little more mocking in cadence with every word that he spoke. "Ringing any bells, Tim-Tams?"

"Yeah, yeah Jack. I remember." Tim snapped back, "I remember… everything. How could I forget? What do you want?" Despite himself, Jack laughed a little. His little brother was a little more acerbic than he had ever remembered him to be and it barely suited him. "We haven't spoken for years and you call me in the middle of the night, so just- let's just get this over with."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted to catch up with my baby brother?" he asked back rhetorically, "You said so yourself, 'we haven't spoken for years'. Maybe I wanted to catch up with you."

"Jack, please just tell me what you want." Timothy whined, patience already running thin. "I don't want to play any more mind games and it's already past midnight, I can't deal with you when you're like this and you are always like this. Can you please just take me seriously for one second and respect me enough not to do this to me?"

"I'm not always like th-" Jack stopped himself from making this even worse, he ran his hand through his hair almost neurotically as he spoke, "Look, I'm… sorry, alright. Just, ah, would ya get me in touch with Wilhelm? I know you two are together and I was planning on hiring him again."

"Why didn't you just call him yourself?"

"Lost his number cause I – it doesn't matter, just let him know." Jack snapped, "and I'll let you go cause I don't want to keep bothering you and I gotta go check on my daughter and my… I gotta go."

"Oh. Alright, well I'll just… let him know tomorrow then." Tim hung up then, before the call could get even more awkward and before one of them ended up saying something stupid and potentially permanently damaging for whatever relationship they even still had with one another.

Jack sighed and leaned back, annoyance besetting his features, as the dial tone rung out. It took a lot more restraint than he would be proud to admit not to chuck the glittery smart phone across the room and it took much more restraint than even that not to scream when he heard a timid knock on his door.

"Who is it?" he called back, delighted yet completely unsurprised when he heard his soul mate call back with a shy utterance of, "It's me. Can I come in?"

Jack stood up and unlocked the door, ushering Rhys in from where he stood. The younger man immediately noticed how on edge Jack seemed and moved in to comfort his soul mate. "Are you okay?" he asked, moving in a little closer to the older man with a carefulness that Jack had come to expect from his soul mate. "You look really upset."

The older man sighed and walked Rhys with him back to where he was sitting, he sat down on the chair and patted his lap, "Come sit with me." he said. Rhys gave Jack a nervous, lip biting grin as he sat himself down in the older mans' lap. Jack playfully squeezed Rhys' ass, eliciting a surprised squeak from his soul mate as he did so. "I had a really awful, awkward call with my brother is all, just didn't expect things to still be so weird between us."

"You have a brother? I didn't know that." Rhys blurted out first without thinking and then when he managed to curb his own impulses, "Do you want to talk about it? I've been told that I'm a great listener."

Jack let out a short laugh and changed the subject. "You are so precious." he complimented the younger man, taking Rhys organic hand and intertwining their fingers together. "Angel keeps yelling at me to marry you already." He laughed a bit, "You know, I keep telling her that people don't get married when they haven't known each other for more than a year but she doesn't care about logistics."

Rhys hummed noncommittally, leaning in to the older mans' protective embrace. "Angel would be the cutest flower girl," he noted softly and Jack could feel the tiny smile on his soul mates' face, "That might be why she wants us to get married. She's such a sweet girl."

Jack pulled Rhys up slightly so that the younger man was looking at him more directly, "Do you want to ask about my brother, Rhysie? You can ask, if you want. I won't get mad." He assured the younger man. Rhys hesitated, worried his lower lip as he did so, before he said anything. "Yes, yeah I- I do want to know but I don't want to intrude or anything…" Jack nodded understandingly, knowing the way that his soul mate was. "But I would like to know about him, if that's okay."

The older man nodded curtly at that, "Alright. He's my twin brother, we were born about three minutes apart." he said, "We used to be really close and now… we are not. For a crap load of reasons, we haven't spoken in years but he's engaged to one of my security guys, Wilhelm." Jack sighed, "I lost Wilhelm's number and I knew that he would have it. His name's Timothy, just in case you wanted to know."

