A/N: I'm trying to update more frequently now, because I have a lot more to offer, so expect shorter gaps between chapters as of now.

Thanks to those who reviewed the past chapter; stick with me :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Tru Calling.

Let the games begin.

Blood of a Stranger
Chapter 5: Ashes

The phoenix rises from the ashes to be born anew. The flame of life is born from the smouldering of death. Life, renewed, spreads its wings and rules the skies, waiting for the day when it too must burn to ashes. Then new life in turn will be awakened.

And so the cycle continues. Life after death after life after death.

Richard Davies mulled over this. It was a perpetual cycle, the cycle of life and death. The two separate forces respectively danced circles around one another, flirting with the notion of joining to become one. It was always there, that temptation to be rid of life and death alike, to live in a utopia where pain did not exist.

Still, if there were no distinction between the two, there would be nothing left of the world. No driving force behind fate's calling. No struggle to pertain to perfection, no thrill of the game of life. No hunt. No thirst for zest and for control. Nothing.

Just a vast emptiness.

Much like the life of Jensen Richie. By now Richard was completely aware of Jensen and his soul, or lack thereof. Jensen was just a hollow body that made its way through everyday life, not really understanding its purpose. Just a host body for a greater entity, a greater force. A play thing for fate to toy with.

Now, Richard knew this was no game. This certainly was a matter of life or death, whether he wanted to admit that or not. Jack had not done his job; he had been sloppy and left himself open for Tru to grasp a fleeting opportunity. And Richard held him responsible for this mess.

A pang of jealousy and resentment coursed through him suddenly, overwhelming him for a moment, for he had not anticipated the painful rush of emotion. If Richard still held the power to go back and relive the day to feed fate what it wanted, none of this would have happened. He could easily admit that when he heard the calling all those years ago, he was a tactic player; he had effortlessly thwarted his wife's ambitions when they were pitted against one another. It was almost laughable now how easily he used to win. And Elise had been oblivious all of that time who death really was.

There were times be had been tired, exhausted from the lies he told his family, and he would just let her win without planting any obstacles in her way. Fate had been cruel, unfair and cold to him; making him the enemy of the woman he had fallen in love with. Still, he had been chosen for something no one else could accomplish. He had his job to do. And she had hers. Respectively.

Jack was more laid back, teasing rather than a ruthless player. He liked to have fun on his rewinds. Play the ponies, bet on the underdog, and win money. He also liked to patronise his enemy. Teased her methodically and mercilessly. Pushed her buttons, see what she liked and didn't like. Hunted down her friends and family, pushed a wedge in between them and her. He invited himself in to her life without any regard to her protests.

Richard wasn't so sure he liked this. Jack was so intrusive and so completely unfocused sometimes. It was a risky way of working. And that was how this current predicament occurred. Jack hadn't been precise enough, not ruthless enough to follow through with Jensen's death when he had the chance. And now he had to wait for Tru to pull the plug for it to work. That could take a while, considering how she felt about Jensen.

In the end it had been Richard's decision to dispose of his wife. Cruel, calculated and precise. The only way to deal with the enemy. Richard hadn't wanted for her to die, not in the least. But if it meant passing on his gift, his curse, then he would at all costs. He had just wanted it all to end. The lies, the deceit. Everything.

And it had…only to be passed on to his daughter. Although, she, unwittingly, was working against him. Tru was working against fate; helping those who wanted to come back, do so. Jack Harper worked for fate, ensuring that those who defied the laws of fate were handed back to it, dead.

Yes, the phoenix did rise from the ashes. It rose when its predecessor no longer had the will to please life; when the pain of living ate away at it, exhausted it to mere bones. And the ecstasy of death become too much for it that it burned it to a crisp, reducing it to smouldering ashes left to birth new life.

Tru let the pen slip from her fingers as she sighed with a content satisfaction. Another exam was completed and she had a good feeling that she had passed with flying colours, or so the saying went. They had all been relatively easy questions, mostly pertaining to the human anatomy. All things she was well accustomed to.

An uneasy feeling crept into the pit of her stomach and her heart fluttered with a surprising pain, one she could so easily place. Jensen had not shown up for the exam. It was already late morning, the afternoon creeping up quickly, and he had not arrived. She had called him just before the exam, wondering , along with Avery and Tyler, why he hadn't turned up early like they had all planned. They were supposed to have been cramming a study session into the early morning, if it had not been for Jensen.

