The dream hadn't been bad, just enough to wake him but not transport him back, not enough to trap his mind in the web of fear that would exhaust him even as he slept. Too shaken to return to sleep, Bauer found himself before the refrigerator in Audrey's large, orderly, almost sterile kitchen. The cleaning woman had come at some point today while they were out getting him new clothes. Tomorrow he would be back at work, back behind a desk at CTU, back in the environment where he would feel the most useful again. Part of him knew he was using them just a bit, that he may not choose to stay, but more than anything he needed to have a purpose again and CTU was the quickest route. Making the arrangements with the LAPD had been the first time since returning that his life had not been about recovering from captivity and torture. It had given his mind a direction that went forward to correct the past instead of dwelling on it and revealing it.

The draft of cold air across his bare feet reminded him that it was escaping from the refrigerator. He took out the nearly empty container of milk and shut the door. As it closed he started slightly, now able to see Audrey standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She smiled at him slowly. "I thought I heard you. Couldn't you sleep?"

"I was, but...," he trailed off, hunting for a glass in the white finished cupboards until Audrey reached into the cupboard to his left, filling the glass she retrieved. She ran a hand over his back as she turned toward him, her fingers trailing over the thick, white cotton robe. "You had a nightmare?" He nodded, busy draining the glass. He clattered it back to the glass cutting board on the counter, unfocused, dull anger suddenly welling up from his gut.

"You don't know how tired you get of that question. How tired I am of … Damn." He turned away from the counter and leaned against it, his arms folded over his chest.

Audrey backed up a step as he turned. "Tired of what else?"

"Tired of people waiting for me to break, wondering when they're going to find me balled up in a corner. Winters told me I would need to be patient with everyone else as much as myself, to try and understand that they cared, that they were scared, too."

Audrey nodded, suddenly debating on whether she should move away but unable to do so regardless. "It is hard for me to have you here and not have done anything until now to help. When you left the safehouse, I thought I … Look, maybe we shouldn't go into this now." She looked away from Bauer with eyes that were suddenly strained; she didn't want to push him for explanations he couldn't give or didn't want to now. He'd only been here a few days, and he'd been reticent to speak about much of anything but settling in and preparing himself for another step back into his life, the life that she so very much hated.

"I know you were waiting for me, so was Kim. I couldn't choose between you." His arms folded more tightly as he spoke, his eyes darkening as he withdrew, facing the lie. He simply hadn't wanted to choose either one of them then. Jack frowned as Audrey turned him gently toward her, forcing his eyes to her own.

"It didn't matter which one of us you chose that day, but it was confusing that you chose a virtual stranger. Kim and I went for a drink after you left and listened to Barry offer explanations. Kim seemed to accept them but I never put the pieces together."

Jack took a long, slow breath, focusing on the edge of the counter biting into the small of his back as he searched for the words, ones that would explain without inflicting too much pain. He'd had enough pain, more than enough for himself and everyone around him. "Audrey, I've had you and Kim both tell me that there was so much about my life you couldn't stand. My own daughter looked me in the eye and told me something was wrong with me long before now. The day Paul… died you told me you loved me but that you couldn't deal with what you had seen, and then I had to die for you, too." It was Audrey who looked away then, her eyes avoiding his face as he continued. "When I was set up for David Palmer's murder and I knew you'd find out I was alive, I didn't know what to expect; I'd been forced into living a lie, hurt you again, to say nothing of Kim. Then before I could deal with any of it I was taken. You and she knew I was alive for a day, and then you didn't know if I was alive at all."

The tears that had been brewing in Audrey's eyes fell then, slipping down her face without shame in the dim light. "I gave the word that you'd been taken. I got my father to pull every favor he was owed. If there hadn't been so much turmoil with Logan being replaced we might have gotten to you more quickly."

"I knew that was part of what was taking so long. What the hell did I expect in the middle of an underground impeachment?" He shrugged and forced his arms to open, wrapping one around her as Audrey stepped closer. "But that doesn't matter now. I can't change what was going on then any more than I can sleep through the night now."

A frown of irony on her lips, Audrey let her head fall to his shoulder. "Chloe told me that there were nights when she sat and held you while you slept. It was hard to imagine, hard accepting that it was anyone but me. I blamed her when I should have been blaming myself."

Jack sighed, his breath ruffling through her hair as he glanced around the tan and white décor of the kitchen, his face darkening at the memory that came forth. "She did; but it wasn't, it wasn't some …. Audrey, she woke me up from a nightmare so bad I'd… I'd pissed myself. After she got done cleaning me up, holding me while I slept didn't seem like much."