Rhys frowned, "Oh… that's terrible. I'm sorry, Jack, I… can't imagine how hard that is for you. I couldn't even think of how difficult it is to have family so close but you can't…" he suddenly trailed off, not looking the older man directly in the eyes out of nervousness. "I, I'm making this worse, right? Yeah, I'll just stop talking right now. Just ignore me, I'm being stupid."

"It's not a big deal, kiddo." Jack told him, with surprising honesty. "It's, uh, it's old baggage. The whole thing with me and Tim happened- we stopped talking when I was… younger than you." he pulled a face as he briefly thought of everything that had happened between them.

"I don't even think I was eighteen by that point and it's…" he sighed and trailed off, "Just don't worry about it, alright? You know that you're pretty freaking expressive, right? So I can tell that your feeling guilty about me making that call and it's not your fault, sweet heart."

Rhys' eyes widened a bit at that and he pursed his lips in surprise at the revelation and Jack laughed, "Yeah, see that's exactly what I'm talking about." the older man said. "I mean, don't get me wrong it's pretty freaking cute."

Rhys scoffed a bit at that as he tried to disentangle himself from the older man, only to be pushed back into the embrace. "Stay with me," he whined mockingly to Rhys, before kissing down the slope of the younger mans' neck. "Come on, I'm emotionally vulnerable here." he said.

"No you're not." The younger man pointed out in a flippant tone, but he didn't squirm anymore and accepted his fate of being cuddled by his soul mate. "I could be," Jack replied, "You never know."

Rhys scoffed again and rolled his eyes a bit, "Whatever." he murmured as he settled himself down, getting completely comfortable in Jacks' lap. "My soul mates a jerk." he declared, in a soft and sleepy tone, "I wanna do over."

Jack cooed at that as Rhys grumbled wordlessly, clutching at the older mans shirt and nuzzling into him while he complained, "I don't think the universe does do overs, Rhysie. You're stuck with me, I know it's a real shame having to live with a rich, handsome guy who treats you like royalty." He quipped.

Rhys tried not to smile, "Oh shush, you know I appreciate you." he said before moving to give his soul mate a quick and chaste kiss on the lips, "I love you, Jack." he said while looking at the older man seriously, "You're my hero. How could I not love you?"

Jack couldn't help but feel a little smug as Rhys said that – he couldn't help it that he really liked the way that, "You're my hero." rolled off of his soul mates tongue. It sounded good to him.

The next day, Jack got some distressing and – objectively – awful news. Apparently, Wilhelm had taken a job with someone else – one that would last him a few weeks at that, just to make matters even worse – before he had known that Jack wanted to hire him.

When he found that out, Jack almost screamed his head off at the enforcer and he barely managed to curb himself before he hung up on them man. After Wilhelm was off the line, however, was an entirely different story and he quickly called up his secretary who, as he expected, answered in a heartbeat.

"Yes sir?" Meg answered in an annoyingly timid tone, Jack sighed in annoyance at it – he would deal with that later, he decided – before he spoke. "Meg, sweetheart, I'm gonna need you to do something for me." he said in a tone that was little more than an over the top, parody of what someone friendly would sound like. "Can you call in a meeting for me?"

"Oh, with the board?" She asked, just to make sure and although Jack knew that, he couldn't help but feel aggravated by the question anyway. "No with my grandmother." He snapped, "Of course with the board, have them come in within the hour and I don't care what they're doing, tell them that if they aren't there, then they are fucking fired."

"Yes, sir." His secretary replied as he quickly moved to end the call, "I'll get right on tha-" and the line clicked out before she was able to finish her sentence. He groaned a little more, letting it wrench out and develop into a primal scream – it was pure frustration with his situation, especially considering that he wasn't entirely sure how his soul mate would react to it.

After a moment, he hit "Fuck It" and just decided to call up the younger man. He was antsy the whole time that the dial tone rang out, feeling existential and worried about his soul mates well being and the feeling only got worse with every moment that Rhys didn't answer his call. It was only when he was answered with a chipper, "Hey!" from his soul mate that he managed to relax.

"Hey, princess." Jack hummed, trying for a relaxed tone. "Just calling to check up on ya, Rhysie, so how are you doing?" he asked, "I mean, everything's alright with you. Right?"

"Oh, yeah, of course. I'm just… studying, actually." The younger man answered in a hesitant way, "I started taking a few online classes about a week ago. Nothing intense just, like, a foreign language class and abnormal psychology. I mean that's okay right? I can drop them if it's too expensive…?"