He had not answered his phone when she called, nor his home phone either. Since then Tru had been feeling queasy, not sure what she should do about it. There could have been a million reasons why Jensen had not answered her calls. Though, Tru knew in the back of her mind, where the reasoning took place, that there was only one answer. One that she didn't want to be aware of.

She felt a jab in her arm and turned around in her chair, facing Avery who held a pen tentatively.

"Hey," Tru spoke quietly, "you finished?"

Avery raised a surprised eyebrow and glanced a look down to the professor, who returned her look with stern eyes. "Yeah, only like, half an hour ago. Have you tried calling Jensen again?"

Tru shook her head with a sombre expression. "No, I was hoping he'd turn up before the lesson was over. Guess I'd be holding my breath now, huh?"

Shrugging, Avery opened her mouth to speak but a sharp voice stopped her short of beginning.

"No, speaking, please," the professor stood with his glasses halfway down his nose, his eyes frustrated. "Students are still completing their exams. Miss Davies, if you so wish, you can spend the rest of the twenty minutes outside counting the seconds…?"

Tru ran her tongue over her cheek and felt an almost irrepressible urge to hurl her pen down the lecture hall at the stocky man. Instead, she smiled sweetly and blinked, clearing her mind of any violent thoughts. She gave Avery a final look and raised her brows quickly before turning around to face the front of the hall. The clocked ticked meticulously on the wall before her. She was soon lost in its rhythm, her mind anticipating the jerking movements of the hands.

"Sorry. I just…I couldn't sleep. Not without you knowing."

Jensen's silky voice echoed through her mind. Memories of nights passed haunted her, made her uneasy.

"I'm falling in love with you, Tru."

That had been the night to begin it all. Something new had been born that night, something inhibited, unwanted. She hadn't wanted his love. She still didn't want it. In spite of this, however, she clung to him, held on to his life. She had brought him back selfishly and she had to live with that. They both did, he indebted to her and she unsure if she made the right decision.

Tru knew that she couldn't have it both ways. She couldn't save him and then expect him not to be grateful, expressing his care for her more openly than before. And she could not have let him die because she would be losing Luc all over again. She would be giving into Jack and what he believed, after all this time of her opposing him. She couldn't let him see that, in more than one way, he was right.

She was feeling uneasy about Jensen, unsure about his less than settling behaviour as of late. He had been showing up uncharacteristically late to places, and sometimes he would not even show up at all. Just like the exam. His manor had been increasingly distant and wistful. His mind was not all there sometimes.

But what haunted Tru the most were his eyes. Sometimes, when she stole a glance his way, he would not even be there at all, his eyes dark and hollow. Scary. Devoid of any emotion. Then she would blink and that darkness would have vanished. No trace of it. He would be Jensen again. Sweet, generous Jensen.

The bell rang hollowly through the hall, distracting the large number of students who rose from their desks and began to line up in front of the professor. Tru sat, perplexed, not there. She was far away.

He sniffed the air. Clear, crisp. Just on dusk. The smouldering heat of the sun faded in the peach sky, the snow underfoot becoming soft. His feet sunk into it as he lifted each leg up methodically. Up. Down. Up. Down. A cycle of unconscious movement. His legs were dancing with one another, brushing against the other as they lifted and fell.

He felt a shrill breeze sting his face. He felt numb from the cold. His hands were covered by soft black gloves and as he slid them out of his coat pockets, he felt them trembling. They were shaking, quite violently, and he did not know why. He placed it on nerves, a physical reaction to his mental state of mind. Since his mind was numb to the reality of what he was doing, his body was the only thing that could act out against it. Still, mind over matter always seemed to win in the end.

And his soul played no part in this little game, seeing as he didn't actually have one.

His belt was free of the small metallic gun that was usually holstered there. He wasn't looking for an easy kill this time. He wanted to actually feel as though he was sacrificing a life. It had to be a massacre; otherwise there was no substance to it. No real meaning.

She was tall, yet still shorter than him. They all had been. Her darks curls were strewn about her head and delicately laced around her shoulders. As she was, her back to him, she looked exactly like he wanted her to. She looked an exact replica of the one who had barred him from that place he longed for; death.

