geeky_agent | The Space Between

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The Space Between

Chris walked outside and the night air felt unusually cold to her. The alcohol has flushed her cheeks and made her feel warm but now that warmth was fading. She rubbed her arms and continued walking closer to the lake.

Her steps were slower than normal. She hadn't had enough to be drunk, just enough for a buzz. Just enough to give her a hazy cushion so things didn't hurt as much.

It does hurt. She doesn't know why. She hadn't loved Lee and she had known that he didn't love her. Even while they were together she knew their relationship wouldn't last long. Chris was very pragmatic about that relationship, she was about all of them.

But still it hurt. It was hard to think that the whole time they were together, everything had been an act and she'd just been too blind to see it. At the very least, she had thought that Lee was attracted to her.

Chris sat down by the shore and hugged her knees to her.

The books the bar had been giving her had been making her think about her relationships. She'd never had a "bad" relationship, no abusive or unfaithful exes in her background. Not many screaming fights or cruel words used. When they ended it was quietly. Not in an explosion but like a candle being snuffed out.

Most had ended on her terms. She had broken up with Lee. A small comfort now. At the very least she had realized he wasn't in love with her and that the feeling was more than mutual. She had left Jason, even though he told her he would move to New York to be with her. Instead of feeling honored, she had just felt sad and trapped. She had broken off the engagement with Alex, realizing she had wanted more. She wanted what her brother had with Jeannie and what her parents had in their marriage. She didn't want to settle.

Chris was good at that. She couldn't start a relationship, she certainly couldn't sustain one. But she could end one.

She looked out across the water and thought about Mark. For some reason he'd been on her mind a lot since Lee came back.

Like a movie, she had seen Mark across a room and had felt her heart skip a beat. Too shy to get his name then, she met him again a few weeks later when he was back at the Academy teaching a course. She had spoken to him a few times after and every time she'd been amazed that she hadn't made a complete fool out of herself. She was sure now she must have, the giggly first-year mooning after the handsome captain. Something about being around him made her feel giddy and light.

They had only spoken a few times. Four times in total. Nothing more than a one-sided schoolgirl crush. The last time was just before he was deployed.

Jeannie had told her about the accident, the tank had rolled and Mark had been killed. She had hugged Chris and told her she was sorry. Chris had asked her why she was saying that before crumpling in her arms.

Sometimes even now she didn't think she had any right to feel sad over that. Sad that someone died but not the way she had felt then. (And sometimes still did.)

Chris laid her head on her arms, shivering as she looked out over the lake.

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Jack heads outside after making sure that Nita and Kim are okay. He doesn't want to go to sleep yet, but he can't be in the bar at the moment; too noisy, and he wants some space to think.

He quickly notices that he's not alone, though. Down by the shore of the lake is a figure curled into a tight ball, and as he gets a little closer, he can see that it's Chris. His first instinct is to walk away, but she looks troubled. She'd talked to him when he'd been feeling down the week before, and she could have easily walked away. He wouldn't have blamed her if she had. She hadn't, though, and maybe it was time for him to return the favour. Besides, it isn't in his nature to not try to help when there's a possibility he might be able to.

He walks over, not taking any precautions to prevent her from hearing his approach. "Chris? What's wrong?"

Chris hears someone walking up to her, she had silently hoped it wouldn't be someone she knew. That it wouldn't be someone coming to talk her.

At the same time, in some tiny corner of her heart, she hoped it was.

It was strange but she wasn't surprised that it was Jack. She thought about sitting up straighter - anything to make herself look a little less pathetic. But she felt too tired to care. She was cold and she needed something to hold onto.

"Nothing. I'm fine," she says in a small but controlled voice.

Of course he sees through her statement. If she was fine, she wouldn't be sitting out here, shivering, with her arms wrapped around her knees like she's trying to make herself as small as possible.

"It's obviously not nothing, and you're not fine. What is it?" he asks, gently, taking a seat nearby.

