A/N: Chapter 19 received the most reviews yet of any chapter in this story. While I am incredibly grateful, I'll admit it is making me very nervous because I don't know how you guys will react to what's coming. Thank you so, so much for your incredible reviews Hypnotist, Scruffy-Nerf-Hearder, UrieNanashi, linalove, Lady Liesel, WrongRightBlackAndWhite, golden peaches, JordanGoombette, queenofthecards, RandomCitizen, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, SepiaDreams, Serendipity's tears, thumbelinarocks, KrysOfSorrow, Misplaced Levity, kittykat6625, trickstersink, KatieMarrie, Rayzen, valkyriegorbash, walawalabadkoala, LadyBonBon, PsychoticallyInsaneForAReaso n, KorroksApostle, ZombiePeach, Sugary Snicket, Lady Nerd, corbsxx, In The Shitty Land Of Oz, Kyrie Twilight, ZenyZootSuit, Leyshla Gisel, Loukia, Comidia Del Arte, Nocturnal Rose, SaxonBandwagon, RedStarBloom, CrystalSearcher, PoisonedAngelous, Ravenclaw992, EmmberlyneRiddle, cypris88, pourqouibella, Zeroko, iwishtheskywasgreen, KrnYong, Lexiful Sunshine, Rehaniah, EmilyEverlasting, dEnIsE tHe StRaNgE, HelloKeke, The Wicked Siren, Trillen17, samiantha, Rapunzel, TinkerbellxO, vickielee, mercuryxx, happytide, Vice or Virtue, obsessivesyndrome, Green Animelover, Otaku-neku, OMhypothesis, va va, GalanthaDreams, AmberCyn, Amanda, boca3, tomieharley, manamikuran126, Nitor, TC Stark, AmazonaV, Crimsin Butterfly, tiibouchina, FoxFire45, L van Am, soupkitchen, asdfghjkl, filthe, Luna-Rose 22, Roze, Blairx6661, slytherin-until-i-die, Guest, ShizukaRen-Hime, StargazingED, and SammiRichGurl.

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Housekeeping

Chapter Twenty

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I sat back in my chair, slowly taking my hands off the table, regarding him carefully but also keeping my eyes on the door, in case I had to make a quick getaway. I didn't think he'd try anything with so many people around, but then again, this man didn't seem to care who was watching him or what they'd think about anything he did.

"What are you doing here?" I asked carefully and quietly, trying not to sound alarmed despite the fact that I was, I was.

Jack sipped from his bottle while giving me this totally indignant look, and when he swallowed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, he looked at me as though I was quite literally the stupidest person he'd ever met.

"I'm surfing," he drawled, exasperated. "What gave it away?"

I could feel the scowl harden on my forehead. It'd been a real bad day, I really wasn't in the mood to be made fun of. "I mean...did you follow us here?"

"Who, you and your red-haired friend?" Jack thumbed towards the door, and then he took a moment to swivel in his chair and look over his shoulder towards the door, as though worried she was standing there and had heard him. I stared at him, unbelieving, until he turned back around to face me in his chair and rose his eyebrows at me. "She sure left here in a huff."

I sat there and stared at him with what was probably a pretty upset look on my face. I could tell because the waitress was standing over by the bar looking at me as though I had started undressing right there at the table. I sat as far back in my chair as I could, trying not to let on how uncomfortable I was, but I obviously wasn't doing a very good job of it. Jack stared at me with his dead eyes, taking swigs of beer from his bottle, and I watched how his expression twitched the more he watched me, how his eyebrows furrowed and his nose wrinkled just a little. A few times I stole glances at the door, wishing I could just get up and leave without the risk of him following me out; I won't lie, I would have stormed out if I wasn't scared to death that he would follow me out and do god knows what. He'd sat himself down, there was obviously something he wanted to say.

"You gonna say something, buttercup," he asked rather bluntly, the tone in his voice annoyed or indignant, I'm not positive which. "or are you just gonna gawk at me?"

I swallowed tightly and crossed my arms over my chest, staring at him and trying not to let my scowl fade. He needed to know exactly how I was feeling. "I want to know why you're here."

