Vibin @cass-the-mess - Tumblr Blog

Apr 17

The Next Three Things

Jack Abbot x F!Reader || ex!Jack Abbot x F!Reader

32k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: Reader has a stalker; angst; anxiety; fear; depression; sadness; terror; panic attack; self-hate; self-blame; feelings of worthlessness; regret; bodily injury (semi-ish described, less graphic than what's on the show); torture (ish) (actual acts not described); burns; the quickest, briefest implication of future SA but nothing happens and it's a reading between the lines thing; quick mention of being sick; a gun; a knife; alcohol consumption (not excessive); kidnapping; fingering; PIV sex; literally the worst, most half-assed smut I've ever written I'm sorry; Jack helping Reader; yearning; a dash of idiots to lovers.

Summary: When you realize you're being stalked shortly after moving back to Pittsburgh you turn to the one person you know will keep you safe and help you. Your ex-boyfriend, Dr. Jack Abbot.

AN: I don't know. That's how I feel about this whole thing lol. I hope it's okay. It's definitely in my angst wheelhouse I think lol. I love a good stalker story and I don't think I've ever actually written anything where the couple are exes so it was nice getting to work with that for the first time. Reader is a professor who went to school at Oxford but what she studies and teaches is never defined. We're ignoring the realities of jobs in academia a little bit for the plot. Jack is explicitly not a widow in this universe. If you have any questions about the CWs please feel free to DM me! I really do hope it's okay and ends up being worth reading that many words! I know it's a lot so I really appreciate you taking the time to read if you do! Thank you so much for your support and for reading!! ♥️

“I’ll wait until you get inside to leave, Honey, you have a good night now, okay?”

You smile at your uber driver, appreciative of her waiting given that it’s 12:47 a.m. “Thank you, I appreciate that. Have a good night.”

The townhouse you rent is set off the street a good fifteen feet with a little front yard area so even with the porch light on you can’t immediately see the yellow 9 x 12 envelope waiting for you on your doormat. Your heart rate picks up a little when you see it but you try to tell yourself to relax. Someone sent you something. Maybe you ordered something and forgot. You have no reason to think the guy you went on a couple of dates with and then said no to a third date with who has been blowing up your phone would suddenly escalate to leaving you something weird or dangerous.

But when you pick up the envelope it’s not addressed. There’s nothing on it. There’s something in it though. A fair amount of something because it’s decently thick. You undo the clasp with shaking hands and pull out the stack of papers inside.

They’re not papers though. They’re photos. Of you. Everywhere.

You at the grocery store, you walking out in the city, you in other stores, you walking in and out of the building your office is in the morning and night, your office, you walking into your house. And then they’re of your townhouse. Inside your townhouse. Your bedroom, your pillow, your shower, your underwear drawer, your bras, your knife block in your kitchen. A gun on your coffee table. A knife held up by a gloved hand in front of your shower. A gun on your pillow.

Nausea and an intense dizziness overwhelm you as your entire body starts to match your hands and shake.

“You okay, Honey?” Your uber driver calls to you through the window she’s rolled down.

You shake your head and try to pull it together. You can’t go inside. You can’t be alone. Even a hotel doesn’t seem safe. He’s following you.

You don’t know many people in Pittsburgh. You only moved back to the city a couple of months ago and haven't reconnected with anyone you used to know, have only met people at work really. You consider yourself friends with them in a sense, but not for this. Out of the handful of people in Pittsburgh that you do know from before, fuck, out of all the people you know and have ever known in your entire life, you’ve only ever felt truly and completely safe with one of them.

Jack Abbot.

Who just happens to be your ex and soulmate and the love of your life.

You shove the photos back into the envelope and walk back to the car with it. “Can you take me to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center? The emergency room entrance? I’ll pay you, I can venmo you or I have some cash I think. Just, if I request an uber again it might not be you and I can’t wait.”

“Don’t worry about it, Honey, just get in.” You do and she starts driving immediately. “Is everything okay? Are you hurt? Someone you know?”

“No,” you whisper. “I think I’m being stalked.”

“Oh shit! Do you know someone at the hospital? Who can help you and keep you safe?” your uber driver asks. The genuine compassion in her voice reminds you there’s some good left in this world.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I do.”

You actually don’t know that for sure. On a couple of levels. You don’t know if Jack is working tonight. You don’t know if he’s still working nights. You don’t even know if he’s still working at the Pitt. You do know, however, that absent a huge shift in his personality and character and entire being, that if Jack is there or you can get in touch with him he will help you and keep you safe, no questions asked. Not even after five years.

MNeither you nor Jack had wanted to break up. You both thought you were going to end up married, knew the other was the one. But then the two of you turned into a classic case of right person wrong time. After going around in circles about it for years since you graduated college you decided to finally apply to a couple of grad schools, including your dream school, Oxford. You didn't think you had any true chance of getting in, though Jack knew otherwise, so you didn't really think you'd ever have to figure out what to do about you and Jack.

And then you got in. You got in and Jack had finally just gotten truly established and settled in the perfect position for him as the senior night shift attending and it's not like he could easily transfer his license to another country. You couldn't ask Jack to come with you and implode the life he'd made for himself and to do whatever he could until he could get his license figured out, if he could. And Jack couldn't ask you to give up your dream. It wasn't fair to the other and it would've caused problems in your relationship eventually, you were both sure.

So somehow you'd come to the decision to break up. You don't even really remember how you ended up there. Your four year anniversary was only a couple of months away when you did. You guys had been talking more seriously about marriage before everything happened. You didn't know it but Jack had been thinking about and sketching engagement ring designs for a good while, it was really the only reason he hadn't proposed yet, he didn't have the perfect ring. He still has the sketches.

Jack is the love of your life. You know it. You don’t bother denying it. You've dated other people occasionally knowing that if you ended up marrying them it would be a type of settling, no matter how much you loved them. Because they wouldn’t be Jack.

You’d debated reaching out to him when you moved back to the city but you couldn’t bring yourself to yet for some reason. As much as you wanted Jack to be happy and truly wished him all the happiness in the world, you didn’t think you could handle finding out he’s married, has a wife and kids. So you just let him be.

“Is this good?” Your uber driver interrupts your thoughts.

“Hm?” You look around. You’re right outside the entrance to the emergency department. “Yeah, this is perfect. Thank you so much.” You start digging through your purse to find some cash.

“Don’t worry about it Honey, just be safe, okay?” Your uber driver turns in her seat to look at you. “Seriously. Be safe.”

You stop searching through your bag and nod at her. The only reason you stop looking for money is because you realized you could just pay her by tipping her through uber, not that you say that, of course. “Thank you so much,” you whisper. She smiles at you and nods as you get out of the car.

If you weren’t so fucking terrified you could almost laugh at how chairs looks so different and yet almost exactly the same as the last time you were here over five years ago. People at the desk are all new though, which means getting to Jack might be harder.