She frowns a little and for a moment almost feels like she could cry. Chris waits a few seconds for the feeling to subside.

"I just found out something about Lee, that's all," she answers in a raspy voice.

He's drawing a blank. "Lee?"

"Lee Castle. My... ex-boyfriend who showed up here a few days ago?"

If it had sounded funny to call him that before it sounded ridiculous now. Every moment they had together seemed colored by that and she wasn't sure what they had been to each other.

He winces. Oh yeah. Her dead ex-boyfriend, to boot, though it makes him wonder what she could have found out that was worse than the fact that he'd died.

"Yeah, I remember. What did you find out?" he asks, keeping his tone soft. Now that he's sitting near her, he can smell a little alcohol on her breath, though she doesn't seem much more than tipsy.

She looks out at the waters. Her lips pursed she wondered what she could tell him that wouldn't be a betrayal of the promise she made.

Chris looks at him and tries to smile a little. She's not sure if it's embarrassment or just not wanting to let him know how hurt she was. "I just found out his feelings for me, weren't what I thought they were. They never were."

She looks away and shrugs a little. "It's not that important. Maybe the alcohol is just making mopey."

He gives her a serious look and puts a hand on his shoulder before he can thing about it. "If it's making you feel like this, it's important, especially as you don't seem very drunk. And I'm sorry, Chris."

She lets a small, bitter laugh escape her lips.

"It's stupid, it really is. I don't even know why I care," Chris says in a near gasp. For some reason Jack's sympathy was making it more difficult to hold in her tears.

"It just makes me think. About other things..." her voice trailing off as it became more difficult to talk. She was crying in earnest now and brushed away some of the tears with the back of her hand.

He's never seen her thius emotional before, so he's a little wary, but he shift a little closer, so he can place his hand on her upper back. It's not easy watching her cry, but he's not sure how much comforting she'll take from him.

"Other things?"

Some part of her mind realizes how close Jack is sitting and how strange that is. Chris almost feels like she should move a little but she can't. She's too tired and though she'd be loathe to admit, it was somehow comoforting to have him here.

She waits a few moments, trying to calm down a little.

Chris sighs and in a steadier voice than before says, "Everything. Mostly my other relationships. I've been analyzing those all day till I got sick of making myself miserable. Then I went thought I might go get drunk but that didn't happen either."

In fact, she's starting to sober up a now. The fog from her mind is lifting and those feelings of sadness and unease were re-emerging.

He gives her a somewhat self-deprecating smile. "Yeah, I'm not sure I'm the best person to talk to about relationships. Or getting drunk, for that matter."

She smiles sadly, remembering last week.

Chris shifts slightly, stretching her legs and moving back just a bit. She shivered slightly, feeling a little colder now.

She looks at Jack and the bruise on his face. For an odd split-second she almost wants to reach out and touch his face, trace her finger across his cheekbone, but she resists. The moment passes and she wonders where the idea came from.

"That seems a little better than it was last time I saw you," Chris says and taps her own cheek for effect.

"Yeah, it's starting to fade. I guess Tony needs to work on his punches."

He notices her shivering and gives her a careful look. "It's kind of cool out here; do you want to head back inside, or do you want a blanket or something from the bar?"

She pays no attention to the second question, still stunned by his first statement.

"Tony hit you?"

He winces slightly. He hadn't been intending to tell anyone else, as people really didn't need to know.

"Yeah, we had an argument. It's sorted out now." Kind of. I think.

"It must have been serious if he hit you."

Chris was still having a difficult time imagining Tony flying off the handle like that.

His mouth tightens into a hard line for a moment, as he debates whether to tell her. He doesn't really want to talk about it, but then she'd been pretty honest with him about how she was feeling. She deserved his honesty in return.

"Michelle and I were talking, and Tony saw us and got jealous. Not that he'd tell me what was wrong, we argued and he punched me." He's silent for a moment, then he adds, "I'm more angry with him for suspecting that I'd...I'd betray his trust like that, than for hitting me."