Raines looked up at him then, her eyes narrowing. "I didn't let myself think about how weak you were when you went up there, how dependent you'd be. I just kept thinking how much less embarrassing it would be for you if I… and every time I spoke to Doctor Winters she would tell me how all of it was designed to help you let her in, that you would enter a state where she could help you if you learned you could be safe and exposed at the same time."

Jack turned from Audrey Raines, still keeping one arm around her but with too many thoughts now crowding his mind. Audrey had been his lover but for the months before Palmer had been killed he'd only had Chloe to link him with his life, he'd left with the strongest memory of Audrey the look on her face as he forced her husband's death. The intimacy that they had shared in body had little to do with the intimacy of trust he had shared with Chloe, trust that had let him agree to Winters' plan to begin; it was the same trust that had guided his steps into the bathroom the first time she'd washed him as if he were a child, that had made Chloe pull back each time he had, in confusion, drawn her into a kiss. Bauer finally returned to the moment, to the woman who was tucked under his arm. "I know it must have been hard for you to accept but Winters was right; it worked."

Audrey drew herself away from him then, shaking her head but keeping hold of his hand as she moved in front of him, her eyes struggling to catch his own. "Jack, I can't deny that; I just wish I could have been the one to help. I know you understand that."

"Of course, I do."

"Okay, thanks." Audrey responded, relief on her face as she took a step back, still holding his hand. "We should get back to sleep. They'll be watching you pretty closely tomorrow."

Jack nodded, following her back to the guest room. It was neat and neutral and spacious and the clothes they had come home with were still stacked on a table near the walk-in closet, waiting to be hung, tags still hanging off them. He looked away from them as he took off the robe he had put on over his undershirt and shorts and lay down, smiling as Audrey drew the sheet and then the gold blanket up over him. She sat on the side of the bed for a moment, the smile fading slowly as she looked down at him and dimmed the bedside lamp.

Jack registered her sobering expression with a pitying awareness that overtook him as she stood and drove him to catch her hand. "Hey… uh, you don't have to…"

Audrey turned back, her eyes falling to their hands as she returned his grip, a smile growing as her gaze then went to his face. Hesitant, wanting to be sure of what he was offering, she waited until he pulled back the covers himself before lying down beside him. Jack turned on his side as she did, his back to her, and sighed as she arranged herself behind him, tucking her legs against his and sliding her arms around his waist.

Jack sighed and took her hand when he felt her shaking, remembering that it had been nearly two years since they had been together, he'd forgotten what it was to have another body next to the length of his. She was warm; she still smelled of jasmine, her elbow still caught him at the curve of his hip, more sharply now that he was no longer at the same weight. It was all hauntingly familiar, a trip back into the past that his body's memory, so tormented before now, welcomed. Nearly another hour passed, however, with sleep eluding him, unable to stop his mind from going over again all that he would need to do at CTU. He shifted onto his back slowly, a look of apology on his face when Audrey opened her eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay. Are you thinking about tomorrow?"

"I can't stop."

Audrey lay still for a moment, her expression unreadable as he held her hand against his chest. "You can't wait to get back, can you?"

"I can't wait to have a life again that has some point," he answered her, his tone unexpectedly bitter even to his own ears. He looked away from Audrey when she pulled herself up and looked down at him.

"There's more than one way to do that, Jack," she responded, her eyes struggling to catch his own in the near dark.

"I know that," he answered her, too quickly he knew. "I don't want to go back in the field, but I can still make a difference there."

Audrey said nothing, merely lay back down and untangled her hand from his to stroke his forehead. "I know you can," she replied biting off the rest of what she wanted to say… the quiet urge to finish with 'but why do you have to?'.

xxxxx

"How about two units at each intersection arriving at 11 o'clock and holding position until 12:45? Egress will be simpler; the federal marshals will be waiting to move them into an armored transport."

Cassie Gibson looked down at the aerial maps of the Federal District Court on North Spring Street, marking the ten intersections Curtis had referenced. "I can put in a request for those. Vehicles aren't a problem but we may have to call in some off-duty manpower and you may want to put at least one unit in position on the 101. It cuts right behind the courthouse or we could just double the patrols."

"Do the latter. We don't need to overkill this. All of our intel still points to these guys being listed as nonexistent now."

