(A/N): Here is the second chapter! It is not the end, I promise, but it's both angsty and happy, sort of. You'll understand once you've read it. Hopefully. Enjoy!
Paper Flowers
Chapter 2
Jack sat on the sofa in his flat, staring morosely into the amber liquid swishing round the bottom of his glass as though it held all the answers. It didn't of course, but that didn't stop him from checking the contents of the first, second or third glass he'd drank. The fourth one was mostly full, though he didn't know for how much longer. The urge to drown himself in the whisky he was drinking was strong, as was the urge to storm out to the gym and put himself down for the next fight. Win or lose, it didn't matter. Not when the pain of the fight would diminish his guilt, at least for a little while. The physical pain a lot easier to bear than the emotional wounds he harboured. Unsurprisingly, he couldn't get Nikki's face from his mind. Having Nikki's face in his mind constantly was not a new thing by any means, but that image had slowly morphed over the years. What had started as her laughing, lighthearted expression had changed to his favourite Nikki expression after a year or so. Hyper focused, seriously dedicated Nikki was by far his favourite, with the little glint in her eyes he knew was for him. He loved that look.
Since Mexico though, since Eva and that damn box, he hadn't been able to shift his least favourite Nikki from his mind. The first image had begun not long after he'd found her, stumbling blindly on the beach. Back then he'd pulled her straight into his arms and held on tightly, going so far as to have her on his lap in Gustavo's truck back to the compound and waiting patiently outside the shower cubicle with one hand inside, holding onto hers. The immediate urge to cling to each other. However, that wasn't the image seared into his brain, something no amount of alcohol or fighting could get rid of. Her tear stained, pained face that first night, plagued by nightmares, had stuck with him throughout his self-imposed isolation from her. He could have stopped all that, prevented any of that from even happening to her, let alone haunting her, if he'd just been stronger, hidden his feelings for her a little more. He'd thought there could be nothing worse than living with that image, the ghost of Nikki mid-nightmare following him round, but oh, how wrong he'd been.
The confused, self-hating, teary eyed Nikki from the crime scene haunted him now, followed him round every waking and sleeping minute. For all he'd tried to distance himself, he could still read her eyes more than his favourite book. Reading her eyes on those steps had told him everything. That she loved him just as much as he loved her, that his behaviour was confusing her, hurting her. That she blamed herself for everything, not him. And he couldn't bear it any longer, he never could knowingly hurt Nikki after all. So he'd given in, let himself believe that he could let her in close once more and keep her safe.
He downed the glass of whisky with jerky movements, setting the glass down on his coffee table without bothering to refill it. Her bruised face would forever be another Nikki seared into his memories, never to leave. He'd done that to her. Brian Hawke may have delivered that blow to her face but Jack blamed no one but himself, no matter what Nikki herself had said to her dad in his defence. He'd let her in close again and she'd gotten hurt; it was as simple as that. Or was it?
Jack sighed, burying his face in his hands. He'd seen the shock mingled with the slightest hints of hatred and fear flicker over her face when Thomas had introduced her father to the room and wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and move her back from whoever could put that expression on her face. But he'd remembered his vow and kept himself distant, though it was difficult when the older man had obviously thought him capable of damaging Nikki's face. He'd sooner die than physically harm even a hair on her head. He'd never be able to harm Nikki. Nikki's immediate jump to his defence had given him pause, made him really think on things. He'd done his best to distance them, to push her away, but she was the first to jump to his defence, to push away anyone daring to say or even think a bad word against him. That night had only added to things.
