A/N: Too long since I've updated I know, but I had to really motivate myself to sit down and write this, not because I don't have any inspiration for this fic, but because things have been so hectic lately I honestly haven't had the time. So apologies for the lateness and I'll try not to let it happen again ;)

Without further ado, I'll skip straight into the chapter. Final notes will be made at the end.

Aftermath
Chapter Five: Passion

He watched, helpless. A spirit, forced to live a life of death. Forced to see. Forced to be reminded of all that he had left behind, all that he had not warned her of, all that he had not told her. And now, here she was, falling for the spell of Death. She, Life, born from all that offers chance, offers another life, was giving in to Death

He knew it would happen. He knew, no matter the resistance between them, the defiance to never let this fatal combination happen, it would happen no matter what. He had seen it when he had been alive, beside her, watching her interact with this walking infection of death. He had seen the glimmer in Death's eyes; the pure want and desperation in his look.

He had seen it all, didn't like it, cast it aside.

But now, his death was still ripe in the air, still very much a reality, and he was not there to lead her away from the darkness. He was not there to help her, to steer her from the dangerous grasps of approaching Death

What was worse, she accepted Death now, like he was nothing. Like he had always belonged to her, entwined in an everlasting Life. But, he knew, Life and Death were never meant to collide, never meant to entwine.

For if they did, there was no telling what might happen.

Rules were there for a reason. Trials and tribulations determined outcomes for a reason. It wasn't just an unfair advantage; it was an overseer to the overall results life produced. It was a balance, a pure truth between Life and Death

Separation was there for a reason.

He knew this.

He wasn't so sure she knew it.

She was submersed in both. And, it seemed, she couldn't tell the difference.

She was neither living, nor dying.

She was somewhere in between.

She listened, she waited, she stood perfectly still as his lips forced themselves upon hers, no longer caring about the delicacy of her own precious balance between life and death. It felt good, to be caressed in such a way that she didn't even know about the difference. She was just somewhere in between, somewhere floating amongst euphoria and regret.

It didn't matter to her. None of it did. She didn't know why.

Jack pushed her against the wall, his mouth moving in hysteria. He had waited too long, seen too much, needed too much for his gaping hole to be filled in one night.

Still, it didn't matter.

He was caught up in passion, overtaken by the overwhelming sensation of completion. This was what he needed; this was what he had been searching for.

All he needed was her.

Tru didn't even feeling the pressing of the cement against her back as Jack pushed her further into it. She didn't hear the crack of plaster, or the creaking of polished floorboards. All she could seem to place was the beating of her chest, the drums of her pulse sounding over and over again, each time louder and faster, pounding her mind into oblivion.

She couldn't feel, couldn't place anything beyond that of her pulse.

Jack pulled back, his opened shirt exposing the flesh beneath it. His lips were red, swollen from anticipation. His eyes were drunk.

Tru didn't mind. She wasn't all there herself. Killing someone sort of did that to you.

His eyes fired rays of passion into hers. They heated the hearth, exploding it into flames of desire. She looked at him; that was all she could do.

She took his arm, outstretched his hand, hooked it onto her cheek. He stroked it affectionately, passionately. His touch was cold, his fingers dried from the long days of death. His body felt stiff, untouched, as she ran her own fingers slowly down the confines of his fine collarbone. The depths of his skin, hindered slightly by the stinging edge of his bone, seemed to speak to her.

She answered.

Peeling off his ragged shirt carefully, she pushed him onto her bed. He sat quietly on the edge, not daring to move any more. She leaned down, kneeling. With a hand laced around his neck, she brought her lips to his neck, caressing it with a drunken passion.

He flinched at the feeling. His body fluttered to life. Everything tingled with a numb cold. He didn't mind, though.

One of her hands trailed his body, curling around his neck, slipping down his shoulders, sliding along his chest. She felt the coarse hairs there and glanced a look at his eyes.

He looked straight into her. "This isn't right."

Jack felt her shirt, he felt balance colliding and changing. Nothing was going to be the same.

Tru touched her lips to his, softly. The calm before the storm. "His blood stains my hands."

