Okay no, I had to give you guys this. NOW I'm gone! Lmao have a good week! (: And thanks for all the well wishes.

"I want to reconcile the violence in your heart. I want to recognize your beauty is not just a mask."

Motel room, 4:13 am

Tooth cringed.

The motel room was everything a motel room would be.

Jack swiveled his eyes around the room.

"Could be worse," he muttered and walked across the threshold to set his things down.

Tooth rubbed an arm and padded cautiously across the carpet in her flats. She tried to take comfort in the fact that it had a bathroom and two beds, and it was cool because a breeze was passing through the bathroom window.

She sighed and closed the door then went by the front curtains to peek through.

"Princess, don't stand by the window," he said in a hushed tone.

Tooth let the curtain drop and spun around. Jack's voice could take on such authority and it bugged her.

She frowned as he began to unlatch his belt and tossed his backpack on one of the beds.

"What time is it?" she yawned widely not giving a crap when Jack eyed her pointedly. She was running on virtually no energy at the moment.

"After four."

Tooth's eyes widened and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"You gotta be kidding me," she exasperated and fell back heavily onto the bed.

When it groaned loudly beneath Jack visibly cringed and glared at her.

"Princess," he griped and she sighed and she pulled herself back up.

"Okay! Jeez!"

"Shhh!"

When Tooth stood up again, she glanced over to what Jack was doing.

He was holding a small netbook in one hand and moved to sit against the headboard of his bed. He huffed softly as he started it up.

Tooth blinked, not sure where that had suddenly popped up.

"Wh...Where do you pick that up?"

"Some guy. He won't miss it."

Exactly what a criminal would say. Tooth laughed sarcastically and rubbed her head.

"My god..." she mumbled. "I'm lodging with a convict whose got amnesia."

Jack didn't say anything and kept on typing. After a moment he set the laptop down and flipped through some outdated catalogues that the motel had on a nightstand, anything to get his mind off this frenzy. As he did Tooth huffed and sat at a wooden desk. She began to mumble to herself.

"BT, all my sisters, those annoying, adorable...my family...I can't believe they're all gone."

Jack spared her a glance before he looked back down through the tourist catalogues he couldn't translate.

"What about your Prime Minister? Ty Bangkot," he pondered out loud. "Won't he be staying in Punjam with your uncle?"

"How did you know about my unc–"

"I can read a webpage faster than you give me credit for."

"Right," she mumbled. "Well I guess I can't go back home now until...I don't know when."

When he didn't say anything to satisfy her stress, Tooth got up and tried looking around the motel room for something to do. She poked outdated appliances ("Princess, stop it" "What? I'm curious!"), opened empty closets and drawers ("Princess don't do that" "Shh!"), dropped a broken handle on a dresser and nearly toppled over an ironing board in the back ("Princess, don't go there" "Can you just leave me alone?!").

Jack was trying really hard to ignore her loud prodding as he did his work but she was seriously ticking him off.

Meanwhile she was doing to same thing to him.

All the broken crap in the room did nothing to lighten her moods. Even the old tv sitting on the dresser didn't work and when she kept pushing the ON button and it wouldn't start, she growled passed her teeth.

"Argh, does anything work in this place?" She gave the tv stand a fierce kick.

The loud bang it made against the wood made the two of them jump.

Jack couldn't take it.

"Princess, stop hitting the furniture!" he demanded through gritted teeth. "Stop touching everything in general!"

"Son of a–" she rounded on him with a hellish glare. "Who are you, my father?!"

Jack finally snapped and flung down the pamphlets. He sprung up and walked toward her, pointing his finger in her face and spoke low.

"You know, I've had just about enough of you!"

"Oh great! Does that mean I can leave!?" She mocked him with wide eyes and fake smile.

"Why can't you just calm down and be quiet! What is your problem!?"

"I have the problem?!" She blinked wildly and pointed her own finger back in his place. "You're the one getting all Jason Bourne on me with your damn ninja routine and expecting me to be okay with you half-ass dragging me to god knows where!"

