geeky_agent | (no subject)

"A bit better." He leands his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. "I couldn't sleep last night, so I went back downstairs for a while. I ended up talking to Malcolm Crowe."

She strokes his face, the morning stubble rough against her fingers. The fact that he spoke to Malcolm has her hopeful but she's trying to remain neutral, easy to do when she's this tired. "How did that go?"

He gives her a weak smile. "It was...rough, but it helped a bit, I think. I've been feeling kind of...detached and dazed lately. Like I've been sleepwalking, and I haven't been able to shake it. I don't really feel that way right now."

Chris nods, she knew this, it would be impossible not to notice the change in his behavior since his fight with the Other.

"Did you tell him about what happened?"

He nods slowly, brushing an errant curl away from her face. "Yeah, I did. The worst part of it at least."

She smiles slightly at this, relieved more than she can express, and touches his hand, holding it in hers. "I'm glad you spoke to someone about it."

He gives her a quick kiss.

"Thought you would be. I'm not sure Kim or Michelle will be able to resist saying 'I told you so', though," he says with a wry smile.

"I think they'll just be happy to know that you did," she says, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand.

He just smiles at her in response for a minute before lowering his head to nuzzle where her neck meets her shoulder.

"Sorry I've been so distant, lately," he says, quietly.

The touch tickles and Chris giggles at the way his breath feels on the sensitive skin of her neck.

But with his words she becomes more serious. "You don't have to apologize, Jack."

"I know. I want to, though." He lightly kisses her shoulder. "I love you, and thank you for being here for me."

"I love you too," Chris whispers, frowning slightly at what he says next. "I just wish I could have done more."

"Sweetheart..." he says, moving so he can look her in the eye, "I'm sure it's no surprise to you that this isn't the first time I've reacted like this to something--usually it's more my choice, though. Anyway, there wasn't much you could do, except let me know you were there to listen, be patient, and not pull away. You did all three."

Chris smiles at this, not sure what to say but feeling touched by his words all the same.

"Can you tell me what happened when you fought the Other?"

He lets out a long breath before closing his eyes and nodding.

He lies back, pulling her close and resting his head against hers. It's a convenient position; he wants her close, but this way he also doesn't have to look her in the eye as he talks.

"We all surrounded him together, but suddenly everything went black, and when the lights cam up again, I wasn't in the bar, and I was alone. You know that drawing by Escher, the one with the stairs that upside down and at right angles to each other, so that you don't know which way is up, down, right or left? Well, that's what this looked like.

"This child's voice kept coming from nowhere while I was there, trying to draw me through the maze. And every so often there were...things that was obviously an attempt by the Other to unnerve me," he says, his voice getting a little hoarse. This is starting to get to the difficult stuff.

Chris rests her head on Jack's shoulder, quiet as she listens to him talk.

"Things like what?"

"Like...like an illusion of Kim sinking into hot lava. Like a bag of heroin and everything needed to shoot up just sitting on a table in front of me. Like something pretending to be your father trying to keep the ceiling from caving in on him. Like..." his voice cracks and he swallows as a lump rises in his throat.

"The last part...the Other took on Angela's form; well, Angela in a few years. He said I had a choice. Either I could let him pass by, or...or I could shoot her. It."

He takes in a ragged breath, quickly wiping his eyes and blinking.

Chris feels her breath catch when Jack mentions her father, she sits up a little so she can look at him. A strange mixture of emotions come over her, a cold, sinking feeling of dread in her stomach when he mentions Angela and the need to hold him, reassure him when she hears the pain in his voice.

She leans forward, one arm lightly around him, the other supporting her weight and she lays a soft kiss on his cheek. Thast feeling of dread doesn't leave her though.

Jack keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling, putting an arm around Chris but not speaking for a moment.

Finally he says, quietly, his voice choked, "I couldn't just let it walk away." It's as close to saying exactly what happened that he can get at the moment.

Chris exhales, letting go of the breath she had been holding. She nods slowly, then lays her head back down on his shoulder.

As soon as he had mentioned the set-up, she had known what the outcome would be.

He tries to take a deep braeth, but it gets caught in his throat, and it comes out closer to a sob. He blinks, sniffling to try and clear his nose, trying to pull himself back together. He doesn't want to cry, right now.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like he has much choice.

He takes another breath, furtively rubbing his eyes with a shaking hand. "It wasn't her. It wasn't real. Anyway," he says, clearing his throat, or trying to, "after that everything went black again and then we were standing in the bar again, in front of the Other. But this time the door was open behind him, where Tim was waiting and one of the Security members sent him through the door with a punch to the jaw."

Chris stays close to him, looking up at Jack now and stroking his face with the back of her hand.

There's something she needs to know and if she were thinking more clearly, she'd wait to ask. But right now the question is weighing on her mind. "How did you know it wasn't real?"

He closes his eyes for a minute. "The entire place was a funhouse, one big game to see how far the Other could push me. Kim..." he swallows, trying to keep his throat from closing, "Kim d-died in place but she's here, and she's fine. It--it wasn't your Dad, it didn't act like him. And the real Angela's hair is more red, this one was closer to blonde. None of it was real."

He tries to silence the part of his mind that says that it still might have been her even if it wasn't Ryan or Kim, that her hair might have lightened as she got older.

Chris nods slight, she just needed to hear him say that. She wraps an arm around Jack, hugging him.

"The Other's gone now?" she asks, her voice quiet.

He nods. That's one good thing at least; it wasn't all for nothing. "Yeah, and by the sound of the note Tim left for everyone that was involved, it won't be back."