Thanks for the reviews... it's waking up my muse.
Schuyler stared at Mimi's closed door, her brain working a mile a minute. Mimi had to have been lying, Jack did have a temper sure, but he couldn't have done what Mimi said. Turning on her heel, she headed back to the landing. Descending the stairs into the hallway, she turned left into a large sitting room. Sat in one of the soft chairs before the window was Jack Force, his face in shadow. In silence he watched her walk across the floor, his eyes sliding over her as she approached him.
"Mimi told you." It wasn't a question, his soft tones echoed across the large room as Schuyler came to a stop.
"You didn't.." Schuyler started, wanting him to deny it, wanting him to blame Mimi's manipulative nature. Instead Jack sighed and leant back in the chair. "I don't believe you would have hurt her." Her voice wavered as she spoke, she didn't want to believe that the man who loved her so tenderly could have done the damage she saw.
"That's because you've never seen me angry." His voice was low and she had to strain to catch his words. "I was very angry when you left yesterday." He pulled himself out of the chair and headed to the drinks cabinet.
"But the bruises.." Schuyler was appalled, this wasn't how she expected this conversation to go. She wanted him to deny his involvement, to claim that Mimi was lying. All her perceptions of Jack Force were cracking and she wondered what she really knew about the man before her.
Jack turned from the cabinet, a glass of whisky in his fingers and he stared at her. In the "I didn't want to hurt her that badly." He swallowed a mouthful of the amber liquid and grimaced at the taste. "I was so angry with her that I nearly killed her." He stared up at Schuyler and she took a step back at the self loathing she saw there.
"You nearly killed her?" Schuyler's voice was shocked, hushed as the meaning of Jack's words settled into her brain. With every word he spoke, she felt more and more disconnected from him.
"Yes." He poured himself another glass and leant back against the wall, closing his eyes in pain. "I came so close to obliterating her, so close that she thought I would." His voice grew far away and Sky knew that he was no longer in the room with her, but thinking about last night. "She cried, I've never seen her cry. No matter what I've done to her over the years, she's never cried."
"How could you?" Sky whispered, her voice lost amongst his recrimination. All she could see were the bruises running like a dark wine over Mimi's skin and Jack had done that to her. In that moment as he confessed to her she wondered why she had not seen this side of him before. "Why?"
He laughed, a bitter, hollow laugh that made the hairs stand up on her neck. "Why? Well because.." He slammed the glass down on the table, spilling the whisky onto the polished wood. "It made so angry when you called it off, when you decided to leave. I couldn't blame you as as..." As he stumbled on the words, a feminine voice echoed from the door.
"As he couldn't let you see this side of him." Mimi walked into the room, her face clear of makeup and dressed simply in t-shirt and leggings. Her hair hung in a cloud of gold about her face as she walked across the room towards her brother. Jack watched her approach, a strange mixture of love and sorrow in his features. "The side of him that is the destroyer. So he showed it to me as he has always done."
"But.." Schuyler struggled with speech, watching in shocked awe as Mimi reached Jack's side and wound her arms about him. "but that's so unhealthy."
"Is it?" Mimi took hold of Jack's hand and he visibly calmed down. "Death is emotionless, dispassionate and while it can be cruel, it can also be kind. Destruction is about emotion and passion, we balance and compliment each other. If he were solely attached to you, he would never be able to let loose his emotions. He would have to rein them in at all times because you can't take what he has inside him. All you've seen Schuyler." Sky started as Mimi said her name for the first time. "is his caring side."
"He hates being destruction." Schuyler whispered, understanding Jack for possibly the very first time.
"A lot of the time." Mimi agreed as she turned to face Schuyler. "But do you think I like being death?"
"No I.." Schuyler was stunned, this was the first time Mimi had ever spoken to her as though she were human and she didn't know how she was going to handle it.
"But that's what we are. You can decide most of your fate because you are mainly human. Our fates were decided at the very beginning, when this world was young. And though we are banished here we hope to return to our home." Mimi waved around at the rich living room with one well manicured hand. "This isn't where we belong and though our duties can chafe, we yearn to be back in Paradise."
"So speaks Azrael." Jack murmurred, his voice as different as Mimi's, less human with echoes to it that Schuyler couldn't place. "And she's right. I'm not Jack Force, I'm Abaddon and my nature is to destroy. I can temper it and keep it controlled, but I can't deny it."
Schuyler stared at the pair of them, at the two beings that wore the forms of Jack and Mimi Force and with a choked gasp she fled the room. It was all too much, intellectually she knew that the Blue Bloods were fallen angels, but this was the first time she'd ever really believed it. Mimi had spoken with a clarity that she had never heard from her before and Jack, she grabbed her coat from a peg near the door as she pulled open the front door. Jack was not what she had thought, she hadn't thought him capable of cruelty and yet as she reviewed the conversation, she knew she had never really thought of him as an angel, much less as the angel of destruction. Jack had always been a sexy, quiet and caring sort. He had never shown his bad qualities. She rushed from the house and reached the end of the street in several fast strides. She couldn't handle this all at once, she needed air and someone to talk to. With a snap decision she hailed a cab and went to see Oliver.