Unwanted Attentions
"Have you seen this?" Syd demanded and Jack blinked as a magazine was smacked onto his lap. Hard.
"What?" he asked intelligently before looking down at the offending item. His eyes widened in stunned surprise and he sat bolt upright on his bed. "Oh."
It was a photo from Syd's birthday party, when they'd been standing in the gazebo holding the fairy cake and Syd had offered to share her birthday with him. The way the picture had been taken, it looked they were holding hands, close enough to kiss even, which seemed to be what the photo, not to mention the headline, was implying.
"It gets better," Syd continued with a brightly fake smile. "Turn the page."
He did and his jaw dropped a little further. In this picture they were hugging, although with a few 'alterations', courtesy of some photo editor with no doubt more imagination than integrity. He remembered the moment vividly and there was no way his hands had gone there. No way, no how.
"Where did these come from?" he asked, magazine dropping out of suddenly nerveless fingers back onto his lap. If this was part of what Syd dealt with in her everyday life he didn't want any part of it; he valued his privacy and this was an invasion of that, no matter that he wasn't the intended target. Then again, he conceded, it was probably ten times worse for Syd. Especially with the kind of things the article seemed to be insinuating.
"I don't know," she said tightly, before sinking onto the edge of his bed. "I wish I did."
"Someone must have been hanging around the party," he said thoughtfully. "But how would they know?" he finished, not a little frustrated. "It was only supposed to be SPD."
Syd shrugged. "Don't be naïve, Jack," she said. "Someone told them, simple as that."
"But--" he protested, then stopped as a horrible thought occurred to him, Syd's tight, angry expression from when she'd stormed into the room. "You thought I did," he said softly, inexplicably hurt by the implication. "After everything we've gone through you seriously thought I'd do something like that?" He stood abruptly, magazine dropping to the floor with a quiet thwap. Staring out his window he heard the spring of the bed squeak behind him as Syd stood as well and he folded his arms across his chest. So much for progress, he thought bitterly. It looked like they hadn't made nearly as much as he'd thought.
"I'm sorry, Jack," she said quietly. "I just… it made more sense at the beginning. I couldn't think who else it could have been."
"So you decided it was me? Thanks, I feel so much better now."
"Jack, I didn't…"
"Whatever, Syd. Was there anything else?"
"No," she replied uncomfortably. "I'll just… see myself out."
The door swished open, then closed and Jack waited a couple of minutes more before his arms fell to his sides. And Z thought we could fit in here.