Part Five in the "Reflections" Series
Written by Sapphira
Short Story Based on the WB TV Series "Tarzan"
Song sung and written by Casey Stratton
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Disclaimer: Don't own any of it… not the characters, the music, or the series in any form… I am making no profit off of this, or ANY of my other fanfics… I'm writing it purely for my own enjoyment, and hopefully for the enjoyment of some of the fellow fans.
Distribution: If you want it, you can have it… just drop me a line and tell me where it is going… ;)
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Author's Note – This is the fifth part in an on-going series of mine, and is the sequel to "I'm With You", "Lies", "Fallen", and "Forever"… Although all of these stories CAN be read as stand-alone pieces, I do hope that you will take the time and read all of them in order, if you have not done so already… Enjoy!
Special thanks to Casey himself, for taking the time to share these precious lyrics with me… You are definitely one in a million! Kindest regards always in everything that you do…
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Summary – "It seemed like every time she turned around, there was another story being told. Another lie being fabricated. But none of them seemed to be bothering her more, than the one she was inflicting upon herself." Jane's tormented thoughts and emotions at the end of the 4th episode "Rules of Engagement"… Part Five in Reflections Series…
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"Hollow"
When he had stopped before kissing her at the sight of her tears, part of her had been relieved. But when he had left so suddenly, abandoning her in the atrium, something in her had begun to ache. Her now silent tears catching upon her lashes, shimmering against her pale skin.
//…It's so quiet… Walking along the edge…//
She couldn't stop herself from stepping out onto the balcony, the cold of the night air falling over her. Penetrating her layers of clothing to wash against her skin. She wrapped her arms instinctively around her torso, one arm flung over her chest as if to somehow guard her heart, which felt like it was breaking in two.
//…It won't be long now… Till I forget who I am…//
Stopping just a few feet outside the massive twin glass doors, her gaze danced over the rooftops that were visible to her eyes across the way. Hoping to catch some sight of him as he fled into the night, but knowing that she wouldn't. He was already gone. Slipping back into the darkness of the night, leaving her alone with the harshness of her thoughts.
Part of her wanted to go after him. But then that would have contradicted every single barrier that she was trying to place up around herself to keep him from becoming any more immersed in her life than he already was.
//…I am so afraid… To move forward…//
Finally closing her eyes in defeat, she stood there, a shudder running under her skin as she exhaled. Swallowing against the heavy presence of sadness sitting at the back of her throat. Feet rooted to the aged stone tiles underneath her, as the wind continued to brush up against her. Pushing through the thickness of her hair, lifting it from her nape, and causing it to stir about her face
She prayed that in time, its numbing caress would erase the betraying effects of her own body. Wipe out the burning sensations of desire and need that ran through her veins like liquid fire, making her long for the touch of someone that she had absolutely no right wanting.
//…All the mistakes I've made…Surround me…//
But nothing could remove the imprint of the grief she had felt strike her when she had seen the look in his eyes right before he had left her. Nothing could remove the fact that she knew she had hurt him deeply with what he had taken as a rejection of his heart-felt overture, or that she hated herself for causing him that pain.
//… So I run away…I cannot face…//
How could she explain to him what it was she was feeling, when she was so afraid to even explain it to herself?
//…What I'm throwing away…//
A little more than a week had gone by since the events of that day they had managed to save that boy from his kidnappers and the last time that she had seen John, until she had met him up on that rooftop overlooking the latest sniper attack. And in that span of time, she had thought she would have had enough time to work through what she was feeling for John, and be able to exert some control over her life once more. She had been wrong… but she hadn't realized just how incredibly wrong until tonight.
//… It's just as well…//
She couldn't be free of him. Couldn't be free of what her heart was aching for. He was in her blood, with no chance of her being able to block him out. When she was with him, all she could think of was touching him, or of him touching her… And when they were apart, she felt incomplete. Vulnerable. Empty. She didn't come truly alive until she felt his presence near, and then she ached for a completely different reason that was just as disconcerting… maybe a little bit more.
//…you could always tell…//
Everything inside of her was screaming at her. Demanding that she give in to this. To him. Only her mind rebelled. And even that aspect of her was torn. One part of it wanted her to run as fast and as far away in the opposite direction, and never see John again… while the other part was just as screwed as the rest of her.
//…When I was hollow…//
She could end all of this, she knew that. She could call him to her, and give herself up to the promises she saw glittering in those eyes every time that he gazed at her. But she couldn't bring herself to that conclusion. She didn't think she would be able to forgive herself if she did.
//…I never asked for this…//
But then what else was there? Why was she doing this to herself? Why was she still putting herself through these encounters with John when nothing could ever come from it?
