A/N: Woohoo! Two chapters in one night! I apologize for any typos in this chapter as I found myself quite rushed (coughmargueritecough). Enjoy.
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"Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality."
--Emily Dickinson, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"
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Chapter 8
In Which All Is Revealed
Jack and Cappi parted ways when they reached the store parking lot. Cappi climbed into her car, and Jack into his red pick-up truck. They had agreed that he would follow her to her house.
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When Jack finally pulled up into the driveway of the large, white house, he sighed. Suddenly memories were flooding into his mind from all directions. Dinners with the Bowen family, working from sun-up to sun-down, days off spent with Elizabeth, telling her his secret—it all presented itself in his mind, and a hollow pain found its way to his heart.
Before he knew what had happened, he was standing in front of the back porch with Cappi looking at him incredulously.
"Well..." she said, starting up the steps to the porch.
But Jack just ignored her. He walked around to the front of the porch and crouched down before it. Cappi watched in mute awe as he stuck his hand beneath the floorboards of the porch and produced a black, tattered, moth-eaten cowboy hat.
"What in the hell is that?" Cappi asked in disbelief.
"My hat," Jack stated simply, plopping the hat onto his head.
Cappi narrowed her eyes at him.
"How did you know that was there?" she asked, "And what do you mean by your hat?"
Jack sighed, "Like I said, I've got a lot of explaining to do."
"Well, get on with it then."
"Maybe we should step inside..." Jack suggested, looking around uncomfortably.
Cappi continued up the porch with Jack at her heels and pushed open the back door. She sat the groceries sacks she had been carrying onto the counter and begin removing their contents and placing them where they belonged.
"Well?" she said, glancing at Jack as she placed the bread in the cabinet.
"My name's Jack Kelly—"
"Yeah, I got that part."
"Will you let me finish?" Jack sighed, "My name's Jack Kelly. I was born in New York City in 1882—"
He stopped abruptly when Cappi dropped the can of peas she had been holding.
"What?! That's impossible!" she cried, picking up the can.
"I know, I know. I probably sound crazy, but it's the truth." Jack said, pushing the cowboy hat off his head so that it hung around his neck, "You see, something happened...I'm honestly not sure what...well, I was in a fight in New York when I was eighteen, right after the newsies' strike, and the guy I was fighting with stabbed me."
Cappi just stared at him slack-jawed. She didn't even bother to question what a "newsie" was.
"So this guy stabs me and leaves me to bleed to death in the street. Of course, stupid me, I had told my friends I wouldn't need help in the fight and left without them, leaving me all alone. Eventually, some old lady finds me. She helps me to her apartment where she mends my wound and makes me drink this weird medicine."
Cappi was still slack-jawed.
"Then she gives me a little vile of the stuff," as he said this, Jack pulled a small vile of a strange-looking, clear liquid from his pocket, "and she tells me that I should give this to my one true love whenever I found her."
Cappi's jaw opened further, and her eyes widened.
"So I took the stuff, thanked the lady, and left. Later on I found out what it really was that she had given me," Jack said, grimacing slightly, "I got into another fight. Only this time, the guy pulled a gun and shot me right here" Jack lifted up his shirt to show a round, bullet-sized scar on his stomach, "but I didn't die. Only a few minutes after I had been shot, the wound closed up. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was just going crazy, but I went back to the lady and told her what had happened. She explained to me that she had given me immortality."
At this, Cappi closed her mouth abruptly and acted if she was going to protest to something, but she didn't.
"She said the potion she had given me would allow me to live forever. I told her I didn't want to live forever, but she said I didn't have a choice. She said I would've died if she hadn't given it to me, but that she gave me the small vile of it so that if I found someone to love, we could live together for all eternity. At this point, I was thinking the old hag was completely off her rocker, but I proved myself wrong. I was up on the roof of the lodging house one night after I had a few too many drinks. Being the bumbling drunk that I am, I stepped right off the edge of the roof. Fell three stories, but didn't get a scratch," at this Jack smiled, but Cappi only opened her mouth several times, giving her the appearance of a fish out of water, "After a while, people started noticing that I wasn't getting any older, so I took off. Decided to fulfill my dream of going to Santa Fe. Didn't quite make it there, though. I found a job here, building this house," he said, waving his arm around at the interior, "After a while, I took off again. Didn't want to, but I had too. People would wonder why I wasn't aging. Ever since then I've been traveling around, moving when people get suspicious. Now I'm back here."
Cappi narrowed her eyes at him for the second time that day.
"Uh-huh, and how do I know that you're not making this up?" she asked.
"See that picture you showed me earlier?" he asked her, pointing towards the pocket of her jeans, "That's one of only two pictures ever taken of me. This is the other one," and he produced a worn, newspaper clipping from his pocket. It read Newsie Crusade: Children Stop the World and displayed a picture of several smiling boys.
"Uh-huh, and how do I know you're not making this up?" Cappi asked again, noticing that the boy in the center of the picture Jack was holding looked identical to the boy in the picture she was holding and the boy standing in front of her.
Jack just sighed and procured a pocketknife from the back pocket of his jeans and flipped the blade out. Cappi watched in horror as he drove the knife into his stomach.
"See?" he said, pulling the blade out again and acting as if nothing had happened.
"Oh my God!" Cappi screeched, grabbing a dishtowel and rushing to his side to stop the bleeding.
But when she inspected the wound, she saw that, to her amazement, it wasn't bleeding and was already started to heal.
"Oh my God," she repeated, only a whisper now.
She ran a finger along the now completely healed flesh.
"So...how old are you exactly?" she asked, her eyes filled with wonder and awe.
"One hundred and twenty-two."
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A/N: If you are thinking that this story is now bearing great resemblance to Tuck Everlasting then dingdingding we have a winner. This chapter was inspired by the book/movie (neither of which I own the rights to coughdisclaimercough). Please review.