Chapter 10

Jessica wakes with sunlight faintly visible around the edges of the blackout curtain, and rolls over to check the clock on the nightstand. 6:12 a.m. — she's been asleep for almost 14 hours.

In the end, she'd made a shower her first priority, and then food, mostly because John had ordered a plain omelette from room service and told her to eat at least half of it: "you need simple protein." Then, finally, sleep — deep, bottomless sleep in the plush hotel bed, wrapped in an even more plush hotel robe.

She rises, nearly manages to tiptoe into the bathroom without waking John, asleep on the couch in the living room of the suite, his gun on the floor beside him. But the bathroom door creaks, just a little, as she opens it, and he is up, the gun pointed at the source of the noise, impossibly fast.

"Sorry," he says, simply, setting the gun on the end table beside him.

"Um, good morning?" She smiles, holds his gaze until he smiles back, softens a little. He looks better this morning, less haggard.

In the car, he'd clung to her like she was the rock that was his last hold before slipping off of a cliff, but since they've been in the room, he's been careful about keeping his distance, treating her more like an ex-hostage than an ex-girlfriend, standing near the door to the suite with the gun in his hand and admonishing her to eat protein.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yes," she says. Better than she has in years, between the exhaustion and the feeling of security, of knowing that anyone who tried to get into the room would have to get past John before they could get to her. She points to the set of designer luggage placed neatly just inside the door. "Too well, apparently."

"Harold delivered them last night. I think he emptied an entire Duane Reade into that small one, there."

She laughs, more to encourage him than because this, specifically, is funny. One of the things she loved most about him was his sense of humor, and she's wondered if it's been destroyed by whatever has happened to him in the last few years.

He smiles back at her, but then they float through a morning of awkwardness:

Who should take the first turn in the bathroom — he defers to her. Digging through the carefully packed suitcase of women's clothing, trying to find something suitably casual for sitting in a hotel room all day, in hiding, finally deciding on a thin cashmere sweater and an inappropriately expensive pair of jeans. Jessica sitting stiffly on the couch during his turn in the bathroom, until he emerges wearing a suit nearly identical to the one he'd been wearing before, but with a different shirt. Breakfast at the suite's little table, trying to pull together little scraps of conversation when it becomes clear neither of them is brave enough to broach the serious stuff.

She's always wanted to see him again, but suddenly being thrown together to live indefinitely in the same space is too much. They need distance, space to move apart and then come back together, and it's clear they won't have it here. Jessica wonders if she'll need the novels this Harold person thoughtfully included in her suitcase, even if just as a prop to make it seem like her attention isn't always focused on him, with nothing to say.

"Is there any connection between Harold and Nathan?" she asks, finally. It seems like a good topic, perhaps not safe, but at least nothing that directly involves her and John.

John has been standing by the window, watching the city street below, but he looks sharply over at her on the couch when she asks the question.

"What makes you think that?"

"Come on, John, I've only known two people with that kind of money to throw around, and it's the two of them. And yesterday when I mentioned Nathan's name, the car swerved. I was so out of it at the time, I thought they were back, trying to run us off the road, but now I'm wondering if it wasn't something else."

"They were business partners," John says.

"Were they in the business of saving people's lives and putting them into hiding? Because that's all I've seen either of them do."

"It's complicated. It's not really my place to tell you more," he says, with a finality that tells her she'll get no more out of this little thread of conversation.

"Do you know how long we'll have to stay here?" she asks, instead.

"We'll have a better idea when we figure out what Snow's next move is."

"Snow is the leader of the men who took me?"

"Yes."

So now at least she has a name for the balding man, but little else. She can see John drifting away, now, the way she felt it when he left the first time. He'd seemed fine, the first year after he reenlisted, emailed her frequently, came back on furlough as the same John she'd remembered, if a little haunted by whatever it was he'd been through over there.

The second year, his emails seemed a little more labored, a little too filled with what seemed like false cheer. She was watching the news. She had some idea of what he was going through, but the actual combat began to disappear more and more from his emails, and they grew short, less frequent, mostly about the heat and the sand and how terrible the food was.

By his next furlough, he was completely taciturn, closing up at every attempt she made to get him to talk. And then he'd disappeared. She can still remember the hot flush of embarrassment when she'd called his father in desperation and received a gruff response that John had already said his goodbyes to what little family he had and flown back. She'd drafted any number of emails, trying to tell him how hurt and angry she was, to tell him that he needed to talk to someone, even if it wasn't her, because he couldn't keep everything bottled up forever.

But she never managed to send one, and now here he is, unable to even sit down with her, with a look on the half of his face she can see that says he has far, far more bottled up than he did in those days. Yesterday, in the car, she'd thought maybe that was a breakthrough, and maybe it was; she has no idea what he's been like these last few years. And maybe she should try to be patient, get one of Harold's books out of the suitcase and wait until John is willing to talk. But what if he's never ready to talk?

She's about to get up and walk over to the suitcases when he turns and tells her they should think about ordering lunch, what would she like, and despite every intent she had of being patient, it's the emails and the terrible food in the canteen again, and something inside her wants to hurt him the way he's hurt her.

"Damn it, John, is that all we're ever going to talk about here? Food? Both of us are supposed to be dead and it's sandwiches or salads?"

He doesn't react, except in his eyes, and this is how she can tell she's wounded him, but she can't tell yet if that's progress or just going to make things worse.

"This is what you do, John, you distance yourself. Even when you're in the same room as me you distance yourself. The least you could do is tell me why."