Timeline: An hour later

Rating: Pg-13

Ch 22

Emotionally There Can Be Nothing There

"What a wicked game you play
To make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
To let me dream of you

No, I don't want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
No, I don't want to fall in love
With you ."

-Chris Isaak, Wicked Game

Amanda finally remembered where she'd seen the man who was going to be their next test subject. He had been one of the security guards at Euphoria, the last person who'd seen her before her own test. It finally made sense why she had such a hard time identifying him. Besides the fact that she had been trying to repress all memories of her past life as a junkie, she's been coming off a high when she saw him. It was only when she read his name and job description that she recalled him, lingering in the back of her subconscious among other fragmented memories, nightmares and secret desires.

As Amanda looked over the file, she felt Mark's presence beside her. She continued pretending to be preoccupied, hanging on to those precious final seconds of solitude while hoping that when she looked up, he would be gone, along with all of the complicated feelings inside of her.

"We have to talk about what happened," Mark said. Realizing she no longer had a choice, she glanced at him. It was a little easier to keep her focus now that he was clothed, but only slightly.

Are you going to take your clothes off, or am I going to have to tear them off of you?

Sudden flashbacks jolted her out of the conversation and into the erotic memories she'd been trying to suppress all morning by distracting herself with John and the plans for the next could see it so clearly. Hell, she could almost feel it, even now. Her body wouldn't let her forget his hands caressing her, his passionate kisses, ending abruptly as he panted in her ear…

Say it. Tell me that you want me. Tell me that you want me to fuck you.

"Amanda, I think we had a serious misunderstanding this morning," Mark said. He sat in a chair adjacent to Amanda and put a hand on her shoulder. She glanced at it, clearly annoyed, but she didn't push him away. Mark felt it was a small victory.

"Really? Because I thought the conversation was pretty crystal clear," she said, jerking backwards and out of his grasp, as he knew she would.

"I suppose you would think that considering you stormed out of the room before I could explain-"

"Explain what, exactly?" Amanda said, and then she laughed, a bitter and sarcastic little sound. "That everything that happened last night was a mistake? I get it. You don't have to explain anything. You don't have to sugarcoat it for me. It was fun. We had a great time and we…we got it out of our systems. And now it's done. Over. I got it. And I'm fine with it."

Her tone was almost believable, her words almost sounded authentic, but she was like a bad actress who was just reading lines, and a terrible liar who was not convincing at all. Mark imagined that if he hooked her up to the lie detector machine at his work, she'd probably break it with the speed and severity of her lies. The snappy statements near the end of her rant, the pain in her face, and the way her entire body tensed up gave Mark all the signs he needed to know that it definitely wasn't over. She wasn't fine like she said she was, and he wasn't going to let go of something so amazing without a fight, especially if she was feeling the same way he was.

"Amanda, let me be very clear about this. I didn't plan on sleeping with you last night, but I don't regret it," he said, leaning down to look her in the face as she tried to avoid him. He wouldn't let her hide or storm away from him. Not this time.

"We had a connection last night, Amanda, and it wasn't just physical. I know it, and you know it, even if you can't admit it," Mark snapped. He shook his head, ran his hand through his hair, and tried again, knowing that just like any other interrogation, the truth would inevitably come out if he persisted.

"We've had this connection for a long time," he said in a lower voice. He stood closer to her and in front of the door, intentionally obstructing her from the nearest exit. "It's why we keep being drawn to each other. It's why we can't stop thinking about each other. It's why-"

Amanda tried to dart out of the room, but Mark block her with his arm, and leaned down closer to her face, making eye contact unavoidable.

"It's why you don't trust yourself alone in a room with me. Because it makes you doubt yourself, your self control. You lose control when you're around me because you want me like…like the way I want you," he said, the last part came out in a low, nearly breathless voice, taking an obscene amount of courage to make such a confession. But in a way, he'd already confessed. They both had, merely by the way their bodies had reacted to each other, the way they couldn't stop staring at each other, couldn't stop craving each other. It had been a night of pure lust, a playful power struggle, a way to release the growing tension between them…but it had also been the revelation of a connection between them. He could feel what she was feeling, he didn't just want her to satisfy him, he needed to feel her and have her feel him, and he wanted to be with her again...even now, as she was resisting him, rejecting his advances and demeaning his emotions all at once, he still felt that connection she denied. The only way he could continue to stand her torment was that he knew she felt it too.

"Shut up! Just shut up!" she shouted, knowing he was right. She turned away from him and searched for an alternate exit. Mark grabbed Amanda's arm to prevent her from leaving. She stiffened, and with a gradual pace like that of the hand that counts seconds on a clock, she turned around and looked at Mark with a nearly neutral expression she fought to preserve, despite her emotions being anything but steady. It was an awful feeling, just like withdrawal all over again. She didn't lose a habit; she'd just changed her drug of choice.