Jack gave me a sideways glance, making me feel small and stupid, and he sighed heavily through his flared nostrils. "Well...you haven't been by the room, and my sheets sure could go for a change."

I felt rage bubble up in my stomach, and I curled my hands into fists, feeling my fingernails bite into my skin. I could feel the blood flush my face and suddenly I felt hot with anger.

But Jack just shrugged, and put up his hands as if to say what are you gonna do? "You know how messy I am."

That was it, it was enough. I could yell at him, I could snap at him, what good would it do? The best I could do was just get the hell away from him. Without another word, I gathered my jacket from the chair and reached for my purse, standing up so quickly that my leg knocked the table, nearly sending our drinks crashing to the floor. I didn't meet his eye. "Goodbye, Jack."

But before I could make my getaway, make for the door and take off for home, where I'd be safe and sound all tucked up in bed, Jack's arm lashed out, quick as lightning, and his fingers wrapped around my wrist.

"Hold on," he said, seriously.

I froze and stared down at him, at his hand gripping me, not too tightly, but securely enough, and when I looked to meet his eyes, he wouldn't look at me. "Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, holdon..."

He pulled on my wrist and motioned with a nod of his head for me to take my seat at the table, and I did, hesitantly, keeping my other arm wrapped securely in my coat, painfully clutching my purse, and when I finally sat down, Jack didn't remove his hand from my wrist, but he wasn't gripping it, either. He simply cradled it, as if we were two lovers having a serious sad conversation over drinks, and I looked at my thin, pale wrist encased in his long, callused fingers, grimy in the nails, with strength that could break my wrist easily, I was sure. His rough fingertips gently touched my skin, as though trying to coax me from getting up again, as though to convince me he wasn't angry. He just wanted to talk.

I stared at my wrist in his hand for a long time, and when I finally looked up to get a glimpse of his eyes, to try to get a read of his expression, he was looking down at the tabletop.

"Alright, that was a bad joke," he began, lowly, scratching the back of his neck, adjusting his collar, looking anywhere but directly at me. "My jokes are bad."

I stared at him, blinking, and looking up I could see the bartender was looking at us over his shoulder with a rather perplexed look on his face, as though contemplating whether or not to reach for the shotgun under the bar, if there was one, or call on the bikers playing pool in the corner for backup in case the patron with the messed-up face started to get violent. I swallowed and watched Jack, watched how he kept his head down, as if he was trying to gauge the energy in the room. I looked down at his hand cradling my wrist, and after a moment I gently, gently, pulled my hand out of his, let my fingers just brush his, and then I let it settle in my lap. I was upset, I was really upset, but again, there was obviously something he wanted to say.

Jack sighed lowly, looking at the table, looking over his shoulder, and then finally leaning close enough so that he could speak just barely above a whisper and I could still hear him. "So listen, I lost my temper, nobody knows that more than me-"

I gaped at him, feeling my jaw drop right open. "Lost your-"

I sat back and then leaned forward, watching the light in his eyes change as he watched me with a confused expression on his features. I didn't know what to do with myself at that moment, and obviously it showed. For a second time, I wanted to get up and storm right out, but I was afraid he would follow me. I wanted to yell and scream in his face, but I was worried about...about making a scene. Jack stared at me so intently that I willed myself to keep quiet and keep my cool.

Finally I resolved to lean forward, so my panicked words, whatever they might have been, would be between the two of us. And despite the very real fear I was feeling at that moment, I couldn't help the anger as it seeped into my voice. "Jack, are you crazy?"

Jack sipped from his beer bottle and once again looked around him, and if to make sure there weren't any witnesses to what I was about to say next. "You threw me against a wall and tried to strangle me!"

"Well y'know it's always gonna sound twice as bad if you say it like that," Jack said in that strange sing-song way of his, and I scoffed at him and crossed my arms over my chest. Then, he sat forward, setting his elbows on the table, and his eyes glittered with laughter, though his lips didn't really break into a smile the way I thought they would.