He'd never really thought much on her childhood, though he knew she'd originally lived in South Africa. It was easy to forget though, considering her English accent and instinctive poise when dealing with anybody and everybody. He'd actually only found out when he'd mentioned something from the time of her childhood, and she'd stared blankly at him. It was only after he'd repeated himself that she'd realised and laughed, telling him she hadn't moved to England until she was a teenager. Other than that, and the fact her mother had died when she was young, Nikki didn't mention her childhood too often. Jack assumed she'd had a happy, safe childhood. After all, it was Nikki. Who wouldn't want to keep her safe and happy? And instead, she'd been on her own, a fifteen year old so unhappy with her life and solitary existence that she'd ran away, uncaring what the grown man would have done to her. A tear slipped from his eye. He could well see Nikki as a rebellious teen, true, but now he could only see her cowering away from a faceless man, scared of what he was going to do, with no one there to save her from her fate. The fate that befell too many teenagers that ended up on the slab at work. And that could have been her, long before he'd even had the chance to meet her, all because she had no one, no one that cared enough to stick around. He shuddered as the image of Nikki, cold and unmoving on the metal table, the white sheet covering her like it had countless other corpses.
Lurching to his feet, Jack barely made it to the bathroom before his stomach protested, the whisky he'd drunk coming back up in response to his thought of Nikki ending up on a slab, either as a teenager or after Mexico. It was unthinkable, the worst thing possible. He couldn't lose her, couldn't see her in the cutting room as anything other than a pathologist, a live pathologist. Anything else was just against the way of the universe, against the very core of everything Jack knew to be true and right. A world without Nikki Alexander wasn't a world at all, but a nightmare. He should know, he'd had to contemplate life without her for over fifteen hours whilst she'd been buried.
The bathroom tiles were cool through the material of his jogging bottoms, grounding him slightly as he rested his hands in his head again, his stomach still threatening him should he think of something like that again. Instead, he forced his mind to the words that had had him staring at her closed front door for five whole minutes as he tried to wrap his head round it and failed.
"I know what I did was unforgivable, and I don't blame you for hating me for it. I've never blamed you for any of it. Maybe I'll earn your forgiveness one day."
He swallowed heavily. Never in a million years would he have imagined that Nikki blamed herself to that extent, to the point where she believed she didn't deserve his forgiveness, even though there was nothing she'd done that required forgiveness in the first place. It was him, all him. And yet she didn't blame him for it. She'd never blamed him even a little bit.
"Jack, you have nothing to prove. Nothing."
Her words from the steps whipped round him much like the wind had done with her hair that day. He'd seen her eyes then too, the sincerity and love shining out for the world to see. She meant it, she truly meant it. In her eyes, her mind, he had nothing to prove to her. He was already there. And how had he repaid that? By hurting her. He could never hurt her intentionally, but he had been hurting her. With every brush off, every declined call, every time he avoided even looking at her, he was hurting her. And she took it, accepted it, because somehow she believed she deserved it, deserved the hurt for tricking him, for doing everything she could to save as many people as possible. She thought she deserved everything he threw at her because she'd hurt him. That one thought shamed him more than he'd felt in years. Never had he ever wanted Nikki to feel that way, especially not because of him. All he'd ever wanted was to keep her safe, to stop anything like Mexico from ever happening again.
He hadn't missed the dismissive attitude she held to her father, and after all she'd told him that night, Jack could certainly understand why. And he could tell that he'd barely scratched the surface on everything Nikki had gone through as a child. Leaving a teenager on her own for months at a time was hardly the actions of a man who had done nothing but protect and love his daughter beforehand. That Nikki didn't even seem to register it as anything but normal behaviour concerned him too. How did it happen where being left to fend on her own was her idea of a normal childhood? It certainly explained a lot about Nikki though. Her childhood had been a lot like her adulthood: only herself to rely on.
But she relied on him, a tiny part of his brain piped up. She sought him out, turned to him when she needed something, anything, sometimes even for no reason at all other than she just wanted to see him or talk to him. She'd chosen to let him in, let him be there for her, when no one else was. He could drop by unexpectedly no matter the time or occasion, he could pick her up from the police station when she was arrested, place his hands on her without permission. She'd chosen to allow herself to rely on him. A warmth spread through him. Nikki, the most self-reliant, closed off person he knew, was open and caring with him. He tipped his head back slightly, the urge to drink himself stupid or get the sense knocked out of him diminishing to almost nothing.