I can't do this. I can't replace an old addiction with a new one. And that's what it is. It's addiction.

"Amanda…what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking…that I'd really appreciate it if you took your fucking hand off of my arm," she said coldly, and pulled away from him again.

"That's…that's really mature," he said, nodding his head and grinding his teeth. He slammed his hand into the doorway, causing Amanda to twitch, a knee jerk reaction to the sudden movement. Mark cursed, and leaned his head against the doorway in aggravation caused by both Amanda and the self-inflected injury. He inhaled, and once he felt calm enough to confront her again, he made a conscious effort not to touch her. Apparently last night had created a new no-touching rule.

"I'm being pretty fucking honest here, and I'd appreciate it if you'd show me the same respect and tell me what's going on in your head right now. You feel something for me, I know it," he said. He had hurt himself, both physically and emotionally by putting himself out there, exposed in a vulnerable position, but he'd be damned if he didn't come out on top in this argument. He had never been more certain that he was right in his entire life.

"Yes, Mark. I feel something for you, something that's more than just attraction, okay? Happy now?" she shouted. She sighed and looked away, slightly surprised that she'd actually admitted it to herself, much less to him, yet she couldn't take any joy in the acknowledgment. She shook her head and added, in a much more pitiful tone, "But why does it matter that we had a connection if we can't act on it?"

There is was. The real issue presented itself on center stage, the major conflict beginning just as Mark thought resolution was nearly within grasp. He looked confused, so she elaborated.

"I don't regret what happened either. I just don't think there can be…it can't happen again."

"Why not?" he said, and then he closed his eyes as the realization hit him. Through clinched teeth he responded, answering his own question begrudgingly.

"It's because of him," he snapped, wanting to break John's neck more than ever before. Still intervening with his life, still doing whatever he could to ruin their lives. The sad part was he did it without even trying now. Without any effort on John's part, his mere presence, his mere existence was a hindrance.

Amanda crossed her arms over her chest and talked down to the floor.

"John wouldn't understand. He wouldn't…"

"What we are feeling is very real, human emotions. Of course John wouldn't understand it," Mark replied, the throbbing in his hand seemed to intensify with his anger. He massaged it with the other as he shook his head in utter disbelief.

"That's not true! John…he understands emotions," Amanda protested, although she couldn't really disagree with him about that. John wouldn't understand their emotions. He was too lost in his own obsession with his legacy to see what would have otherwise been a rather obvious bond that was forming between Mark and Amanda for quite awhile. He would assume it was merely physical attraction, a distraction to their work. The worst part was…Amanda had no idea how John would respond. All she knew is that it would be a very negative reaction. Since she had yet to do anything that would displease him, there was nothing to provide a basis for predicting how John reacted to disobedience. She imagined the consequences for betraying him would be awful, and she didn't want to experience being the target of John's wrath.

And another reason, perhaps the main reason, was that she didn't want to disappoint him in any way. There was a love between her and John, a different kind of affection than the feelings that were forming between her and Mark. There was almost nothing she wouldn't sacrifice to preserve that love…unless that meant sacrificing her relationship with Mark. She was surprised at how unbearable the thought suddenly seemed.

She felt torn between what felt like the right thing to do, and what felt like…the other right thing to do. Maintaining John's approval and the new, intimidating but exciting feelings she had for Mark seemed to balance in terms of importance in Amanda's mind. Hence the way she sighed, shook her head, closed her eyes, made every excuse possible to delay decision.

"John does understand emotion. He just…wouldn't understand us," she said. If she hadn't felt so empty, she might have cried. Instead she just looked pitiful and torn, a perfect display of how she felt inside. As far as detaching emotionally went, Amanda was a perfect failure, and as far as hiding those emotions, she was even worse.

Mark's emotion changed along with hers, possibly a side effect of that connection they could no longer deny, as well as the realization that the situation was even more complicated than he had first assumed. He offered an obvious solution, despite knowing Amanda must have already considered it.

"Why don't we just not tell him? It's none of his damn business anyway," he grunted, crossing his arms and staring down the pig mask hanging on a nearby coat rack, reminding him of the man he so strongly despised at that moment.

"Like we could keep it from him!" Amanda exclaimed, nearly laughing at Mark's suggestion that they could keep anything, particularly a secret that big, from the omniscient John Kramer.

"We could try. Isn't it worth a try?" he said, implying he thought it was. What he didn't tell her was that he didn't need yet another reason to wish the old man would die in his sleep, or preferably, in a much more painful way.

"I just don't know," she said. "I just…need time to figure things out. To figure out if it's worth the risk."

What she really means is, "I just need time to figure out how I feel about you. If you are worth the risk."

Mark sighed and rubbed the ache between his eyebrows. The argument had made his head begin to throb like his hand.