"I have to because it's for your protection."

"You made me jump out of a freaking window without knowing what was at the bottom, put me in a headlock, then you did a complete 180 on me and started being all nice! Meanwhile my loved ones are missing, Pitch is after me and frankly, I'm not sure I passed that midterm for my human development class!"

Jack actually paused for a second to blink and rewind.

"Wh...What?"

"I don't know, okay? Ch–God!" She covered her eyes with her hands before dropping them again. "All I know is that I'd rather cut off my arm and play with my detached limb right now than be running around with you!"

Jack scoffed.

"I'd like to see you try. You can't even unbind your own wrists when they're tied up. Besides...I haven't been exactly pulling you kicking and screaming have I?"

Tooth snapped.

Was he implying that she liked following him? That she was okay with it?

The nerve!

Every time she tried to get away, he popped up and scared her into submission.

But if he wanted a fight, then so be it.

"Oh! So you wanna try? You wanna mess with me?!" She clapped her hands and raised them provokingly. "Fine! Come on, let's dance! Right now!"

Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes so he squeezed the bridge of his nose instead.

"We did already, and I knocked out three guys in the head for you. So can you shut y–"

Suddenly a sharp pain erupted on his shin.

"What th–"

Jack bent over slightly. He had not been expecting that AT ALL. She just kicked him in the shin!

His brown eyes were glaring at Tooth. She gave him a smug look and he clenched his teeth and growled angrily.

Tooth raised her hands and made the same beckoning 'come here' gesture with her finger that Jack had done to her before multiple times but Jack recovered quickly and rushed forward.

When she jumped a mile in the air, Jack paused mid-step and just stood there, staring her down an inch from her nose.

He was starting to see the real girl behind the scared yet regal princess image – Princess Thia was like a really colorful, scatterbrained, feisty little kitten.

And he felt completely out of his natural state because of it.

Jack was used to quiet, keeping things short, and getting his way. But with the princess, he got absolutely none of that.

She was all over the place, she didn't like to listen, and she didn't seem afraid to get in his face or take him on, even after she'd seen what he was capable of.

He just...he was...

Jack moved to walk around her.

"I'm going to take a shower," he finally muttered.

Tooth's mind stopped.

She shook her head slightly as her eyes squinted.

"Wh...Huh?" she sputtered and spun to face Jack.

Jack glared at her over his shoulder as he neared the bathroom.

"Leave. I dare you," he continued but he quickly turned to face her. "But let me remind that you're being hunted by an international terrorist organization, was kidnapped in public when you were surrounded by police hired to protect the world's most important people in one building, and that I was the one who busted you out of THEIR hideout."

Tooth said nothing.

That was the most Jack had ever said in one breath.

And damn it all to hell, he was right.

Again.

"So think about that, your highness," he said and walked back into the bathroom. "It's either me and the international police who want me dead, or Pitch and the hundreds of criminals he's hired to kidnap you."

He then slammed the door and she heard him curse inside because he hadn't meant to slam it.

Tooth's mouth made weird sputters like a fish before she grabbed fistfuls of her hair and clenched her teeth.

'The jackass!'

She turned and slammed her head into a pillow. What she wouldn't do for a pack of spearmint gum right now!

Jack was infuriating!

Everything from his simple answers, his cryptic scowls, and his affinity to be like Daniel Craig's double...but you know, more American and less suave.

And unlike the British counterpart, Jack was a wanted man.

Jack was a gunslinger. Jack was a high-level combatant.

Tooth vaguely heard the water start running in the room behind her.

And Jack was also taking a shower.

She fisted her tanned hands in the pillowcase. How was he so careful to have time for any of this?!

He was a guy on the run so didn't he have a phobia for leaving traces of DNA everywhere he went? What if the cops found a strand of his hair and knew he was here?

'Well no! That's not really true,' she muttered in her head, 'his hair is short.'

Yeah, his hair.

His hair!

God, she loved his hair...his perfectly messy brown hair that was probably wet and sticking to his forehead right now.