"I can't believe he would do that," Chris says more to herself than Jack.

"Is everything ok?"

Another moment of silence, as he thinks about how much to tell.

"I don't know. He was late for his bartending shift and when I went up to see him, well I had to wake him up, first, and then we kind of talked about things, but...well like I said, I'm still kind of pissed off at him."

Chris nods, a small frown on her face. This information didn't match with the person she had gotten to knew over the past few weeks. But it still shoudln't be surprising, really. Not when she thinks of how Tony was when she first met him.

"Things never really calm down much around here do they?"

He laughs a little at that, actually laughs. Hell, by now, it's starting to get a little funny.

"No, they don't. I think by now we've started taking turns each week, to see who's having a crisis. And taking turns to help each other out of it," he says, turning to look at her with a bit of a grin.

Chris smiles at that even though the more cynical part of her mind has doubts.

"That "forced socialization" thing at work again," she muses.

"Yeah, looks like it. It works better in some cases than others, I think." He pauses for a moment, briefly marveling at the fact that this was the second time in a few days that they'd actually had a conversation; and one where they ended up smiling at some point.

"Thanks, by the way, for your help last week. I'm not sure what you did, but you helped."

She was surprised by this, she didn't think she was very good at comforting people. Mostly for her amazing, and usually unintentional, habit of hitting their sore spots. Sometimes she felt like a bull in a china shop around emotional people.

Chris looks down and rubs her forehead a bit, a self-deprecating smile playing on her lips. "Ah, you're welcome. I didn't think I was helpful. I'm not very good at things requiring sensitivity."

He looks out at the lake for a moment, watching the ripples in the moonlight and smiling. "Yeah, well sometimes sensitivity isn't really the best tactic. I think I needed someone to talk some sense into me." Which was weird as hell, considering. But somehow, when there wasn't something standing between them, she was oddly easy to talk to; fun to talk to. Somehow they seemed to fit.

He looks back at her and puts a hand on her shoulder. "You're a better person to talk to than you think. Thank you, Chris." Before he can let his doubts interfere, he leans toward her and pulls her into a half-hug.

She hugs him back and is surprised by how comforting it feels to have his arms around her.

"You're welcome... and thank you."

He's a little surprised--but very glad as well--that she doesn't pull away. It feels nice to hold her, and to have her arms around him, nicer than he'd expected. He can smell her skin, her hair... There's something about it maked him feel warm, despite the chill in the air.

"Any time," he says quietly.

Chris nods slightly and feels a little out of breath. It's almost like being nervous. She hopes it's the alcohol.

'I should leave,' she decides.

Almost relunctantly, she pulls back a little and looks up at Jack. Whatever she was going to say is forgotten. On an impulse, she leans in and lightly kisses him.

He feels her pull back and he leans back a little, at least until she looks up at him and something inside him makes him stop there. He can't look away from her eyes, and their faces are so close that for a moment he has the odd feeling that he's forgotten to breathe.

She's leaning forward a little and he leans in too, as something inside him knows he wants this to happen without even asking. His lips meet hers, his heart giving a little tug toward her at the touch. His left hand moves from her back to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair as he leans in to deepen the kiss. The only thing he's thinking at the moment, is that he doesn't want to let go.

Chris' hand moves up to rest on the side of his face. When he deepens the kiss she presses her body against his, wanting to be closer.

It's almost difficult to breathe and her mind feels hazy. Then, like pushing to the surface from being underwater, she realizes what she's doing and pulls back to looks at him, wide-eyed.

"I have to go," she gasps. Chris jumps to her feet without another word. Her whole body seems to be shaking as quickly walks back to the Bar.

As she pulls away, Jack feels like he's snapping awake, though he doesn't want to wake up. For a moment he sits there, stunned, as she beat a hasty retreat, before the little voice in his head start saying, "What in the hell did you think you were doing?"

He leans forward and rests his head in his hands. Life jsut got one hell of a lot more complicated.

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The Space Between

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