Chloe looked up from the sheets that were in front of her, even tighter aerial shots with several marks on them, each accompanied with a string of letters and numbers. "As soon as you know the approach, let me know so I can isolate the cameras. There are tons of them around the Court House. I gotta' to narrow that down."

"No problem. Let's go with an approach coming in away from the 101," Curtis replied, standing near the even larger projection map of the area around the Court House, one that also showed the gleaming white tower of City Hall across the street. "But we still need a cordon that covers that ten intersections from North Broadway over to--," Manning fell silent as the door to the glass-walled strategy room opened, letting in Bill Buchanan and a tense but smiling Jack Bauer.

Chloe felt an uncalled for blush coming to her face and an inexplicable sense of relief and pride. "I didn't know you were coming back this soon."

"I've been cleared for light duty," Jack offered, working to take his eyes off of her before it became difficult for both of them, his gaze after it left her darted around the room and settled on the scattering of maps and dailies on the table. "I wanted in on this."

Bill Buchanan offered the younger man a small, one-sided smile. "I didn't see any reason why not. Jack is going to handle the CTU personnel distribution."

Curtis sighed quickly. "Good, because I've got my hands full with access control. We can only isolate so much in that area, and there's no airspace control. You're the pilot, any suggestions?"

Jack sat down at the table, pulling the maps in front of Gibson to himself, "One helicopter at about 2000 feet should give us a fluid observation platform. We could put snipers in the City Hall tower but it shouldn't be necessary. There's no change on the dailies to support that, is there?"

Chloe looked up from the reports that had come in within the last hour, satellite and transactional monitoring from the overseas financial lines, intercepted phone and computer communications, even what they suspected were coded messages submitted for publication in domestic Asian-language periodicals, none of which had revealed anything to her or the rest of the analysts on her team. Knowing that they were securing the court hearing for the people who had taken and repeatedly assaulted Jack Bauer had kept all of them tied to their computers for hours more than they would have been otherwise, some of them out of terror of what would happen if they should fail their lead analyst. "There's nothing, Jack, and Martha Logan has called in a few favors to keep an ear out in Washington if anything crosses channels there. So far they're staying with the story that this was a rouge branch of the Chinese Triads they were chasing themselves."

"Do you know which Chinese mafia they were blaming?" Cassie interjected, stopping her sister's reply.

Jack, sitting next to her, answered first, "They never said but I guarantee you it's not them; I know who took me; I know they were under government orders."

Cassie frowned sharply, an expression so unnatural to her face that both Jack and her sister were suddenly wearing the same smile, one that faded when the next words left her mouth. "Just because they didn't take you then, doesn't mean they won't be the ones trying to cut you down now. Their own government's money is just as good as running vice rings and drugs up from Tijuana."

Chloe huffed suddenly, offering her sibling one of her most heartfelt glares. "And you were worried you wouldn't fit in? Congratulations, you're as paranoid as the rest of us."

A flurry of restrained smiles darted around the room as Gibson's return scowl at her sister faded. It was gone completely when she looked across the table from Jack to Bill Buchanan. "I have a few contacts at the dojos in Chinatown. I'll see what I can find out on the ground."

Buchanan nodded, acknowledging her but it was only a pause in the subtle observations he had been making of Jack Bauer since they'd arrived. He kept his face quiet as the conversation continued, moving on to what could be done to halt or limit the amount of pedestrian traffic in the area. None of what had been done to Bauer had taken away his ability to strategize; the only difference he could detect was Jack's tendency to address Chloe first when he spoke and focus on her occasionally to the exclusion of all else. It took a few minutes of watching them both to realize that Chloe was following the same pattern, speaking first to Jack before expanding her attention to the others - despite the fact that this would be the first field operation where her own sister would be on the ground with them. A look at Curtis when Jack and Chloe's heads were both down confirmed that Manning also knew he was on the back burner.

Jack sat back an hour later, shuffling the stack of papers that had collected before him as well, all of them marked in red or blue to stand out from the black ink. "Do we shut down the parking garage under City Hall?"

Curtis shook his head doubtfully. "No, I checked. What they'll allow is for us to do a search of it empty and screen any vehicles coming in or out. Right now we've got a two block cordon that'll take place at the time of the hearing. They'll only let us snarl things up so much."

