When passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!
- Shelley.
Neither of them hears her cry at night. He lies, stuck somewhere between waking and sleeping, dreaming of her, trapped in his own darkness.
And Jack, by her side, deep in a contented sleep, would never think to listen for it. He doesn't feel the sobs that tear through her body, because he's too wrapped up in his own sweet dreams. He doesn't know that she cries because the man in her bed is not the man in her soul.
He is not the man who continues to haunt her dreams every time she manages to sleep; whose kisses still whisper over her skin whenever she closes her eyes. He is not the man who is in her heart, in her blood.
He doesn't know that it's all she can do to keep from thinking of him when they move together; doesn't know that every smile she gives him is only a tiny echo of the ones she keeps for her Doctor, hidden away.
Every night it's the same. Every night, while she waits for sleep to take her, she feels his hands and mouth searching her, sees the hungry, desperate love in his eyes; the look that told her he could never hold her close enough. And every night she hears their cruel words, remembering how they tore each other apart, just a few short hours later...
She knows that she was scared, of his strength and her weakness; that she didn't trust herself with him. She remembers how terrified she was that their lack of control when it came to each other would lead to something terrible. She knows that she's safer with Jack, because he doesn't really know her.
But she doesn't understand how he'd said what he said to her; how she'd been able to hurt him the way she did. How she'd been able to walk away, and leave it all as a memory that they hadn't spoken of since. She doesn't understand how he can carry on working by her side as if everything is normal, while she dies a little each time she sees him.
Because she knows that, whether he cares or not, he has a hold over her that no one would ever be able to break though. He'll be in her heart forever.
"I should be stronger than weeping alone; you should be weaker than sending me home…don't keep me from crying to sleep."
There may be a 'resolving' chapter up sometime next week... depending how things go. Quote at the end is from Lisa Hannigan's words to 'Silent Night,' from the Damien Rice album.