chapter word count: 482
noir heart: ninety-seven
"Why, Jack?"
She pauses, letting her breathing return to normal before she speaks again. "Is it out of love? How can you call it love, if love left you alone, broken, and corrupt?" she asks.
Looking down, deeply into her eyes, there's something that strikes him as odd - she's truly serious. She hasn't even blinked, and her gaze is searching, like the answer is wholly important to her. She really wants to know.
"Help me to understand, Jack," she says, and steps forward. The electricity fills the air once more, jolting his spine straight. "Love is supposed to enhance us. Make us better. Make us whole, give us meaning. How can it be love, if you are as broken as the law you claim to serve?"
Jack snorts, a single burst of air from his nose to accompany the sly curl on the left side of his lips. He shakes his head, and turns away from her. The concrete is hard under his feet as he walks away, delving both hands into his pockets. The silk lining caresses his hands, and the cold metal object kisses his fingertips.
"Answer me, Jack," she calls out. He ignores her.
He keeps walking.
"Answer the question," she calls out, shouts it.
Undeterred, his steps continue.
"Don't turn your back on me!" she yells out. The sly half-smirk on his lips becomes a full curl - how satisfying it is to get under her skin for a change. Go for the ego, the narcissistic tendencies.
He turns, slowly, and faces her. She lifts her chin, and stares at him with a mixture of coldness and deep interest, with her hands in loose fists at her sides. Chuckling a single beat, he lifts out the object from his right pocket, and feels the weight shift slightly as gravity takes hold upon it.
The ring and its chain. Eyes lingering upon it, Jack has to admire its simplistic beauty. Silver is his favourite, after all.
Her bangs dancing with the wind across her forehead, Elsa glances at it just the once, and her face relaxes in part-relief, part-oh-ho-you-got-me-amusement. "Simple bait-and-switch, Elsa. Bought another cheap chain on the way here."
Flicking the chain up so it's all in the palm of his hand, he gently tosses it to her. "I see you, Elsa. I know your weakness," he says, less mockingly and more statement of fact.
She clenches it to her chest. "And I know yours, Jack," and just as he turns away and heads towards the ugly-green roof-access door, he hears her call out, "and we'll be seeing a lot more of each other!"
Lacing his fingers around the long, horizontal steel handle, he notes how, strangely, there's a part of him that's kind of looking forward to it.
sneaky. Chiqanti - the Kozmotis investigation is under the Ripper unit's control. Riverfall - she could, but it wouldn't be the same.
special thanks to: hornedgoddess, vrupd.1992, doomstone, evil cookie, jpbake, chiqanti ceres, oninoko, stefalove, riverfall, anastasia and invisible me for the reviews!