Here you go...before you nail me for technicalities please remember this is fanfiction and I am taking liberties with information so certain things may not be completely accurate, but go with it. Call it artistic licence...
It wasn't hard to find her. She knew he eventually would. Had she not been so exhausted by them she would have put more thought into hiding from him. He watched her from his car as she sat at the end of the pier. It was dark and he could barely make out her form but he knew she was there before his eyes confirmed it. It was her thinking place. Nothing but her, the moonlight and the sound of waves as a soundtrack to whatever conversation she was having with God. Jack sat in his car a little bit longer, taking a moment to pray. For what was about to unfold. For the words he was about to say. For what she has to hear. Wordlessly he sat beside her on the pier. It was a rather cold evening, spring was ending and summer wasn't quite there yet. He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulder knowing by the goose bumps on her arms that she was cold and much too stubborn to go back to her car for warmth. He was almost expecting her to hand him back his jacket and was relieved when she didn't fight him on it.
"Thank you," a voice he barely recognised expressed her gratitude. She refused to look at him and everything in hear demeanour told him that she was done.
"The year you arrived at Hope Valley, my family and I were away. We moved to Colorado for the year, for me, because I was sick." Elizabeth glanced up at him in surprise.
"Acute Myeloid Leukemia," he said with a long breath as she took his hand in hers, as if encouraging him to go on, tears already forming in her eyes.
"After I had finished basic training for the academy I was tired all the time. I lost a chunk of weight in a short span of time. I would get these bruises for no reason whatsoever. Then one day I ended up in hospital from a seizure, they ran a bunch of test and then I had AML. They deemed it quite progressed, and radiation wasn't quite cutting it so my oncologist had suggested a stem cell transplant. Which wasn't common back then. There happened to be a trial in Colorado and my oncologist had thrown my name in as a contender, hence we moved there. When you and I first met, I was a couple of months in the clear. Because the procedure was still quite new, no one knew what the long term side effects would be or the long term prognosis. I mean after transplant and more treatments is it gone once and for all? There was so much uncertainty. When I was given the all clear, we came back to Hope Valley. We tried to resume life as normal as possible. I went back to the force and would be assigned to a desk until I was given the full clearance by both my oncologist and family doctor."
Whilst Elizabeth's gaze remained on the water as he spoke she was rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb in a circular calming motion, habitually and without thought. Whether she knew it or not, her very presence elicited peace in him. Always had. It was one of the reasons why he was do drawn to her.
"You walked into my life, or more I walked into yours and all these feelings just surfaced. I fell in love in love with you in an instant. I'm not sure if it was watching you with Gracie or that my soul was just so undeniably drawn to you. Elizabeth, in that very moment I have never been so scared in my life. I knew I had no control over what I felt. There was something about you that made me want to be with you all the time but at the same time not knowing about what was going to happen with me, I didn't want to start anything. I didn't want to drag you into anything that could mean I wouldn't be around. So I friend zoned you. Which was unfair but at the same time I just needed to be with you even if it meant we were just friends."
"Jack that wasn't your decision to make," Elizabeth protested softly.
"Maybe not, but I made it and I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you before you left. I wanted to get on a plane and follow you to Sydney."
"So why didn't you?" she challenged,
"Because right before you were due to leave, at my check up they found something."
"Jack,"
"Elizabeth, you were going home to your Mom who was sick. I wasn't going to throw me in the mix to make that harder." He replied evenly.
"So I put you on your plane, hugged you goodbye and hoped that I would get a chance to beg for your forgiveness and explain it all to you and that you would take me back. Those first months after you left were the worst in my life. I let you leave thinking we weren't enough to fight for. I went back to Colorado for treatments. I had to have surgery. I had an aggressive round of Chemotherapy and they gave stem cell another go."
"You should have told me," she said wiping the tears away with her free hand. Her heart breaking for not being there for him.
"Elizabeth, when your Mom died I was in surgery." Elizabeth stilled. Even after they got together, they never discussed why she didn't hear from him when her Mom died. How much that had hurt. She just assumed that he had moved on and was married by then.
"I didn't come to for many days after and they didn't tell me until they felt I was strong enough. Elizabeth, I would have flown to Sydney sick or not. You have to know that." Elizabeth looked at him and met his gaze and knew his sincerity before she looked into his eyes. She placed a hand on his cheek,
"I do know," Her eyes told him to go on knowing he wasn't finished. As she was about to remove her hand from his cheek he took it with his and placed it on their already joined hands
"Emily was my nurse. She literally nursed me back to health. I had slipped into a funk and she was patient. She challenged me, she dared me to be brave, to fight. As time passed we became friends. She was the hand that held mine as I went through my treatments. She read to me, did stupid silly things to make it bearable." Jack paused knowing what he was about to say was bound to hurt her,
"She loved me when I thought I was unlovable." Elizabeth felt the punch to her heart she knew he hadn't intended. She failed him too. She tried to remove her hand from his feeling restricted all of a sudden but he wouldn't let her go. Elizabeth looked back out at the water refusing to look at him,
"Elizabeth," he pleaded.
"Please look at me." Elizabeth didn't know if she could hear any more.