“Hi,” you smile at the woman behind the desk. “Can I please speak with Dr. Abbot? Does he still work here? Is he on tonight?”

“You have to fill out paperwork and wait your turn just like everyone else, Miss.” She gives you an already annoyed look.

“No, I don’t need to be seen, I just need to speak with Jack, please. If he’s here.” You try to make your smile apologetic but it’s hard with how scared you are, and you’re concerned it’s coming across poorly.

“This isn’t really a place to come and just try to chat with a doctor. If you don’t need emergency medical treatment you shouldn’t be here, I’m sorry.” She gives you a somewhat apologetic smile. And you get it, you really do and you don’t hold it against her. This shit probably happens all the time.

“I know, just, is he working tonight, at least? Or could you just give Jack my name and let him decide if wants to come speak with me, please.” You give her a pleading look, bite your tongue and don’t tell her you don’t currently need emergency medical treatment and are trying to keep it that way and that’s why you need to speak with Jack.

Another woman in scrubs looks at you as she walks near the desk. You almost think she might stop but she doesn’t.

“Expecting company tonight Dr. Abbot?” Emery smirks at him as she walks up to him at the hub. Jack looks up at her from where he’s sitting charting and raises his eyebrows at her. “There’s a pretty woman in chairs asking for you. Doesn't want to seem to take no for an answer.” Emery shrugs.

“What the fuck?” Jack mutters, logging out and heading towards chairs. He really doesn’t need this tonight. His shift has been okay, things have been calm. He’ll never say or think the q-word about a shift while here but tonight is approaching that. So he really doesn’t need or want some former patient or former patient's mom or a woman he went out with once or twice showing up here and causing a scene.

Then Jack sees you and stops in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat.

You. The love of his life. The only one he’s ever really wanted to be with in any meaningful way. He’s had trysts and a few relationships, mostly short term, since you but he kind of gave up bothering to try after a while. You're the only one he really wants.

He'll never understand why he decided to actually let you go, why he didn't move with you. Why he didn't try begging you to stay. Really, he does know. However it would've happened, there would've been resentment at some point by one of you. Him for giving up being a doctor, you for giving up an incredible grad school and opportunity.

He thought about you all the time. He's pretty sure that he thought about saying fuck it and flying to you and trying to find you and get back together at least once a month the entire time you were apart, knows he thought about you and wanting you back every day. But as time went on he convinced himself that you'd probably found someone, were probably engaged, maybe married, more recently he's convinced himself that you might have a kid or kids even.

The years have been more than kind to you. You’re just as beautiful as you were the day he met you, more beautiful if anything. He forces himself to take in a breath. No ring on your finger. He finds that hard to believe because you’re a catch on every level. But it doesn’t look like there’s a tan line either. There's no way you can be single.

He wonders why you're here, in Pittsburgh in general and at PTMC. He wonders how long you've been here, how long you're here for.

The way he feels his heart rate pick up and butterflies in his stomach has him shaking his head at himself. All these years later and you still have that effect on him. You always did. Even after you guys had been together for years.

What if you're hurt? That spikes his heart rate even more. You don't look injured or sick or like you're in physical pain or discomfort. But there's absolutely something going on, he can tell by the look on your face and your body language.

“If you know Dr. Abbot well enough for him to want to come out to speak to you, why don’t you call him and ask?” The woman gives you another look.

In your fear that thought hadn’t occurred to you. “Oh,” you murmur. “Yeah, I could do that. Um, okay. Thank you.” You're not actually sure if you could do that because you're not sure if Jack has the same number, but it's your only chance right now you guess, unless you happen to see someone else you know from your Jack days and they let you in.

You start to turn around to find a chair so you can try calling Jack when you hear your first name being called in that deep gravelly voice you’d recognize anywhere. Jack.

You look back at the desk and he's there, leaned over just slightly to speak through the glass. It's your breath that catches this time. The years have only made Jack more attractive. He’s going gray and the salt and pepper curls look so good on him you could scream. Even through your fear your stomach twists in a good way at seeing him. God he looks fucking good.

Jack nods towards the doors, and starts walking towards them. You do the same and once the doors open enough for you to see each other the two of you stand there and look at each other for a couple of seconds.

As the doors start to close you remember yourself and walk through them over to Jack. “Hi,” you breathe, try and fail to give him a smile that doesn't reflect how scared you are.

“Hey.” Jack gives you a small smile. “Come here?” He holds his hands out a little wanting to give you the option about whether to hug. You let out a soft breath and step into his arms, the two of you sharing a tight hug that lingers just a little too long and tells everyone who’s watching you’re not just friends. You both note that the other smells the same.

Being close like this again feels too good for the both of you. You've needed this, craved this. Needed and craved each other. Neither of you wants to let go.

But you have to.

“Thank you for letting me in.” You smile at him as genuinely and convincingly as possible because even under the circumstances, you are glad you’re seeing him again.

He looks even better up close. The crows feet and other soft wrinkles five years have brought Jack suit him perfectly and you have to fight off the urge to hold his face still to get a good look at him. He was always unfairly handsome and is even more so now. The salt and pepper is even more devastating up close, suits the curls you adore perfectly. You wonder if he's graying everywhere. You hate the way you clock his ringless left hand and feel a tingle of hope in the back of your brain somewhere under your terror.

“Yeah of course.” Jack nods. “I’m not trying to skip all the seeing each other for the first time in over five years shit, but what’s up? I know you’re not okay.” He glances down at the envelope and then back up to you.

Of course he knows. He always knew. Jack has always been able to read you with just a glance. You both know it. The same is true of you with him though. You were always able to read him with a glance, no matter how stoic he looked to anyone else.

You look around at everyone watching the two of you and swallow hard, thankful Lena or Bridget or any other night shift regulars from five years ago aren't among them. “Jack,” you shake your head a little and drop your voice to a whisper, “I can’t. Not here.”

He nods slowly. “Okay. Come with me, yeah?” You nod and let him take your hand and lead you to the family room, your fingers lacing together automatically, like no time has passed. You can feel the tears start to form behind your eyes the second he shuts the door. “What’s going on Sweetheart?” He winces at the pet name slipping out. It’s all he used to call you. Robby and Dana teased him about it, would ask him if he even remembered your real name. He did of course. But sweetheart was just what he always called you. “I’m so sorry, that just slipped out.”

“It’s okay Jackie.” You give him the smallest coy smile.

“I, I,” you let out a breath. “I don’t even know how to say it and I know I might be being paranoid and probably am and am probably going to seem like some hysterical woman or something and you can tell me all of that and to get a grip and go but I,” you shift the envelope in your hands, “I think I’m being stalked. And I just moved back and don’t, don't have anyone really and, and,” you let out a sad laugh as a few tears finally run down your face. “And you’re the only place I’ve ever felt safe, the only person I’ve ever felt truly safe with and so I don’t know, I just…came here looking for you so I could feel safe, even for just a minute. I know you're busy and have to get back and that's okay, I just...”