"It's not too expensive, keep on taking 'em." Jack said and then chuckled a bit, "It's just kinda funny to me that I give you practically free reign to spend whatever cash you want on whatever you want…and what do you do? Go to school. Can't believe that my soul mate's such a nerd." he said.

Rhys giggled, "Well, sorry I don't like to do drugs and buy expensive suits." he replied, almost defensive in his tone. "and I'm having fun learning a few new things." he said, "It's helping me, you know? I need to keep myself busy so I can keep distracted from… everything that's happened."

He could practically hear Rhys' awkward hand motions as the younger man spoke to him, "Um, but anyways… what did you call me up for? I mean, I didn't mean it like-" Rhys sighed with frustration at himself, gearing himself up into a full on rambling rant. "I mean that you're probably really busy with Hyperion and I'm usually the one making impromptu calls and…I know I can be pretty needy, sorry about that." the younger man trailed off, not sure where he was going with that statement. "What I'm trying to say is, did anything happen? With that… woman, the one who… well you know. Or with anything else?"

Jack laughed, "Uh, no, not exactly. Wilhelm can't work with me for some time." he explained, "I got frustrated is all. I wanted to call you, because you know just how to calm me down." he added, "So I feel loads better because of that, and I've got a meeting with my board of executives. I'm gonna scare the crap outta them, pumpkin, it's gonna be awesome."

"Jack, that's so mean!" Rhys said, sounding both amused and mortified at the same time and he giggled a little bit with nervousness before saying anything else. "You can't be mean like that to people. That's not a conducive work environment." he added.

Jack made a thoughtful noise at that, not offended in the least by his soul mates protestations. "Well, I think we have very different ideas on how to run a company." he quipped back. Rhys chuckled a bit at that, "Well, I suppose that we do." The younger man quipped back in a mockingly serious tone.

Jack grinned, he couldn't help it. "I gotta go, sugar cube. I like to come in ten minutes early when I have one of these meetings. Really scares the crap out of 'em." Rhys giggled at that.

"Okay, handsome." The younger man agreed, before he huffed, "Wait, uh, Angel wants to go to a sleepover at a friends house. I think her name might be Tina? Is that okay? She asked me and I told her that I would ask you so-"

"Tell her that she can go if she gives Tina's, or whoever it is parent's, my number and your number just in case of emergencies." Jack said quickly, "She might want to leave or… something. You know."

"Okay, sure thing." Rhys agreed, "Love you, bye." Once he was off of the line, Jack sat down in his chair and decompressed for barely a moment before he got up and strutted into his meeting – ready to tear down an entire group of over privileged idiots that he kept around for little more reason then just that. It was something that he needed on occasion, a primal ritual that kept him sane when he felt like his world was shattering around him in more pieces than he would ever be able to pick up.

Although Rhys was happy to spend his time taking care of Angel – Jack had already done so much for him and he was happy to help out in every way that he could – he was happy to have a night of complete quiet while he wrote up a five thousand word essay on the social ramifications of Freudian psychology…that he was doing for fun. He chuckled to himself when he realized that Jack was right, he was a nerd.

Not that he hadn't known that about himself – just that it had never been so obvious to him before that moment. Though after barely a moment of thinking on it done, Rhys shrugged to himself.

"Whatever," he said to himself out loud. "It's not like being smart or ambitious wouldn't be a good quality to have." It was easy for him to get lost in school and books – he was good at school, he was smart and he worked hard and with how paranoid he had been feeling in the past few weeks he really needed the distraction. He needed to be absorbed into something, anything that wouldn't have him noticing every sound and every movement and hyper analyzing it so he could determine whether or not that was his step father, coming for him – ready to hurt him, rape him or even kill him.

He knew that it was irrational – most definitely an unhealthy behavior – but most of the time, he couldn't help it. It was always picking at the back of his brain, like a tick that continuously and endlessly screeched, "FRANK-FRANK-FRANK" over and over againuntil he felt like his brain was filled with white noise, tangible white noise that could explode and was ready to at any given moment. It was a horrible sensation that never failed to make him feel like a crazy person.

