Disclaimer: I do not own Red Eye. Still waiting for Wes Craven to return my calls. XD

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Lisa didn't know she'd fallen asleep until she felt a firm hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. It took her a moment to recall her surroundings; she was still in the BMW, arms wrapped around the laptop bag. She recognized the dim shape of her father's garage through the front windshield and hastily unbuckled her seatbelt. Through the driver's side back door, Jackson was retrieving his suitcase and a paper bag. He caught her eye and jerked his chin toward the back seat.

"Get the other bag. I'm going to let us in."

She frowned. She must have been tired if she hadn't woken up even when Jackson had stopped to get groceries. "I have a key, you know. You don't have to break in," she said as she shut the door with her hip. The neighborhood was quiet, most lights out or reduced to the blue glow of TV sets in the front rooms.

"I'm not," he replied, brandishing a key of his own. He smiled wanly at her consternation and pushed the door open. As she passed him, he murmured, "Stay in the kitchen until I come back. I'm going to check out the house before we get settled."

After the events of the day, she found herself disinclined to argue, so she merely nodded and let him follow her to the kitchen.

"Just wait here," he instructed, "and I'll be right back. Be ready to run if I tell you to, got it?"

"Yeah." She hugged her arms to herself and leaned against the counter as Jackson disappeared into the living room.

Lisa closed her eyes in the darkened room and listened to the house. She hadn't been inside it for at least a year, but she had lived so much of her life within these walls that it still felt like a part of her. She could feel the changes that had been made over time, but even the missing walls and the old wallpaper still resonated in her memory. There had been a table where the island now stood, sometime around her junior high school days. She recalled sitting there and doing her homework while her parents made dinner or bickered in the background. They'd had a dog then, too—a shaggy, caramel-colored mutt who always had muddy paws and liked to sleep under the coffee table.

She inhaled deeply, searching for something familiar, something she could latch onto that would help her reconcile the ache in her heart, the grief that just would not go away no matter how hard she tried to push it down. The picture of Joe had reminded her of what he'd looked like as a vibrant, vital man, just when she'd accepted that he was gone. He had been a man who had done nothing to anyone, nothing to deserve his fate.

Something in the room changed, like the air pressure adjusted to accommodate something new. It was different enough to make her open her eyes. In the gloom, she could see that Jackson had returned, silent as always. He was watching her, she could tell, though it was impossible to make out his expression from his silhouette alone. In a very small voice that she hated the moment it sprang from her lips, she asked, "What?"

He said nothing for a moment, then shook his head and went to flip the light switch. "Nothing." The lights came up slowly, half-dimmed. "You were spacing out."

"I was alert. I knew when you got back."

"Right." She glanced at him, certain she'd heard a bit of humor in his tone. He had replaced the .45 and now he began unloading one of the bags onto the counter. "We should clean out the fridge. I got food for breakfast and lunch. I don't plan on being here long, but I don't think we need to smell rotten vegetables when we eat."

Lisa swallowed. She wasn't ready to touch anything just yet, even if it was a head of lettuce past its prime. Suddenly she understood how Joe had felt, unwilling to change his daughter's room, unwilling to risk accidentally throwing away something precious. She stood before the open refrigerator, staring at the contents.

"Leese?" Jackson's sharp question startled her out of her daze. "Wake up."

She didn't look at him, but grabbed the trash can from under the sink. With systematic detachment, she began to remove the bags of lunchmeat and salad ingredients that her father had bought nearly a month ago and never got the chance to use. She stifled a sob that took her by surprise, bringing a hand to cover her mouth.

Jackson's hand wrapped around her wrist, keeping her from completing the movement. Now she did look at him, angry and ready to ask him what the hell he was doing, but he spoke before she could.

"Do you think you can manage one little task without breaking down, Leese?" he asked scornfully. "Just one little thing?"

"You asshole." She tore her wrist away from him, almost surprised when she succeeded. "I'm sure that in your professional-killer world, you don't know what it's like to care about someone enough to miss them when they're gone, but I'm having a little bit of a hard time here. So cut me some slack, okay?" Lisa angrily took the gallon of milk he held out to her and slammed it down on a wire shelf in the refrigerator. He quickly passed her a box of butter, a carton of eggs, and a package of bacon, all of which joined the milk before she hurled the door closed. "Happy?"

He studied her through heavy-lidded eyes, a smug smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're so easy, Leese. It's almost criminal."

A distraction, that's all it had been. He'd stopped her from breaking down by getting her angry at him. She didn't know whether she should thank him or hit him. Either way, she was irritated. "You know what, Jackson? You're right. This is what happens when people have emotions beyond anger. I know that's hard for you to grasp, but sometimes it makes us weak."

"You don't have—"

"The luxury of being weak," she finished for him in a bored tone. "I know, I know. Just forget it. I'm going to bed." She turned to the stairs, and Jackson made as if to follow her. "Oh, hell no."

"What?" Jackson raised a brow. "There are three bedrooms upstairs."

"Not on your life, Rippner." Lisa crossed her arms. "You want to stay here? The couch is that way."

He sighed, allowing a smile. "Fine. Don't I at least get a blanket? A pillow?"

"Sure. You stay there." She turned to go.

"Wait," he said, half-leaping past the other side of the island to where she stood on the bottom stair. When he caught her wrist this time, it was more to get her attention than to stop her. "Lisa, I—"

Nothing came after that. Lisa waited, confused by his use of her name instead of the usual mocking 'Leese'. Everything they'd said up until now had had some purpose, some reason. They didn't engage in idle chatter like ordinary people, and now that they had a moment of peace without having to simply share information, they both seemed to be at a loss for what to say.