"Besides, your boss, she's got a thick neck," he said, surprising me, and he swiped at his scars with his tongue, making my nose curl a little, and he held out both his hands as if to show how he would have strangled Estelle if he could have, though when it was obvious that the invisible neck he had his hands around at that moment was too large, he giggled a little. "Couldn't close both my hands around her if I tried."

I frowned, glaring at him as hard as I could. I couldn't believe he was making such a light-hearted joke about something so morbid...though truthfully I have no idea why anything he did surprised me anymore. All I knew was that if he was trying to make me smile, if he was trying to make me feel better, it wasn't working at all. I just continued to stare at him, angrily. "So it was just more convenient to strangle me?"

The weirdest fucking thing happened then. Jack stared at me, with his big dark eyes, and a great big smile burst over his ruin lips. He grinned at me, and for the first time I really got a look at his stained teeth, made me stomach turn a little, but it was a real smile, a delighted smile, and he chuckled in his throat, that strange, creepy little chuckle that I won't deny I kinda liked, for whatever reason.

He pointed his finger at me. "...See, there you go again, surprising me. You're such a surprise, cupcake. Who'da thought?"

I opened my mouth to ask him just what the fuck he was talking about, but he cut me off. "Couple of bodies here," he held out his hands as if to demonstrate. "Some workplace gossip there, a bit of physical violence and voila!" He threw up his hands, his voice raising into that creepy, excited high-pitch tone, and I sat back, alarmed, until he set his palms down flat on the table and smacked his lips. "Out you come, and it's just so much fun to watch."

"Fun?" I breathed in disbelief, frowning hard at him, the tone in my voice harsh and ugly. "Yeah, it's so much fun to be alienated by your coworkers and strangled by the first guy I've met in years-"

At that, Jack lowered his eyes and his eyebrows rose, a flirtatious little smile on his lips. "I was your first, huh?"

"Jesus," I scoffed, shaking my head, and threw my purse strap over my shoulder. I'd had enough. "I'm leaving."

"She let herself in," Jack growled before I had a chance to stand up, and I looked at him, at his hard eyes and how he was no longing smiling. There was that low, dangerous tone in his voice that I knew all too well, that I'd become far too accustomed to, and it glued me right to my seat. He raised his eyebrows at me. "I know, I could tell."

I was ready to retaliate angrily and ask him why he tried to strangle me if he knew Estelle had let herself into the room, but he shook his head just a little, crossing his arms out in front of him, keeping his eyes hard on mine, probably to make sure I wouldn't get up out of my seat. "I knew you'd keep our secret."

I shrugged my shoulders, shaking my head at him. So much for our secret, if that's really what he wanted to call it; Estelle knew all about the mirror now, and she'd find some way to get back at both me and him for the way we'd tried to hide it from-

"Got a few of your own, don'tcha, sugarplum?"

The bar got eerily quiet then. I don't know if it was the way he said it, with such low malice, or the way he was staring at me, but suddenly I felt a real chill crawl up the length of my spine, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up and goosebumps roll over my arms. I felt the frown on my face softening, though I held onto my purse and coat just as tightly. Everyone has their secrets, their own secrets, that was no big mystery...but why had he said it like that? Like he had been inside my head and seen everything that had happened in my life, everything that had led me to this drink with him in the Black Canary, to this very conversation?

With his eyes still hard on me, I watched as he tongued his scars on the inside of his mouth. I felt paralyzed; I simply couldn't move, couldn't say a word, didn't know what to do, and he knew it, too. That's why he'd said it, to make sure I wouldn't leave.

"Tell me that scar on your shoulder isn't just one big secret."

I flinched when he enunciated the end of that word and I felt tears pinching at the corner of my eyes, as well as a burning in a very particular spot just above my right collarbone. It burned right then, as much as it had the day I got it, and suddenly I was scared, I was scared to death about what I was hearing, about what was coming out of his mouth. I shook my head at him, fighting, fighting to keep the tears from spilling onto my eyelashes. "How did you-"

"Or the fact you didn't scream when Mr. Sideburns grabbed you," Jack interrupted, his voice strong and stern and no-nonsense, like he was a detective inquiring information from me. I opened my mouth to argue and tell him that I did scream...but I didn't. I hadn't screamed at all, not the way I should have. I don't even know how Jack had known what was going on, given that I didn't scream when the goon grabbed me.