Jack’s stomach twists painfully. You're not one to get shaken easily, so the fact that you are and that you tracked him down to feel safe even for a minute, tells Jack things are bad, that this isn't the first event. But even if you are being paranoid, which Jack sincerely doubts, just the thought of you worrying about being stalked makes him sick and anxious and has that protective side of him coming out hard. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. He’ll always have that drive and need to protect you. You’re still the most important thing in the world to him. He’ll die before he lets anything happen to you.

And your tears break his heart. He always hated when you cried, hated when he couldn't protect you from the world and make sure you were only ever happy. He'd hold you so close, let you cry it out into him and then do whatever you needed to put you back together again, get a smile on your face.

This time is no different. Maybe it should be. Maybe he shouldn't do this, you aren't together, you've been broken up for over five years, he has no idea if you'd ever even entertain getting back together with him. But it doesn't matter. Even if you won't entertain it he still needs to take care of you.

"Okay, I've got you," he murmurs as he closes the distance between you and wraps his arms around you, pulls you close and holds you as tightly as possible. "You're safe here, I've got you."

"I'm sorry," you sniffle against his scrub top as you wrap your arms around him in return and hold him just as tightly. "I'm so sorry for this, I know it's unfair."

"No, it's not unfair, and you have nothing to apologize for, I'm glad you came to me, okay?" Jack rocks you as you cry against him.

It's intimate, the way he holds you, the feeling in the air, the way you're touching each other, the energy in the room. You've both missed this more than words could ever hope to say.

One of his hands comes up to the back of your head and cups it to keep you close and he must've held and hugged you like this thousands of times when you were together. It takes you right back there and for a brief couple of seconds you're not sure if you're crying because you're scared or because the wound to your heart and soul that was the loss of Jack has been torn back open even deeper.

"It's okay," Jack whispers. "You're going to be okay. We'll figure it out. I promise we'll figure it out."

"It's not your responsibility, Jack," you whisper back to him as you start to pull yourself together.

"I know, and I don't feel like it is, I promise." Jack goes to kiss the top of your head reassuringly and stops himself just in time. But that's how simple it is, how easy it is for him to slip right back into being your partner.

“I doubt you’re being paranoid. Why do you think you're being..?” He can’t get himself to say the word stalked quite yet. It terrifies him too much. “Because of what’s in the envelope?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Can I see?” Again, he knows you're not one to think or say something like this lightly, that if anything you'd try to downplay it.

You nod, appreciate that he’s taking you seriously. You knew he would. You can already see the concern and worry in his eyes. He takes a seat and clears the table in the room, pats the seat next to him.

Jack pulls out a pair of gloves from one of the pockets of his cargo pants and puts them on before he takes it from you. He pulls the photos out and starts looking through them.

“What the fuck?” An instinctual and consuming protectiveness races through Jack as he looks at the photos. It feels like each photo gets worse and worse, tightens the knot in his stomach. “Holy shit.” Jack doesn’t feel a lot of genuine and nearly paralyzing fear anymore but he sure is right now. An overwhelming amount. Because whoever took these is threatening you. Wants to take you away and force you to be with them or hurt you.

“This…” Jack shakes his head as he finishes looking at the photos. He pauses for a second as he holds them to take a couple of breaths so that he can stay calm and reassuring, levelheaded so he can keep you safe. But it's hard to get rid of the lightheadedness from how fucking insane this is and this person is and he doesn't even try to get the nausea to go away.

He puts the photos back in the envelope and sets it on the table. Jack takes off his gloves and then takes one of your hands and looks at you. “This isn’t a maybe, or you being paranoid. Do you know who took these?”

"I think," you let out a shuddery breath, "I think this guy I went on a couple of dates with. I broke it off after the second date because he started getting weird and pushy. Honestly I should've done it after the first because I picked up on something and felt a little weird but I told myself that was just because he wasn't…" You trail off, realizing what you were about to say. It's obvious at this point though. You. "The second date was just…bad. He was a little creepy, felt a little obsessive." You huff at that and flick your eyebrows up. "I didn't think he'd go this far."

You'd jumped into dating shortly after arriving because you needed something to do and more than that you needed to try to take your mind off Jack. Like that was ever going to happen. You think secretly you kind of hoped he'd pop up on one of the apps and that would be your way to test the waters kind of.

Jack's ready to just go kill the guy and solve the problem but obviously knows he can't. "Is this the first thing that's happened or has there been more?"

You shrug. "Little things that were strange, a few that felt kind of creepy, blowing up my phone with texts and calls, emails. But nothing that explicitly makes it clear it's him and nothing that suggested… violence, I guess, the way the photos kind of do, maybe."

It's not maybe, Jack thinks to himself. "Okay." He lets out a long breath and runs a hand through his hair as he thinks. He has to keep you safe. You need to come back to his place. To your old place that you shared together. “Alright,” he nods slowly. There’s too many emotions swirling in him. Protectiveness, anger at the guy, fear, guilt, yearning. Love. “Just, um… You wait here. I've gotta go tell Lena and Shen that I have to leave right now and then I'll grab my stuff and we can go. I think it's probably better if you come to my place in case he's watching you or your place. Seeing you come home with another man could escalate him. I have a hoodie that you can wear and we can leave out a side entrance so he shouldn't pick you up and track you back to my place."

You breathe out a laugh and tilt your head at him, a watery smile on your face. "Jack, I, I, I can't, you can't do that. You can't just leave in the middle of your shift for this."

He shrugs, like it's no big deal when it absolutely is. "Yes I can. There's another attending on already even. We don't have to call anyone in." Jack gives you a soft, what he hopes is reassuring, smile. "I can and I'm going to."

"You don't have to Jack, really, it's okay. I'll be okay." You shrug, suddenly trying to play it off because you feel bad. You don't know what you thought would happen when you decided to come and try to find him, you never got that far in your mind. But the last thing you want to do is come back into his life out of nowhere and inconvenience him. "I just needed to see a familiar face and get some validation, I think."

"I know I don't have to, but I also do have to. I have to keep you safe." He squeezes your hand that he's still holding gently. He knows this must be terrifying for you, especially on top of feeling as alone as he's sure you do in a city this big. "Going back to your place, especially alone, is dangerous right now. He could be there. He could get in. We can't risk it, we can't risk your life or him doing something to you."

You need to know. You need to know what you're walking into when you get to Jack's place because you know you're going to end up there. You need to know if he's with someone. "Do you, are you… Are you with someone Jack? I don't want to fuck things up for you and bringing home your single ex long-term girlfriend isn't a good look."

He shakes his head. "I'm single. And even if I did have a girlfriend, if she didn't understand that I needed to help you with this, if she didn't want me to help you with this, then we wouldn't be together any longer so it would be a moot point."

