A/N: Woot, I've got lots of time now so expect updates! Firstly, I would like to mention that the end of the last chapter was very vague and ambiguous, but for a reason. In the reviews I received, it was misconceived that Jensen was the one who had died and asked Tru for help. He wasn't. I failed to clearly give a clarification between Jensen and the body he was standing over. It won't be revealed until later in this chapter who Jensen actually killed, but it will eventually be a major turning point in the story.

Thanks to those who reviewed; you guys are great :)

Anyway, now Tru knows she will have to end Jensen's life, but how will she do it?

Enjoy!

Blood of a Stranger
Chapter Eight: Backwards

She was lost in her dream. A reverie of reflection. She stared in the mirror. Long and hard. Her eyes were stained with the running mascara, the tears leading the smears of black. Her lips were dark with a plumb liner. Or maybe she was dead. She didn't know. Her eyes were hollow, though, void of any emotion. She couldn't feel anything. She was cold with a numbing sensation.

She felt a cold hand grasp her bare shoulder, its fingers curling around the blade. Although cold as ice, the hand fed her warmth. The black running steadily down her cheeks seemed to fade. Her eyes softened, emotion returning to them.

She saw in the mirror as he came to stand beside her, his face a delicate mask of tenderness. His lips curved at the sides as he smiled gently into the reflection. His dark hair was wet, dripping, and flattened in parts. She could see, nearly hidden beneath his shirt, there were small droplets that ran in rivulets down his neck.

She shivered. Because of the renewed heat, she felt a bitter coldness embrace her. His hand ran down from her shoulder to her waist and encircled it, pulling her close to him. When he had slid his hand down, his finger had excited shivers through her arms.

She closed her eyes. She wanted to devour the moment in its ripeness. She wanted it to last forever. She opened her eyes, slowly, as if awakening from a deep sleep. He was still there. He looked at her through the mirror with those wilful blue eyes, penetrating her inner thoughts and desires.

She stared back.

She thought it funny suddenly how what he had said about reflections some time ago seemed to hold true now. Here they were, star-crossed and hungry for something more, two incomplete souls standing before the same mirror. A reflection of a whole, a completion. Ying and yang, black and white. Life and death.

They saw what they wanted to see. Not what they had to see.

It was only a dream but it had to hold something else deep within it. Some hidden truth, some smouldering desire.

The mirror shattered, killing the image of two lovers in a splitting disperse of glass shards.

Her eyes shot open, wide and afraid. Scared of what she had witnessed. The afterimage of bloodstains haunted her. The gunshot resonated, grew louder upon recognition. Her ankle ached from being pulled down and under, sucked back through the waters of time. She still heard his whisper, that dead voice that yearned for her.

Help me.

She heard a rustle in the almost blinding light of the sun through her wavering curtains. She looked over, chilled suddenly by the cold sweat dripping down the side of her face. It stung her.

She saw his face, earnest and gentle in the morning's rays. He had a sweetness about him that sickened her. His smile sent her blood ice cold. His pure blue eyes conveyed warmth and a sense of afterglow as he stared down contently at her from the edge of her bed. But all she could feel was numbing coldness.

He opened his mouth and spoke words of raging venom with his warm and gentle tone of voice, "You talk in your sleep."

She couldn't believe this was happening. The words reached her and she shuddered. Her sleep seemed like an eternity away.

Jensen held out his fingers to brush away her unruly curls and she flinched, moving back quickly. He looked hurt suddenly, but if only for a small second. Then he was glowing again.

"Did I tell you I have an interview at the morgue this morning?" he spoke proudly as he smiled down on her. "I'm hoping Davis will accept me as a new assistant."

Like you even wanted me to know, Tru thought cynically.

Her mind raced.

This was a killer she had spent the night with. This was a killer she had slept with, in her own bed. She had let him into her home and allowed herself to be serenaded by him. A killer.

What was worse, she had created him. She had taken this sweet young man, ambitious and full of life, and made him into a fascinated killer who liked the danger of death.

She felt like crying, breaking down right there in front of him. Rather, she smiled sweetly and leaned forward to kiss his ice cold, dead lips.

Jack yawned, a small gesture heralded by the morning smouldering with the remnants of the day before. A day only he and one other person could remember. The mirror lay flat against his pale-tiled bathroom wall. It was rounded, oddly shaping his reflection in the same bulging manner. His eyes were orbs of frustration and suggested ravaging insomnia. They were red around the rims and swollen quite deeply.

He glared into his reflection. He was never satisfied with it, that stranger staring back with a rugged appearance and savage demeanour. He didn't like it.