Even thinking about it had him feeling anxiety, whenever he allowed himself to think on it – so Rhys opted to bury it. At least for now because he couldn't live the rest of his life looking around every corner. He couldn't allow himself to be that person – no scratch that – he wouldn't allow himself to be that person anymore. Oddly enough, Lady Hammerlock had been the one that had given him that advice in the first place. Sort of, kind of, along the same line of thinking at the very least.

"You seem very…" the Baroness struggled for the words, "Reliant on Jack." she said, and the way that she poised the words worried him a bit. He felt like he was judging her, and rightly so at that, but he couldn't put it on his finger why she would be. She barely knew him and he barely knew her and he had expected this to something cordial instead of something… like this, he couldn't even describe it.

"I'm not sure what you mean." He replied in a way that was polite, defensive and purposefully vague all at the same time. His composure only managed him for a few moments before he was rambling, "Or what you're trying to say or imply and, you know what, I don't really think it's any of your business how Jack and I handle our relationship and I-" he was cut off by Lady Hammerlock putting a hand up, almost like she was a crossing guard, to tell him to stop talking.

"I don't mean to offend you, dear." She said, prim and proper as ever. It really intimidated him, the way she naturally acted, and it showed in him. In all the things about him, his body language and expressions, and he most likely looked like a scolded child to her. Small and pitiful."I just think that you have a very skewed idea of who Jack is. What kind of person that he can be, when he wants to be, and what kind of person that he actually is. You seem like a sweet person, and I truly don't understand how Jack could be soul mates with someone so genuine, I don't want you to be disappointed."

"I love him." Rhys muttered, feeling more and more petulant by the second. "Shouldn't that be all that matters?" The look on her face told him her exact reaction to what Rhys had just said – no, absolutely not. "Well, I will try to make myself more independent. If it makes you feel better," he said, more in a placating manner. Truthfully, he didn't understand this woman at all – or even how Jack would know someone like her – and his instincts told him to be extremely careful around her.

Hammerlock didn't seem fazed by his defensive behavior in the least, "I said what I needed to say, do what you will with it. It's not my business." she said and he had even less of a clue on how he should react to that than anything else that she had said to him.

He knew that she was right, in a way that he doubted she had full knowledge of. Jack had his flaws and they were flaws that might have anyone else running for the hills. Jack killed people. He was a killer and Rhys knew that was deal breaker territory for most people. But not Rhys – all Rhys knew was that he loved Jack and that he would do anything for him. Jack was his soul mate, his hero, the love of his life and he couldn't think of a reason why he should want to be far away from him. Not ever.

Rhys had become a little more independent in the last weeks – in small and mainly insignificant sort of ways. He clung to Jack a little less, spent a little more time with his friends, went to do things on his own a little more and he had just started a few classes at the local college. He was slowly but surely morphing himself into a real, well adjusted adult and it was much easier for him to be well adjusted these days.

He jumped when he heard a loud noise, coming from down the hall. "It's nothing," he murmured to himself, "You're being paranoid, Rhys. Just focus on Freud, focus on Freud. Everything will be fine, there's no way that anyone could be here. There's no place safer than with Jack." He kept murmuring comforting things, to bring himself back to reality.

Then he heard another noise and he visibly flinched, terrified of all of the implications of it. "It's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing." he whimpered, becoming more and more anxious by the second. He put his hands over his ears, trying to mute out what could have easily been just his imagination making things worse for him inside of his head. "Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. He's not here, it's not him." he said and kept saying it like a broken record.

After he did enough chanting, he managed to convince himself that it was true and he was entirely safe and sound in Jacks' home and after enough time spent typing – about four hours, without any breaks because that would just interrupt his focus and cause him more anxiety – Rhys decided to take a break for his own sanity's sake. He needed coffee and something to eat that wasn't ice cream – no matter how much he loved it – or those pretzels that Jack seemed to buy in bulk.

He needed real sustenance and caffeine in his system, and that meant cooking something in the kitchen… and that meant leaving the space inside his and Jack's room that he had been occupying. It scared him in ways that he wasn't sure that he was equipped to deal with, not now and not any time in the near or distant future.