She was confident in her manor, striding onwards towards a car park just up ahead. He could define every muscle working in her arms as she walked with only a black top on that cut off just below her shoulders. He knew she must have been freezing, but obviously didn't feel it. It wasn't a common thing during a winter as cold as this; that somebody could walk through snow-laden paths and not worry about how cold they were, how frozen their limbs seemed to be.

But this woman seemed not to notice what time of the year it was, or that there were fresh clouds above, ready to release more snow onto the earth. She seemed oblivious, yet aware at the same time. Yes, this would be a sacrifice after all.

The sky was darkening quickly, the light of the day fading into the black of night. Tru walked briskly through the heavy snow, picking her way to her apartment. The dark corners and alleyways cast dancing shadows upon the path she walked. It was eerie. She had ignored Avery's offers about a lift in her car; she had protested that she didn't want to put anyone out. And besides, it wasn't all that dark.

The three of them, Avery, Tyler and a disorientated Tru, had been celebrating how easy their exam had been with drinks. Avery hadn't been drinking and it made Tru uncomfortable, almost guilty. Guilty about celebrating something cruel.

After Jensen had ceased to show for the exam, Tru began to worry about his abnormal behaviour. She had been feeling a drowning kind of sorrow, born of the sentiment that something wasn't right with Jensen. She had been craving a drink. She waned to be drunk. Intoxicated. Numb.

She didn't want to feel the guilt that was creeping over her. Jack's haunting words lingered in her mind, his warnings that something was happening to Jensen drowning out all other reasoning. She didn't want it to be true. But, she knew, it was.

She had seen a disturbing change in him, despite it being subtle and almost ominous. His moods were different, his patterns had been altered. He would sometimes stare into thin air, his eyes shrinking into black holes. In those times, there was nothing that proved his identity, nothing to say he was Jensen at all. In those times, he was a dark abyss, hollow and void. Gone.

Tru shivered. It was growing colder with the chilling darkness of the night. She was only wearing a light coat over her jeans and tank top. She cursed herself mentally for not wearing something warmer, something that she wouldn't freeze to death in.

She stopped dead in her tracks, her breath forming a long string of white cloud as she blew lightly with her lips parted. Jensen was leaning against a railing that hung over a creek, his long coat flowing out behind him. There was a strong breeze and it dug up underneath his blonde, mattered hair, rustling it.

She couldn't call out to him, she was too cold. Her blood had frozen over, it seemed. She didn't know why. She reached him and gingerly held out a hand, touching his shoulder gently. He didn't move. He was just leaning against the railing, almost in a trance. His whole body was still against the wind. She couldn't see his eyes, couldn't see if they were there.

She shook his shoulder harder, this time whispering his name hoarsely, the cold biting into her voice. She yelled his name once, worried, and he snapped violently around, raising his hand. Then he realised who it was.

"Tru," he whispered, relieved. "Sorry, I zoned out there for a bit. Hope I didn't scare you."

She stared, almost in a state of shock. Her heart pounded hard against her chest and her breath was erratic. She looked into his eyes, their blue irises crystalline and brilliant in the darkness. He smiled down on her sheepishly, embarrassment reddening his cheeks. Or maybe it was the cold that did that. She wasn't sure.

Tru finally found her voice. "Jensen, you did scare me. What was that?"

Jensen lined his face into a frown, before he shrugged and smiled again. "Nothing. I was just thinking about my dad."

Concerned, Tru leaned in. "Is everything okay? He's okay, right?"

Jensen laughed. It sounded harsh in the bitter cold. "Of course. Everything is better than okay. Tru, I just figured out something."

Tru rubbed her arms, breathing calmly. It was freezing. "What?"

"I don't care anymore," Jensen replied with an unfazed clearness. His voice was pure silk as it spun around Tru, pulling her in.

She frowned, unsure. "What do you mean?"

Jensen took a deep breath, engulfing the cold air. His lips seemed to be growing blue. Or maybe it was the dim light of the moon. He leaned forward, his lips almost touching Tru's. She felt their coldness. It was like feeling death. She wanted to draw back, but remained oddly entranced.

He breathed lightly on her lips, whispering, "I don't feel like I live because of him. I don't have to prove anything to him anymore."

He kissed her, hard and deep. He captured her lips with a force that scared her. His lips were cold and rough against hers. They felt dead.

She pulled back and expelled a long, dry breath. She was shivering from the inside. It was so cold. "Jensen, you missed the exam today."