Bill leaned forward as the black man finished. "Jack, Chloe, there's one other thing you'll want to know, Agent Griffin has asked to be part of the team that escorts Jack in there. He felt rather honored to have had your help up in the hills." Buchanan held back a smile at the look that went between them, one that spoke of confidence from O'Brian, gratitude from Bauer, and from both the unspeakable trust that locked out everyone else. Jack turned from the analyst to nod to Buchanan. "I don't have his training profile here."

"There's no chatter circling about your first public appearance, Jack. This should be low-profile enough for him to run on the first team. The federal marshals will be sending us their transit plans as soon as they've decided where and when to bring in their prisoners. The plan now is to have you both arrive at the same time to narrow any window of opportunity and double the force available to deal with it if something does go down."

Curtis turned off the overhead, his eyes circling the table. "I guess we can't do anything more until the federal marshals get back to us. Chloe, get what we've laid out over to them. Cassie, when can I expect confirmation on your end?"

Gibson stood up, unable to bite back a smile as she watched the back of Bauer's head once she was on her feet. "Late tomorrow. To get twenty cruisers manned, I'll need to draw off duty uniforms from more than one division."

Chloe looked up at her sister. "If you stay here about an hour, I'll get the funding transferred in from Homeland Security to cover the department expenditure. Karen Hayes has greenlighted anything we submit to get these bas---, sorry, the… detainees put away for good."

Gibson frowned with distaste and collected her papers. "Where are they sending them?"

Curtis smiled thinly and caught the tall woman's eye, "Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Their last little mission is going to cost them the rest of their lives." Curtis bent low over the table as he gathered up his own set of papers. His movement caught Jack's eye just before he straightened and he offered his friend a confirming, grateful nod as he left out the door into Operations. Bill Buchanan came to his feet as well, a hand extended toward Bauer.

"Welcome back, Jack. We've missed your input almost as much as yourself."

Jack came to his feet as he took Buchanan's hand, shaking it firmly and nodding his thanks, "It's good to be back, Bill. Thanks for taking the chance on me."

"I never thought it was much of one. We would have waited as long as it took but you do what you need." With that Buchanan left, the quick smile fading from his face as he turned his mind to other matters. Jack's gaze followed him out the door, catching Gibson's as she headed for it.

"It's good to have you on board."

"I'm your fault, remember that. My would be politician chief will be glad to know you're Level Red on the Homeland Security Rainbow of Terror." She offered him the usual teasing smile and followed Curtis out of the room, leaving Jack and Chloe alone. All too aware of the glass walls around them, Chloe stood, her lips turning upward. "I can't believe this; I'll be running comms on my insane sister."

"How much safer could I be?"

Chloe smiled then scowled when she realized he wasn't completely joking then forced another smile. "Are you doing okay?"

Jack walked around the table and closed on her, stopping within a few feet and leaning against the wall. "I still don't know what to say to that. Today felt right, being here. It's the first time I've been here and not been in somebody's fishbowl. I just had to tell myself that it was about someone else once in while, that I wasn't the one these people were being punished over. …And then I'd have a few minutes where I couldn't avoid remembering what they did, that it was me tied to the table or puking up my guts." His eyes bored into her own suddenly, his lips thinning as his jaw clenched tight. As she had through so many restless nights, she heard the subtle change in his breathing. "I don't know if you knew, but you got me through those minutes."

Chloe felt the blood rush to her face and couldn't keep the smile from her lips. "I'm glad. I didn't know exactly but… I knew you needed…," she sighed sharply, her lips taking on a familiar twist the brought a surge of warmth in the pit of Bauer's stomach. "I have to get started on this stuff. Forget watching for you; Mom'll end up on Oprah for killing me if anything happens to my idiot sister."

Jack smiled, trying to imagine the mother that would have brought up both of them. His eyes stayed on her long after the smile faded and his eyes darkened as he reached out, taking hold of her arm clutched around the bundle of papers. "Chloe, I don't---."

"Then don't, okay, Jack? You don't need to… whatever. Just be okay. Do what you always do; don't let them win." She backed away from him slowly enough that he could tell she was reluctant to do so and his hand fell even more slowly back to his side.

"You, too, okay?" After that, Bauer stood silent, holding onto the smile she still had for him as she backed away and out of the room, turning around before he could see the tears that burned their way out of her eyes.

xxxxx

Dinner was cold by the time Audrey Raines stood to gather the plates from their very later supper, picked over and uneaten on her part in contrast to the empty plate that Bauer offered her. "I guess I don't have to worry about your appetite."

