Jack stepped aside to allow Harrison into the apartment, figuring that denying him would only cause a scene and wake Tru, but Harrison shook his head.
"Not here." When all Jack did was throw him a decidedly suspicious look, Harrison continued. "I don't want Tru to hear. Look," he sighed seeing that Jack was still somewhat sceptical "you really think I'd be here if it wasn't important? In case you've forgotten since yesterday, you're not exactly my favourite person."
It was more curiosity than his belief that Harrison had only Tru's well being in mind that finally induced Jack to let out a put upon sigh before retreating into the apartment to grab his jacket. Shrugging the leather over his shoulders, he paused before returning to where Harrison waited at the door, tilting his head thoughtfully as he gazed at Tru, still sleeping undisturbed. He frowned when he noticed her shiver, quickly moving to cover her with the blanket from the back of the couch, and gently brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. An unexpected, yet not unpleasant warmth passed through him as she instinctively leaned into his touch, and he smiled.
It defied all logic, of course. He wasn't supposed to fall in love with anyone, especially her. He was 'death'. He was supposed to go through life seeing but never feeling. It wasn't right, a voice cautioned from the back of his mind, the same one that had been hounding him with the dangers inherent of letting Tru in, of allowing his strange new attachment to her to grow…but it seemed to be getting quieter each time he looked at her. He wondered if it was always like this when you felt genuine affection towards another rather than the usual lust, which had always been enough to see him through before now, or whether this was something unique that came with caring about Tru. He knew which he would rather believe.
A pointed cough from behind broke him from his thoughts and he sighed, reminded of why he wasn't still lying with her in his arms. With one final stroke of her hair, resisting the urge to kiss her upturned cheek only because of Harrison's watchful presence, he turned and walked away, softly closing the apartment door behind them…though he couldn't resist one last look back before she was out of sight.
Jack followed mindlessly after Harrison as the other man lead them down the stairwell that opened out onto the alley beside Tru's building, still lost in his thoughts. As such he was a little taken aback when Harrison rounded on him, grabbed his collar and shoved him against the wall. It was with a great deal of effort that he was able to suppress the wince of pain as he felt the jolt at the small of his back, but he was unwilling to give Harrison the satisfaction of his reacting.
"How long!" Harrison spat angrily. "Was it all some big game? Were you laughing at us for being so naïve? Did you think it was funny to watch me being sucked in?"
"Firstly," Jack began conversationally, his pseudo pleasant expression not wavering as he roughly shoved Harrison away, sending him sprawling into the trashcans on the other side of the alley "don't touch me. And secondly, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Come on Jack," Harrison sneered, picking himself up off the ground. He moved as if to attack again, but when Jack simply raised his eyebrows he seemed to think better of it, "I'm in no mood for your games right now."
"You think I'm playing some game?" Jack shook his head, baffled. "I haven't got the time or the energy for games, not now."
"Right, 'cause you're too busy helping Tru." Harrison retorted, sarcasm dripping form every word. "Because you care about her so much."
Jack clenched his jaw, refusing to rise to the bait. He could try an convince Harrison that he had no ulterior motive for what he had been doing the last few days, but he knew anything he could say would fall on deaf ears. His bridges with Tru's brother had been well and truly burned and Harrison was never, ever going to believe he was capable of doing or feeling anything good. He was, in Harrison's own words, 'Satan's butt monkey'. "What goes on between me and Tru is none of your business." He said at last.
"How about what goes on between you and my father?" Harrison posed, "Is that my business?"
Jack blanched. "What?"
"Funny thing happened to me this afternoon," Harrison explained, though his tone suggested that the episode had been anything but amusing. "I went by my dad's office to ask for some time off, so I could be there for Tru, and who do I see in his office? None other than Jack 'death' Harper himself."
