AN: Sorry for the delay, friends. And I know I owe you a chapter of Missing Pages but writer's block is a bitch and when you finally get the motivation to write something, you go where the inspiration sends you. And I know a lot of you are also waiting on updates from Caro1414 and LoveRocket09. They've had a lot on their plates lately but I know they're working on it. Anyway, you've waited long enough so let's get to the chapter...
"What the hell were they thinking?" Jackson fumed as he paced back and forth through Finn's living room. It was a good thing he had spent the night there instead of at his own place because pacing through the tiny shoebox of an apartment he called home would have quickly becoming dizzying. Of course. If he hadn't been at Finn's he wouldn't have been riding high on a relaxing morning of breakfast in bed and snuggles. He should have known the day was starting off too good to be true—it was a classic case of foreboding joy; he couldn't have written it better himself.
"Do I really need to answer that for you?" Finn asked from his spot reclining casually in the leather club chair in the corner of the room. For as calm as his notoriously care-free boyfriend looked, Jackson could tell that even he was feeling on edge. His words were not as mockingly playful as they usually were; there was a brusqueness to them. And when Finn had called Logan to break the news (they had both decided it was best if Jackson take a beat to calm down before speaking to him) there had been a detectable trace of what could only be described as anger in his voice. Jackson had never, not once in the nearly seven weeks they had known each other, seen Finn get angry; two hours ago, Jackson might have told you he was incapable of the emotion.
"No." Jackson admitted. It was obvious what they were thinking—or at least what they were thinking with, and it wasn't their brains. "I just…" He stopped his pacing to rake his hands through his hair, clasping his fingers tightly around the tresses and pulling in frustration. "Argh!"
"Quite an elegant declaration from the professional writer."
Jackson spun around to face him. "They kissed!" he snapped heatedly. Finn may have been less lasaiz-faire than usual, but he still was far too glib for Jackson's liking. Besides—they were Finn's friends so until Logan was here, he was just going to have to stand there and take whatever lashing Jackson decided to dish out.
"I saw that."
"In public." He threw his arms up in the air.
"It would seem so."
"They kissed in the middle of a public, fucking street. And got caught on camera." His hands were splaying every which way now, nearly knocking a plant off the top of the media unit nearby, which would have been problematic for a few reasons, not the least of which was that it was a very spiney cactus.
"That is the gist of things."
"And the pictures are now in the Sunday fucking Times for the entire world to see!"
"Okay, that is now two 'fucking's in three sentences," Finn noted as he stood up and walked over to him. "Since when are you so foul mouthed?"
Jackson narrowed his eyes, glaring irritably. "Since my two biggest sources couldn't control themselves and have now possibly ruined the most important story of my career," he growled.
"Listen," Finn said calmly as his large, strong hands came to rest on Jackson's upper arms. "The story is not dead. Logan is on his way over and you two are going to figure it out."
"This is a bad idea," Jackson shook his head frantically, "he shouldn't come over here."
"You two need to decide on your next move."
"Exactly!" Jackson shrugged Finn's hands off him. "And Mitchum knows that. He's clearly watching to see what Logan does now. He didn't just put this out there on a whim. He wanted to discredit them, sure, and he definitely succeeded. But he's also trying to suss out his next move. And if he comes over here, Mitchum could realize we're figuring it out together."
"I'm his best mate," Finn reassured him. "Where else are you going to go when shit falls apart but to your best mate's to get trashed? It won't look suspicious."
"Everything looks suspicious if you're Mitchum Huntzberger. He's diabolical. And he's preternaturally smart. That's not a good combination."
"Yeah, thanks," Finn suddenly snapped, "I've known him for half my life, I don't need reminding."
The abrupt tone of Finn's voice stopped Jackson in his tracks. He stopped his frantic raving to look into Finn's eyes. There was something there he'd never seen before—and not just the anger he'd noted before. His eyebrows were drawn together, the normally smooth skin of his forehead wrinkled slightly between his eyes, and there was a tenseness to his jaw. "Are you okay?" Jackson asked.
"Oh yeah, I'm aces," Finn replied, bringing his middle and index fingers up to rub at his temples. "There's a powerful, angry, psychopath who's royally pissed off at everyone I care about. You…Logan…I know Rory and I weren't besties, but I am rather fond of the Shiela..."
The agonizing churning feeling in Jackson's gut subsided. He was still freaked out, and angry, and scared. But there was something about seeing Finn get rattled that he found strangely soothing. And sexy. "What?" Finn asked when he noticed Jackson staring at him.