He was still a little freaked out by what he thought might have been the lingering presence of his step father in his new home but he didn't think he should keep living his life based on paranoid instincts and worrying about what might be or could be. He couldn't even go into the kitchen in his own house because he was so scared. Rhys really didn't want to be the type of person that would let their past trauma's control him and, for a while he had been that type of person.

Rhys sighed out and got himself up on slightly shaky legs, moving to the door to his room so that he could unlock it. Once he got himself down the hall, the atmosphere felt wrong – physically and tangibly wrong, like he was breathing in carbon monoxide and he could taste it in the air – but he chose to ignore it. When he turned around to see the horrifying visage of his step father in front of him, he wished that he hadn't.

"Hello, Rhys." Frank said, tone full of sarcasm and an oiliness in his expression that was physically tangible. Rhys could not bring himself to form the words to scream as he saw him – he was just as terrifying to him now as he was when Rhys was small and he was trapped in his home. "Miss me?"

"You're not s-supposed to be here." he whispered before he shouted it, "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE." Rhys' instincts were right and he had never in his life wanted more than to be wrong.

His step father's expression did nothing to quell any of his worries. If anything, the supposed reality of his situation just became worse and worse off for him. "W-what are you doing here, Frank? This isn't- this isn't Sanctuary you c-can't just hurt me here." He said, in a voice so tiny and so full of terror that he felt like if Frank got any closer he would shrink again and completely disappear.

Frank didn't answer his questions, at least not directly. "I've been hearing things about you, Rhys, it looks like your sticking your nose where it doesn't belong." he said, his tone threatening and frighteningly dark. "So it looks like I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson again. Just like old times."

"Okay, I have no idea what you're talking about but y-you need to leave or I will- I'll call the cops. So please just leave." he pleaded with the man, still terrified of him. "If you leave right now I will forget the whole thing," he lied because once Frank was gone he was going to call Jack and the cops and everybody else that he could. "Please, Frank, please just leave."

"What are you gonna do, Rhys?" Frank mocked him, "All you are is a pathetic little one armed whore that's afraid of his own shadow, you can't fool me into thinking that you can do anything." Every step that Rhys took backwards, Frank took forwards until the young man was boxed in with his abuser's hands around his throat. "You've always been pathetic and you're always gonna be pathetic."

He punctuated his statement by pushing Rhys down on the ground, the young man hitting his head on the counter as he fell to the ground in a pathetic heap. Thankfully, he was only down for a moment before he was up and running off to escape Franks grasp. His vision spotted as he tried to crawl, half on his feet and half on his knees, away from his step father.

"You're…not… doing… this to me… again." Rhys protested as he was chased, every word that he spoke coming out slower and slower as his vision faded out to black. The last thing he saw was his step father towering over him and the last thing he felt was rough hands at his hips before everything went black and he became completely dead to the world.

It hadn't been either Jack or – thank god – Angel that had discovered Rhys curled up and bleeding on the kitchen floor. Jack had been working incredibly late on Helios and kept most all of Hyperion working late with him, while Angel had been away to spend the weekend with her brand new friends family.

Instead, the person that had rescued Rhys was the very person that Jack had meant to protect Rhys from in the first place. Jack hadn't even had Frank registered on his radar as a threat – as far as he had been concerned, Frank didn't matter. Frank was insignificant, a nuisance that he wanted to squash out of pure spite.

He had expected to kill Frank before anything like this could ever have the chance to happen and when he had received the call from Sanctuary Hospital's intensive care unit, Jack had been surprised in more ways than one.

Rhys had been brought in by a woman and she had agreed to stay until any of Rhys' emergency contacts showed up. He knew exactly who the woman was, specifically because she wanted to stay anonymous. Of course it had been Lilith, she had probably been there to witness most if not all of what had happened to Rhys and took him to the hospital after the fact.

Jack sighed, shaky and nervous, she didn't matter right now, he told himself. He couldn't focus on Lilith right now, because right now he needed to focus on Rhys. He clenched and unclenched his fists at odd intervals, trying to quell all of the heightened emotions that he was feeling. Jack practically ran into the hospital and up to the receptionists desk."Uh, yeah, I need to see Rhys Shapiro." Jack said, nerves on fire and ready to explode. "He was brought in a few hours ago, I'm his, uh, his emergency contact." he said to the medical secretary who sat at the front.