//… Happy just to breathe…//
And why would she want something to come from it? Why would she want to throw away everything that she had worked for, and for what? For a moment? A touch? A kiss? What good would that do either one of them when the moment passed and the light of morning came?
//…But now what I've done here… Means nothing to me…//
She had had everything she'd ever wanted, and then that night had happened… and it had all changed. She had changed. And it was because of him that she had. He had made her take a real good long look at herself in the mirror, and she wasn't comfortable with what she had seen.
//…I look inside and I feel so small…//
"I wish I could see things as clearly as you do."
"So do I."
"John, even if he is guilty we cannot go in there with no warrant and no proof. We have to wait."
"Why?"
"Because that's the way the law works."
"Is that a rule?"
"Yeah, it is."
"Your rules are lies."
"I think John might be right… My rules are lies. I've crossed the line so many times lately I don't even know where it is anymore."
//… I am never good enough… To become what you already are…//
Why did things have to be so complicated? Why had they played out the way that they had? Why did she feel so compelled to track John down after that first night up on the rooftop, before she ever knew who he was, or what his familial ties went back to?
That night was still so hazy for her at some points… yet all too clear at others. She remembered how stunned she had felt the first time she had looked up at him. How she had felt as if someone had knocked the wind right out of her. She remembered the way he had looked at her… they way he had touched her. Studying the differences between them… And the way he had instinctively tried to protect her when Richard Clayton's goons descended, before getting shot multiple times with a tranquilizer gun.
For a moment there, she had thought she had gone just a little bit crazy. Believing that maybe she had just imagined everything. That it had been some foolish hallucination brought on by the blow to her head. And she might have succeeded in convincing herself of just that, if it hadn't been for his mother's locket that had accidentally been left behind.
She had told herself that her search for him over the following days, was because of what she had seen in him up there, the way he had saved her from falling to her death, and then the cruelty in which he had been taken away...
And that it had absolutely nothing to do with the way that he had looked into her eyes as if he was seeing all the way down into her soul… And had just suddenly decided that it was a beautiful place to be.
But when she had finally found him, locked up in that horrible observation room constructed by his uncle, her certainties of her motives had blurred alarmingly… And then when he had vaulted up to the ledge in order to bring them both face to face once more, and had uttered his first word in a little over 18 years, it had been signed, sealed, and delivered.
And she had known without a doubt in her mind as she stood there, staring at her own reflection in the glass after the shield had been dropped to cut off their view of one another, that she had just been submerged in way over her head.
She had tried to change it. Had tried to do what was expected of her… but every time she had gotten close to doing just that, she had been exposed to yet more reasons not to.
It seemed like every time she turned around, there was another story being told. Another lie being fabricated. But none of them seemed to be bothering her more at the moment, than the one she was inflicting upon herself.
//… So I run away…//
Why had she even come here tonight? What force was it that had stretched between them both, weaving their lives tighter and tighter together in the span of just a few heartbeats in time? Why couldn't she just break away from it, from him, and walk away now, before she was inevitably scarred beyond repair?
And why did the idea of doing just, when it was obviously the right choice for everyone all around, that filled her with such overwhelming fear?
When he had reached out to her just moments ago, halting her attempt to gracefully exit the atrium, it had sent a startling thrill through her. Piercing her with a haunting longing that she was beginning to become addicted to, but yet was afraid to do anything about.
And he had been there. Standing right in front of her. Offering himself to her. Despite the intensity of their previous encounters, something had been different about tonight. Maybe it was because of the way he had pressed her hand against his mouth, kissing it ever so slowly. It had made her realize that, despite his inexperience with the world around him, he knew more than she had probably originally wanted herself to believe, and her acknowledgment of that fact suddenly changed everything between them.
//…I cannot face…//
Then he had taken that same hand, and had pressed it ever so gently against his hardened chest. Cradling it under the heat of his calloused palm like it was made of the most fragile of materials. Resting it there so she could feel the quickening of his heartbeat in a movement, that had spoken volumes about what he was feeling, yet struggled constantly to put into words.
So he had told her in the only way he knew how. Through his touch and through his eyes. And she had seen more in that single moment gazing at him and what he was feeling so strongly for her, than she had ever expected to see from another in an entire lifetime.
She had just seen a little bit of the sensuality that lay just beneath the surface of the glorious creature that he was, and he had offered it to her for the taking. Sensing her awakening responses to the potency of his nearness, he had leaned in, wanting to kiss her, really kiss her, and, heaven help her, but she had wanted him to… She didn't think she'd ever wanted anything more...
Which is why it had felt as if something was shattering inside of her to resist him.