Tooth's cheeks burned hot red and she jumped up from the bed, tossing the pillow away.

She couldn't handle this.

She knew from the first second he took off that gas mask and saved her that she was physically attracted to Jack. Everything from that hair to his eyes...and his perfect, white teeth.

'Gah! His teeth!'

She walked toward the front door and faced the wallpaper beside it, doing anything to look away and distract herself from the water running in the bathroom.

Tooth tried to think about her midterms and how well she did, she tried to think about BT and the others or what Mr. Sanderson was saying to her professors right now. She also wondered when she would get to eat aga–

–and the worst part was he probably didn't even know he was doing all this to her!

Tooth thumped her head on the wall and groaned. Her hair created a dark curtain around her red face.

She had ALL THIS SHIT going on in the world right now, and yet all she could think about was the hot, wanted guy showering in the room behind her!

'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!'

It was all so awkward for her, and her mind wasn't helping with all the images it began conjuring. Like what he probably wore underneath, or him running his large hands through his hair–

'Oh GOD, Tooth! You're so...so...!'

Her cheeks burned and her thumping grew but Tooth didn't really feel any pain.

She really needed to find a nice, safe guy who would treat her well. Not get drawn in by the bad-boy looks of a guy who was the complete opposite of the word 'safe', and who pretended she was more like a sack of flour than a princess.

She'd been there before and done that. And they always ended bad.

Bad...ugh, like Jack.

"Dammit," she grumbled. "Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!"

"Do I need to ask?"

Tooth spun to find Jack standing close to her.

He had a towel around his neck and was using one end of it to rub the back of his hair as he looked at her peculiarly.

And he looked almost...normal.

Jack was wearing black track pants and a white long-sleeved Henley shirt unbuttoned at the top. He looked more like a college guy than a highly-trained operative. His brown hair was also sleek and dark from the water, making the white strands invisible.

He also looked considerably younger too like eighteen-nineteen now that he wasn't glaring at her.

But then, sometimes people mistaken her too for being in highschool thanks to her height and face.

Tooth's eyes went everywhere, taking in his pale skin bright against the shirt, his low-slung waistline, his lean build and his long, perfect torso.

And Jack...

Jack wasn't sure what was running through her head at the moment but he felt uncomfortable under her heavy gaze. He vaguely wondered if that was how he looked at her the whole time and decided it was creepy.

"And stop hitting your head, you're making noise in the next room!" he hissed.

Maybe changing outfits was a bit too much for her to handle.

He looked at her seriously and pursed his pale lips and waited for her answer.

"Well?"

She blinked.

And instead slapped him across the face.

Jack reeled back not expecting an assault A SECOND TIME. Jack's eyes grew wide, almost comically for the first time in so long. His hand went up to cover his cheek.

Weren't your senses supposed to heighten after you took a shower?

Tooth felt good as she felt the sting in her palm.

He should NEVER be allowed to wear a shirt like that again.

Jack shot her murderous glare.

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

Tooth shushed him.

"THAT was for treating me like a ragdoll!" she whispered angrily. Her face was still red. "I'm not a little girl or an old lady, I'm a grown woman so I deserve better respect!"

Jack opened his mouth to say something rude but as she stood there with her fists balled he shut it. When she looked like she was ready to yell again, Jack raised a hand defensively.

"Okay, okay!" He rubbed his skin before he dropped his hand.

Tooth inwardly loved the rosy splash of color that was now on his pale face.

It was lovely...and well deserved. Jack sighed heavily and his grumpy scowl returned.

"Okay!...Sorry I coddled you. It's just like a natural thing when you're ...all this," he gestured to his things on his bed. "You get overprotective about everything."

"But I'm not a thing! I'm a person." She was inwardly thankful as she felt the heat in her cheeks go away.

"With your height? More or less."

"Hey, you're not exactly six feet either." But he had long legs and that meant he still towered over her.

Jack glared but Tooth frowned.

"I'm serious, Jack. I appreciate the bodyguard position but you don't...have to be so cold about it."

She really thought she could get through to him after he told her his weird sob story about losing his memories.