"I grew to love Emily. She was unexpected and I am so grateful to her. Without her I don't know if I could have made it. Emily knew about you." Elizabeth finally glanced at him and what he saw broke his heart as the pain of the words he was recounting to her was all over her face,
"When I first came out of surgery your name was the first thing I murmured. During Chemo when it got hard, and it did often. I would say your name like a silent prayer. When I finally came to she told me that I was lucky that I got to love someone as much as I seemed to love you. As we became friends, I told her about you. The more time we spent together, I felt I was given a chance to get to cease the moment and get the girl. I loved her, I knew that and I wasn't going to let her slip away from me. So I asked her to marry me, move to Hope Valley and without hesitation she did. She made me happy. I loved her. I thought I had moved on. That clearly we weren't meant to be together,"
"Clearly," she echoed hurt. Jack prayed that she wouldn't bolt at that very moment,
"Until one day I was walking on main street and there you were. In that one moment, it was like I was transported to the first time we met. All the feelings I had thought had gone away, hit in me in an instant. I wanted to run in the other direction scared of all the feelings I felt but at the same time my feet wouldn't move. I wanted to see you. I wanted to hug you. I wanted to tell you that I loved you, that I never stopped but I knew I couldn't. I had already given my heart to Emily and I honestly loved her. It wasn't until I saw you that I realised it was a different love I felt for her. You saw me and I thought you would be angry that I had just disappeared from your life, but instead you smiled at me in that Elizabeth Thatcher way. In a way that I know you didn't smile at anyone else but me. You walked up to me and hugged me as though no time had passed. I remember closing my eyes and committing the moment in my heart and memory because I knew I couldn't see you again after that. I couldn't afford to. Emily deserved better than that and I already felt like I was cheating on her at the realisation that I still loved you." He confessed ashamed.
"Coming back to Hope Valley, there was always a risk of seeing you. Even though Carson had told me that you left not long after I did. I wasn't really expecting to. I guess there was a part of me that hoped. I guess I wanted a closure almost, so by going there I was almost gunning for fate to step in. And she did, just not the way I had hoped. I thought when I saw you on main street that it meant we had a chance. I was so excited that I forgot to be angry. I was just so happy to see you. It felt like my life had been turned upside down since I had left. I was still grieving my Mom and I couldn't settle down. It felt like I had left a part of me in Hope Valley and I wanted to see once and for all if that were the case. So when Abigail and Noah had decided to pack up and head to Sydney I offered to help them with the kids. Especially Cody who was still quite small then. When I didn't see you or hear from you whilst I was in Hope Valley after I saw you, I had to make peace with the fact that maybe I had imagined it all. That I had romanticized what we had because clearly you didn't feel the same way. For the second time, I left Hope Valley with a broken heart. Whether I meant to or not, I had set my expectations to seeing you, that all it would take was for us to see each other and everything would fall into place. I was such a fool. So I left you in Hope Valley where you belonged as I vowed to move on with my life without you. Crediting you up to my over active imagination. I came back here. Dated here and there, forgot you even. Then you walked back into my life and again it's like no time has passed and we're back to push and pull, start and stop."
"We weren't your imagination," he promised.
"I have a future planned for us. I do. You are the love of my life, you have been from the moment I met you. You were never a fall back. You are the person that God had destined my forever with. I am asking you to not give up on us. To not give up on me. To know my hearts intention."
"Jack,"
"Please," he asked as he took her face with his hand and held her gaze. He could see the turmoil and inward battle she wrestled.
"I love you," he vowed. Elizabeth closed her eyes as if to take a moment,
"And I love you,"
"Then be with me."
"You make it sound so easy."
"Life is too short Sweetheart. I love you, you love me. We can make this work if we want to. We have a lot to work through, I am not discounting that but if we love each other surely it's worth the fight to make it work." She hated that he made it sound so reasonable.
"Please,"
"Jack,"
"No more running,"
"You forget I'm gone all summer and you're going back to Hope Valley." She pointed out that they were going to be separated anyway.
"I don't care. When you leave for London you're going to leave knowing that when you get back we will be back here waiting for you."
"Jack,"
"Be With Me." He drew out interrupting her as she chuckled as she rolled her eyes. Without warning he kissed her. He poured every emotion he felt in that kiss and as he reluctantly pulled back to look at her he had left her breathless.
"You don't fight fair," she smirked tilting her head to the side.
"Is that a yes?" he asked hopeful.
"Yes," she replied as he took her into his arms hugging her tightly.
Truth was she loved him. She loved him with all her heart. As hurt as she was that he had lived a life without her, she believed it wasn't because he didn't love her. She wished she had been the one to hold his hand, but she knew that she knew that she would not have been in any shape to be what he needed her to be during that time. She was grateful that Emily had been there. Life was short, and being presented with the idea of losing him, especially to sickness made her take stock of what she was willing to live with and without. She knew in her heart that she couldn't live without him. Her soul was tied to his whether she wanted it to be or not. The heart wants what it wants and it had always been him it wanted.
Elizabeth breathed him in as she tightened the arms around his waist, her face buried into his chest.
"Are you okay?" she asked. He knew what she was asking. He kissed her forehead.
"Yeah sweetheart, I'm okay. No symptoms. Last check was all clear."
"Why didn't you want to tell me?" she asked.
"I didn't want to use my sickness as currency."
"Nobel, but stupid." She replied.
"I wanted to know you loved me for me. For us to start a new. I didn't want to cloud our getting back together with the possibility that you feared my mortality."
"What makes you think that's not why I'm saying yes right now?" she teased,
"Because your eyes tell me." He answered confidently.