You bite your lip for a second. "It's too much, Jack. For me to just show up after over five years and pull this shit on you and ask you to protect me and take me back to your place and let me spend the night."

"It's not too much, at all, not even close. And you're not asking. I'm offering. I'm insisting." For now Jack doesn't say anything about you staying more than just the night. He wants you to stay with him until this is resolved, but that's clearly a conversation for tomorrow.

"Jack…" you whisper his name, look around the room and then back at him. Your expression is so distressed and scared it kills him. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I'm more than sure." He gives your hand another squeeze. "Wait here for me, yeah? I shouldn't be long."

"Okay," you murmur. Jack gets up and heads to the door and you call to him when his hand reaches for the door handle. "Jack." He turns to look at you. "Thank you."

"Always," Jack nods at you and steps out.

Walking into Jack's place is surreal on multiple levels. Because this used to be your place. You and Jack were living together when you broke up. When you left you never thought you'd walk back in here. You half expected him to have moved, to have not been able to live with the memories. But then Jack's always been sentimental, so it doesn't surprise you. And when you think about it, while it would be painful to stay and be surrounded by the memories, it feels like it would hurt more to move and leave them behind.

You smile to yourself at how it looks and feels almost exactly the same. Your influence on the space isn't there as prominently anymore obviously, though you can see a couple of things that he picked up from you, but it feels like Jack, it feels the way it felt before you moved in with him. You have no idea how to explain that but it just does. You can pick out some differences, some changes he's made, the most obvious being that photos of you and the two of you don't hang on the walls or live in frames decorating bookshelves.

"I'm gonna shower quickly," Jack tells you as he sets his backpack down and walks the bag of takeout over to the coffee table. "You should start eating. Everything's still in the same place in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever of course."

You turn to look at him and offer a small smile as you start walking to the couch. "Okay, thank you."

"You need anything else before I jump in?" His eyes track you as you move to the couch. You're still in his sweatshirt he gave you to wear when you left the hospital and fuck Jack will never get over seeing you in his clothes.

You take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "A bottle of tequila and a straw." You give him a wry smile as he chuckles. He's missed hearing you say that. You used to frequently. "No, but thank you for asking. I'll be okay." Once you're back by my side.

Jack can hear the unspoken sentence. This is about to be the fastest fucking shower of his life. He wishes he could just invite you in with him. "Okay. Come get me if you need anything though, yeah?"

"I will," you nod. "But I'll be okay, honestly. Enjoy your shower."

Jack nods at you and turns, walks back to his bedroom, the bedroom that used to be yours, that you used to share. Both of you are so fucking aware of it. Of how this used to be your place, plural, the home you shared together for nearly three years.

He's quick in the shower. He can't stand the thought of you out there alone and scared. When he gets out he haphazardly dries his hair and throws on a pair of sweatpants and a random t-shirt and makes his way back to you.

The familiar sound of Jack's crutches clicking against the tile has you biting your lip to avoid bursting back into tears. It's the silliest thing, you tell yourself, how a sound can feel like home, can make you feel safe. But it does. Just like his voice and his laugh and the sound of his heart beating steadily in his chest.

You give him a small smile as he reappears from the hall into the open floorplan of the living room, kitchen and dining room. Seeing him with wet curls and slightly flushed from the heat of the water has you throbbing between your legs and biting your lip even harder as you feel the tears start to sting. You miss getting to shower with him, getting to be close to him like that, intimate. Vulnerable.

Jack isn't prepared for it. He isn't prepared for the way you're perched on the couch close to the edge like you're afraid to sit on it all the way and interrupt his space with your presence. He isn't prepared for the way it makes it so clear it's his space and not yours, not a space you share. He isn't prepared for you looking like you think you're a burden or a bother or an interruption. He isn't prepared for the way you look like a stranger in your own home.

Former home, he guesses.

Jack isn't prepared for the wave of emotion that starts to pull him under, for the tears he feels start to form. He takes in a slow deep breath hoping to keep it as unnoticeable as possible, lets it out the same.

"Drink?" he asks, stopping by the fridge.

"Uh, sure yeah," you nod. "Just whatever you have that's easiest."

While Jack gets drinks from the fridge you start pulling the takeout out of the bag and setting it on the coffee table. The coffee table you and Jack picked out together.

Jack crutches back over and pulls out a drink for himself from one pocket of his sweatpants and a bottle of your favorite drink for you.

An amused smile pulls on your face when you see it. "You have that in there for the last five and a bit years?" you laugh teasingly.

The sound goes straight to Jack's cock, followed by his heart and creating an intense wave of longing that makes his whole body ache. "No," he draws the word out. "I have one from time to time." To remind myself of you. "Wanted one the other day and bought it but hadn't got around to drinking it so I happened to have it in there." But then couldn't bring myself to drink it. You hear what he doesn't say.

Jack settles on the couch and pulls the coffee table closer. "You should've started eating without me."

You shrug at him. "Felt rude."

"Did you go through my shit?" He smirks at you as he hands you the container with your food.

You roll your eyes at him playfully. "It looks almost exactly the same, Jack, I doubt there's much new for me to even go through. I was always the collector and shopper."

"Hm, yes you were." He wants to say that he loves it, that he loves that about you, that he misses it, going shopping with you or seeing the little things you'd find randomly and buy for the place or for him. But he doesn't.

The two of you continue to talk as you eat but it's all surface level, random stuff, nothing about the last five years of your lives. Jack picks up on the way you're slightly out of it, knows you're not in the headspace to talk about that right now and that you're tired and mentally fried. You know he knows and is deliberately not asking and you appreciate it more than you could hope to express to him.

"So," Jack starts as he hands you the now empty takeout box his food was in, "I'm guessing I should call you Doctor now?"

You laugh softly from the kitchen as you throw the empty takeout boxes from dinner into the trash. "Yeah," you nod slowly as you walk back toward the couch. You shrug as you get closer. "Well, you can. You don't have to."

"Yes I do." Jack beams at you, absolutely fucking beams and looks so proud of you it's palpable. He stands, keeps the finger tips of one hand on the armrest of the couch to help balance as he holds his other arm open.

You shake your head at him but smile, walk over to him and give him the hug he's seeking. Jack wraps his arms around you tightly, trusts you to help him stay balanced like you've done thousands of times before.

"I am so, so fucking proud of you Sweetheart," he murmurs, the pride in his voice dripping off each word. Without even truly realizing it Jack kisses the top of your head and nuzzles his nose in your hair as he holds you tight, just like he always used to. "So fucking proud."

The hug is perfect. It's Jack. You never want it to stop. And yet it's the hardest thing in the world right now. Because as real as this hug is, it's not real the way you want it to be. You and Jack aren't together. This isn't your boyfriend hugging you.

