Dear faithful Readers and Reviewers, I'm sorry that I'm taking so long with this. I can't even promise that the next chapters will come any quicker because I'm looking at some pretty big changes in my life which will keep me occupied for some time. But I'll try to update in a not too far future and hope you'll be patient.
A big thank you to my faithful beta jbird who manages to beta my stuff although she has her hands full with small children!
Also thanks to everyone who requested an update. Prodding always helps! Now enjoy...
Tomorrow
by Serataja
-Chapter 6-
Falling Toward Apotheosis, Part 3
October 2001
Jack looked up at the light shining out of the window of Sam's apartment. He had been here twice after they had come back from Alaska, having had every intention to make this a long lasting affair. He'd been prepared to live with the doubts and with the sharp twinges of guilt. He needed her – that was all that mattered.
Then the towers had come down.
At first they had been working around the clock and there hadn't been time to see each other.
Then he had needed to be with his family. When the planes hit, his daughter Kate had been on a trip with her kindergarten class and near the World Trade Center. For weeks afterwards she'd had nightmares.
Jack recalled the sense of impending doom that had been hanging over New York in the days after September 11th, as thick and choking as the smoke and the ashes had been. It had felt like Armageddon. Their world had started to crack open and everything seemed changed forever.
Now the cracks had started to glaze over and the world was moving on.
Jack himself had tried to settle back into the routine of his domestic life. It hadn't been hard. Maria had been thoughtful and almost tender. There hadn't been a word about the long hours he'd had to work, about the way he had come home tired and short-tempered and about how things were getting to him. He had felt his heart mellow toward her, discovering that there were still feelings other than sympathy beneath the surface. They'd been living together for so many years. He knew everything about her. They had shared so many intimate moments. That was something it took years to build. They were not just two separate beings; they shared a life, children, habits, thoughts and so much more. Jack had discovered that there was still love between them.
In a way.
He had also discovered that there was a part of his soul that he had never fully bared to her. In that part, locked away from the prying eyes of the world was the pain and guilt he had felt at his mother's death. There was the despair that had almost led him to take his own life. There was the anger at his father, the man who hadn't been able to make his mother happy. And there were the faces of all those missing people, his life's work, his obsession.
In a way Jack Malone was a very lonely and unhappy man, and the only person to ever touch and understand that part of him, was behind the window he was looking up at. They had never talked about those things, but he somehow knew that she understood.
In those weeks after September 11th, warming toward the newfound tenderness with which Maria had treated him, he had seen it as his duty to finally give her that glimpse into his soul, which he had never before been able to give. And giving it to her, she had been courteous and understanding. He had felt a certain lack of warmth in her reactions, but he was old enough to know that you couldn't have everything. This would have to do. It was all right. Very soon, though, her manner had changed. It started innocently enough by her criticizing, once more, the choices he had made in his life, namely the work he had chosen. That was nothing new, but this time she had a lot more fuel for her complaints – and he had given it to her. He had clammed up like an oyster after that, knowing that it was the wrong road to take and that he was messing up his chance to work things out once and for all. But he couldn't help himself. There was a major roadblock somewhere in his soul and he couldn't get past it.
He just couldn't get past it.
Sam hadn't mentioned their relationship with one word in those weeks. He had only felt her eyes on him from time to time, steady and calm, barely giving away anything. Maybe she understood why he tried so hard to save his marriage, maybe she just didn't care, there was no way he could tell.
Jack took out the key she had given to him weeks ago and let himself into the building. The elevator was not working, as always, and he had to walk up to the fifth floor, taking it slow. Alaska had mangled his knee pretty good, to the extent that his doctor had started to talk about surgery. He might as well have talked about amputation for all the joy Jack felt at the prospect. He knew the operation would include cutting away a large portion of bone, replacing the damaged joint with an artificial one, a thought that made him feel nauseous. What if something went wrong? What if they sawed off his knee and the replacement went bad? He would have to live the rest of his life as a cripple. Jack preferred not to think about it – he would rather bear the pain. The thought that he already was a cripple with a knee like that, dragging himself around, didn't cross his mind.
He stopped in front of her apartment door, catching his breath and letting the pain subside to a dull throbbing. He considered ringing the bell because she was not expecting him. But then he wanted to see her reaction when he just showed up, unannounced after all this time. Would she be irritated? Angry? Delighted?
He opened the door. The residual smells of cooking lingered in the air, mixing with the smell of her apartment – a faint scent of flowers, very pleasant, very Sam. Music was playing in the background, something happy and cheerful, like water flowing down a stream.
