I know... finally!
Enjoy
M.
Chapter 93
Thursday, January 24, 2013
She felt it. The moment something had changed in Jack. Whereas he was all sorts of passionate before. Making her scream his name twice before he had thrust inside her. Now, he had stilled with an unceremonious grunt. She turned the tables, linking her legs with his and bringing him under her as she took control. He answered her movements with his own, but it wasn't the same. She could see he was thinking. She could see what they were doing was not achieving its main purpose.
Now, they were both thinking.
Sighing, she stilled. Her hands were placed firmly on his chest.
"You're thinking," she pointed out. Her eyes locking on his, but to her utter surprise, he avoided eye contact. She closed her eyes for a second, as despair took over her body. Something had changed profoundly. For the first time since her return, sex wouldn't cut it.
Throwing her leg up, she unlinked them. Then sat on the bed, her back to him. He didn't say a thing. He didn't move either. She stood up and disappeared to the bathroom. When she returned, she was fully dressed.
"Do you want to stop this?" She asked, masking her pain under harsher words.
"Do you?" He barked back.
"I asked first." Jack raised his eyebrows, not amused by her stance. "Fuck this. I gave up Parker time to be here."
"So, go! Go have time with that daughter of yours! Hopefully, she isn't half as cruel as her mother," Jack sneered, standing up and searching for his boxers. Sam gulped. Covering the pain of his words by clenching her jaw.
"Fuck you, Jack." She hissed.
"That's what you were already doing, wasn't it? You were fucking me until the next guy appears. I'm just a fucking fuck-toy to you, aren't I?" He shouted.
"What the heck has gotten into you, Jack?" She wondered.
"Into me?!" Jack asked loud, walking towards her. Cornering her against the wall. "You have a daughter, Sam! You have a fucking daughter! That means something."
"You say that as if it was a bad thing. Don't you think I've spent enough time raising her alone not to know I have her?" She wanted to cry, but she wasn't going to give him that pleasure. Not when she didn't have a clue what the heck had happened between the time he had her trembling under his touch, and now. "So, please, enlighten me! What the fuck do you think it means?"
"It means you fucked someone! You need two to get pregnant, don't you?" Sam's eyes widened.
"What the hell are you implying, Jack?"
"Answer me! Tell me how exactly you didn't fuck someone else."
"She's your daughter, for crying out loud!" She shouted back. Pushing him away from her. He stumbled back.
"The hell she is! Daniel fessed up that he saw you all cuddly with her dad. Was he at least the same man you brought home? You know, right after you told me you didn't have anyone else?!"
Sam was about to shout something else, about how much of an ass he was being with her. About how he was doubting her. When all she'd ever done was just to come back to him. When she'd not only waited for him but keep him under her watch. Protected him. Cleaning his name when he'd hired that escort…. When she'd raised their daughter alone. Hoping he'd still want her when they returned. Hoping that he could forgive her for taking so long, for allowing their daughter to grow without him. Then she processed what he'd said. She stopped open-mouthed and frowned.
"Daniel saw me with her dad?" She questioned in a whisper.
"So, now you confess!"
"No, Jack…" She frowned. "What I mean is… Daniel saw me? When? Why didn't he try to talk to me? Why didn't he approach me?" The confused expression she had while looking at him made Jack frown.
Had he screwed it up now? Assuming what Daniel saw was a lot more than it was? Why hadn't he simply asked her? Why had he tried to erase all memories of this guy from her body? Making her pant and groan and scream his name as she peaked. Why had he imagined she thought she was that guy as he fucked her? Why hadn't he asked?
"A few years back, Davis asked Mitchell and Daniel to check a place for him. Somewhere in Wisconsin. Daniel said you were there, that you'd moved on. I didn't want to believe him when he told me. I got drunk that night, trying to convince myself you couldn't have moved on. Not without letting me know."
The pieces fell into place for Sam. The only night she'd ever seen him so drunk, he'd ended up with an escort in his home. Now, the words of the woman finally made sense to her. She covered her mouth with her hand.
"I didn't believe it for the longest time… Not until you returned, and I saw her," He spat. Sam laughed hysterically. She wondered what the fuck Daniel had seen to announce to Jack that she'd moved on.
"So, he saw me with a man?" She asked, shaking her head.
"Yeah."
"What exactly did he said he see?"
"You, being all cuddly with a red-headed tall guy. Then Parker being all cuddly too before he went away. Then you and Parker left too. Daniel also said he saw you with a man, back in November too. He said you took him home. Is that why you tried to resign your commission? Because he came to fetch you back to whatever life he can give you?"
Sam laughed, shaking her head as she figured out who the man was. She couldn't believe just how fucked up everything was in her life.
"I don't see what's so fucking funny!" Jack growled, punching the wall beside him.