This is the love of your life, your soulmate who you're no longer with hugging you. This is a dream, this is what you missed and thought about and wanted and imagined and fucking yearned for. This is all you wanted when you walked out from defending your thesis, when you got your dream job, when you graduated, to be walking into Jack's arms and held tight while he kissed the top of your head and nuzzled his nose in your hair and told you how proud of you he was. All you wanted was Jack.

And you didn't have him.

And you don't have him.

Not really, anyway. Not how you want him. Not how you need him. Not in the way that would fix your broken heart and soul.

But you're here with him in this moment and getting this hug, hearing how proud of you he is, feeling it in the way he holds and touches you. So you let yourself have it, or try at least. On top of everything else tonight it's just making you more emotional.

"Thank you, Jackie," you whisper so quietly it's just the three words coated in a sorrow and longing Jack is sure he recognizes all too well. Fighting back the tears is hard, but you have no real reason for them in the moment, no reason that isn't you miss Jack and want him to be yours again, no reason you could use to explain them that wouldn't guilt trip him or make him feel forced.

Jack isn't unaffected by all of this, by hugging and holding you like this, by having you back in his life and seeing you again and knowing you're here in the city and single. All he wants to do is kiss you and ask you to be his again, apologize for ever letting you go and keep you safe in his arms, tucked against his chest where you belong. But Jack's not sure if you want that, any of that.

And more than that Jack doesn't want you to feel forced. He doesn't want you to think that you have to be with him or give yourself to him to have his protection and help because that could never, ever, be the case. You could actively hate him and treat him as such and he'd still protect and help you. Deep down, Jack knows you could never think that, that you know him too well. But still. There's also some part of him that feels like trying to get back together right now would be taking advantage of you and your vulnerable and heightened emotional state. So he doesn't try as much as he wants to.

Below the self-created blindness and beyond the protective walls you're both imposing on yourselves that prevent you from consciously processing the other's obvious desperation and want and need and longing to get back together and to actively and overtly love the other again, you both know that the other wants reconciliation just as much. You both know that the other wants to get back together, wants to be a couple again. Yet neither of you will make the first move.

Your hug breaks and you both sit back down on the couch. Jack has to fight to keep the frown off his face when you remain sitting at the edge. He hopes you're just starting there to grab your drink and then will settle back in. But Jack knows you won't. He knows this has to be too much for you, all of it, the stalker, being back here, the familiarity juxtaposed with the lack of it in the place you used to call yours.

"You have a copy of your thesis for me?" Jack smiles at you, the pride still sparkling in his eyes in a way that almost has you squirming under his gaze in the best way because he's going to do his damnedest to make you accept that he's proud of you and to get you to be proud of yourself. You laugh and roll your eyes at him. "Hey!" He straightens his left leg out and nudges your thigh with his foot. "I'm serious. I want to read it."

You give him an amused, if not slightly disbelieving smile. You absentmindedly bring your hands to his foot that's still resting just a touch against your thigh and start rubbing it. Just like you always used to. It's a lightning bolt to Jack's heart but he covers it with the practice of someone repressing his emotions for the last five years. "Really?"

Jack smiles at you and nods. "Really."

"Okay, yeah," you nod back, your mind somewhere between unsurprised by his support and enthusiasm and flustered by the same and the way he's looking at you and the reminder that he can still make you feel like this. Easily. "Yeah, no, I can, I can get you a copy. But you really don't have to read it, Jack. It's not going to offend me."

"I know I don't have to. I want to." He shrugs like it's the simplest thing in the world and not one of those things that's everything to you because it's Jack reading something completely outside his field and world just because you wrote it.

"If you change your mind two pages in, that's okay too."

He chuckles to himself. "Noted, but I'm not going to. I'm looking forward to reading it."

You smirk at him and cock your head, scoot down the couch closer to him and finally settle back into it a little more just so that you can rest your thigh under his knees so his legs lay across your lap. It's all unthinking, instinctual almost, practiced. Something you've done a thousand times before when you were together. Something that's just wired into you even after over five years apart.

Your hands quickly untie the knot he'd put in the extra fabric of his right pajama leg to keep it from getting in the way of his crutches, slide the fabric up just enough and start massaging his leg, fingers using just the right pressure over his scar. Jack has to fight back a groan at how good it feels, especially after a string of on days and especially coming from you. And if he thought you rubbing his foot was a lightning bolt to the heart, you scooting up the couch just to massage his leg and keep things equal is a thousand at once.

Keeping the tears out of his eyes is hard. He hasn't had touch like this since you broke up and he never really thought he'd have it again, knew he'd never get close to someone the way he was with you, would never be in more than a casual relationship where maybe they spent the night sometimes, but wouldn't be close enough, intimate enough, for him to allow them to touch him there.

"You don't even know what it's about," you point out.

In fairness, Jack knows what you went to school for and you'd certainly discussed and bounced ideas for your thesis off him when you were applying since you had to send in some proposed ideas for your applications. But you hadn't set anything in stone so he doesn't know anything specific.

Jack doesn't even need to really think about his response and it makes it hit that much harder. "It's about something you're passionate about and care about and enjoy and love." He smiles at you and raises his eyebrows, tilts his head just slightly for a second. "That's more than enough for me."

There's something heart and soul shatteringly sweet about Jack's words. So much so that it's hard to formulate a response that isn't thank you and I love you. So all you can say is the first and leave off the last. "Thank you."

Jack knows. He knows how much it meant to, how truly thankful you are and how good his words made you feel. He can see it in your eyes, feel it in the way your touch becomes just a little more tender.

His eyes flit around your face taking in how exhausted you are at the same time you stifle a yawn. It's so fucking adorable he wants to just launch himself at you and start making out and begging you to be his again. Given that that's not an option he settles for giving you a soft, knowing smile. "I can tell you're exhausted. We should get you some sleep."

Jack is right. You need sleep. You're sure you won't be able to. You're scared about what's going to happen, how you solve a problem like this, how you deal with a stalker, if you'll ever be able to truly get rid of the guy and get him to leave you alone. You'll be missing Jack, will be so keenly aware of how close yet how far he is, of how he must be over you since he hasn't asked to get back together or even tried to start some sort of conversation about the two of you.

You want to fight it because you want more time with him. You're not really sure what the plans are past tonight, if you'll continue staying with him or what. But he's still right. "Yeah," you sigh. "Probably."

There's not really a discussion about where you'll sleep. This isn't you getting back together, something you both are well aware of despite both wishing it was you getting back together. So as much as both of you might like you to sleep in bed with him, neither of you say anything for a moment as you stand in the spare room and look at the bed together.

After a few seconds Jack clears his throat. "Did you want to shower first?"

"No," you murmur, shake your head. You don't think you could handle either of the options, using the spare shower or using the shower that used to be yours, not to mention having to use all his products and smell like him, not tonight at least. "But thank you."

"Okay. I can, um, I can get you something to wear, if you want?" he offers, a touch of awkwardness to it.

"That would be great, thanks." You really don't want to sleep in these clothes or in just your bra and underwear, and sleeping naked just isn't going to work.