He watched the way she struggled with the words, the cold slurring her speech. "My dad pushed me into med school," he spoke fluently, his voice unaffected by the bitterness of the cold. "I never really wanted it. It was just something he used to make me his puppet."

Tru stood still, stunned to the core. Was this really happening? "Jensen, you don't know what you're saying…you don't really mean it…"

"No," Jensen said firmly, though he showed no anger, "for once, I do know what I'm talking about. I can see it all clearly now. I don't need him anymore."

Tru reached out her hand and latched on to Jensen's shoulder, turning him around gently. "No, Jensen, you're confused…you don't know…"

He ripped his arm away violently, his face pulsing with a distorted anger. "You don't know anything! Who are you to judge me when all you've done is take me away from the one thing that I wanted?"

The colour drained from Tru's face. She couldn't feel anymore. Everything went numb. She blinked, twice. Three times. It didn't stop the tears that welled up and spilled out. They froze as they slid down her cheeks. Her head was spinning with a sick feeling of dizziness.

Jensen immediately realised he had lashed out and his face was a mask of concern and remorse. He held out a hand and stoked the tears away from Tru's face, frozen still they were. He gathered her into a tight embrace and she let him. She couldn't do anything else. She was numb. Still from the cold. Choked from the barking words that echoed in her mind.

She couldn't do anything else but let him hold her until the pain leaked away.

There was an atmospheric sigh as Tru turned the key in the door. It was habit, forced, and completely fitting considering the day she had experienced. A key in the door. Turning. Ending the day; the nightmare. She resigned herself to her apartment, the clean surroundings enveloping her and drowning her just as she walked through into the kitchen, lifting two careless fingers to feel for the light switch.

The room illuminated and cast a glare over the places she walked. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally alike. What was going on with Jensen? She knew Jack had spoken of consequences, ripples in fate…but this? Not this. Not evil.

Soulless.

A chill crept up her spine with incredible speed. It was as if Jensen wasn't there; like somebody else harboured his body. Like he was possessed.

She wandered aimlessly into her living room, flicking the switch imperviously. Her eyes down, she started with a surprised shock when she focused them. She froze, unaware as to what she should do. Should she scream? No, that would cause attention. And, she knew, that was exactly what Jack Harper wanted.

He stood slowly off the couch, cautious, like she was a ticking bomb. He held up his hands defensively. "Didn't mean to scare you."

She scoffed at his hoarse whisper. "You never do."

Jack gave a half smile, lighting up the very edges of his lips. "Now who would have thought the spare key was kept under the welcome mat?"

She levelled his state, serious and glowering. "I should call the police, then you won't think this is so funny."

She turned to find her phone, but he stepped around her before she could move, blocking her way, capturing her arm with his. "Tru, please understand, I don't find any of this funny. As I said, there are consequences. Very serious consequences."

She noticed oddly the way he articulated each separate word carefully, bracing them each as their own personal sentence. "Get out," she said icily, her tone deadly calm.

He still held her close, arm clasping heavily over hers. "I'm only warning you," he matched her venom perfectly, "if you don't be careful, people are going to get hurt."

She tightened her mouth, glaring at his solid blue eyes, glowing wildly in the piercing light. "Is that a threat?"

"More like a guarantee," he promised with a steel malice, one that, he knew, was just pretence. A strong, tough pretence that could be ripped away and torn to shreds if she breathed any harder on his lips.

He turned furiously, making his way arrogantly to the door, grasping the handle and pushing it forward with unnecessary force.

Tru exhaled shakily, her muscles exhausted with the resistance. Any closer and she would have lost it, she knew. She collapsed onto the couch, tears welling around her rims and sobs threatening to convulse.

She had seen the way his eyes burned.

Jensen.

When he had grabbed her and forced his lips onto hers.

She had witnessed Jack's longing, as well.

The same fire burned in both of them.

She had yet to discover which one of them was more of a threat, which one of them held the greater danger. And in which one of them did the fire scorch hotter.

A/N: I stole a line from the season two episode, Enough; "more like a guarantee". Originally it was spoken by Jack to Tru about the consequences of Tru keeping Jensen alive to begin with, and I thought it worked nicely in that last scene. Kind of a parallel to the series and fate's consequences.

Reviews are appreciated.

Peace.