All at once, he tugged on her wrist, bringing her off-balance enough to make her stumble toward him. She tensed, expecting to have to fend off an attack—an attack that never came. Instead, she found herself pulled closer against him, found his lips making contact with hers.

The moment they touched, Lisa felt a shock wave that traveled down every nerve in her body to her fingertips and toes. Involuntarily, she gasped at the sensation, and Jackson took the gesture as an appeal for him to go on. He adjusted his hold on her, threaded fingers through her hair, tilted her face to a better angle for him to deepen the kiss before she could protest.

Lisa meant to stop him, she really did, but the moment his tongue swept over hers, she lost all thought. Suddenly, he was the one being pushed back, the one whose mouth she claimed. A ragged groan escaped him, then he was vying for dominance again. They surged against each other, clutching at shirts, hair, shoulders, cupping faces and winding arms around necks and waists. Jackson was relentless and Lisa was unyielding, two forces of nature that resisted each other even while they needed each other to survive.

It wasn't until he pulled back for the barest breath that she was able to regain some semblance of order to her thoughts. She was against the wall, his hand cradling the back of her head as he returned to kiss her again. Through half-open eyes, she managed to catch a glimpse of what he looked like without any artifice, any mask, any barrier. That humanity, that emotion that he kept so tightly controlled was now the only thing she saw, and for the first time since meeting him all that time ago, she thought he was truly handsome.

Something about the way his teeth grazed her bottom lip made her go weak, threatened to overwhelm her again. He was warm, so close, so real. It would be so easy to just give in to him, let him urge the jacket from her shoulders, sink to the ground with him…

It would have been too easy. Another time, another place, she might have had this with him, but he and his former employer and the ones who hunted them now had made it impossible. His eyes were already closed, so he missed her perusal. He was as lost in the moment as she had been; the idea was unsettling. It also made it much harder for her do to what she did next.

"Jackson—Jackson, no," She forced herself to say. She had to tear her mouth from his, had to physically put her hand over his mouth and face and had to push him away. "No. Just—no."

They were both disoriented, breathing hard. Jackson shook his head to clear it. He took a step toward her, but she stepped back and up one stair.

"No," she repeated, her trembling hand still outstretched to keep him at arm's length, "Just no. No." They stared at each other. Lisa tried to ignore the traces of disappointment and betrayal on his face that he must not have remembered to hide.

His voice was a labored whisper. "Lisa—"

"No." She blindly fumbled for the bannister behind her. She didn't trust herself to say more as she climbed the stairs and went to the linen closet. Her body felt brittle, as if she would break if she wasn't careful. Woodenly, she went back down to see he hadn't moved. The only difference was that the mask was back, his icy eyes catching the low light like a cat's. She handed him the blanket and pillow she'd promised.

Long seconds ticked by as they stood there. Something had changed between them with that one moment of weakness, something that Lisa wasn't sure would help or hinder them from this point onward. The tension, instead of dissipating, had grown thicker, made worse for both of them by the knowledge that on some level, the attraction between them was mutual. It also meant that they had to tread with more care, lest they both lose sight of what they needed to do. They were true opposites, opposing powers that maintained a delicate balance in order to co-exist.

All this passed between them without a word. At last, Jackson reached up and took the bedding from her, deliberately not touching her, and Lisa turned away once more.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she looked back. He was still standing there, watching her until she slowly rounded the corner to go to her room.

.-.-.-.-.

Sleep would likely not come so easily this time as it had in the car. Lisa changed into the pajamas she always kept at the house for her visits: flannel pants, a pair of tank tops that she'd layered after some fad in college and never really stopped doing. She saw herself in the mirror as she washed up before bed; there was no mistaking that she'd been very thoroughly kissed. She angrily wiped a soapy hand across the reflection of her unusually bright eyes, unusually swollen lips before splashing water on her face and briskly drying it with a towel by the sink.

She had automatically chosen her own room to stay in, whether out of habit or for the sense of familiarity her bed gave her, she wasn't sure. She knew every dip in the mattress, knew that the blue sheets were worn near her feet and that there was a hole where her quilt had come unsewn. The window shade was still broken; it wouldn't close, so she had just gotten used to leaving it open. Moonlight filtered through the thin fabric of the curtains as it had for years and years, better than any night light.

Her old alarm clock still sat on the nightstand. It changed from 12:48 to 12:49 as she watched. Everything in the house was so normal, so ordinary. If she lay very still, she could almost imagine that she heard the steady breathing of her sleeping father down the hall.

She bit her lip, huddled under the blankets. She had to stop thinking like that. If what she had been through today was any indication, Lisa would need her wits about her. She didn't have the luxury of grieving like a normal person, not when she was being hunted by people who wanted her dead. Certainly not when her only companion was someone she considered her greatest adversary, someone who had managed to throw her life into disarray more than once.

There were just too many questions to process properly. What had Joe been doing, befriending Jackson? How was she supposed to rationalize killing someone, or at least helping someone else do the job? Why did this have to happen now, when she'd finally gotten her life back under control? What did Jackson think he would accomplish by kissing her like that? Was it something he wanted to do, or was it just another method of persuasion, another game?

Worse, why hadn't she fought him? She couldn't think anymore and buried her face in one of the pillows.

For the first time in a long time, Lisa Reisert cried herself to sleep.

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