Jack sat back in his chair, smacking his lips and looking around the bar as if we were talking about the weather or some mundane shit like that. I watched him, curling my arms into my body to hug myself for comfort, and when he turned his eyes back to me, I couldn't help but scowl at him.

"Girls always scream, believe me..." Jack said in that indifferent tone of voice, as he rolled his eyes, but then he stared me down and we were back to no-nonsense. "But you didn't."

I swallowed thickly and sucked in a shaky breath through my mouth. I wanted him to stop, I didn't want to hear about it, about any of it, I just wanted to forget any of it had ever happened, but would he have stopped, even if I asked him to?

Jack shrugged out his shoulders a little. "Who knew what he had planned for you, but did you scream? No. Now, maybe...maybe it's because you thought there'd be no one around to hear you."

I shook my head at him. Shut up, Jack, just shut up.

Jack lowered his eyes and they narrowed to me, dangerous and hungry, like a predator.

"But I think it's because you knew not to scream."

I felt my jaw shaking and my teeth chattering, I was holding back the urge to cry so much.

Jack smirked a little in his throat. "And there's no shame in your eyes so my guess is shame had nothing to do with it. My guess is..." and he tilted his head to the side, as if that would give him more insight, and he made an interested sound in his throat.

"...It was love."

A tear slipped down from the corner of my eye and I glared at him, hatefully. I wanted to sob, but I held it back, held it back with hatred. I hated him, I hated him. He didn't know. He knew nothing about any of it. What the fuck gave him the right to say anything about what happened, he wasn't there, he didn't know. He didn't know anything.

But he was relentless. He felt my anger, I knew he did, I could tell in the way he was looking at me, in that no bullshit way of his, where his eyes darkened but they stayed with me and they told me to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee, that kind of look, and he wouldn't back down. No matter how much I stared daggers at him, no matter how much I cried, no matter how much I did anything...he would never back down.

Angrily I wiped away the tear that had fallen and looked away from him. I didn't notice what else was going on in that bar, no matter how much I tried to pull my attention away from Jack, it was always drawn right back to him. I crossed my arms over my chest and hugged myself, shielding myself from him, and the air between us was dead silent before I finally closed my eyes tightly together, holding back anger, and sighed heavily through my nostrils. "What do you want, Jack?"

Jack was unflinching, like a stone statue. "I want to know how it feels."

I stared at him, confused. How what felt? That he was invading my space after trying to strangle me and asking all these personal questions that had nothing to do with him?

Jack leaned forward, keeping his voice low. "Tell how it felt when you saw that charmer nose-down in his own blood," the tone in his voice was low but oddly interested, almost as if he was excited, and once again I felt goosebumps roll over my arms. His tongue lashed out against his scars. "Tell me how it feels to feel your blood rushing through your veins once more."

I sneered at him. How was it supposed to feel? I'd been frightened, scared out of my fucking mind, how could he doubt that? And if he was insinuating that I hadn't felt alive before I discovered the bodies in 306, he was dead wro-

"You reached for me," Jack interrupted, harshly, making me jump a bit. "You reached for me because you knew you could see the bastard dead, you wanted him dead, the way you couldn't see the other one dead, even if you wanted to..."

I stared at him in horror. The other one...

"Because of love."

I pressed my hand to my mouth then, closed my eyes and looked away. I wanted to burst into tears and not stop crying until I was dead, it was almost too strong a want to ignore. Jack didn't say anything or do anything, he gave me my moment, my moment of weakness, that moment where suddenly everything came flooding back with only a few words, everything, every single happy memory, sad thought, broken bone, and bad dream. Every argument, every bit of pain, every tear I shed, every feeling of resentment, every feeling of love...because it was love, it was, and it got the better of me, it took advantage, it hurt, it hurt way more than it was ever supposed to.

I don't know how he knew, but he did, like the past ten years of my life were a book he simply pulled off the shelf at the bookstore. I sniffed heavily but didn't cry, didn't allow myself to cry. It'd been a long time, it'd been years, and I'd cried plenty in that time frame, I didn't need to cry any more.