Jackson just closed the tiny gap between them, reaching up to lay a hand on Finn's cheek and place a tender kiss on his lips. "Thank you."
"For what?" Finn asked, the fearful furrow of Finn's brow deepened to one of confusion.
"For panicking."
His eyebrows raised in question. "My panic was somehow of assistance to you?"
"Yes," Jackson nodded. "It was swell. Panic is a thing that people can share in times of crisis."
The faint edge of a smile crept onto Finn's face, his shoulders relaxing slightly. "You are such a Willow."
"I wish," Jackson replied, his shoulders slumping. "It's going to take an act of witchcraft to get us out of this mess."
They were interrupted by the sound of a knock on the door.
"Well," Finn noted, cocking his head towards the entrance of the apartment, "maybe Logan has some mystical powers we don't know about."
"Yeah, the mystical power to make inappropriate women kiss him in inappropriate places," he grumbled.
"I said ones we didn't know about," Finn replied. "Also, I can think of far more inappropriate places she could have kissed him." He wiggled his eyebrows.
"It's good to see your panic didn't last too long," Jackson noted with an exacerbated roll of his eyes as Finn turned to go answer the door.
Logan walked into the apartment, looking as worn and ragged as Jackson had ever seen him, which wasn't actually all that ragged. The man was annoyingly put together at all times. Then again, just about everything Logan did he found annoying. He thought their talk at the club last week had helped in that arena, but clearly that was not going to be the case.
Logan looked up at Jackson out of the corner of his eye. "So…" he started tentatively.
"So…" Jackson replied in kind glaring at Logan with great irritation. "I supposed this is where you regale me with your airtight explanation?"
"I…."
"You know what? No." Jackson held a hand up to stop him. "I don't care. You could have been performing CPR to save her life and I still wouldn't care. You know why?" He reached for the paper sitting on the coffee table and picked it up, waving it in the air. "Because the ten million New York Times subscribers who woke up to this this morning don't care. The tabloids who are going to take this and run with it won't care. All the people on Twitter and Facebook who see it getting shared aren't going to care. All they are going to see is you making out with a former HPG employee. One who conveniently quit just weeks after you did. And what do you think they're going to think when she comes forward and says she was in an abusive relationship with your father? You really think anyone is going to believe her now when she's having an affair with the man's son?"
"We're not!" Logan insisted, looking up to finally meet Jackson's eye. "It was a drunken screw up."
"You think that matters?"
"No," Logan admitted with a breathy exhale, his shoulder slumping defeatedly.
Jackson didn't know he was capable of being this livid at anybody. It didn't even matter that Logan looked remorseful. That he knew he screwed up. It didn't change the fact that everything was ruined. "I don't know how we recover from this, Logan. You and your goddamn libido have destroyed everything."
"Look," Logan defended, "I get that you're pissed, this is your career. But it's my life. I'm the one he's trying to personally destroy."
Exactly; it was his life, his family, his career, his reputation. He was the one who came to Jackson. He should have been more invested in this than anyone. So what the hell had he been thinking? "Yeah, I get that. Which is why I cannot for the life of me fathom how you could fuck it all up for a kiss."
"Really?" Logan asked, his shoulders squaring as he stood his ground, preparing for a fight. "You can't figure it out? You can't understand why someone would do something stupid to be with the person they want to be with, even if it's wrong? Then tell me, what exactly are you doing here bright and early on a Sunday morning wearing a shirt with peacock feathers on it? Because I gotta say, it doesn't really strike me as your style."
"Hey!" Finn said, his voice full of offense. "Leave my superb fashion sense out of this."
Jackson noticed Logan shake his head and roll his eyes at Finn's protestation, but they both otherwise ignored his attempts at levity.
"That's not the same," Jackson insisted. And it wasn't. Finn wasn't not involved in the investigation, but he was accessory. He knew Mitchum, he disliked Mitchum, but he hadn't been personally victimized by the man. He helped with the flow of information but he wasn't a source. But still, the accusation took the wind out of the sails of his wrath a notch. He knew getting involved with Finn while the investigation was still going on was risky, and verging on journalistically unethical, but he couldn't help how he felt. Then again, that was Logan's point. You couldn't always help who you fell for. So yeah, the situations weren't the same, but could Jackson truly say what he would do if they were?
"Look," Logan said with a sigh, bringing a hand up to scrub at his face. "It doesn't matter. Rory and I screwed up, I get that. But we can't take it back so can we just focus on where we go from here?"
