Magnetic Forces of Love and Conspiracy
Written by BansheeGirl
A/N: I ended up finishing this chapter a little later than I anticipated, but you shouldn't be too displeased! Just remember the days when I only posted an update for this fic every few months! Eeek! As always, please review once you're done reading this chapter… I'm almost at 100 reviews! Yay! Don't you want to be one of the darling people who helps me get there? Of course you do! Now go on, get reading!
Disclaimer: See chapter 1 or 2!
Magnetic Forces of Love and Conspiracy
Chapter 17: Rush of Blood
Jessie stood in nothing but her underwear, frantically trying to rub herself dry with one of James' spare blankets. James himself was on his knees a few metres away, doing his best to light a fire in the small pit that had been created there for travellers using the mountain route. They had arrived at the cave only minutes beforehand, where James had ordered Jessie to take her clothes off immediately. Despite being almost frozen to death, at this request Jessie had looked to James with an indignant glare.
"If you don't get those wet clothes off, Jessie, you are going to die!" He had yelled, and Jessie had instantly bowed her head and retreated to the back of the cave to strip down to her bare nothings. As she rubbed her arms now to try and generate some warmth, Jessie heard the flicker of a fire and, with James' blanket wrapped around her, she hobbled over to the inviting flames.
"No," James said, standing up and holding his arm out to prevent Jessie from getting any closer to the fire. She looked to him with flustered confusion.
"What the hell, James? I need to get warm!" She cried, and she felt tears beginning to sting in her eyes again. She couldn't handle this cold anymore.
"If you apply direct heat by standing next to that fire, your circulatory system will go straight into shock. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to let your body do most of the work," James said, and looked at Jessie with an expression of regret.
Jessie peered up at James, frustratingly puzzled by what he was saying. Yet the tingle she suddenly began to feel in her fingers and toes immediately answered her questions.
Jessie whimpered loudly as the tingling began to become painful, spreading up her previously numb limbs. She shook her arms madly, trying to make the awful sensations stop. Yet they only seemed to become worse, and Jessie looked up at James as she started to sob hysterically with the pain once again.
"I'm sorry, Jessie," James offered, holding onto Jessie's shoulders in support. "The blood vessels in your extremities… they closed off back when you were in the water. Now you're in a warmer environment and you've got those wet clothes off, your blood vessels are opening again and blood is returning to your limbs… it will be quite painful," he said, though of course Jessie had already begun to realise this, and she let out another heaving sob of agony.
James carefully led Jessie over to where he had set down their packs, and bent down to rummage in his own pack before withdrawing his sleeping bag.
"Here, get in this," he ordered, and he helped her into the sleeping bag. Jessie leant on James as he helped her sit down to the ground, where she rested back against the cave wall with the sleeping bag pulled up tight around her neck. She still whimpered in pain, squirming as though there was some horrible toxin coursing through her veins.
"Try to keep wiggling your fingers and toes," James continued, "It won't help with the pain as such, but it'll speed up the overall process..."
Jessie looked up at James, and seemed to consider him for a moment before nodding and proceeding to wiggle her fingers and toes within the sleeping bag.
"Stay awake," James continued to direct as he crossed the cave back to the fire. "If you go to sleep now you might not wake up."
On that rather morose note James placed some water in a tin kettle over the fire, and started to go through Jessie's soaked pack while waiting for the water to boil. Jessie watched as he pulled out clothes, blankets, her sleeping bag – even food, that was all dripping wet.
"We're not going to get all of this dry tonight," James said, "so I'm just going to lay out the things that you'll need for the rest of the trip. Most of the food is ruined, but there is some stuff in packets that can be salvaged."
He laid out beside the fire some of the clothes that Jessie had had to borrow from Olivia, as well as her boots and snow gear, and a couple of blankets that had been in the pack. James returned to the fire where the kettle was beginning to boil. Before long he was back beside Jessie, holding out a warm mug of tea for her, which she willingly took.
"How are you feeling now?" James asked.
Jessie clasped the tea close to her chest, merely savouring the warmth the mug itself was giving off. The painful tingling sensations had finally subsided, yet she now felt weak and tired, and was having trouble abiding by James' order to stay awake.
"The pain is gone," she said quietly, and took a sip of her tea. "I'm still cold, though. And tired…"
James reached over and picked up the blanket that Jessie has dropped when climbing into his sleeping bag. He placed it over her, tucking it around the sides of the sleeping bag so that it didn't slip down off of her.
"Keep drinking your tea. I know you're tired, but you must stay awake. At least for now. When you've recovered more you can rest, but not now."
James retrieved his last blanket from his pack, and also tucked this one around Jessie in much the same way as before.
Jessie looked up at him as he did this. "James… this is your last blanket. How are you going to keep yourself warm?" She said, imparting no emotion.
He stood up after fixing the blanket around her and half-smiled. "Oh, I'll be fine. You're the one on the brink of hypothermia here, not me. I'll just throw a few more layers on," he said, and went back to his pack, took his thermal snow jacket off and pulled on two more thick woollen jumpers to prove his point. He dragged his jacket back on, and walked over to the fire to pour his own cup of tea before returning to settle next to Jessie.
Jessie looked to James questioningly as he sat right up against her.
"It's to keep you warm," James quickly defended, though appeared quite amused at Jessie's instant reaction to his closeness. "I'm really supposed to get in a sleeping bag with you with no clothes on, in order to share as much of my own body heat with you as possible. But I had this nagging feeling that you might object to that."
Jessie looked as though she didn't quite know what to make of James' statement.