Jack is gone for just a second before returning with a shirt and pair of boxer briefs thrown over his shoulder. He hands them to you silently and lingers as you murmur another, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." The two of you look at each other for another beat before Jack decides he has to just rip the bandaid off. "Wake me if you need anything and I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight."

You nod at him. "Goodnight."

He closes the spare room door behind him and all you can both think about is how much this fucking sucks. How much you both love and hate this. Being apart for longer than Jack showering finally gives you both time to start processing. You're back. You're in Jack's place, you're in your old place. You have a stalker. Your life is at risk.

You're frozen for a moment but then force yourself to undress and slip on Jack's shirt and boxer briefs and climb into the spare bed.

As you settle in the space is familiar but not familiar enough. It's soothing but not soothing enough for you to fall asleep. The shirt and sheets smell vaguely of Jack because of the laundry detergent and a few tears hit your eyes at the thought of him using the same laundry detergent all these years. God, you're so fucking in love with him.

Being this close and yet this far from him is torturous, but if Jack wanted you back you're right here. All he has to do is ask if you'll be with him again, if you'll be his again. You’re sure if he does after tonight it'll be out of pity for you, or some kind of fucked up trauma bonding, or for the comfort and familiarity, or just for stress relief. You also know none of this is that simple and that Jack does want to ask, that Jack wants you but has his own reasons for not.

It's impossible for sleep to find you despite how tired you are. You keep thinking about everything that could happen, how scared you are, how much you miss and love Jack. You lay awake for what feels like hours but is really only an hour and a half according to your phone.

You're not sure what it is but something about that little time passing and it feeling like forever breaks you and you finally start to cry, finally give in to all your emotions and let yourself cry and panic and be overwhelmingly sad and anxious. The problem is that then you can't stop.

You can't stop and you know how to get yourself to stop and you lay in the spare bed for as long as you can possibly stand feeling like this before you wipe away all the tears you can and try to pull yourself together at least a little so that you're not visibly shaking when you get out of bed and walk to Jack's bedroom door. The tears you've wiped away have long since been replaced but you're not choking on air anymore, so there's that at least.

"Jack?" you call his name as you knock on his door. Your voice is broken and raw and the tears immediately start to fall harder because you can't believe you're doing this to him, making him deal with this on top of everything else.

Jack only managed to finally get his brain to turn off enough to fall into a light sleep thirty minutes ago when you knock. And the only way he was able to do that was by telling himself that he needed to be at least somewhat rested to protect you the best.

But he jolts awake at the sound of you calling his name and the knock on the door. You sound upset, deeply so and it spikes his anxiety, has him wide awake and calling your name back in half a second. "Come in, what's wrong?" he rushes out as he sits up, dressed in only his pajama pants from earlier. "Did something happen?"

You open the door and take a step in as he turns his bedside lamp on and starts moving to get out of bed. "Nothing happened," you shake your head, almost squeak out the words. "I just can't stop. I'm scared, Jack, I'm really scared and I, I, I…" You can't finish that sentence. Can't tell him how you're feeling. Can't guilt him into being with you. "I started, started crying and panicking and now I can't stop and I didn't know what to do and I thought, I, I thought, maybe just being able to see you would help. I don't want to impose-"

"Hey, hey hey hey," Jack cuts you off gently, voice low and soothing. "Come here?" He stays sitting on the edge of the bed and holds his hand out to you, nods at the bed. "You wanna…?" Jack doesn't want to put any pressure on you. "Or I can stand or we can go sit on the couch?"

Maybe you should fight it more, tell yourself and Jack this isn't appropriate, that this isn't what this is, but you don't. "Are you sure?" you ask quickly, equally as concerned with pressuring him to let you into his bed and wanting to be in it just as much as he wants you to be in it. Your eyes flick to the bed just to confirm what you want.

He gives you a small smile and nods and it's all you need, your feet carrying you around the bed to your side where you slide in and under the covers so fast he laughs under his breath as he lays down on his back propped up just slightly and looks over at you. Big, wet eyes with tear clumped lashes stare up at him as your lips and chin shake and your breathing starts to become hitched. It's not an unfamiliar sight, Jack used to hold you while you cried all the time, but there's an edge here, one of true terror and fear that he's never seen before.

Jack will kill this asshole. On fucking sight.

Nobody gets to make you look or feel the way you do right now and live to tell the fucking tale, not as long as Jack's alive.

Jack knows that's all hyperbolic, something only in his dreams. Because if he killed the guy then he'd go to prison and that, him going to prison for you, would destroy you, regardless of your relationship status.

He holds his arms open for you in offering and tilts his head, silently telling you that you don't have to come into his arms, he just wants to offer. But there is quite literally nowhere else in the fucking world you'd rather be. As you almost scramble to shift and get closer to him Jack angles himself on his side just slightly so that he can hold you better with both arms and you can rest your head in the crook of his neck and shoulder and hide from the world easier. You fall into him and the position easily, burrow into him as much as you can and throw your leg over the top of him, cling to the warm skin of his chest and shoulders and back.

Once you're finally safe in his arms you start to sob again, cry into him, and in the moment it's hard to tell if you're crying because you're scared or because your heart is breaking all over again. It doesn't really matter, you guess, because you're here doing it, sobbing into Jack again like you used to when you were upset and it's so fucked up and unfair of you.

You're not sure how long you cry into him like that, aren't sure how long Jack holds you and whispers soft words of reassurance similar to the ones he used to when you were together and he'd hold you like this. There's a few he can't say anymore, that don't feel appropriate. I've got you. I'll always have you.

I love you.

Eventually you do cry yourself out, take a minute or so just resting in Jack's arms and trying to recover and get it together a little bit before you speak.

"I'm sorry," you sniffle. You take the tissue he offers you and wipe his neck and shoulder and chest before you clean your own face up and blow your nose. "This is so unfair of me Jack, dragging you into this out of the fucking blue and I feel so bad. I don't want you to think I'm using you and I don't know how you can think anything but that and I'm sorry, Jack," you start to get yourself worked up again, "I'm really sorry."

"Shh, shh, shh," Jack soothes you. "It's okay, I promise it's okay and I don't think that. Please don't cry over that, I promise you it's all okay. I know you're not using me. I know you came to me because you're scared and you didn't know where else to go and I'm glad you did." You try your hardest to believe him, are able to enough to at least stop yourself from losing it again, take in some big racked breaths against him. "Can you look at me?"

You nod against him and start to pull away and the way you move together to adjust your positioning so that you're on your sides and can see each other while still so close is painfully natural and practiced. Your legs tangle together like they did when you were lovers, the rest of your bodies following the same. Jack's top arm stays wrapped around you, his lower hand splaying out on your upper chest above your breasts so that you can feel him. You keep your arms tucked between the two of you, your lower hand resting on top of his on your chest, your top arm splayed on his chest similar to his hand on yours.