"I'll tell you where we go from here," Jackson replied seriously. Through all of the pacing, and ranting, and ruminating he'd been doing over the past hour since he'd first seen that picture, he kept coming back to the same conclusion. Logan wasn't going to like it, but that was too bad. He only had himself to blame. "We go to print with the Peterson stuff. The Mitchum story is dead"
"What?!" Logan's head shot up to stare at Jackson in disbelief. "No. No way."
"Look, at least we get him on the cover-up. There's no way the board doesn't fire him; from a PR standpoint they have no choice."
"It's not enough. You think losing his job is going to stop him? He's still got his shares in the company, he's still got hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you know what he can do with that money? How many more women do you think he'll hurt?"
"Well, you should have thought of that before you stuck your tongue down Rory's throat."
Logan was the one pacing now, raking his fingers through his hair, his brow furrowed broodingly. He stopped, looking up. "He threatened his own daughter and granddaughter."
"Honor?" Finn piped in for the second time since Logan had arrived.
Logan turned to face him. "He cornered her while shopping yesterday. She had Penny with her."
"What did he say?" Jackson knew there was no way Mitchum would be stupid enough to come out and say or do anything overt, but he couldn't help but hope. Unfortunately, Logan dashed those hopes as quickly as they came.
"Nothing explicit," he admitted. "Something about how Rory was trouble and how she should 'talk to me,'" he air quoted the words. Jackson felt a pang of sympathy he didn't know he was currently capable of. He tried to push it down. It wasn't that he didn't care about Logan or his sister or her daughter. Of course he cared, but there was only so much he could do. It wasn't fair of Logan to put that on him when it was his screw up that put them in this position to begin with.
"Look, I'm sorry about your sister, I am," he admitted. "But that doesn't change the position we're in. Rory was the only person I had who was even close to considering putting her name to this thing. I was hoping once she agreed, maybe I could use that to get the other witnesses to go on the record too, but now that's all screwed to hell. And without any on the record witness, we've got nothing."
"Then we find something. We can't let him get away with this."
"You think I haven't been trying?" Jackson could hear his voice rising again, the anger that had dissipated at the news of Logan's sister and niece returning in response to his high-handed accusations. "You think I've spent the last two months twiddling my thumbs and taking lunch time siestas? I've been working my ass of trying to nail him to the wall and you just undid all my hard work with one drunken kiss."
"Yeah, well, I haven't exactly been sipping margaritas on the beach and partying it up myself. I'm over here waving the muleta and letting the bull charge right at me. But I'm not about to lay down my sword and go sprinting from the bullring just because of one little mistake."
"One little mistake?" Jackson scoffed. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was Logan insane? This wasn't one little mistake, this was the mother of all mistakes. And it was Logan's mistake. He was the one who screwed it all up and he was going to stand there and accuse Jackson of giving up? "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"
"Enough!" The Australian voice was forceful and formidable, reverberating through the room. The unexpected intensity of it caused both Jackson and Logan to cease their bickering and turn to stare at Finn in shock. "Here's what's going to happen," Finn stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Jackson is going to prepare the Peterson article…"
"But…" Unless of course you were Logan; then apparently, there was some room for argument.
Finn turned to Logan, giving him a ferocious stare. "Did I sound like I was finished?"
He grimaced, appearing duly chastised, then held his hands up in surrender to let Finn continue.
"Jackson is going to prepare the Peterson article for print up to but excluding reaching out to Mitchum and Peterson for comment. In the meantime, the two of you are going to keep looking for some credible evidence that will stick to Mitchum. If by the end of the two weeks, you still don't have anything sufficient, or if at any point in the next two weeks Mitchum figures out Jackson is in on this and starts coming after him, Jackson makes the calls and we go to print with what we have. And the two of you are going to start getting the fuck along. Am I clear?" Finn looked back and forth between the two men, daring them to challenge him.
Jackson nodded, partly because he was so stunned by his boyfriends sudden—and admittedly sexy—change in demeanor. And partly because Finn was right. It was a reasonable compromise. Jackson didn't hold out much hope for any big break throughs in the next two weeks, but he owed it to the story and to all the women Mitchum had hurt to leave no stone unturned.
Logan, however, wasn't done arguing. "We can't just go to print with the Peterson story. It screws up Mitchum's life just enough to…."
"I'm sorry," Finn interjected. "Apparently I wasn't clear because that was a rhetorical question. So let's try this again…Am I clear?"