His need for her was suddenly so great, so overpowering that he started to tremble. He dropped his brief case to the floor, not caring that he might scare her by bursting in like this, striding to the half-open door of her living room. It swung open before he could reach it and she stood there, the contours of her body outlined by the light. He couldn't see her face and stopped dead, unsure of himself.
"Jack."
Her voice was soft and he could hear some strong emotion running through that one word, through the way she spoke his name, but what it was he couldn't tell. She might be mad; she might also be madly in love. Since he couldn't believe in the latter it had to be the former. Then she threw herself at him and clung to him with an unintelligible exclamation, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. He was almost thrown off his feet, his legs still trembling, so he maneuvered her against the wall, pinning her with his weight. Their faces were close and now he could see her eyes shining brightly with unshed tears. He pressed his mouth to hers. She responded with such fervor that all thoughts were swept away. Her hands were already pulling at his clothes, and the feel of her fingers on his naked skin sent him spinning. He needed to immerse himself in her – completely.
So he did.
000
Sam came back from floating blissfully somewhere far away. She wrapped her legs tighter around him not minding the hard floor beneath her. His breath was hot against her throat and his body started to relax against hers.
It felt good to have him close again. She had been sure he would never be back, that it had been over between them before it really started.
In the living room Bach was still playing, the light notes in odd contrast to the passion they had just experienced. Jack rolled off her, ignoring her protests. She was one tough lady, he concluded, and he had never before been able to lose himself in the act the way he did with her, without fear that his vigor and passion might hurt or offend her; but this time he was sure that, lying beneath him she must have sustained some bruises.
He tried to stand up and she had to help him. He waited for the inevitable remark about his bad leg but she stayed quiet, managing to support him and cling to him at the same time. His fingers wandered down her spine, pressing lightly.
"Does that hurt?" he asked.
She looked confused for a moment, then her face lit up in a smile.
"You stupid man," she answered, "how often do I have to tell you that you're not hurting me? You're much gentler than you think you are."
He grinned down at her face, his hands traveling over her disheveled clothes, feeling the contours of her body.
"You have strange ideas about gentleness," he told her. Then he kissed her again deeply and this time it was her who backed him up against the wall.
"I need more," she said, her voice husky. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Give an old man a minute to recharge his batteries," he replied.
"I thought you wouldn't be back."
He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes, trying to get away from her gaze. Coming here again had been no small decision.
He could only think of one other time when he had been that tortured. It was when his mother had asked him not to tell his father about her attempted suicide. His love for her and his yearning to see her happy had clouded his judgment. The outcome had been disastrous – deadly – and although he knew that the situation he was in now, was nothing like that, he was reminded of that time and of the horrible consequences choices sometimes left in their wake.
Sam's body pressed against his.
She was completely intoxicating, irresistible. She was Eve, giving him the fruit of temptation…
He realized where his train of thought was leading him and felt self-contempt rise. Had he sunk that low that he was now seeing her as the temptress, the one to blame for his misery?
Unaware of what was going on in his mind Sam had put her head on his chest. He felt her trust in him and was touched. Embracing her, he hid his face in her hair, taking the final step off the edge of the cliff.
It would be a while before he looked back. By then all he could do was pick up the pieces. He had never been very good at that, but it was his job to try.
000
Sam propped herself up on one arm and watched him sleep. As happy as she was in that moment, there was a bitter undercurrent of resignation running through her mind.
He would never be able to commit to her.
She understood that his marriage and his daughters held him back - only, it was not really that at all. The thing that was not right between them and maybe never would be was the same thing that was wrong between him and Maria. It was something that kept him from committing to a relationship the way he was able to commit to his work. At first she had thought it was just a basic flaw in his character, something that made this otherwise gentle man seemingly numb about the feelings of people close to him, blind about what he put them through. It was like a blind spot in his soul, a deformation. Then she had started to see that his soul was not deformed at all just immersed in a pain that made it hard for him to feel anything else, much like the pain in his knee that hindered his physical movements. She had started to wonder where that pain came from and what had happened to him but she didn't know how to ask. It would be easier if, whatever had happened to him, had left a physical mark. She could have asked: How did you lose your leg; how did you lose your eye? Or simply – tell me the story of that scar. But to say - I know something has happened to you; I can see the scar on your soul as clearly as if it was on your body; tell me what made you that way – that was so much harder.
She watched him sleep.
At least she could make her own choices, and the choice she made in that moment was to commit to him and believe in him until he found his way. It was a choice that was bound to get her hurt but she didn't care.
She loved him too much.
TBC