"I don't feel used or like you're using me and I don't think you're being unfair. I wish I could make you believe that, or accept it, maybe is the better way to put it because I know you know and believe that I wouldn't lie to you." He gives you a small smile and then looks away as he licks his lips, his face setting into something far more somber, something almost like grief and worry. "I'm glad that you came to me. I'm glad that you walked into my ED and found me, I'm fucking thankful." The word comes out as a breath almost, loaded with the feeling it labels and just slightly shaky.

"I'm glad that you didn't go inside your place and that you weren't alone." Jack's lips fall into a line and tremble slightly, his eyes growing glassy with tears. "Because the thought of this night going differently and you being wheeled into my ED and me finding you on a gurney in my trauma room barely alive is something I can't fucking handle. And it could've so easily been a reality if you hadn't come to find me. So no, Sweetheart," Jack shakes his head as best he can laying on his side. "I don't feel used. I feel thankful and grateful. I'm so fucking glad you did."

Your lips tremble harder than Jack's as his words wash over you while he says them, a couple of tears slipping from your eyes. "Jackie," you whisper, unable to come up with anything else.

"I know," he murmurs, blinks back his own tears somehow. "We're going to get through this, okay? I promise. We'll figure it out."

You shake your head this time. "No, Jack," you whisper. It makes him start to spiral. "You don't have to do this with me, you shouldn't have to. Doing this with me, that isn't fair. I just, I needed somewhere safe for tonight and I came to you because you're the only place I've ever truly felt safe and I knew you'd help me and I am so, so grateful, Jack and I hope this doesn't start to make you feel used. I'll, I'll go get some security stuff tomorrow, cameras and alarms or whatever and get them set up during the day and I'll be back out of your hair and you can have your life and home back. I never meant to make it feel like this was something you were going to have to deal with long term with me. I'm not asking you to take this on with me, that wouldn't be fair."

"You're not asking and I know I don't have to, that I'm not required to. And I never wanted you out of my hair to begin with." The second sentence is whispered. Jack almost feels bad saying it, like it's somehow pushy or seems like he's trying to blame you for what happened when he's not. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't either of your fault's. But he knows you and so he knows you blame yourself.

After a couple second pause Jack continues. "Cameras and even alarms aren't going to make it safe. This guy isn't going to care. He'll cover himself up so the cameras can't identify him or he'll just do it on camera and not give a fuck. And alarms might bring attention but there's still so much he could do in the time it takes for anyone to respond to them. I'm not saying that to scare you, I'm saying it because it's reality. You should stay here until we get it figured out and taken care of. You need to. Or, or," the thought hurts but Jack has to acknowledge it, "if you don't want to stay here then somewhere safe, somewhere truly safe that he doesn't know about."

"No, Jack, it's not that I don't want to stay here, it's not that at all," you reassure him. "It's just, it's a lot to as-," you catch yourself, "it's a lot to take on. And who knows how long it'll take." Jack doesn't say anything, just gives you a reassuring smile and a small shrug to tell you that it doesn't matter to him. "If it gets to be too much promise you'll tell me, Jack."

"I promise." He doesn't vocalize how that could absolutely never happen, but he sure thinks it. Jack takes in your face for the hundredth time tonight. With your eyes swollen and bloodshot from crying you look even more exhausted than you did earlier. "We can talk about everything more tomorrow, okay? Try to get some sleep."

"Okay," you nod. You roll with Jack to keep your positioning as he reaches behind him to turn the lamp off, the two of you resettling how you were just with you somehow burrowed into Jack a bit more, his bottom arm wrapping around you under your shoulder to hold you tighter. "Do you work tomorrow?"

"Nope," Jack pops the 'p', clearly very happy about it. "I'm off the next three days."

"That's good," you murmur, pause for a moment. "Thank you Jack. For everything."

"Of course, anytime." Jack gives you a sleepy smile and repeats what he said earlier. "Always."

"So, I guess we can do all the seeing each other for the first time in over five years shit now," Jack smirks, teasing himself for the words he used last night at the Pitt.

The two of you are sitting on the couch again, eating the breakfast that you made together. Well, that Jake made, really, your only contribution the toast and moral support you provided by being in the kitchen with him.

You laugh softly. "Yeah, I guess we can."

Jack nods to tell you he'll go first once he finishes this bite. "Should probably start with the most obvious. Why are you back and how long have you been back?"

You forgot that with everything that happened last night you never got around to telling Jack how long you've been back and why you are in the first place. "I moved back a couple of months ago." Jack's going to have a reaction to this next part, a big one. One you know he's justified in having but that you didn't let yourself have, would never let yourself have. Because somehow you bullshitted your way into the job and eventually it's going to catch up with you. Jack's going to call you on that too, the imposter syndrome. "I got a job at CMU. Assistant professor. Tenure track."

Jack is mid-bite when you say it, raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes at you as he smiles and chews faster. "Holy shit!" he laughs, beaming at you. "Sweetheart, that's fucking insane, holy shit! Congratulations! That's what you always wanted, and right out of school too, that's so fucking amazing. I'm so fucking proud of you. My-" Jack stops himself before the rest of that sentence comes out and hangs awkwardly in the air between you. My girl's a professor, that's so fucking hot. "I hope you're proud of yourself."

"Yeah, it's good," you shrug, trying to downplay it how you always seem to do with your achievements and successes.

A softer, crooked smile settles onto Jack's face at your reaction. It's what he expected but hoped he'd be wrong about. "I'm sorry the imposter syndrome hasn't gotten any better, but you deserve your position, Sweetheart. You didn't bullshit your way into it or trick them into giving you the job, and you didn't bullshit your way to a PhD. You're just truly that smart and intelligent and incredible. You should be proud of yourself, you deserve to be proud of yourself."

You've never been good at accepting compliments, never been good at accepting Jack's compliments. It's something he finds so incredibly endearing about you for some reason. It's just one of those things that's so you and so genuine, not an act to try and get more compliments. He can always tell by the bashful smile that pulls onto your face, like the one that is now, and the way you have to break eye contact with him, like you do now, that his words mean so incredibly much to you, are something you hold so dear, even if your brain struggles to let you accept them at first.

"Thank you Jackie," you murmur, looking down at your plate and glancing back up at him. He's still smiling so widely at you, his eyes sparkling with pride and adoration and something you know you recognize but think you’re making up. Love. Active, heart on fire, soul consuming, all encompassing love.

Neither of you can find the confidence to bring up getting back together. Because somehow neither of you are sure if the other would ever even want that. You're both scared to lose the other again if you bring it up and are rejected. You're both scared to rock the boat or make the other feel forced. There are so many reasons and while many of them are valid, they're also bullshit in a sense. You're soulmates. You both know it. You both know it was time and distance and circumstance that made you break up, that it wasn't your relationship deteriorating or deciding you were better as friends or any other reason. And yet neither of you will make any sort of real move. Slipped uses of Sweetheart and Jackie don't count.