//…What I'm throwing away…//
She had torn her gaze away from his as the unexpected tears triggered by the swell of unbearably strong emotions running through her, had blurred her vision, and she hadn't wanted to look back up. Sensing his sudden stillness. The slight change shifting underneath the surface of his skin, as he saw her begin to cry.
But when he had slowly let go of her hand to reach up and feather a touch across her cheek in an attempt to remove her pain, it had forced her to look back up into his eyes…
And what she had seen there, right before he had turned away and disappeared into the night, hadn't just made her heart ache… it had ripped it right from her chest.
//…It's just as well…//
She had hurt him. Hurt him deeply. She had never wanted to do that, but now… now there wasn't a way to fix it. No way to take it back. And would she, if she could? Wouldn't that just throw them back to this same conclusion? No matter how much her soul cried out for his, she couldn't give him what it was he was longing for. She couldn't be what it was he wanted.
//…You could always tell when I was hollow…//
And it was for that reason alone, that she never should have come here. It hadn't been fair to either of them. But she hadn't been able to get the mental image of their last meeting on the rooftop overlooking the flea market out of her head.
He had stared at her with such a look of confusion and frustration, and maybe just a little bit of betrayal over the fact that she hadn't left him kill the guy that had repeatedly attempted to kill her. It didn't make any sense to him why he couldn't just remove that threat from her life once and for all… and she would have been lying yet again to herself if there hadn't been a part of her that had been wondering the same thing.
But she knew what would have happened to John if he had… and she didn't want to give the rest of the world a reason to lash out at him. She didn't want to have to see him subjugated to what they would do to him. She wished she could make him see that.
He was like this beautiful wild animal that should never be caged… If that were to happen, she knew it would crush everything inside of him that made him so unique. She couldn't bare the possibility of losing him like that.
The judicial system wasn't perfect. She knew that better than most, having grown up in the part of town that she had, and having been a cop for the last few years in a labyrinthine city that had been stained with the innocent blood of countless thousands over the generations, and would continue to for many yet to come.
She knew it was flawed in so many ways… knew that sometimes, the bad guys got away with murder, while the victims paid the price. She hated seeing that. But then there were the times that it did work, and the bad guys were put away, and the victims received their retribution in whatever form it was awarded.
And when that happened, it was incredible. It was why she had become a cop. Why she had always been so careful to go by the book so she would never have to deal with the 'what ifs', if the criminal in one of her cases managed to escape justice. She had wanted to help people. Had wanted to make this city a better place, even if her influence was only miniscule.
But then John had come into her life, carrying with him his own simplistic brand of brutal justice, and it had started to make her doubt all of those things that she had trained herself to follow. All of the rules that she had chosen to place her faith in.
//…So once again…//
He had challenged her to think in ways that she had been taught to always consider taboo. He had opened her eyes to the world around her, to the way that he saw it, and it was confusing her on so many different levels, that she didn't know which one to focus on trying to work through first.
//…I have let you win…//
And the funny thing was, he didn't seem to realize what he had done. How could he? He had known no other way of viewing the world, so he had no basis for comparison the way that she did… and he seemed to be continually baffled that she would choose to follow hers rather than his, when hers seemed to only make excuses for those that were corrupt.
And she couldn't exactly blame him for that either, when such a large part of her internal turmoil was stemming from the fact that something inside of her knew that he had every right to be so frustrated.
//… The game of giving me a voice…//
But on the same token, she was afraid. She couldn't let herself fall into those beliefs. That way lay a chaos and lack of control that she wasn't ready to take on. She couldn't let herself forget everything that she had worked so hard for. She couldn't let herself doubt who it was exactly she was fighting for every day that she spent on the job… not anymore than she already did. Screwed as it all was, it was all that she had left.
//… The pill has been swallowed…//
And she couldn't let what had occurred tonight between John and her happen ever again… He was capable of provoking such overwhelming sensations with such an exquisite tenderness that could only disarm her faster than anything else. Leaving her vulnerable and exposed.
And he could read her like no other. He knew her every emotion and sometimes, even her thoughts when he was with her. If she let him strip away everything that she had thought built up the foundation of who she was, where would that leave her once he finally saw that her soul had been laid open for the inevitable taking?
//…But I am still hollow…//
Then where would that take them, when she would no longer have within herself the strength to resist their connection…?
…And where would that take her, when she could no longer turn him away?
//…I look back, upon my life… And see what's been denied…//
//… And I try to face it… But I can't ever seem to erase it…//
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Well, that's it until the next story… I hope that you enjoyed, and will take a moment to let me know what you thought. Am I getting the chemistry between Jane and Tarzan right?? I'd love to have your thoughts!