The dream haunted him. Of course, he found it quite odd that such an occurrence had happened after a rewind. Usually he was just sucked back into the previous d ay, with no dream upon awakening.

But that morning proved to be quite different.

A dream of dangerous passion and a hidden desire buried within the recesses of sanity. But what was sanity if not a restriction? A force holding someone back from what they secretly harboured, desires that were morally wrong and potentially threatening? A barrier dividing wrong from right, dangerous from safe, careless from cautious.

Evil from good.

He shivered. An involuntary action from the gathering thoughts that threatened to simmer and boil over before him.

He glanced a look at the clock. It was time.

Jack made his way carefully through his apartment, its wooden floorboards hardly creaking under his light steps. He reached the glistening white door and let his hand fall to the handle. It all seemed like dull poetry, forced and routine.

The prying eyes that caught his as the door drew back before him didn't surprise him. They didn't cause him to retreat or pull back in any way. They kept him there, those wide, careful eyes that usually would not let him in for a second.

And here they were, open and crying out for his help.

He wasn't alarmed by her sudden appearance. He had even expected it, after last night.

She looked just as ravaged as he did, even more so. She had witnessed it, he assumed. Otherwise they wouldn't be here, reliving the day and hoping for a different result. He didn't need to speak, didn't need to ask why she had come to him. He knew.

Tru opened her parched lips, though only partially. She could barely feel them peel apart, though she heard the words that followed, "Help me, Jack."

Jensen straightened his tie while clearing his throat impulsively. The morgue calmed him, its clean walls methodically sanitary. The smell captivated him the most; awash in a coat of cleaning agent, with the under current of death seeping into the air. It made him feel alive, and indeed invincible. Even though he longed for that place that was hidden to him, he needed to feel like he lived. He needed to keep that spark ignited. It was necessary.

The halls were quiet; generally they were and this time he expected nothing less. Little noise penetrated the silent air, apart from the occasional clatter of a sterile scalpel or the soothing splitting of a body being opened. This was how he liked it.

His ears were numb to that man's speech; it was simply distant ringing as they walked steadily down the hall towards the main lobby.

"…and of course, the stomach for this kind of work has to be, somewhat, resistant to the more…gruelling details of the work," Davis rattled on, unaware of Jensen's deafness to his words. "And we certainly have positions open, at this point in time…"

Jensen could see one in the distance as they walked; one of those bodies awaiting incision. He felt a shiver pinch at the base of his spine. This was what he wanted.

"…it's just a matter of whether or not you're up to the task, so to speak," Davis concluded and stopped in his tracks, turning to face a startled Jensen.

Jensen spread his fingers out in his coat pocket, glancing inquisitively at the stocky man. "Aren't we going to…?" His eyes flicked to the autopsy room longingly.

Davis wrapped his white lab coat around his body and breathed through his teeth, looking down at the tilted floor fleetingly. "I need to know you're fine with this kind of work before we…advance with the tour."

Frowning, Jensen shifted his feet anxiously. "Why wouldn't I be…?"

Davis sighed, fingers gripping the side of his head as he winced silently. He hated asking, but… "I…I don't want this to be your excuse to get closer to Tru."

Jensen clenched his jaw and folded his arms, looking straight into Davis' eyes. "And why, exactly, would you think that?"

The double doors swung behind them, abruptly ending the terse conversation and causing Davis to sigh in quiet relief. Jensen indignantly unclenched his jaw with a hard look towards the older man, before turning around. Before him stood a smiling Tru, her cheeks alive with vibrant colour and life. Jensen looked at her with a smile of his own. Her eyes were swollen. He knew she had been crying.

Immediately, Davis bounded up to Tru with an embracing tone of voice. "Tru, this is unexpected. What brings you here so early?"

"Actually, D," Tru began while stealing her gaze away from Jensen to focus on her expectant boss, "I'm here to wish Jensen good luck for the interview." She paused and lowered her eyes in a secret look aimed at Davis. Jensen caught it with a glare. "But before I do, I was hoping to talk to you, just for a minute…?"

It was all very rehearsed, the way it happened. Jensen saw that.

Davis and Tru were huddled together, branching off into one of the more secluded offices of the morgue, while the formally clad Carrie Allen sauntered out from the boss's office to keep Jensen company.

It was methodical and Jensen didn't like it.

"So," Carrie said quietly while folding her arms and starting towards him with ginger steps, "what kind of work are you looking for?"

Jensen noted the intricate detail of her beautifully framed face, dark hair falling gracefully over her cheekbones and forehead, accentuating her deep brown eyes. "Actually, I was thinking along the lines of what Tru does here. She seems to like it, so why can't I?"

