Disclaimer - The song mentioned belongs to Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Dedication - To a special teacher, who, when I was lonely, took me in his arms and held me even when I tried to hit him.
You saved me.
He saved my life, he did. When I was so lonely, so broken that I was the only person I knew, when I cried myself to sleep at night, he found me - and he loved me.
To understand me, I'd always thought you'd have to have had a childhood like mine. To know the sound of your mum crying,
your dad roaring and yelling, that terifying silence when you're laying upatairs and you hope to God he hasn't killed her.
And when he hits you, you stop believing in God and you're alone, alone in the world and you hurt.
I'm alone, always have been except for those few years when I was with him. I'm alone again now, but if you can suffer in memory, you can love in memory as well.
I met Jack when I was 23. He came to Barton Street where I was working and I got conscripted into running errands for him,
because I was new. I can't remember the actual work very well - it was just a strange job, one amongst so many others that
were new. I remember that it was a fraud case, that he was there for about a fortnight and that he shook my hand in
farewell; said 'See you again.'
When I was 25, I couldn't cope with Barton Street anymore. I put in for a transfer and I ended up with him. I remember that first day alright - a welcome warmer than I expected, because he recalled who I was - and then, him gently quizzing me about if I was okay or needed any help. How I needed help then - and he was the only one who saw that I did.
If you've never suffered from depression, you wouldn't understand it. The choking, grasping sadness. The coldness that starts in your soul and makes you shiver in July. The alcohol that burns in your throat and doesn't help except that it makes you so numb that you think you've died. And the tears that scorch your eyes and they can't fall because there are others around.
Do I know what caused it? The pain from those childhood injuries that never really went away, perhaps. That move away from
my friends who didn't keep in touch. Beech fleeing, John dying. Kate - where does she come in? I liked her; I bedded her.
She didn't stop the pain, nor hold me in the darkness to stop my tears. I didn't love her enough, nor trust her enough to
tell her about it all.
It was well before Kate died that Jack found me weeping in the car park. I can't remember why - it was the depression more than anything. Darkness, helplessness, terror. All I got was a questioning look, but from then on I worked with him. I don't believe he thought I was a promotional candidate, not when Danny was cleverer and Eva smarter. I think he felt sorry for me - but what an actor he was. He never let me know why he asked to me to work with me; tried to make me think that he thought I had info on one of his cases.
I trust him - I trusted him completely and utterly after that first day in Barton Street, so I told him some of it. I learnt a lot from him, procedure and man-management, and ways to kick back after work. He understood that I laughed and joked and answered back because it was that or break. He encouraged me to challenge him, laugh with him. He became a friend.
He was there after the fire. When I heard, my first thought was for him, not Kate who I was going out with. He was unobtrusively there after the funeral and when I broke down and fled and he come looking for me, I think it was then that I came to love this man who repaid my loyalty with care.
But that darkness is just as intense if you love someone because they don't walk it with you. That knowledge of walking a knife-edge with death on one side, and knowing that you wouldn't really care if you fell down it - that knowledge is yours and yours alone.
He knows that he saved my life a few months later, just before Christmas, when I got knifed. Does he know that I hated him so much afterwards that I couldn't stand to be in the same room as him? I can't understand now how I could have hated some-one whom I love so much, but I wanted to die then and he made me live. I hated life so much; the warmth of my blood was better than the coldness of the depression that he pulled me back into, when he laid there and pressed a rag thing against my ribs.
I don't think that he knows that he saved my life again a few weeks later, when he ushered me into his office and held me in his arms. The first thing I did that day was to yell at him, then try to hit him. And he just stood there, his arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled my head down to his chest so that his heart thundered over the sound of my tears. You can't hate some-one who cares for you like that.
The darkness seemed less dark after that because he insisted on sharing it with me.
Chandler came after that; he died in front of us by his own hand after my actions. I threw up afterwards and Jack held me. Late that night, his defences fell and he cried while I sat with him. I told him all about my childhood that night - he told me about his divorce and about Rachel who had split up with him.
Kate died, Chandler died yet that depression was slipping away, bound up with my feelings for Jack. It was a month or
so after Chandler had died that I lost control and got drunk, and he found me in a pub. He came and nearly dragged me
out, his arm around my waist as he lifted me into the car. It was as natural as breathing to brush my lips against him,
listen to his startled gasp and then kiss him when he dipped his head.
If I'd know he was drunk, I never would have gone home with him, I swear. I love him, I love him - and I think that night was near to Heaven, underscored by alcohol and his CD player belting out 'Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magick' as he pulled my shirt off - but if I'd known... I love him so much though.
We woke up early, rolled into work and never mentioned it again. That darkness that I'd shared with him so completely,
vanished for a while and when, after Delaney, it come back, it was never as dark again. And my friendship with him
never, ever altered except it become deeper.
The last clear memory I have of before Delaney is bound up with Jack. I tried to change the oil in my car at work, poured it all over my new watch and my shirt. He laughed and laughed, then gave me his jacket and told me to get changed.
His laughter, his love that was shown only by his care except for that one night, saved my life. I love him, I love him. One day, I guess I'll go back to Sun Hill. I don't know if he misses me like I miss him but I dream of him welcoming me back with a kiss. I don't know if he will - but I've suffered enough in memory to feel that I've got the right to love in memory as well.
I promise, Jack, I can't stay away from Sun Hill forever. The darkness is coming back, slowly, but I'll come back to you..One day. I love you, my saviour.