Nikki believed in him, believed he wasn't to blame, and he was more than enough for her. Whilst he didn't quite believe it himself yet, he could feel the words taking root in his mind, settling some of the storm he'd been fighting with for the last two months. He had a new task now, a new purpose. He needed to convince Nikki that nothing that had happened was her fault either, that he didn't hate her, not even a little bit. She'd done nothing unforgivable, so there was nothing to forgive her for. Jack knew he'd do whatever it took to restore her to the Nikki he knew and loved, the one that wasn't so cavalier about being assaulted and nearly abducted at fifteen, or so despondent and jumpy at life in general. He could do it, for her, and she'd never have to face her father on her own again. Because he'd be at her side the whole way.
…
Nikki let herself into the office early the next morning, exhausted and already mentally done with the day. How was she supposed to sit there and work, knowing Jack was done with her, hated her even? He couldn't even look at her and had left her house as fast as humanly possible the night before. Her dreams had haunted her all night, as usual, though she had had a few more of the man she'd wandered off with at fifteen that night than she usually did. Probably a consequence of talking through that time of her life with Jack. She'd had the nightmares a little more often when she'd told Harry as well. It wasn't exactly something she liked to dwell on after all, though she would always be grateful to Noel for saving her. The science teacher would never know just how much he meant to her, that the path he'd helped her choose meant the world to her. Without that one person who cared where she was and if she was safe, she probably would have been lucky to make it out of her teens at all, and she definitely wouldn't be where she was now. It was a powerful thing, to be cared about. And she'd thought she had that with Jack. She cared about him, probably more than she should. She'd do anything to make sure he was happy and safe, no matter the consequences to herself. But she'd let herself believe that he cared about her, and she'd let him in. Why did she never learn? They only left her in the end, they all did.
Nikki scoffed bitterly to herself as she rounded the entrance to the office area, fully expecting it to be empty. She was in even earlier than Thomas was usually in for, to try and catch up on some paperwork she'd missed in her time away and get herself grounded and calm before everyone else arrived and the work day truly started. Work. It was about all she had left at this point. Maybe the dead bodies would miss her. She jumped as movement caught her eye, startled to find Jack sat in his desk chair looking as exhausted as she felt, watching her. Her brow furrowed. He was actually watching her. Not the space above her head, not either side of her, her. What was going on?
"Jack?" Her voice was soft, unsure as she took her bag off and set it on her desk, her fingers making light work of the buttons on her coat. The weather wasn't too chilly yet, but everything felt cold to her, the heat of Mexico chilling her long after she'd left the country.
Jack jumped at the sound of her voice, his eyes darting to hers as he stood up with jerky movements. Nikki paid it no mind however as she set about placing her coat over the back of her chair. Jack did many things that she couldn't make sense of anyway, so what did one more morning matter? "Nikki."
She blinked in surprise, stiffening instinctively as Jack strode straight up to her and wrapped his arms round her, pulling her in for a hug. Her eyes darted wildly as she tried to think on why she was receiving an embrace from the same person who'd been ignoring her for two months and had run out the door the previous night like hell was on his heels. Still, she'd never been one to turn down one of Jack's hugs. They were warm and made her feel safe. Two things she was missing at the moment. Slowly, her arms reached round to grip his back, feeling the muscles relax under her fingers even as he tightened his hold on her, like she'd float away if he didn't. It reminded her of that first hug, back on the beach. They'd clung to each other for what felt like forever, until Gustavo had reluctantly told them that it was getting dark and they needed to be back at the compound before nightfall. She buried her face in his shoulder, focusing as much as possible on the smell of Jack and not the memory that was threatening to overwhelm her. She'd gotten out, she was here. Jack was here. She wouldn't let him see the hold that box still had over her. "Jack?" She whispered quietly, a little confused. Where was the man who could hardly bear to be in the same room as her yesterday?