"Harrison," Jack began, a denial already on his lips as a matter of instinct, "it's not…"
"Don't bother!" Harrison snapped, cutting him off. "I know what I saw and I know what I heard…" a wave of absolute disgust and pain crossed his face, his voice becoming a harsh whisper "…what he said about Tru…"
"I'm sorry." It was woefully insufficient he knew, but it was all Jack could think to say. There had been only a handful of times in his life when he had said those words and meant them, but this was one of them. He couldn't even begin to imagine what Harrison must be going through, knowing how close father and son had become recently, having been there the whole time the relationship had been slowly rebuilt. It seemed oddly fitting that he was also here to witness it's ultimate destruction, for he knew nothing was likely to fix this. There was no point in his denying anything – Harrison already knew the truth, or at least part of it – and not even a rewind would help now, Tru was already asleep. Harrison wouldn't forget a thing.
"You're sorry?" Harrison laughed bitterly. "You think sorry is gonna make everything okay? You think it's gonna take back the fact that you've been keeping this from us for over a year?"
"Why are you surprised?" Jack asked, confused once more. Since when had any of the white hats trusted him?
"I really don't know." Harrison shook his head, chagrined at his own insanity. "I guess I just figured not even you would stoop so low. He's our father for God's sake! He was…"
Jack gulped as he saw Harrison's eyes widen in shock and realization, all colour draining from his face. The sinking feeling in his stomach told him that he knew exactly what had just occurred to him.
"He…he was like you…" Harrison spoke quietly, as if doing so might lessen the impact of the facts as they fell into place. "He was like you, and mom was like Tru…" he looked up at Jack then with a simultaneously haunted and horrified expression. "He killed her didn't he?"
Jack could have denied it; he could have claimed not to know. But for some reason…he just couldn't force the lie past his lips as he had done so many times in the past. All he could do was watch as Harrison's heart broke, and notice distractedly that he wore exactly the look as Tru had done when he had found her after her ordeal with Ashworth. He looked as if his whole world had ended.
There were very few times when Jack had felt such overwhelming shame, and he was beginning to remember the downside of caring about someone – you were loath to bring pain to those you knew they cared about because it hurt them too, and when they were in pain…you were as well. In this way, it would have been easy to interpret his next words as having selfish intent, and to an extent it might have been an accurate assumption, yet at that moment he did believe he was acting with everyone's best interests in mind. "You can't tell Tru," he instructed, his voice firm "not yet."
Harrison stared at him blankly "You're kidding right?" When he saw that Jack was in fact deadly serious, he laughed, sounding more than a little hysterical as he did. "I can't keep this from Tru. Do you have any idea how much mom's death messed her up? How relieved she was when she thought the guy who did it had been bought to justice? I can't let her keep living a lie."
"You have to." Jack insisted, taking a step closer as if to intimidate Harrison into doing as he was told. Involuntarily, Harrison took a step back. "It's for her own good. She can't know about any of this."
"How do you figure that out?" Harrison cried, only the fact that he was still reeling in shock from today's many revelations keeping him from realising that he didn't actually have to stay and listen to Jack.
"She's got enough on her plate right now." He replied. "She can't deal with this as well."
"Tru's stronger than you think." Harrison muttered, though he sounded far less convinced than he had been only moments ago, and Jack felt a degree of relief at seeing he was slowly bringing Harrison around to his way of thinking.
"That may as be," he conceded, "but even she has her limits. Now is not the time to burden her with all this extra crap."
"Well I can tell her about Dad…that he used to do what you do-"
"No." Jack cut him off. "You can't tell her any of this. If you managed to figure the rest out on your own Tru would have no problem putting it together, 'cause no offence Harrison, but she is a hell of a lot smarter than you."
Harrison shook his head, trying desperately not to let Jack talk him around, but still reluctantly seeing the logic of his arguments. "How do I know you're not just saying this to save your own ass?"
"You don't." Jack shrugged. "But do you really want to take that risk?"
Harrison's shoulders slumped, defeated. "No."
Jack let out the breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding, feeling some of the tension ease away at having one potential crisis temporarily diverted. However…
"Does Richard know that you know?"
"No." Harrison shook his head. "After you left his office I just walked around for a few hours trying to get things straight in my head…then I came looking for you."