But he seemed like he tried to ignore it again when he looked back up at her. He was still hung up on her laughing at his confession from earlier but didn't say it.

His grumpy look was also still on his face.

"So are you gonna shower?" he asked lifting both eyebrows.

Tooth immediately snapped out of it and rolled her eyes.

"Heh yeah, no," she bit out. "I'd rather be kidnapped again."

Jack quirked an eyebrow and Tooth realized how dumb that sounded when she remembered how traumatic getting kidnapped actually was.

"Fine, I'll just...I'll go wash my hair but that's all!" she threatened him as she moved around him. Jack sent her a look as she headed into the bathroom.

"Then just use the sink so you don't make too much noise!"

Tooth's head popped out from the door and she threw him a dirty look.

"Hey, buddy! I'm no princess 50% of the time!" she said clearly insulted. "I've shared a communal washroom with my dorm and my roommates helped me dye my hair different colors in second year. So I know how to use a sink." Then Tooth shut the door on his face leaving him annoyed.

Jack gave it a blank stare.

She was, hands down, the strangest royal he'd ever met.

...

Tooth stared at her reflection in the mirror. She frowned when she realized how she looked running around.

Checking her teeth, she grimaced sadly when she realized she wouldn't be able to brush her teeth for a while. So she went to rinsing them out instead. Afterwards, she touched her hair where it ended just below her shoulders and twirled a wavy strand in one finger.

Tooth then stared down at her clothes. She straightened the spaghetti-like strap of her sari blouse and tugged the gold trim that laced with it over her shoulder.

When she looked at her skirt, she sighed softly. There was nothing she could do about the cut fabric but then she rubbed the blue-green silk design and smiled nostalgically.

At least was it still beautiful.

Tooth heard her stomach grumble slightly and rubbed her hand over her bare flat midriff. She huffed then reached up and pulled out of the jewel pin hiding her blonde streak.

After it tumbled out, she pulled the short strand thoughtfully. It grew the slowest out of all her hair (only about down to her eyebrow) and BT and the others said it reminded them of a feather when she pulled up.

She sighed. She really hoped they would be okay.

After a few more minutes, Tooth decided that maybe she did want to have a shower and a split second later, she scrambled out of her clothes before she changed her mind.

She kept blushing as she stepped into the shower and was trying to get the thoughts out of her head about Jack as she washed all the sweat and dirt away from the her wild kidnappings. When she shut the tap, Tooth was actually really glad that she did end up switching decisions.

Grabbing the only towel in sight, she wrapped it around herself and stepped back out of tub and smiled at herself in the mirror. She felt clean and refreshed as her hair clung to her shoulders.

But now what was she going to do about her dirty clothes?

Tooth listened to the dripping of the water around her on the tiles as she looked around the tiny bathroom for any more cloths or towels. Silk dried quickly in hot weather like this so she could wash her clothes, pat them dry, and put it on again or at least wait in the bathroom until it did on a railing.

She kept backing up on her feet, trying to look at what was on the shelf above the mirror because her shortness made it hard.

She was against the door as she stood on her tiptoes and squinted up hig–

–a knock came at the door and it swung open, just as Tooth's toes spun on the wet tiles and she slipped...

...right into Jack's arms.

They fell back awkwardly before Jack caught his footing at the last second and they stopped from hitting the floor. But it instead became her practically leaning up against his knee and him pulling her up against his chest.

Tooth blushed fifty shades of red and looked up at him. She was gripping his strong arms for support and felt the lean muscles running beneath.

It made her heart race, but if looks could kill, Jack would be dead.

"Wh..." Her eyes immediately blazed. "DO YOU KNOCK?!"

"WILL YOU–"

(Vietnamese) "HEY! IF WHOEVER'S YELLING DOESN'T SHUT UP RIGHT NOW, I'M COMING OVER TO KICK YOUR ASS!" "YEAH!"

Jack sighed angrily and dropped his voice.

"I did."

