She ran away sometimes, an action that never failed to amuse and annoy him in equal measure. He'd come home from a jog or a business trip, to find all traces of her removed from his apartment. The shampoo she'd insisted he buy, the oversized shirt she slept in, some trashy romance novel she'd left on the kitchen counter. He never really knew why she'd do it, leave without a goodbye or an explanation, no note magneted to the refrigerator door. What event or action or the thoughts that would lead to her desire to get away from him. It has to do with her independence, he guesses. Sudden abandonment as a way to tell him that she still has a life away from his bed and his eyes and his smirk.
He knows that it also had to with guilt. With panic. Waking up and realizing just who she's with, just what he's done. Still asking why she just can't kill him. Or at the very least, stay away.
It's not hard to find her, she knows that he's always aware of where she's gone. It's usually her father's house, maybe Cynthia's, less and less often she spontaneously boards a plane for a visit with her mother. She still stays in her own apartment, but never when she on a mutually understand escape from Jackson. That's equal ground for some reason, he's been there, he's slept in that bed, that place is not an escape.
The length of time varies. A night, three days, sometimes a week. He's never sure of when he's going to open his front door and she'll be curled up on the couch, wearing nothing but an oversized shirt, reading some trashy romance novel. And he stands there staring at her, annoyed and amused in equal measure, but more than anything, relived. He's never sure if she'll ever come back at all.
The longest she'd been gone was two weeks. She stayed with Cynthia, claiming renovations to her apartment building. It was after they had had their first real fight. A kind of fight that doesn't contain guns and knives and pens, the kind that holds raised voices and accusations. They had both been tired, Jackson had forgot to pick up their dry cleaning and Lisa hadn't remembered it was her night to supply dinner. Such a normal thing, such a normal fight. Any couple could and probably had had it. He knows that's what scared her the most. The normalcy their relationship had adopted.
He orchestrated deaths and abductions and forgot the dry cleaning.
She carried a gun with her at all times and forgot to make dinner.
It was a turning point that time she left. He'd never gone after her before, he'd never tried to get her back. That's why she allowed herself to be surprised when she left work that night, prepared to spend another evening in Cynthia's apartment, to find him leaning against her car.
"Lisa," he started awkwardly. "Can you just come home already?"
"Yeah." she said simply, and smiled apologetically. He enveloped her in a hug and kissed her forehead gently.
She began subletting her apartment a week later. She didn't run away again.