We may as well have been the last two people in that bar, in all of Gotham. It was so quiet and Jack didn't even seem to breathe across the table from me. But I could feel his eyes on me, they wouldn't leave me. He'd tasted my anger and then he wanted my pain, and he got it. And I knew I should have been furious with him for prying, but for whatever reason, I wasn't. Maybe I wasn't because I knew, I knew, it was something I had to hear. Something I had to hear because I would never admit it to myself, not now, not in a million years.

I settled myself and though I really didn't want to, I turned my eyes back to Jack. Jack just stared at me, his eyes never left me for a second.

"So where is he now?"

Him, where was he now? I'd spent the last four years trying to forget, trying to move on with my life in this shitty part of town with no money, no real sense of reality, nothing but a piece of advice given to me that I took to heart and ran for my life with, four years ago. Where was he now, like I'd ever know that, like I'd ever have the privilege of that closure; it didn't happen like that in the Narrows, it simply didn't, and it had happened so long ago that sometimes it seemed as though it hadn't happened at all, like I'd dreamt the whole thing or seen it on a daytime soap opera.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, lowering my eyes. "He's gone."

Without missing a beat, Jack asked. "Who did it?"

I looked at him in alarm. I don't know how he deduced that from how little I'd said, but it was obvious that he was far more intelligent than I thought. Maybe he would know, maybe he would understand better than anyone, and that's why he was asking. He was older than me, not by much, I could tell, but he likely knew the Narrows better than I did.

I looked down at the table, thinking back. I remembered the way he came into the room, out of the shadows and into the light, all suave and sophisticated. His dark hair was on the verge of graying, and he had a smug expression on his face. I remember how I thought he was going to kill me, how I thought he'd come to tell me that Eric was dead, and I was dead too. But he didn't. I don't know what he was instructed to do when he showed up at our apartment like that, but he took pity on me, I could see it in his face when he saw mine. He took pity on me and told me to run, to disappear. And I did disappear.

I don't know who did it, even to this day with this conversation. But I know who told me, and that seemed indication enough of what had happened. I looked up at Jack, into his expectant gaze, and I told him.

"Salvatore Maroni."

A sound of acknowledgement, pleased acknowledgement, rumbled in his throat, and a smile crossed his mangled lips. I didn't smile back, I stared at him, feeling very strange and unsettled. It'd been the first time in a very long time that I'd confided to anyone what had happened with Eric, and I hadn't even said that much, but I didn't need to. Jack understood; he understood better than anyone.

Jack reached for his beer bottle, still smiling. "Like I said. You're a surprise."

I watched him take a sip, his eyes on me still, and I looked away, looking at the waitress whispering to the bartender, at the guys who had been playing pool and were now sipping their beers quietly in the corner, probably wondering what the hell was going on. I felt so weirdly exposed but at the same time protected, as if nothing could possibly happen in that bar right then, not with Jack.

He set down his beer bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and sat back in his chair, wiggling his eyebrows at me. "How about a change of topic, hmm? Maybe you'd like to hear a little about me."

I stared at him, watching as he leaned forward to put his forearms on the table, how he leaned close to make sure we wouldn't be overheard, how his eyes were so big and chocolate brown even though it was so dark there in the bar.

"You wanna know how I got these scars?"

My heart thundered in my chest. I remembered the first time I saw the scars, how much they startled me, and how he acted about them, how he punched the mirror, how the whores backed away from him as if repulsed, how everyone in the hotel associated him with the scars and only the scars. For so long I wanted to know how it happened, and now that he was about to tell me, it almost didn't matter.

I swallowed thickly and stared at him. "How?"

Jack smacked his lips. "Same way you got yours."

I stared at him, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to sit there and sob, but I didn't. I held his gaze and I watched his eyes. He was serious and I knew it and I wanted to cry.

The same way I got mine...I knew what he meant, I knew all too well; they were given to him, given to him by someone who hurt him when they should have loved him.

Biting down on my lip to keep from bursting into tears, I looked down at his hand, his big, callused hand resting on the tabletop, and I fought the greatest urge to take it gently between my hands and press it to my cheek.

/