"Okay," She said, in a placating manner as she noticed Jacks' visible distress. "I'll send you through." she added as she looked up Rhys' information. "He's on floor eighteen, room six." she told him and before she could say anything obnoxiously sympathetic and placating, he was running off to mash at the elevators buttons.

"Why the hell do these things take so damn long?" he grumbled to himself as he continuously pushed the button. "Why don't they have some kind of emergency elevator and-" he sighed in frustration, knowing what he needed to do. "You know what? Fuck it." he said as he booked it towards the stairs.

Jack wasn't in bad shape at all, but after running up eighteen flights of stairs and down a long winding hall that had numbers that seemed to go backwards instead of forwards like they should have been, the first thing that he did once he was in Rhys' room was sit down for a few minutes to catch his breath.

After a few moments, he stood up to look over at his soul mate and felt sickened by the results. Rhys was unconscious with bruises covering most of him; around his throat, his shoulders, his legs and on side of his face and a few gashes in his cheek and forehead. He was hooked up to a respirator, because his attacker had almost crushed his windpipe and his cybernetic arm had been removed forcibly. Jack didn't even want to think of what kind of internal damage his soul mate had.

He turned around to see Lilith with a bit of horror painted across her face, he didn't say anything because he was too overwhelmed by what he had just seen. She didn't look any better, "What that man did to, to Rhys is fucking disgusting." She said, not really looking at Jack. "I should go." she said, out of nowhere. "You two will probably want to… talk, when he wakes up."

Jack rolled his eyes before he swallowed his pride, "Thank you for bringing him here. I appreciate it, really." he told her, trying for genuine gratitude and barely missing. "But if I ever find out you were at my home, or anywhere near it I will have you in a jail cell so fast that-" he almost screamed in frustration, "Just get out of here, I don't want to look at your face." he spat with pure venom in his voice and she bolted, just like he had expected her to.

Once she was gone, Jack pulled up a chair at Rhys' side. "I'm gonna be here for you the whole time, pumpkin." he told his soul mate while Rhys lay in what had to be a coma or something worse, "We're gonna figure this shit out, don't you worry."

Jack made a few calls; first to Maya – he offered to pay three times her normal rate to watch Angel 24-7 until Rhys was better – then to his work – he firmly told Blake to stand watch and not change anything while he was temporarily in charge, lest he wanted Jack to kick the shit out of him when he got back to work – and then to a realtor – he didn't think that Rhys would be happy being in the penthouse after what had happened and he had enough disposable income that he didn't need to take the risk – before he was one hundred percent ready to sit with Rhys full time, watch him and make any of the big decisions that needed to be made for his soul mates safety.

Months later, Rhys woke up to a room full of people, flowers and get well cards and letters. He yawned, sitting up slightly to find himself trapped in the confines of a hospital bed. "Hey guys…" he said, feeling overstimulated as all hell. "W-what's going on?" he asked the people in the room.

He wasn't given much of an answer, instead what he received was Angel climbing on to the hospital bed to give him a bone crushing hug and it took him a moment to register that she was crying on his shoulder. "Hey, Angel, honey… what's the matter?

"We thought you were gonna die!" Angel wailed, "They wouldn't let me see you and then I did and you looked so sick, it was so scary… we thought we were gonna lose you and, and…" she soon found herself getting lost in her sob filled blubbering.

"What?" Rhys balked, feeling more confused by the moment. At this point he was getting more questions than answers and he searched the eyes of the people in the room for some sort of answer.

Vaughn stepped up to the plate. "You've been in a coma for a few months." He supplied, trying to be as informative as he could without getting overwhelmed himself, "We, uh, well Jacks' been at your side for pretty much the entire time. It was cute, you know a little sickening too, but I guess it's nice to have that sort of thing – anyway, uh, they told us today that you started waking up so we all rushed over."

"Oh," Rhys exclaimed, feeling strangely calm. He wondered if he might have been in shock from everything, "It was Frank, right?" he asked and the looks that he received felt like there may as well have been a big, fat "YES" spelled out I,n a blocky neon sign. "It was… god, I'm such an idiot."