"You haven't introduced them to your family, have you?" She asked.
"Leave my family out of this." He hissed.
"Just answer me, Jack! Has Daniel ever meet Connor?"
"What the fuck does my brother have to do with this!? Huh?"
Sam walked to a chair he had in his room and let herself fall in it. She shook her head, dropping her head to her hands. She had never thought that calling Connor would end up in something like this. She never thought she'd be accused of cheating on him because she was too damn weak to keep things to herself. She cried.
Cleaning them with the back of her hand, the stubborn tears just wouldn't stop. The dam was broken. She raised her eyes for a second to find him. The scorn, the rage, the disgust in his eyes breaking her again. Did she have any chance of repairing herself after this? Should she humiliate herself more? Telling him just how pathetic she was?
She gulped.
"Answer me!" He shouted again. She heard a glass collapsing against the wall. She wasn't sure where it had come from or where it had landed She just wanted to crawl into a tiny ball and disappear from the world forever.
"I was… I couldn't…" she sniffled. Then he saw something change in her demeanor. "I was too hyped, too worried, too anxious."
Her voice was the same as it had been in the trial. Cold, detached. He gulped, that version of her appeared because he had forced it out of her. She looked at him, her eyes were empty. There was no trace of emotions. Even after seeing her pointing a gun to her head, he'd done that to her. He'd pushed her to that point.
"We were close to everything finally being over. I knew I could screw it all up if I didn't speak with someone. If I didn't let my fears out." She took a short breath. "Jordan told me several times I should talk with someone, a priest or a psych. Jenna said the same thing. Since she was a lawyer and she hadn't managed to make me talk."
"A priest… You called Connor?" He asked, his heart beating wildly in his ears.
"Yes," she raised her eyes for a second. "Before you get mad at me for throwing what I shared with him over his shoulders. You need to know I asked him first if he was sure he wanted that burden. He said he didn't matter. So… We met."
"Of all priests in the world… You went with my brother?" He asked then, unbelievingly.
She stood up and walked past him. Her shoulders slumped. She was feeling defeated. If she had that gun now, she would have little doubts about what to do with it. The pictures wouldn't be enough to stop her. The world was too fucking painful to go on like this. She placed a hand over her heart that was aching and breaking.
"It had to be someone I could trust. God damn it, Jack! Of all people, you knew how many trust issues I had before… My years alone, knowing what I knew, just made it all that damn much worse. He's a younger you, Jack. If I can't trust your brother. What chance do I have to trust anyone ever again? Anyone else besides you?"
She said, but she couldn't look at him. She was ashamed of needing that comfort. She was ashamed of telling him she hadn't been as strong as people thought she was. That she too needed someone.
'You'll never be enough,' her mind provided her.
"And the man in November?" Jack asked again. Sam gulped.
"It was Connor again."
"So, he knows you have a daughter?" He said.
She clenched her jaw. 'You have' not 'we'.
"Fuck you." She said, grabbing her bag. She left.
Jack heard his front door slam shut. He heard her SUV engine being revved on. He couldn't move. What the heck had happened? He wondered. When had he become such an ass?
The image of Sam, gun pointed to her head, brought him to his knees. What had he done? He shook his head, standing up again. He searched for his cellphone and was about to dial her number. When the image of her being battered and bruised after the last time. When he'd called her after she had left his house in a wild rush, swam in his mind. An image of Parker also joined the mix.
No wonder she'd looked so damn familiar. It wasn't just Sam he was seeing, the pieces he dissected as if belonging to a stranger weren't from anyone else, but himself. His siblings and even his own son reflected in pieces and bits of the girl. Did she know he was her father? What would she think of him knowing he hadn't even tried to get to know her? His own flesh and blood…. He gulped.
He needed to know they were okay. But his hands were trembling too damn much. He was so damn scared of sending her spiraling down and forcing her to collide against someone if he called her.
It took him longer than usual to press the digits he needed. "Pick up, pick up…" he said as he heard the phone ring.
"Fraiser." Janet's voice came laced with sleep.
"Fuck, I'm sorry I didn't check the time."
"Jack?"
"Yeah… Sorry, Janet. It's… I…."
"Jack. You need to calm down. Breathe." She had received calls like this before. She'd managed to calm him out of a panic attack a few times. When he'd dreamed of scenarios where Sam never returned.
"Parker is my kid." He mumbled, saying those words out loud for the first time.
"Yeah."
"You knew?"
"Sam told me on New Year's Eve. I guess she thought it was obvious. It kinda was… but I was too blind to see it."
"Janet… I screwed it up. I screwed it up badly. You need to make sure she's okay."
"Parker?"
"Sam."
"What happened?"
"I… Just make sure she's all right. Make sure she does nothing stupid. Remind her that kid needs her. That she's the only person Parker knows."