Frowning, Carrie quickly brushed away a few strands of her dark hair that irritated her skin along her cheek. "You're just doing this for Tru?"

Jensen blinked; a careful stroke of his long lashes that brushed lightly over his crystal eyes. "No, I'm doing this for me."

Carrie felt a stinging pinch at the base of her spine as she began to fade out of the conversation, to rather listen in on the one vaguely happening in the next room…

"…Jensen's dad was the one who asked you for help?" That was Davis. "Wh…did you see Jensen kill him?"

Carrie flicked her eyes nervously to where Jensen was carefully inspecting some of the medical equipment that lay in a precise order on one of the counters.

"Pretty much. They were in an alley and I heard this gunshot before I found them. Jensen was standing over his father's body, with a smoking gun in his hand. Pretty cut and dried, D."

Carrie felt her throat suddenly wash into dryness. She cleared it impulsively, though to no avail. The dryness was still there.

"So what now?" Davis again, this time his voice sounded strained from an undercurrent of desperation. "How do you stop it?"

Tru was silent after that.

The phone felt extremely far away as Jack held it up to his ear, listening hollowly to the dial tone. His fingers were near to numb with the biting cold, but he kept walking, hoping silently the office he was heading to was warm. He gave full concentration to the phone as the person on the other line answered with a standard "hello". Was it ever any different?

"Carrie," Jack spoke slowly as he walked, "rewind day. I need you to do me a favour."

He waited as she walked out of earshot from whomever she was with. Davis, probably. Possibly even Jensen himself.

Jack flexed his fingers before continuing, "I need you to keep Jensen under your radar for as long as you can. I need to stall him."

He hung up abruptly when she replied with an answer that pleased him. You wouldn't know it, though, not with the way he kept his brows furrowed and his eyes darkly focused. This was a rewind that deeply troubled him, for many reasons.

He was immediately flushed with a comforting warmth as he opened the polished wooden door and met with the cold eyes of Richard Davies. He sat solidly behind his desk, hand to his chin in thought.

"So," Richard's hard voice sounded amongst the soft music he had playing, "the boyfriend finally gave in. Bit early, but nonetheless, convenient. Your job stays exactly the same, Jack."

"Tru wants me to end it," Jack cut through with a tight voice, pulling a black leather chair to him before seating himself in it. "She wants me to end Jensen's life."

Richard let out a quiet breath before leaning his elbows on his desk, meeting Jack's eyes once again. There was a terse tension between them. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Jack was silent. He wasn't quite sure how he would take Jensen's life; he didn't know how exactly to justify his actions. He knew for certain the end would not justify the means. "Jensen killed his father in an alleyway, shot him in the back of the head. You give me a gun, I can make it look clean."

"Murder-suicide?" Richard questioned with a quirked brow.

Jack shrugged. "It's a possibility."

He didn't want to relay to Richard the exact details of the previous night. He had seen the dangerous looks the older man was giving him for approaching his daughter in such a manor.

Roaming his eyes around the room precariously, Richard found Jack's doubtful eyes in a lock that neither of the men could escape. "How close are you and my daughter working on this?"

"Richard," Jack spoke with a hint of sarcasm, though it was carefully hidden, "you don't have to worry. Your daughter is purely…"

The door swung open with excessive force and speed. The intruder stepped over his feet, though only briefly, before he righted himself and turned to Richard without a proper glance at the room.

"Dad," Harrison before, "I-"

He paused, noted Jack's presence, and immediately assumed the worse. He was ready for it.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Harrison spat angrily and accusingly, glancing about from his father to his sister's adversary.

Richard smiled innocently, but his eyes reflected a curious confusion. "Harrison, Jack is here to collect some files I compiled for him. He came to me a while ago asking for some legal advice."

Jack gave a small nod in Harrison's direction, sighing a silent breath of relief for Richard's deceitful ways. "Nice to see you, Harrison."

Harrison ran a quivering hand through his mattered blonde hair, shaking his head in disbelief. "Sure it is."

"In fact," Richard continued, almost gushing while he gathered up some stray files from his desk, "I invited Jack to the anniversary dinner tonight. The one celebrating ten years…"

Harrison let his father drift off. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, never mind what he was seemingly hearing. He stared with hard eyes at Jack's slouched form, sitting comfortably on his father's guest chair. And he couldn't be sure, but Harrison thought he saw a small glimmer of malice in Jack's eye, something he had never quite seen before. In anyone.

A/N: Ooh, fun times ahead my good friends. Keep ya posted.

Peace