"More about your own, it looks like," Jack replied, his eyes on the half-eaten steak, remembering seconds later that there was no dog to dispose of it. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, really. Just a lot on my mind. You had a good day… didn't you?" The smile on Raines' face was forced into her voice but Bauer seemed not to have noticed.

"We worked out the security arrangements for bringing me in to testify against the people that held me. Once it was on the court docket, where I would be had to become public knowledge."

Audrey backed away from the table, blowing out the two white tapers on the table between them. "Jack, you know you don't have to do this. No one would blame you if gave a video-taped testi---."

"I want to look them in the eye, Audrey." Jack came to his feet, his voice tearing into her in a way that caught them both off-guard. "I want them to remember me as something more than a piece of meat they tried to butcher. Can you try to understand that?" He took a step back from her and covered his face with his hands. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes wide, Raines stared at him for several seconds, and then finished gathering the rest of the dishes. "No, I am. I just thought that the last thing you'd want to be is reminded that much of what you went through."

Bauer shook his head slowly, his eyes everywhere but her face as the next words came. "Audrey, I spent the last three months just beginning to accept what they did to me, to my body, to my mind. I know it wasn't your choice but… you couldn't be there while I did. Winters told me it was the only way I could move on and now that it's part of me I want justice, and trust me, I'll have it."

Audrey stood frozen, her mouth hanging open for a moment before she swallowed and nodded, slightly cowed by the first signs of temper he'd expressed since he'd been back, what little she'd shared of that, at least. "All right, and I guess for you that means being part of the plan to get you in and out of the Federal Court. Okay, that's fine. I'm glad you're involved then. I'll be back in a few minutes." Hands full of dirty dishes she retreated to the kitchen and, standing numbly, Jack listened to the sounds of her filling the dishwasher and opening and closing the refrigerator. Her color back to normal, she reappeared with two glasses in her hand, both filled with red wine.

"I'm sorry. I know you have a right to face these people; it's people like you who make justice work. You're the last person who shouldn't have it." She offered him the wineglass and was relieved when he took it with a twitched, lopsided smile. She took the hand not occupied by the glass and led him slowly into the master bedroom, shedding her heels on the pale tan carpeting. She sat down on the bed, Bauer following; they talked of nothing in particular they finished the wine then turned off the lights. Audrey took the glass from him and sat it on the nightstand, glad for the chemical help to relax as she began to undress. Jack, flushed now not by anger, slowly followed suit. She lay down when she was wearing only her pale pink bra and panties, her eyes wandering as Jack lay down beside her and backed into her arms again. She'd come to accept this new preference. Ever since he'd returned to her bed, he'd not faced her, had wanted to be held from behind, a seemingly unconscious desire to literally have someone at his back. She accommodated him, her arm wrapping around his waist once more.

It might have been the wine; it was probably the fact that she wanted to make up to him her assertions from an hour or so before, and the fact that he'd reminded her with unintended bluntness that she'd been denied any part in the most difficult stage of his recovery. She realized he was still awake after a few minutes and she reached the hand beneath his neck back toward him, stroking his forehead lightly to gain his attention.

"Jack?"

Bauer turned his head back toward her. "Yeah?"

Audrey wet her lips and pushed herself up farther off the pillow to make sure her voice wasn't muffled. "I read… most of… the file that they sent back with us, the one Dr. Winters prepared. I know that you're still… capable of…. being with me. I didn't want to push things if you weren't ready but then I thought, maybe you weren't sure if I…," she fell silent as Bauer turned onto his back, lifting up so he could slide his arm beneath her. His eyes were closed and when they opened they went to the ceiling.

"It's been so long, I don't…".

Audrey laid a finger across his lips. "Let me help. If it's not tonight, then some other, okay?"

Jack nodded against the pillow, his eyes closing again, his neck tightening as Audrey's hand untangled from his own and traveled slowly down his stomach, her lips brushing across his face as she did. She kept talking, her words as blur as her hand reached its goal, slowly and carefully sliding under the waistband of his shorts. His breath quickened for a moment as it did, and she paused, laying her hand flat against his stomach and feeling it clench. In the darkness she could see the tiny pinpricks of dim light coming from the tears seeping out from beneath his eyelids.

"Jack, do you want me to stop?"