Jack appeared controlled, steady, and grouchy as always, but she saw the tips of his ears burn bright red. His hands were holding her glistening, warm brown skin and he couldn't tell her that her cleavage (though still partially covered) was something he couldn't avoid seeing. She was also really soft.

"You don't knock THEN open!" she whispered back.

"I thought you were just washing your hair," he hissed.

"You didn't hear the shower go off?!"

"No, I just came back!"

"From where?!"

Jack righted them up so they were properly standing. He dropped his hands from her like they were on fire while Tooth pretty much leaped back and continued to blush.

She readjusted (and tightened) the towel around her wet body and pushed her wet hair behind her ears. She sighed angrily, briefly standing on her toes then dropping back down, and he glared back.

That's when Jack showed her what he was holding in his hand.

It was an oversized t-shirt.

"I snuck out and got it from some family's clothes line five rooms away," he said in a deep, hushed tone.

"W-Why?"

Jack's face scrunched and became all businesslike again.

"I figured you'd need more than one towel to dry your hair since there wasn't any more than two, last I checked. And I used one already."

"You just assume I need two?"

"With that kind of hair, don't girls usually need more than one?"

Tooth wasn't sure if that was rude or smart. She shook her head.

"Wh–"

"Just take it," he mumbled tiredly and dropped it into her hands. "I'm trying to show you respect, remember?"

When she blinked, he scowled.

"And stop screeching," he commented, "you sound like a bird." Then Jack walked away.

Tooth gripped the shirt in her hands and leaned out over the door frame.

"THAT'S NOT SHOWING RESPECT!"

And she shut the door on him.

...

The room was dark when Tooth opened the door and when she pushed it more open, the light from the bathroom pooled across the carpet.

She stuck her head out and around the corner, squinting past the black before she walked out and turned off the bathroom light. She decided not to wear the shirt but wrapped it around her hair. She was back in her full clothes.

There was a cool breeze running through the motel room but it added to the refreshing feeling running across her scalp.

Tooth felt like she could think better.

She padded across to the spare bed, seeing Jack already laying in his. He was sitting up against the headboard, typing on his stolen laptop with the screen illuminating his face.

Tooth bit her lip as she watched his brown eyes flit back and forth and his face twisted in concentration.

It was so fascinating...and creepy that she stopped.

She lied down on her side and said nothing, facing him as he typed away distractedly.

"What are you doing?" she asked softly and curious.

"Calculating our distance from here to Tan Son Nhat airport and...mapping out the Moscow's transit line."

"Why?"

Jack didn't answer back and Tooth bit her cheek. She frowned nervously.

After a few more taps on the keyboard, Jack opened his mouth.

"By the way. Your self-defence tactics?" He was referring to moves she'd tried to pull on him earlier in the alley.

Tooth raised her brows expectantly.

"Sloppy. Really sloppy."

Tooth blinked.

"B-But I was taught by m–"

"By who, a mall cop?" he quipped. "You're quick. I'll give you that, princess, but those moves are not going to help you in the long run. So ditch them."

"So then what am I going to do when someone catches me? Let them?"

"No, I'll be there. And I'll break their neck."

Tooth didn't like that comment so she tried to think of something else. She stared at his brown eyes, risking a chance to mumble softly again.

Her heart pounded rapidly.

She wanted him talk to talk to her.

"So...where are you from?"

"Princess, just go to sleep."

"No, come on. Or...how old are you? Because I think you're older than me but you have one of those faces th–"

"I'm working."

"What do you do for fun?"

"Do I look like I have the time for that?"

"You should always take the time to smile, Jack."

He flicked his eyes at her.

Anything to know about him more and to put a real face to the spy facade.

She wanted to uncover more of his secrets.

...But Jack didn't open up.

"Princess, go to sleep," he ordered softly. "We have to leave again in a few hours, you'll need it."

Tooth frowned and shook her head. "No."

Jack stopped typing and she watched his heavy brown gaze fall on her shadowy features.

"What?"

"I'm staying up. I'll lay down but...I can't risk you tying me up and throwing me into the back of that car, now can I?"