Logan held his breath for a moment, resisting the urge to continue to fight back, but then, with an exhale, his shoulders slumped and he nodded. "Crystal," he agreed.
The feeling of eyeballs glued to her back followed her as she made her way past the desk and to the locker room. She wished she could say that she'd gotten used to the feeling over the past two days, but she hadn't. Honestly, she didn't know how she'd ever get used to it.
At least here at the Krava Maga studio, like at the bookstore on the corner, and the coffee shop she liked to stop at in the mornings, it was more of the occasional gawker trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. Not like at work. She honestly wasn't even sure what she'd been thinking going into the office yesterday. She'd have gotten less stares if she'd walked into the building naked. Everyone there was looking at her like she was a total floozy anyway.
"Don't people have anything better to stare at?" Rory mumbled as she pushed open the door to the changing room and a couple of girls stopped and looked up.
"To be fair, you were in the New York Times with your legs wrapped around a quasi-famous guy," Paris reminded her as she walked unbothered to her locker. "Your entire left butt cheek was on display."
Her eyes narrowed irately at Paris. "It was one leg!" she defended. "And I was wearing tights! Besides," she added, letting her glare cascade across the room, pausing on the two girls who had been ogling her upon entry. "It's not like none of you have ever seen an ass before. Hell, this is a changing room so I'm pretty sure you saw mine in person just last week. You want to see it again? Huh?" She asked stalking across the room. "Huh? Do you?" she pulled her skirt up, thrusting her butt out in their direction. "There? Are you satisfied? Or do I need to wait for you to get out your cameras so you too can sell me out to the New York Times."
"Geez, Gilmore," Paris hissed, grabbing Rory by the arm and dragging her back across the room towards their lockers. "Don't get your panties in such a bunch. It'll just give them more to stare at."
"Oh god." Rory buried her face in her hands in embarrassment. What the hell had she just done? She'd snapped. She couldn't help herself; she was just so tired of being stared at like an exhibit in a zoo. But she needed to get control of herself before they strapped her into a strait jacket and locked her up in a psych ward.
"Listen," Paris said, sounding as close to sympathetic as she was capable of. "I know this sucks right now, but it's going to blow over."
"Blow over?" Rory asked incredulously. "It was the New York Times, Paris. Did the New York Times suggest you were single-handedly responsible of the demise of a dynasty?"
"See, now that's not exactly the takeaway I got from the article…"
"They compared me to Yoko Ono!"
"Yeah, well, Yoko Ono is an incredibly underrated multimedia artist and an eminent feminist and human rights advocate, so…"
"Right," Rory nodded sarcastically. "They were comparing our artistic talents and philanthropic works. I'll be looking for my Grammy and Nobel Peace Prize to arrive in the mail any day now."
"Hi." Rory looked up at the sound of the new voice, laying eyes on Rebecca who had a shy, sympathetic smile on her face.
"Oh, hey," Rory replied, plastering on a smile of her own.
"How are you doing?"
Rory inhaled deeply, trying to push down the spiraling feeling that had been consuming her for the past 60 hours. She'd been through a lot over the past several months, but the past couple of days had been the worst since she'd left The Voice. She and Mitchum weren't even together anymore and he still had all this power over her. He could still hurt her like no one else she'd ever known. And she hated it. She hated the way he was victimizing her all over again. And she hated the way she was letting herself be a victim. When was it going to end?
"I'm fine," she nodded at her new friend. Rebecca gave her a disbelieving look. "Really," Rory assured her. She glanced briefly at Paris before turning her attention back to the other girl. "It'll all blow over soon," she added through gritted teeth. She bent down to start unzipping her gym bag.
Rebecca nodded, opting not to argue with her about it even though it was clear she was not in any way, shape, or form, 'fine.' "Was it…" she paused, glancing around the room, then lowered her voice, "…your ex?"
"Umm, well, it's just, I mean…" Rory stumbled, swallowing down the lump in her throat. She knew Rebecca was going through the same thing as her, and she was just trying to be supportive, and connect. But it was hard for Rory to talk about it with new people. Still, keeping it to herself clearly wasn't working judging by her humiliating outburst just moments ago. She took a deep breath, letting out a sigh. "Yeah," she admitted, avoiding eye contact by pulling out her work out clothes.
"Ugh, guys suck. I mean, no offense to the hottie in the picture with you. It looked like you weren't minding his sucking too much."
"Umm…" Rory had no idea where to even go with that.