Bauer lay still for a few moments, breathing a bit harshly, his voice almost silent when he finally spoke. "No, just… just…don't. Please…"

"We'll go slow." Raines answered, close to his ear. Unseen, she let herself frown in frustration as she spoke, unhappy that his eyes were still closed, hoping that it was because he was blocking out every sensation but her hand. Wishing he might open his eyes to watch her, she coiled up on her knees and reached down to his hips, sliding off his briefs slowly, letting him set the pace as he moved to accommodate her. She tossed them to the floor and lay back down, lowering herself next to his ear. "Trust me, Jack. Whatever happens we'll be fine." With that spoken, her hand fell to his abdomen, stroking him and feeling it knot up again before her fingers continued down, slowly coming to cradle his manhood. A tremor went through Bauer at the first touch of her fingers on the thin and sensitive flesh. She held back to let him adjust, then slowly wrapped her hand around his length. Ever so carefully, her fingers began to pulse against him. It was then that he cried out softly but at the same time his hand behind her back pulled her closer.

"Oh God."

"Are we okay?"

"Yeah."

It took a few minutes more of gentle encouragement before she felt him begin to respond, his breathing quickening as he firmed in her hand. Jack turned toward her, onto his side, raising his leg and sliding over her hip to expose himself more and give her even greater access. The tears came freely as she worked, tears of relief and fear as her touches finally prepared him completely for her. Jack held onto her as if he might otherwise drown, unable to form a single thought as he pressed himself against her fingers, sweating now, his hips occasionally jerking spastically. He followed as she sat up, her right hand moving from between his legs to join the left at his waist. Audrey's hands traveled over him slowly, finally looping carefully under the hem of his undershirt and sliding the thin fabric up, leaving him naked. Bauer looked up at her then, his eyes wide and vacant, irrationally innocent, and somehow telling her he was waiting. For what she didn't know -- so Raines continued to move slowly, rising up to remove her own underwear and then settling on her knees to straddle his lap. Hesitant at first but with a renewed confidence, he at last reached up, touching her breasts as if they would vanish and then leaning forward to offer her a kiss.

She let him take her mouth slowly, then moved back to stroke his temple with her chin. "It's all fine, Jack. Everything's fine. Let go. Let yourself go. Don't be afraid." Her smooth hands, resting on his shoulders, began to travel down his back, their touch lingering and warm, but as they slid between his shoulder blades, their slow, distracting descent, as if to contrast her own words, suddenly stopped.

Audrey's new position had brought her above him and Jack leaned forward, preparing himself for her final and most intimate grasp when he realized she was hovering above him for other reasons than patience and gentleness. He felt the tears a moment later, falling like scant rain on his back as he leaned toward her, tiny pricks of cold, chilled by their short journey through the air. In contrast, he felt the heat radiating from her hands as they lifted from his back and hovered above the scars that had been designed as well as inflicted, their ridges deep enough for the letters to be readable even in the semi-darkness. Jack started slightly when her touch finally came, and then stiffened when he felt her hands recoil away from his flesh just as quickly. Jack sighed once and quickly but didn't look up.

Audrey bit her lip and pulled his head into her chest for a moment before tilting his face toward her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…. Son of bitch, Jack. No wonder you want to see them sent away."

Bauer said nothing, fighting the painfully fading knot of energy in his gut, the scent of his own sweat mixing with the musky scent that had once comforted and empowered him. He drew a few long breaths, looking across the dimness of the room. "I guess I should have told you; I couldn't think."

Audrey backed away from him slightly, angry and disappointed with herself and enraged with his torturers. "Shhhh… I'm sorry. Just relax." Her hands went to his chest and moved slowly downward again. Jack sat still and unresponsive as her fingers carefully explored him again. He could sense her holding back after a while, her stroking and probing finally yielding nothing but a few frustrated winces and grunts from him. Jack's breath began to catch and after several long moments his hips tilted back, away from her touch, the clenching in his stomach now unpleasant. Audrey's hands withdrew slowly, regret and apology in every last moment of her stroking and fingering. Jack lay down again, careful to face her, letting his head be guided to her shoulder… but not meeting her eyes as he settled for the sensation of the light entwinement of their naked bodies. Audrey's arm folded back beneath his neck, her fingers stroking his forehead. Beneath her touch his mind was a jumble of thoughts and feelings again, of betrayal, of anger, of revenge, of pity and sorrow and frustration, and for all his thoughts unaware of why he was rubbing his legs slowly together, eradicating the lingering feel of the hands that had been between them. As he at last drifted off to sleep, his final thoughts were of the near stranger who had gently stroked his scars in retroactive comfort and the woman who had cared for him without seeing them at all.