She had power. Her hand struck the middle of his chest, pressing him down into the bed. He crashed, feeling nothing but the hard wooden surface of the frame of the cradle, though sheets covered the planks. He didn't notice the sweet softness of the sheets; all he felt was the stinging hurt of the wood against his back.

Her lips found his again, this time pressing harder, stronger. She broke away painfully. "I'll never be clean again."

His touch found the supple skin of her flesh and she shivered. It was all that she wanted.

"You know what's between us?" She questioned him with a desperate anger. "This?" She felt the hem of his pants. "It's just cloth. Just something manufactured someone made up because there was no other explanation."

She let him peel off her own resistant top, taking away all that was left between them.

Tru whispered, "I don't want to live like that."

It wasn't quite morning. Well, yes, it was. But no light peeked over the horizon. It was quiet, and no one ruined that silence. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't. Tension persisted; the grating gnawing of unspoken words taunted them relentlessly. Brisk and cold, the awkward stress between them stretched until the fear of it shattering hung loose in the air.

Avery stretched her tired limbs without moving the rest of her body. She couldn't risk it, not with Harrison lying so still beside her. She stifled a yawn, rolled her shoulders, and tossed her blonde-streaked hair behind her head, before burying her skull into the placid pillow.

Eyes wandering, Avery touched the ceiling with the tips of her pupils, tracing the intricate detail and patterns of the plaster above her. She remembered the first time she had come to Harrison's apartment; it was a party, to celebrate his lucky fortune.

Although, come to think of it, luck may not be the most accurate word to describe how Harrison had acquired his already-furbished apartment. Not that Avery had anything against Richard Davies; by all means, she admired her friend's father, lending a helping hand to his son. It was generous. Kind. Compassionate.

In fact, his actions surmised everything she had been told was nothing like Richard Davies, the deadbeat father and ruthless defence lawyer.

It strained her consciousness, plagued the inner workings of her mind. Avery read people; it was a known fact. She could tell Tru was hiding something – had been from day one – and she could tell Harrison hid behind his clown costume because he was afraid of the broken parts inside of him. She could not, however, discern why a man who had fathered three children to a wife that had later died, and had then in turn left to nurture another family of his own, suddenly come back and pretend to care about his children. It was not rational; it did not seem logical to her.

But then, neither did a lot of things as of late.

Avery shuttered her aching eyes fleetingly, the image of the ceiling becoming nothing but a glimmering shadow to her.

She knew Harrison was awake, had been for some time. His breathing had become irregular, no longer monotonous and soothing. Now, it was erratic and disturbed.

"It's funny," Avery spoke, her voice like a serrated knife through the linear air, "how things can change in an instant."

It took him a while to move; to make any sign of having heard her. He did, however, stir and shift slightly to one side, away from her. "Yeah, I guess it is. God and all that would be three sheets to the wind by now, throwing dice against the wall."

"Yeah," she responded, a little shaken at Harrison's sudden bitterness, "or something."

Avery let the silence fall. It helped numb the pain.

Terror lingered. Darkness fell in the light of the blinding day. It stung, deep within the cavities of life.

Jack wondered why death left a crack in people, watching sadistically as it splits and breaks the person wide open. He hated death. He really did.

He hung on the edge of the bed, balanced, at an impasse. If he slipped off the edge of the bed, he'd leave her there, alone and broken. But if he crawled back inside the covers, gave her the comfort she needed, her himself would be split in two.

He would become broken, too.

Tru stirred and he sat still. She cracked a lazy eye open, just as Jack turned his back to her. In that blurred light of morning, Tru focussed her gaze to the side, Jack's bare back exposed and revealing black ink in a small pattern on the bridge of his spine. She looked at it, knowing exactly what it said. Never quite the artist, Tru did have time however for Japanese lettering. Just a hobby.

Jack thought nobody would know what it really meant. Often, he told girls he would take home for the night it meant something superficial, some snarling word to turn them on. Never had it been known to mean mercy.

Lazy in the morning's glare, Tru shifted, draping the covers over her shoulders and smiling, despite herself. "You didn't show much of that last night. Mercy." She waited for his reaction. It never came. "Any, in fact."

She shuffled closer to him, warm hand reaching out to offer a slight touch to his back. He flinched. Ironic, she thought. Cold skin warmed by touch and still he flinches.

Even from her touch.