"You're seriously back to that?" He glared. "I told you, if I wanted to hurt you I would've done it already."

"Yeah, if you were a normal double-agent," she argued back. "But you're not. You're a confused spy with trust issues. Plus you're only running on fifty-percent of your actual knowledge so there's no telling what'll happen if another flash comes to you in the night and you decide to put a bag over my head."

Somehow Jack found all that funny and he turned back to his laptop screen lifting his eyebrows briefly so she could see it.

"Fine," he dared her. "Stay awake." And she glared back at him because she would.

And she did.

For about two minutes.

...

Jack turned his head slightly when he heard her soft breathing grow deep and even.

He watched her sleep for a second, her chest rising and falling and her hand curled against the pillow. Her dark hair and its special blonde streak had spilled out from the t-shirt around her hair and flowed around her shoulders.

When she pulled her feet together for comfort, he noticed she was still wearing her shoes.

She was ready to run if she needed to.

Jack couldn't help but commit to memory her sleeping face, uncreased of the real world's stress on her shoulders and softly innocent in her bubble.

He then blinked and turned back to his screen, going back to work.

He didn't fall asleep but stayed up to watch her half-protectively and half-suspiciously.

He still wasn't sure what she meant to Pitch Black, the biggest terrorist in the world and what the man wanted to do with her. But he'd used her to get to Pitch – he'd be damned if he let Pitch get away from him this time.

He glared at the screen as he continued to look for clues that would help him once they got to Moscow.

These memories were really starting to piss him off.

...

As Jack's typing went on further into the morning, Tooth's lip quivered in her sleep.

She was dreaming about wearing a pair of purple flats and being twelve years old again.

Her hair was in a long braid and when she rubbed her eyes, she was standing in front of a large mural.

It was a painting of her with pink wings, holding out her hand to several children who were reaching for her in a beautiful circle. She remembered it. It was back at the Hypunjam palace and was found in the deepest corridor leading to the basements of the castle. Surrounded by colorful tiles and jewel-encrusted walls, the corridor had a pretty little pool and some indoor trees planted to be a sanctuary. Tooth loved going there when she wanted to relax.

She looked up and saw the enormous glass ceiling far above her head. No one could see it from the outside because it was came out at the other end of the island's mountain on a far forested cliff. It was truly breathtaking.

That's when someone grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

A flash of red and a man in a full-bodied uniform tugged her across the floor. Tooth turned her head when a large mirror rushed past but when she looked at herself in the reflection she was surprised.

She wasn't Tooth.

She was–

"Theena! Wait!"

"Do not stop alright? Follow this man wherever he takes you!"

"But why? Tia, I'm scared!" Tooth's voice was high and didn't really sound like her.

"I know, sweet. I know! But we're all going on different adventures okay? Just for a little while."

"But I don't want to! Not without you o-or...or–"

"But you have to!"

"Miss, get to your protector. We have to leave now!"

"Okay, okay! Theena, we need to go!"

"But why?! WHERE?!"

"The tunnel's open! GO! GO! Unit 2, 4, and 5! Move the girls out now!"

"TIA! Where are we al–"

"Theena! Follow him into the tunnel now! He will lead you to safety!"

"But what about BT? And Tooth!? I don't want to go in the tunnel!"

"We will see them, sweet! I promise!"

"Unit 2 MOVE NOW!"

"GO Theena!"

The man holding Tooth's hand yanked her and they ran through a tunnel below the mural.

One man in red was partnered with each handmaiden and each group was trailing some distance behind the other. Tooth watched the other handmaidens be pulled along in the light of the lanterns that the men were carrying.

Suddenly the tunnel at the end split into ten more!

Before Tooth knew what was happening, each man in red pulled a different handmaiden into each one while only two were left untouched.

"NO!" But the man in red had already pulled her into one and she lost sight of her sisters.

Then it was just the two of them, sprinting down a tunnel alone.

...

As Tooth slept, she frowned deeply.

Chapter's soundtrack: "Undisclosed Desires" – Muse I swear, this is like a sex song lol.