"Good." Jack nodded his approval. "It's best that he thinks you're still in the dark for now."
Harrison looked at him enquiringly. "Why?"
"Trust me Harrison," Jack took a moment to appreciate the irony of what he had just said then, "if Richard found out that you knew about him…"
He trailed off as he recalled an incident from months before, of his leaning over the balcony of his apartment to see a father choking his son to the point of collapse before realising what he was doing and letting him fall to the ground, coughing and spluttering. Harrison had scrambled to his feet and away from his father as fast as he could, leaving Jack as the sole witness to the indecision on Richard's face. It was as if he couldn't decide if to give chase or not, but whether to apologise or to finish what he had started Jack hadn't wanted to hazard a guess.
He shook the recollection from his head when he noticed Harrison was staring at him, waiting for him to complete his sentence, to give him one good reason why he shouldn't go directly from here to confront his double crossing dad. "It wouldn't end well." He finished in the vaguest possible terms, feeling no great desire to tell Harrison that Richard might just try and kill him too.
Harrison looked about to pry further, but changed his mind, reasoning that if Jack did as usual know something that he himself didn't, in this situation ignorance was probably going to be bliss. He knew he had been much happier last week before everything went to hell and he ended up with his own secrets to keep. He'd covered for Tru during her rewind escapades before, but this was different. This time he was the one with the knowledge that could potentially change a person's life, and not for the better either.
Previously, there had always been a small part of him that envied Tru that she was constantly one step ahead, and a much larger part that had resented Jack for the very same reason. Now however, he was beginning to see just how hefty a burden such a seeming advantage could really be. With that thought in mind, he made one last attempt to fight a battle he knew was already lost. "I don't like this," he muttered "I can't lie to Tru."
"You're not lying." Jack countered, hoping that Harrison would be unable to detect the desperation in his tone. "You're just not telling her the whole truth. There's a difference."
Harrison smirked. "That the kind of logic that lets you look at yourself in the mirror every morning?"
"No," Jack admitted "I just don't make eye contact with the other guy."
There was nothing left to say then, and Jack turned away, retreating down the alley until he disappeared back into the building. Harrison watched after him long after he had vanished from sight, every instinct screaming at him to say to hell with everything and to just run to Tru and tell her what was going on…but he didn't. He didn't because a nagging little voice which he usually ignored quite easily kept asking him if he wanted to be the one to hurt Tru that way, whether like Jack had said, he wanted to add to the misery and heartache that she was already struggling with.
It's not forever, the little voice whispered as he finally began to trudge back towards his car, trying to ease the stinging of his conscience. He would tell Tru the truth as soon as she was back on her feet, no matter what Jack, his dad, or anybody else had to say about it.
Jack was shaking as he re-entered Tru's apartment, and he struggled to get his racing emotions back under control. Remaining cool and calm to keep Harrison in check seemed to have taken much of his energy. He was usually relatively unfazed by anything, but then he'd never had a run of days quite like this.
He glanced at Tru then, still blissfully unaware of the chaos surrounding her as she slept, and he sighed. Had he been irrational to believe anything would change, that life would suddenly become better because he'd discovered that he did still have a heart inside his long shattered soul?
Maybe it was insane…but he had never known anyone like her.
Brave and strong, she was charmingly stubborn and fiercely intelligent. She was loyal to her brother and to anyone she let get close to her, and as he had told her earlier in the evening, she had an endearing innocence about her, one that was slightly misleading, for she knew more about life than she sometimes let on. And if she could make him feel…well…anything at all really, then she could do just about anything, including make his world a little more bearable.
Maybe he was being selfish. Maybe he was just covering his own ass. But was it really any wonder? He'd been alone for so long…too long, and while he didn't really have Tru (she had said herself that they weren't exactly best buddies) he knew without a doubt that there was at least the potential for them to become closer, as friends if nothing else. There was no chance that Tru would still want him around if she found out the truth, if she discovered what he had been hiding from her all along.
But he wasn't just doing this for himself. He was doing it for her, to protect her…right?
TBC...