"Wait, why are you saying that?" Gaige asked, looking confused as all hell. "Cause, none of this is your fault so I don't really…" she trailed off with a shrug, "You… hm, you missed your birthday so we got you a little personal cake." she said, in a more chipper tone as she pushed the cake in Rhys' face. "Try some!" she said, giggling nervously. It was an obvious attempt to distract Rhys from his own anxiety and it didn't work, not even a little bit.

Rhys shook his head, "I can't believe I thought things were going to get better," he laughed bitterly, tears forming in his eyes. "Why did I think that? Things are never going to be better for me." Rhys couldn't help it as he sobbed outright, "I re-really tried. I tried really hard to be… healthy and good and I can't- I knew something bad was going to happen. I knew. I knew and I ignored it, because I'm stupid. Why am I so stupid?!" Rhys was rocking back and forth, digging the fingers' of his organic hand into his thigh until they bled.

Jack – who had been quiet until then, simply because he didn't want to crowd his soul mate – decided to intervene in that moment. He quickly took Rhys hand in his own – comforting his soul mate and preventing the younger man from hurting himself at the same time – and squeezed it gently.

"Hey," he hummed softly, "It's okay, baby, it's okay. We'll figure this out, I am not going to let anyone ever hurt you again." he assured the younger man, using his other hand to stroke Rhys' hair. "I promise-" Jack sighed, "Look at me, Rhys." It took a few moments of gentle comforting before Rhys had calmed down enough to be able to look Jack in the eye and by that point he was still a sobbing, whimpering mess. "He is never. Never. Going to get to you again."

"How can you promise that?" Rhys whispered, voice hoarse from crying so much, "He already got to me, he-he almost killed me." he said in a frightened tone, "Jack, I could have died. I could have-"

Jack sighed, "Can you guys clear the hell out? I need to talk to Rhysie here." he snapped to the group of people behind them, "In private." he added with his voice deep and dangerous. Everyone cleared out of the room quickly with a nervous utterance of, "Okay, we'll be in the cafeteria…"

Rhys looked at him oddly, "How can you tell me that Frank can't hurt me anymore?" he asked again, a hopeful look in his eyes. "D-did something happen? With Frank. Jack, is he…" Rhys lowered his voice to a whisper, "Gone?"

Rhys had never thought of himself as the type of person to wish death upon another – he had prided himself on being nice to people and caring for them, forgiving people even if they didn't deserve it. He couldn't forgive anyone that did something like this to him. He almost died and he very well could have – he could never forgive anyone for doing something like this and all he felt for Frank – in some ways his own mother – was full on hatred that burnt within him from the inside out.

Not being afraid of his step father was so strange to him because he knew that Frank had scared him into submission so many times – he had done things like this to him more times than he could count and it had kept him living in fear for most of his life. He wasn't afraid now and it was incredibly strange to him.

"He's not dead, pumpkin." Jack told him, almost apologetic in nature. He lowered his voice down to a whisper, "But he will be, I'm not going to let you be afraid anymore."

"And until then?" Rhys asked, completely done with dancing around it. "Jack, I'm so- what if Angel saw me? I could have traumatized her and-"

"We moved." Jack told him, "To this really nice place right outside of town, it's nice and private. I also hired a guy, not Wilhelm but someone just as good, to uh, you know, keep you safe and crap." he said.

"How long was I in a coma?" Rhys asked, looking almost horrified. "But, I mean that's great! I just… god this is so… bad." he shook his head and Jack chuckled a bit, knowing that Rhys' flustered behavior meant that his soul mate was getting back to his normal self.

Rhys sighed with both relief and exasperation,"This is so messed up, but I guess that it could be a lot worse. I mean, who found me? Cause I gotta thank that person." he said, "Cause, you know, I might be dead if they hadn't found me."

Of course, Rhys wanted to know the one thing that Jack could never tell him. It would make things so much more complicated if he knew that Lilith had been in his home. So Jack hid his guilt in a mask that Rhys wouldn't have been able to see past, "It was a neighbor," he lied easily and right through his teeth, "She ran in and saw you, then she called me."

Rhys nodded, "To tell you the truth I don't remember much of that night," he admitted, "I'm just," he sighed, gathering his strength. "When this whole… thing happens with Frank… I want to be there and I want to hurt him."

Jack could never be more happy to oblige his soul mate, "Of course, pumpkin." he promised, "I couldn't think of it happening any other way.