"Jack…"
"Find her, Janet."
"And you?"
"I'll wait until you can tell me she's all right. We can't both be gone, not if we're all that Parker has."
Friday, January 25, 2013
It was barely two am as Sam hit this new low. She'd parked her SUV back home, but she couldn't go inside. She donned her heavier jacket and walked around the house and up to the rooftop. His rooftop.
The house would belong to him again if she was gone. Parker would belong with him if she was gone. Did she want to be gone? She wondered, plopping herself down on one of the chairs that were placed there. After all the work she'd done to return…. But didn't she deserve a happy life too?
Around two-thirty, she saw the lights of a car as it stopped by her curb. She wasn't ready to face him. Not again, not after the way he'd broken her. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She raised it to eye level and frowned.
"I'm on the rooftop." She said hanging it quickly and hiding her hands again from the biting cold. She heard someone climbing the ladder. Soon she saw the head of her (former?) friend. "Fancy meeting you here, Janet."
"Sam."
"Please tell me you didn't come here to give me some more bad news. I'm not sure I can take any more of it tonight." She mumbled. Janet had looked at her. If she was honest, she'd never seen Sam so tired and defeated until now. Not even when Jack had stayed behind on Edora and she'd overworked herself out until they'd managed to retrieve him.
"What happened?"
"Life. Fucking life happened like a wrecking ball. I had no chance, I wasn't even a wall." She whispered. Her eyes were filled with a new batch of unshed tears. "I never had a chance, Janet. Not even after how hard I fought for one."
"Talk to me. I'm here. I'm listening."
"Isn't it a bit too late?"
"You're still here, aren't you?"
"So it seems."
"Then it's not too late."
Sam gulped. "I don't know who I am anymore, Janet. I'm so fucking different from who I was. I'm… I've done things."
"What can possibly be so damn wrong?"
"Everything. Me, you… Everyone! No one is the same, everything's wrong. I don't know any of you anymore, and you don't know me."
"You're right, but we're willing. We want to get to know you again."
"Then why? Why doesn't anyone ask me things? Why can't you notice I just can't untangle the mess that's in my head by myself even when I tried to search for help? Why do people keep assuming the worse from me? "
"Who did?"
"Daniel, Jack… Even you…"
"I never…" Janet started, but Sam shook her head.
"Who did you think Parker's father was before New Year's Eve?"
"I thought it would be someone you'd met during your new lives… I knew you and Jack had something more going on. Since his relationship with you was brought repeatedly during the trials. But I never thought Parker would be the result of it."
"Apparently, Jack thought the same." She shrugged. "You didn't truly know about us. But he fucking knew what we did during that week. I'm his fucking wife, for crying out loud! Why would he think so low of me? Why would he believe I fucked someone else the moment he was out of reach?" she asked.
Janet took a breath, surprised by her questions, and blindsided by her confession. But she pulled it together quickly.
"There's no next of kin in your file, Sam. There's no change of status either. I searched for Parker's birthday and there's nothing more than the fact that you have a child, and that's assuming that's the reason they classify those lines. As for the rest… I can sugar coat it for you, Sam. I truly can…"
"Don't… I don't need the sugar-coated version…"
"You both are so damn hardheaded that you'll be butting heads until you kill each other. Truth is, he never thought he was enough for you. He was hanging in there. Waiting for you, hoping you'd return. Because there wasn't anything else he could do. He couldn't even tell us until it was out," she shook her head. "You both are so damn alike, that it's amazing to see how you take the same paths of self-wallowing. If I had met you both when I was studying, I would've become a shrink. You guys are a fascinating case of insanity."
Sam looked at Janet not amused by her words
"I'm serious, Sam. I'm going to say you guys need couple's therapy. Not to fix your marriage, but to get some deeper understanding of the shit you both have in your heads. You both need to let go of your fears. You don't go eleven years doing whatever you did. Raising a kid not even your closest friend out there knew you had until three years ago, unscathed. You don't go eleven years trying to come up with a way to find someone who's hiding from everyone for her safety without a scar or two. You guys need to talk. He needs to know what happened to you. He needs to understand there's nothing he could have done that would make things happen faster or easier. You need to understand that whatever you did it was worth it."
"You think…" Sam started but shook her head.
"What?"
"I made videos for him when I was…" she blushed.
"Has he seen them?"
"No. I took them to his house once, but I never gave them to him. I thought it wouldn't help. I thought it would make it all worse."
"It never hurts to try. If you want to try. It will be his choice to see them or not."
"What if he doesn't want to try?"
"He called me, Sam. Coz, he was terrified that his call would end up with you in another accident. That has to mean something."
The sun started to rise on the horizon, and Sam sighed. She stood up. "Come on, I'll make you some coffee before we both have to start our day for real."