"I'm sorry, Nikki." Jack's voice was muffled by her hair but she could still hear him. She frowned.
"What for?"
"Ignoring you, failing, hurting you." Jack reeled off.
"Jack, that's nuts." Nikki found herself repeating the words she'd spoken at the crime scene, mentally shaking herself. Of course he hadn't listened to a word she'd said, still blaming himself. "You didn't fail, not at all. You found me, on the beach, remember?" She pulled back just enough to look in his eyes, still wrapped up in each other's arms.
"Yeah, you'd swallowed half the sea." His lips twitched into an approximation of a smile.
"The sunlight hurt my eyes." She returned softly. "I kept my face buried in your shirt the whole way back to the compound."
"I held your hand for hours."
"Which made showering a bit awkward." Nikki's smile crept onto her features with the tiny tease, though it fell quickly as she recalled what else he was apologising for. She'd accept the apology for ignoring her; she knew he had his reasons. But he'd never hurt her in a million years, so why was he apologising for that? "Jack, you know you didn't hurt me, right? My bruised face is because of Brian Hawke and me not getting out of the way fast enough. You made sure he couldn't go for round two."
"I don't mean your face, Nikki." One of his hands left her back to gently stroke her cheek, as close to the bruise as he could get without hurting her. Nikki bit back the urge to point that out. Even when it wasn't his doing, Jack could go nowhere near hurting her, even accidentally. "I mean, I know everything I did, or didn't do, hurt you. Not like a punch, because even I know I could never raise a hand to you like that, Nikki. But I have been hurting you." His hand trailed down from her cheek to rest on her chest, over her rapidly beating heart. "Here."
Nikki glanced down to his hand sprawled over the front of her blouse, ignoring the heat saturating her cheeks at how close they were to inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. It wasn't the time or the place. The warmth of his hand seeped through her clothing, heating her whole body. Comforting her in a way. "It doesn't matter." She waved it off quietly, swallowing down the words that nearly blurted themselves out. That it didn't matter because she deserved it, and more, for hurting him like she did, for tricking him into thinking he could save her when she knew he couldn't.
Jack, however, seemed to read the words directly off her face, shaking his head fiercely. "No, Nikki, it does matter. You didn't deserve any of it." His other hand left her back to cup her cheek, directing her gaze to his with so much tender care, she almost cried. "Nothing that happened in Mexico was your fault, do you hear me? It was Eva, all Eva."
"I tricked you." She mumbled out, unable to hold his gaze and dropping her eyes to the floor. She really just hoped no one walked in at that moment, for they'd find Nikki's hands on Jack's back, with one of his hands on her cheek and the other on her chest. Not something they could easily explain away. Well, not without mentioning Mexico and Nikki doubted Jack had explained anything that had happened to them out there any more than she had. Thomas and Clarissa knew the basics and that was it.
"I know." Jack's fingers brushed her cheekbones lightly. "And I know you'd do it again. Because that's who you are Nikki, putting everyone else above you. I can't blame you for being who you are."
"What?"
"I have never blamed you Nikki. Not once. And I can't forgive you, because there's nothing to forgive." He offered her a gentle, tiny smile. "We're a right pair, aren't we?"
Nikki let out a wet laugh as a few tears leaked from her eyes. A weight lifted from her shoulders. "Still a pair though, right?" She checked, hardly daring to hope.
"Always a pair." Jack promised. Nikki let out a sound that was a half laugh, half sob, launching herself back into him for a tight embrace he returned eagerly, holding each other close once more. Nikki snuggled into his chest, feeling lighter and more grounded than she had in months. All for one specific reason, the reason for the brilliant smile covering her features. She had Jack, her Jack, back. And with Jack by her side, she could face anything.