"Oh my god, I am sooo sorry," Rebecca cringed. "That was really inappropriate."
"No," Rory chuckled awkwardly. Rebecca clearly had a bad habit of putting her foot in her mouth. Not that Rory couldn't understand that. It was weird trying to make friends again when you'd been isolated by your relationship for so long. "Don't worry about it."
"So, do you like him?"
"Excuse me?" Rory blinked in bewilderment at the question.
"Oh man, I did it again didn't I? I'm sorry, I'm not trying to pry. It's just, I don't know. I guess I just want to know if it's really possible? Like, will I ever be ready again? Is there anyone out there even worth it? You know?"
Rory did know. It was different, of course; Rory had been battling her feelings for Logan for so long; even in the midst of her toxic and abusive relationship with Mitchum. Logan had been the one to remind her that not only was it possible, but that she deserved it. But had she ever really mourned her relationship with Mitchum? Dealt with the numerous trust and self-esteem issues the relationship had clearly instilled in her? Was she just interested in Logan because he'd been there for her when she'd needed someone the most? "It's just, uh, complicated," she admitted. Way too complicated to get into here. "I mean, not that these situations aren't normally, as you know. It's just that there are extra layers of complication on top of all the normal layers of complication."
"Yeah," Rebecca nodded. "I think most abusive relationships stop short of character defamation in national news publications." That was an understatement. But Mitchum wasn't just any abusive ex. He had unlimited resources and an exacting need for vengeance. If he didn't get his way, he'd stop at nothing to make someone pay for it. Rory should have known this was coming. And the worst part was, it was all her fault. She may have been really drunk that night, but she wasn't so drunk that she didn't remember who had initiated that kiss. And now Logan was going to have to pay the price too. And she couldn't even talk to him to see how he was doing. He didn't deserve this.
"Anyway," Rory said busying herself by pulling off her blouse and slipping into her sports bra before taking her regular bra off underneath it. "Logan is one of the good ones. There are good ones out there. I have to believe that. But, still, it's…complicated."
"Hey, Chatty Kathys," Paris piped in. "Quit your yapping and finish getting changed. It's time to go hit stuff." Rory rolled her eyes at Paris but honestly, she was glad for the interruption. She liked Rebecca, but this conversation was getting to be a bit too much. And besides, as much as this whole Krav Maga thing still felt like an incredibly bad idea for someone with her hand-eye coordination, she had to admit, she was really looking forward to hitting things today.
"Right, I'm just gonna…" Rebecca pointed to her locker and headed that way while Rory threw on her t-shirt and sweatpants.
"That chick is kind of weird," Paris said, throwing a glance Rebecca's way.
"Paris!" Rory scolded.
"What? I'm just saying."
Rory glanced to Rebecca to see that she was still changing. "We'll see you out there," she told the brunette. When they'd gotten a decent distance away, Rory turned back to Paris. "Be nice," she told her friend. "She's sweet."
"She's all flighty and has no filter."
"Right, because I can't think of anyone else with the propensity to say completely inappropriate things at importune times."
"Hey," Paris defended. "I'm just bluntly honest. And that girl is honestly weird."
"Well, she's going through something really traumatic right now, she gets to be a little weird. I mean, I just mooned an entire locker room full of women while screaming at them. Bet they don't think I'm the picture of normalcy."
"Whatever." Paris shrugged as they congregated on the matts in the gym.
A few minutes later, the instructor, Steve, joined the growing group of women, directing them to split up into groups of two. The group came to life, buzzing around for a few minutes and they split up into pairs. Rory looked up as the group started to settle down, just in time to see Rebecca hurrying out of the locker room. The girl paused, surveying the group of women, all standing side by side with someone else like they were preparing to board Noah's Ark.
"I guess you're with me," Steve said, smiling warmly. But Rebecca looked at him frozen, her eyes wide. It was obvious she was terrified about the prospect of sparing with a man, especially once twice her size. She was still too traumatized.
"She can work with us," Rory piped in, raising her hand. She shot Paris a 'shut up' glare before her friend could protest. Paris didn't like people, and she wasn't afraid to make that known. But this wasn't about Paris. This was about Rory, and Rebecca, and every woman who needed to feel safe in a world where safety and security had been ripped from them. Rebecca was just learning how to stand up for herself, Rory wasn't about to let fear and insecurity keep her from taking back her life.
Rebecca scuttled forward, joining her and Paris. "Thanks," she mouthed.
"No problem," Rory assured her. "I told you last week, you're with us now."