"Jack," Tru spoke with an edge of concern, her husky tone forgotten in the harsh light of day, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he lied. His hands masked his face as he dripped them over his eyes.

Tru caught his lie, shifted into a sitting position, and draped the covers tighter over her body. She was suddenly cold. "You can tell me. I'll listen."

He was silent for a time, reeling in his thoughts and shaping them in a way he could voice them. It was hard. He wasn't sure he should speak; he feared saying the wrong thing and losing her.

His voice cracked as he spoke quietly in the muffled silence of the apartment, "Did you think you would really be able to lose the darkness if you used me?"

Tru knitted her brow in confusion, plastered a vulnerable look onto her face and twisted her lips. "What?"

"Sleeping with me was a release, Tru," Jack snorted. "We both know it. You thought you could transfer your darkness onto me if you allowed yourself to feel good."

Inside she recoiled as he raised his voice, though on the outside she grew defensive. The dark part of her took control. "I didn't use you. I just…I thought you felt the same way. I wasn't using you."

Stretching his arm, Jack lifted with two loose fingers his shirt from the floor. "Keep telling yourself that, Tru. I promised I would be there for you. I took care of you after Jensen was killed."

She listened, as she promised she would only minutes ago. The only difference was she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Jack…"

Ignoring her small voice, Jack gave her a final look before walking towards the door. "But I won't do this."

"I won't do it."

At the angry sound of a phone slamming into its receiver and a frustrated sigh, Harrison took a ginger step into the office and closed the door over behind him, shutting off the outside world and the bustle of unnecessary chatter.

The office was cold, as usual, and it was no surprise to Harrison that his father sat hunched over his desk, greying head of hair cradled between two calloused hands.

"Dad," Harrison began cautiously, stepping further into the abyss of chaos. His voice cracked as he spoke, "you wanted to see me?"

Lifting a hand and waving it about carelessly, Richard rose to his feet. "Harrison. Good. Sit down."

As his father's rough hand gestured him into a lonely chair, Harrison felt the increasing clawing sensation of nausea. "What's this about, Dad?"

Hoping his speech was fluent and casual, Harrison grimaced involuntarily when his words came out blurred and rushed. Richard didn't notice, however, and Harrison sighed, relaxing deep into the leather chair.

Richard leaned against the polished wood and fingered the outline of rough etching around the edges. "This goes without saying, but you've obviously noticed your sister's growing distance from you lately."

Frowning, Harrison shrugged off a tickle of suspicion. "Yeah, I guess she has been different as of late, but I don't see how this has anything to do with us. Her boyfriend just died, Dad. Give her some time."

Shaking his head with another point of his finger, Richard reached for a manila file that rested beneath layers upon layers of messy papers. "No, son. You misunderstand me. I understand grief, believe me, and I've seen what it does to people. I know Tru is grieving, I can see it, but I saw how distant she had become before that boy was killed."

Clearly confused, Harrison's frown etched into a bemused smile. "What are you getting at, Dad? You think something else is going on with Tru?"

"Jack Harper," Richard stated simply, coldly. "The young man who came to me a few weeks ago with some legal advice has been contacting me lately. He's been telling me things. About Tru. Stories that, whichever way you look at them, just don't make sense."

Harrison stiffened in his chair, eyes widening, pupils contracting with an erratic snort. Blood pumped furiously through him, heightening his senses, pouring anxiety through his veins. "What about Tru?"

Taking a steady breath, easing the tension in his voice, Richard paused for a bare moment, gathering his words. "Mr. Harper has told me he's been worried about Tru, for some time now. He started following her a couple of months ago, watching where she goes, who she sees. A few weeks ago he followed her and found something he said he wished he hadn't."

Staring at his father, Harrison froze. He knew his sister was in trouble. He just didn't know how far. "What did he find?"

Richard sighed and looked down. With his eyes sheltered by the shadows in the room, he opened the manila folder that rested in his arms, and plucked out a piece of paper. It glistened in the dim light and Harrison dully noted it was a photo.

When Richard's arm extended, fingers curled around the photo, Harrison hesitated before leaning forward in his chair and gingerly cupping the photo in his own hand. He stared at it, blue irises flourishing at the clear image the photo painted in his mind's imprint.

