John opened his eyes, blinked several times to clear his vision, and let out a low grunt. He felt someone next to him, which struck him as odd. He hadn't slept with a woman since Jill, and that had been nearly three years ago. The figure next to him was petite, with long brown hair pouring over her back and her shoulders. John peered at himself, lifting an edge of the blanket. He was clothed. So they had not had sex. Well, good.
Had he gotten drunk last night, and gone to a bar?
The figure he was sleeping next to was also dressed. He had been holding her very close to him.
John yawned and, in that second, the last few weeks came back to him. He recalled the previous night vividly. Playing Scrabble with Amanda, then falling asleep next to her. Why had he done that?
Oh, right. John remembered that she had asked him to stay with her. He had said yes.
Jigsaw had also muttered something about loving her, which he now ferverently hoped she had not heard. Was he an idiot, getting so visibly attached to this former drug addict?
Stop it, John told himself.
It had gone all right. Amanda trusted him. This was all going according to the plan. He had not intended on emotional involvement, but he couldn't deny that he hadn't foreseen that from the beginning. After all, John had wanted Amanda to survive, and Jigsaw had wanted her to survive. Usually Jigsaw didn't care about the test subjects. If they died, it was their fault.
Jigsaw told John that he needed Amanda to live not out of any personal feelings towards her, but because he needed a survivor to continue his work. Zepp was not incompetent, but he was not Jigsaw material. He was the lackey, the sidekick. He would never become another Jigsaw.
They were almost two different beings, even though they lived in the same body. John was who the man had been before the cancer. Not that this man had been remarkable in any way. Smart, somewhat hard working, lazy, unable to commit, deceptive. Yet Jigsaw made this man look like a saint.
Jigsaw was the person John strived to be after surviving the accident. It had been John who drove him to suicide, but Jigsaw wanted to live and had made his body survive the fall. Jigsaw had called the police. Jigsaw had listened to Zepp when the inferior man told him about others who wasted their lives. Jigsaw had vowed to stop wasting his life, and teach others the same lesson.
Or they would die trying.
A small smirk made its way onto John's face.
Jigsaw was usually the one in control. He was more forceful. He knew what he wanted. He was cold, ruthless, and calculating. John was more tentative, and had begun to regret the games after seeing the bodies pile up. Both John and Jigsaw had wanted to save Amanda after finding her on the floor in a heap, but it was John who took over during the past couple of weeks, caring for her and urging the drug addict to trust him.
Not that Jigsaw hadn't crept out, on occasion. Usually, though, this was hazardous to Amanda's emotional health.
Not that Jigsaw cared about this, but John knew a traumatized Amanda would be unwilling to continue Jigsaw's work, and Jigsaw allowed John to have his way in dealing with the girl.
Over the past several days, ever since Amanda woke up, Jigsaw had been nearly dormant. Compassion was hard for him to understand, and John was better at that. The sicker side of the human watched as John coddled the grown woman, calling her "kitten" (of all things!), holding and bathing her as though she were a toddler. It disgusted him, but John had insisted it was necessary, so Jigsaw lay low.
Now, he watched Amanda lay there, hugging her stuffed animal as though she were five instead of a grown woman, soon to be twenty-four, and cursed John for letting things get so far out of hand.
"It can be both," John now insisted. "Her emotions will help us."
"You fool. You just want her as your pet," Jigsaw sneered.
"Shut up." John closed his eyes again, willing Jigsaw to disappear. He did.
Amanda opened her eyes, groaned, and turned over. She saw John sitting next to her with a contemplative look on his face and reached for the cat. It was towards the edge of the bed, inches away from falling. She picked her up and hugged her to her chest.
"Sleep well?" John asked, removing his right arm from her shoulder and stretching.
She nodded and looked out the window. Sunlight was pouring in and a large patch had settled around Amanda's face. She rubbed her eyes with the hand not holding Brownie and sat up. She leaned against John's side and yawned.
"What time is it?" she asked as she felt his fingers play with her hair.
John glanced at his watch. "6:03," he replied.
"Uggh." Amanda collapsed onto the pillows, her hair falling out of John's grasp. "Way too early."
John tried to position Amanda so that her head was in his lap so that he could continue to play with her hair. "You went to bed early," he reminded her lovingly. With that motion, Jigsaw seemed to disappear entirely.
John was glad.
"Ungodly hour," Amanda insisted, leaning her head against one of his knees. She reached out and pulled the blanket over her head. "Good night."
John snickered and removed the blanket from her face, tucking it under her neck and taking the opportunity to tickle her. He let a self satisfied grin escape when Amanda giggled involuntarily and began to thrash under the covers. She hissed in response.
John resumed playing with her hair. "What do you want to do today?"
Amanda gave some unintelligible response and pulled the blanket over her face again. John removed it automatically and began to stroke her forehead. She practically purred.
"Do you want to eat breakfast soon?" he asked, correctly assuming he had been forgiven for tickling Amanda.
"I'm not hungry," Amanda replied in a half grumble, half whisper. "Lemme 'lone."