"It's the honest truth," he reiterated. "Typical hypothermia treatment plan. Luckily for you you've really only got a very, very mild case of it – otherwise that sleeping bag would be getting rather crowded abut now."
James flashed a tongue-in-cheek smile at Jessie beside him. For a moment Jessie only seemed stunned by his words, but she soon turned her head away to hide what James thought he saw was a tiny flicker of a smile. The pair sat in silence, sipping on their tea and listening to the crackle of the flames before them. And yet there was surprisingly no air of hostility in the silence as there had been over the past couple of days. There was certainly an air of uncomfortableness, but the absence of hostility of unmistakable.
"I worked my ass off," Jessie suddenly said, seemingly out of the blue.
James turned his head to look at her, frowning confusedly. "What?" He replied, wondering whether he had misjudged Jessie's level of hypothermia and she had descended into a state of delirium.
"You asked me yesterday how I got into the Paramount Corps. scene," Jessie responded, and looked James in the eye. "And that's how I did it. I worked my ass off."
James stared at Jessie, unbelieving that she had actually noted the question he had asked her before their argument the previous night, let alone answered it properly. "Oh…" He managed to say; still not ready to comprehend the fact that Jessie appeared as though she was willing to converse normally.
"After… well, you know," Jessie continued, evidently wishing not to speak of the Team Rocket ordeal, "all I wanted to do was make something of myself. Start afresh and just be successful for once. So I started at the bottom as a secretary of a small business in Saunders City. I worked hard day and night, taking on extra responsibilities and tasks. I gradually worked my way up, regularly switching jobs and businesses as I got promotions. And I eventually wound up as CEO of Paramount Corps. at the end of last year, where I've obviously been working ever since."
An incredulous expression transformed on James' face, not at Jessie's undoubtedly astounding achievement, but still at her decision to talk with him in a civil manner. He nodded in response to the explanation of her career success.
There was another moment of silence before Jessie spoke again.
"What about you? How did you become the… uh, head councilman of Fieldsville?"
"Me? Well, uh… Hm. I was actually working at the Police offices in Saunders City, when I met Sam – you met him at the Lodging House," James said, and Jessie screwed up her face at the mentioning of Sam. Her associations with him at the Lodging House had certainly never been friendly.
"He was working at one of the newspaper publishing companies in Saunders City at the time," James continued. "We became good friends, but Sam already had plans to move to Fieldsville. I decided I wanted a change of scenery, and ended up moving with him. There's no position for a Police agent in Fieldsville, so I joined the small council they had running instead. I was eventually elected head councilman. I guess… that's my story."
"Right," Jessie responded, only to be followed by another long bout of silence.
"Are you warming up?" James suddenly asked, realising that he had temporarily forgotten that Jessie had been close to drowning in a pool of freezing water only hours before.
"Mm. Thanks," Jessie said quietly.
James thought desperately of something else to say. He didn't want to waste this opportunity that Jessie was allowing for them to talk, but things still felt immensely awkward between the pair.
"So… what else have you done over the past seven years? Apart from working your ass off, I mean. Is there a Significant Other mourning your apparent death back in Saunders City? Any little Jessies wondering why their Mummy hasn't come home?"
Jessie snorted at James' last question. "Yeah, right. Would a prominent business figure like me have time for children? That goes for a Significant Other, too."
James raised his eyebrows. "I see."
"And what about you, James? Any wedding bells for you?"
Draining the last of his tea, James shook his head. "Afraid not."
"Not even lovely little Nurse Olivia?" Jessie asked, and looked to James almost smirkingly.
James frowned, unable to work out how Jessie had conceived any connection between himself and Olivia.
"Oh, please," Jessie drawled, rolling her eyes. "In the few times I saw you and her together, it was obvious that there's something going on between you two."
James' brow creased. He had never realised, nor even contemplated such a thing could be so evident. "We were together, for while. But we broke up. And now… things are just… well, complicated," he sighed.
"Oh, of course," Jessie responded, a knowing expression playing across her features.
James was suddenly hit with a strong feeling of déjà vu. As Jessie playfully teased him in those few words, he realised that he was being reminded of their Team Rocket days.
"Jessie," he said in a serious tone. "I really am sorry for everything. I want you to understand that."
Jessie looked at James with contemplative eyes.
"But I also hope you understand that," James went on, "while I did lie to you all those years ago… you are throwing four-hundred people out of their homes now. I don't want to attack you or anything, but I just hope you understand – I'm not the only one with a black spot on their name."
Jessie turned away from James to stare ahead of her. For a moment James thought that she was going to explode in a fit of rage again, but perhaps her tired condition made her act otherwise. Whatever the reason, Jessie simply looked ahead and said in a soft voice, "I know."
It was a while before anyone spoke again. However, once James did eventually break the silence, conversation between Jessie and James continued unhindered for a long time. They did not speak in welcoming, open tones, nor did they appear good old friends jovially catching up on the years. The atmosphere was admittedly restrained, but Jessie and James talked of their new lives agreeably, and there were one or two genuine smiles elicited even by Jessie as the night progressed.
And once James had decided that Jessie's body had recuperated enough for her to sleep safely, both fell into a peaceful slumber by the fire that night that neither had experienced in a long time.
Another long chapter… and hopefully one that satisfied your needs to see J&J acting a little bit nicer toward one another! This one took a surprisingly long time for me to write, so I really do hope you're happy with it.
So tell me what you think, and drop me a review! If I can get to 100 reviews before next chapter, I will be immensely excited! And I will give you all free jellybeans! That's right – any flavour you want!
Well, I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out as I'm going to be pretty busy this week. But it should be relatively soon. Really!
Till next time,
BansheeGirl.