"Well, when you figure it out, you let me know," he said. Now he felt like storming out of the room, or at least moving out of the way so Amanda could. But unfortunately, they still had work to do, and cooperation was essential, no matter what else was going on between them.

"We should get started," he said, changing the subject entirely. He grabbed the file Amanda was looking at and skimmed through everything as though it were just another file some detective had plopped on his desk at the department.

Noah Everett

Rachel Everett

Caitlin Miller

"Interesting," he muttered, noticing the two matching last names.

"What's interesting?" Amanda asked flatly, wondering how anything could be so fascinating after the words that had just passed between them wore them both out.

"Two of our test subjects have the same last name. Relatives?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Amanda shrugged. The tension in the air seemed to slowly dissipate as they distracted themselves with the details of the test.

"It can't be a coincidence," Mark muttered. He looked through the file some more. "The trap is already finished. That was fast. Sometimes I wonder if John doesn't overplay that sick act…"

Amanda punched his arm. Playful in nature, but painful in reality.

"Yeah, I'm sure he's milking it for the attention," she said. "You're totally unbelievable."

"Ouch," he said, rubbing his new injury. Yet another part of his anatomy that throbbed along with his swelling hand. Although if Amanda kept leaning closer to him, her cleavage already in perfect view, whether she was aware of it or not, she was on the verge of making another part of him begin to throb. Considering the conversation they had just had, he decided that it might be a very unfortunate moment to lose control and do something foolish, such as try to create a replay of last night. As tempting as the thought was, he cleared his throat and scooted several inches away from her. It was the first time he could remember being the one to back away. He infuriated himself, right before he redirected that annoyance towards John. Even when John wasn't in the room, he was in her mind, separating them like a teacher who sends trouble makers, and oh, did Mark want to initiate some trouble at that moment, into a corner for them to learn an important lesson.

What lesson is that, John? Is there some underlying lesson that I'm not seeing here? Or are you just trying to show off how much control you have over Amanda?

Mark felt like asking her yet again what the big deal was in John knowing about them. How did either of them even know how John would react, anyway? But Mark knew. Deep down, he was certain of it, even if Amanda remained in the dark.

John would forbid it, simply as another display of power he had over them. He would take advantage of any opportunity he had to rub in just how subordinate they truly were. Even if there was no legitimate reason to keep them apart, that is what John would do. Secrecy would be necessary if they did decide to try to pursue their feelings.

"You'll get Noah around eight, when he gets off his shift. As you're doing that, I'll be at the house getting Rachel…"

'Get' had become John and Amanda's euphemism for kidnap. It irked Mark. Guising the words as something more pleasant didn't change the nature of the action itself. She continued talking, unaware that the movement of her lips was far more interesting than anything she was actually saying.

"…and then the game will begin," she said. She looked at Mark, who tried to wipe the stupid smile off his face as quickly as possible, yet was still several seconds too late. He couldn't resist though. She was attractive when she got intense and serious, even about depraved things such as kidnapping.

"Did you get all of that?" she asked, raising a single eyebrow to display her doubt.

"Yes. Basically, I kidnap Noah at eight, and get his ass here as soon as possible before the drugs wear off."

"Yeah. Just making sure you were paying attention," she said. "You looked distracted."

"I'm fine," he lied. His phone went off. He looked down at the number. Kerry. She called all the time now, convinced every little thing she found was a new break in the case, the thing that might lead them to finding Eric. It would have been endearing if it wasn't so pitiful.

"I have to stop by the precinct before tonight," he said. He checked the time. "Shit. I better go now."

Amanda nodded, unusually quiet. She didn't reply, but her face looked thoughtful and worried. She was still lost in thought about their conversation.

"Amanda," Mark said, waiting to stop himself from saying something he'd later regret, but unable to leave her in such a pitiful state.

Don't give her an easy way out. Don't you dare!

"No matter what you decide…I'll be here for you," he said, going against his better judgment, just because no matter how he felt, it simply had to be said.

Amanda looked up, her eyes full of tears. She cried at the drop of a hat it seemed… an endless flow of victims, the inevitable death of her savior looming in the back of her mind, the constant stress of John's demands…Mark had seen her crying many times in his presence, but he'd never seen her smiling as the tears trailed down her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said, a feeble smile emerging, even though it was the last thing she felt like doing. He added yet another factor in her confusing jumble of emotions. Mark wasn't going to hold it against her for denying him a sexual relationship. Yet again, she was astounded by how different he was from everyone else she had ever been with. She winced and looked away from him. Everything he did or said was making it harder and harder to reject him. He left the room, but the pressure wasn't off, and the decision still lingered in her mind, more distracting than ever. But deep inside, she knew it was more a matter of when than if.

I'm sorry, John, she thought. I'm sorry, but I think I'm about to disappoint you very much…