When his son began shaking his head, Richard sighed again and placed a supportive hand on Harrison's quivering shoulder.

"Son, I'm so sorry you had to find out this way."

"No," Harrison murmured under his breath, hand shaking and photo wavering. "No, it can't be right. It's not right."

"Harrison…"

Harrison stood from the chair and stumbled to the door. "I have to go."

An eerie silence passed through the room in the absence of company. It was as if no one existed in the pale office. A moment passed, then another, then…a voice emerged from the dank shadows of the room.

"That was intense," the sultry voice crawled around the room as its owner slinked her way towards the cluttered desk. "I almost thought he would take the bait."

Richard glanced momentarily at Carrie, before fixing his gaze once again to the door. "He will. Give him time."

Carrie shrugged and curled a brow. "Again, something we don't have. And in the mean time we have to worry about Jack and a confrontation with Harrison. Jack won't be happy to know we've involved him in this."

Quick and as smooth as silk, Richard's voice roughened as a little more gravel was shovelled into it. "Jack is never happy."

Smirking into nothing, Carrie ran her tongue over her teeth and turned her head to one side. "Well, almost never."

He often thought about why it was he stayed on. He often thought about why he had been called to do this. What made him different? What alienated him from other people, to the degree that he could relate better to the dead than the living?

Davis often wondered.

It was strange, this passion that flourished deep inside him. It was an unstable passion, one that needed to be understood and nourished so that he wouldn't lose himself in it. It happened to be a passion that would set him apart from other people for the rest of his life. He hadn't just made death his career; it was his life.

Not many people understood that. Not many people wanted to understand that.

Davis was one in a million, called to do something not many would even consider.

Davis was special.

That was why Jack was certain he would understand.

The two stood, very still, not a word among them spoken yet, and the tension was mounting.

The morgue was still, quiet and dank, like any other night.

Rugged and expressionless, Jack ruffled his hands in his pockets, denim jacket rumpled and disquieted in the wake of the many hours he had been rooted to the same stool in the same bar. He took a breath, smelling for himself the stale alcohol and noting dimly that he came across as a drunk.

Strangely, though, it didn't bother him.

Not as much as the darkness that was crawling beneath him skin and digging into what was left of his rotting soul. This darkness, he knew, wasn't born from the years of watching people die and knowing he was the cause. No, this darkness, this suffocating darkness that crushed him until his insides hurt, was the darkness that Tru had given him.

The intimate joining of body and soul between two human beings opened everything up from the inside. For those brief, dangerous moments, everything between those two beings lay exposed for each of them to witness in the other.

Jack had seen her darkness, her weakness, and taken it for himself. He didn't want her to carry it all. He knew sooner than later she wouldn't be able to hold it all in anymore. She wouldn't be able to handle it.

So he took it from her. He made her darkness his own.

And it was killing him from the inside.

Forlornly, he grazed his eyes against Davis'. Looking to the older man, Jack choked back cold tears. "…help me?"

A/N: I had the idea of Tru and Jack sleeping together from the beginning, and I knew how it would play out, but it took a while for me to figure out why it would happen. It turned out as sort of an exorcism of darkness (on both their parts) on each other.

One thing I really don't want to do is have Tru constantly in a state of dire darkness. I wanted Jack to portray a lot of that darkness for her, which will happen in the next couple of chapters.

Something I added in this chapter that I didn't necessary need to have put in is the growing relationship between Harrison and Avery. It is shrouded in a lot of mystery at this point, but it will eventually grow into something a lot more steady and solid, and worthwhile. I also like the way Avery can "read" people, as stated in this chapter, and that fact will make another appearance real soon.

I'll admit, I've always wanted to write a scene where it's seemingly just two people in a room, then one leaves, and suddenly someone appears from the shadows. It's clichéd, it's predictable, it's unrealistic, but it's creepy, which is why I added it. Carrie adds so much seductiveness and creepiness to the plot so its cool writing her as this enigmatic figure that hides in the shadows.

And finally, that last scene with Jack and Davis in the morgue. I've always liked their dynamic, and it just adds so much to the story when two characters who despise each other come together to help one another.

Thanks for reading and hopefully the next chapter won't be very far away :)