John sighed. He had known for days that Amanda was not a morning person. She'd probably be happy staying in bed until noon. He, on the other hand, was hungry and yearning to stretch and move around. Unfortunately, it seemed as though he was stuck as Amanda's pillow for an indefinite period of time.
Carefully, he pried himself off of her. Amanda's head fell onto the pillow making a "plop" noise. She groaned.
"You trying to kill me?" she grumbled, opening her eyes.
"You won't get up," John replied, trying not to smile. "I don't want to be your pillow all day."
"You're a nice pillow," Amanda mumbled as her eyes shut again. Before John could respond, he heard her snoring softly.
Silly kitten, he thought.
Still, Amanda's sleepiness presented him with an unexpected opportunity to work on his traps. She'd be out for at least three hours, by the way she was snoring, and the heat from the sun might prolong her rest. John could easily finish Mike's trap within that time. After that, he just needed to trap that spying fool and perform the operation.
He grinned sadistically. He didn't usually enjoy putting people in pain, but this would be greatly amusing. The stupid man was a spy for a living. He'd never gouge out an eye, even if both would be shortly crushed by the metal trap.
He walked to his office, peered over the diagrams, and unlocked the second drawer containing the trap. That was nearly finished…now only the key remained. He'd need to melt some metal for that…John frowned, already immersed in his project.
What felt like minutes passed before John took a break from the project. He checked his watch and was alarmed to find it was past eleven. He'd need to check on Amanda. Surely she'd be awake now…
John placed everything together and had just finished locking the drawer when he saw a shadow in the doorway. He frowned. Hadn't he locked the door?
It was nothing, just a book or a tree from outside. John forced himself to concentrate, put away the key to the drawer under a potted plant, and stood up, stretching. He didn't want to turn around right away. He was sure he had closed the door, if not locked it, and besides, Amanda had to be sleeping. If he turned around, he wouldn't see her and he would have worried for nothing.
John knew he was becoming paranoid in his old age, but who wouldn't be after committing himself to his line of work?
John washed his hands at the sink with strong soap, careful to rid himself of any remains of metal. He hated the smell, but it was necessary. He couldn't risk getting chemicals from his traps into his food. Or Amanda's.
He walked over to the door and found that he had locked it. He shook his head, annoyed with himself, and unlocked it. He crept back into the shared bedroom, but Amanda was nowhere to be found.
"Kitten?" he called, forcing himself not to panic. She's probably just in the bathroom.
He knocked on the door. "Amanda?"
He heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on, but Amanda didn't reply. "Kitten?" he asked again, ignoring the knot in his stomach.
He knocked again, then tried to open the door, but it was locked. He had the spare key in his office, but John was more concerned with why Amanda would lock the door. She didn't seem to be afraid of him anymore.
"Are you all right?" he asked again. "Please open up."
"I'm fine," came the strained reply. "Hold on."
Seconds later, he heard a flush. Then, the start of water. Finally, the door unlocked and Amanda appeared in front of the door, looking red.
"Why did you lock the door?" John prodded. He inhaled, and stopped abruptly, coughing. "What is that stench?"
"My period." Her tone was embarrassed, but matter of fact. "Besides, I always lock the door when I have to go."
"You do?" John walked past Amanda into the bathroom, located a bottle of air freshener under the second cabinet below the sink, and began to spray generously. It took some time, but John soon found himself able to breathe without wanting to hurl.
"That's why," Amanda clarified, leaving the room. "It stinks."
"So I've noticed," came the matter of fact response. He paused for a second before asking, "Is it always this bad?"
Amanda shrugged, a response that John missed because he was facing the toilet and spraying directly into it. When he had finished that, he turned around and placed the bottle back into the cabinet as though he had done this all of his life.
"Can I really know?" Amanda asked rhetorically.
John shrugged. "Use that whenever you have your…"
"Period," Amanda finished, lips twitching as she tried not to laugh.
"Yes." He shut off the lights in the room and quickly closed the door behind him, as though sure the smell would come back at any moment. "Time for breakfast." Under his breath, he muttered, "As if I could still eat after that…"
Amanda tried to stifle her giggles. John led the way to the kitchen.
"What are we going to do today?" she asked, taking a seat at the wooden table. It looked gloomier than she had remembered. Amanda frowned. John had no taste in furniture. Or maybe he wanted his house to appear gloomy.
"Do you know how to cook?" John asked, sitting down next to her. "I was thinking you could make breakfast."
Amanda rolled her eyes. "I can't even make toast without burning it."
"I see I have a lot to teach you, then," John laughed. "Come on." He half lifted, half dragged Amanda out of her seat, ignoring her half hearted pleas. "You have to start sometime," he pointed out, kissing the top of her head.
"I'm going to burn the place down," she grumbled, pouting.
"I'll be with you the whole time until you know what you're doing." John paused. "Then, if you burn the house down, it's your fault."
Amanda let out a half groan, half sigh. "Where do you want to start?"
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review…I need five to begin the next chapter. I'm hoping the next one will be up by the end of this weekend.