You take another bite and Jack looks at you for another beat before he does the same, doesn't push you to say you're proud of yourself or anything. He never would.

Once you've finished that bite and taken a sip of coffee you look over at Jack again. "What about you, what have you been up to for the last five years? Or should I say who?" You try so hard to smirk when you ask it but it doesn't quite work. You want to care, think you should probably feel embarrassed, but you don't. You just need to know.

"Ha!" Jack laughs before he takes a sip of his coffee. "Hardly. There wasn't much going on there for me. I kept myself too busy."

Jack starts to ask, but doesn't have time to before you're volunteering the same information. You're not sure why you do, aren't even sure he would've asked. "Same. I was too busy for the most part. What did you do to keep yourself busy?"

You look down at your plate and miss the way Jack's head cocks just slightly. For the most part. What the fuck does that mean?

Despite how badly he wants to, Jack doesn't ask what 'for the most part' means. "Played doctor." You give him a look and he grins at you. "I did a little teaching of my own at the med school." You're almost dumbstruck as you think about Jack teaching, about Professor Abbot. Fuck. It's obscenely hot to you.

You pull yourself back to and continue listening to Jack. "Published some papers, went to conferences." Thought about flying to you and asking to get back together. He picks his cup of coffee up and brings it close to his lips. He knows you're not going to like this next one. "Went back to TEMS," Jack mumbles almost against the lip of the coffee mug and then takes a sip.

"Jack." You frown, concern flooding your face, an anxiety along with it that Jack hates seeing on your features. That look is exactly why he stopped shortly after you got together.

"I stopped, I stopped, I promise." He gives you a little smile, hopeful and playful, trying to get you to laugh or smile at him. For him. "I took up yoga in its place."

That gets him the smile he wants, amused and intrigued, your eyebrows raised, lips pressed together as you smile and bob your head to the side as you nod it at him once. "Yoga? Really?" He nods at you and you smile so beautifully at him Jack thinks his heart might stop. "Why yoga?"

He shrugs. "I lost a bet at work, a long story for another day once you've met some people, but I actually ended up kind of liking it so I went back and kept doing it and found I really enjoyed it." The two of you share a laugh and you nod approvingly at him, teasing smile on your face. "Maybe I'll drag you to a class or make you do it here with me. I don't do classes as much anymore. It's too difficult to work into my schedule with going to the gym and running."

"Maybe I'll let you," you smirk at him.

Jack rolls his eyes at you but then thoughts of you in tight yoga clothes hit him and he's shifting on the couch and moving his plate to conceal the semi he's getting that his pajama pants are doing absolutely nothing to hide. If you were still together, his answer would be obvious. Maybe I'll make you. But you're not together. It's one of those moments where it really hits him. You're not together. He does his best to not let it decimate his mood.

"I went on a big cooking kick for a while there. Taught myself all sorts of shit." Jack huffs a laugh. "Robby liked when I was on that kick. I'd make him come over to help me eat whatever I made."

You wonder if he ever cooked for another woman. If that's why he learned. It's so fucking ridiculous that this is where your mind goes, but it's where it goes. And then your thoughts devolve further.

Did he ever bring someone back here? To your place? Did he fuck someone else in your bed?

You immediately feel so nauseous you set your half eaten plate on the coffee table like you're done, sit back on the couch and pull your knees up in front of you like it'll protect you from any further hurt. You can't hold it against him if he did. It wasn't your place then. It isn't your place now.

You have no idea where Jack was planning on having you sleep tonight but you're not sure you could sleep in his bed with him, in what used to be your bed with him, if he fucked someone else there. But it's not your business. You have no right to ask. You try to distract yourself by thinking about what you did for the last five years.

Jack's eyes track you carefully, stay trained on your face trying to read your micro-expressions to figure out what's going on. "Something just happened."

Damn. You hoped he wouldn't notice, but it's Jack and even after five years he still knows you the way you know him. You furrow your brows anyway. "What?"

"Something just happened," he repeats, nodding at you. "You just thought of something."

You push your bottom lip out and shrug. You don't shake your head, you can't, because you can't lie to Jack. "I'm just full. And I'm trying to think about what I did. You did so much, it's kind of embarrassing for me."

Jack decides to let it go. For now. He'll circle back to it because you thought of something that distressed you enough to make you unable to eat.

"You earned a fucking doctorate." Jack laughs, raises his eyebrows as he smiles at you and sticks his head out a little in emphasis. "There's nothing embarrassing about that. And I'm sure you did some other stuff."

You grimace at him and shake your head. "I don't know, Jack, not really. A little bit of traveling but not enough. I was just busy with school constantly. I was TAing and studying for exams and writing and researching for my thesis." You don't say that the reason you didn't do much other than school was because you were too fucking depressed to do anything even when you did have the time. "And you know how I am." You shrug at him and smile. "Homebody."

Your stories of the last five years perfectly demonstrate how you and Jack react to that kind of depression that can threaten to consume you in such different ways. Jack tries to keep his mind busy, constantly doing and learning, even if it's learning how to clear his mind with yoga. And you shut down and revert into yourself a bit, throw yourself into school and your studies and let that consume you.

Jack hums in agreement. You can be a homebody and it's honestly something he loves about you and that was always so good for him. You balanced him, helped him slow down a little. And he balanced you, kept you from stopping completely. "That's true."

A comfortable silence falls between the two of you as Jack finishes eating. There's an edge to it though, something unresolved and not forgotten.

When he's done eating Jack sets his plate next to yours and grabs his cup of coffee before settling back on the couch. He looks at you and catches your gaze, holds it and raises his eyebrows slightly. "Are you going to tell me what you thought of?"

"No," you whisper. At least you're being honest. "It's one of those things that's none of my business."

"Try me," he says softly, giving you a warm smile that's really just the corners of his mouth quirking up.

You shake your head. Jack respects it, doesn't push you to answer or ask you again or try to guilt trip you somehow. But he does let the silence linger.

After a minute you sigh and look away. You're going to have to ask him at some point because, assuming Jack would want you there, you won't be able to get anywhere near that bed again until you know.

When you finally force the question out it's so quiet Jack almost misses it. "Did you sleep with someone else in that bed?"

He immediately knows exactly what you mean, exactly what form of ‘sleep with’ you're talking about and which bed is ‘that’ bed.

"No." The word is firm, clearly meant and truthful, but not harsh, not full of judgment for asking, not irritated or annoyed or put off by the question. "In both senses. I barely ever brought anyone back here at all." He gestures to the room so you know he's talking about the place in general. "I couldn't. It always felt so wrong."

You nod slowly, let yourself soak in his words and try to relax. You force yourself to look at him again. "Thank you. For answering."

"You're welcome." Jack's eyes flick down to your lips and he shifts in his seat so he's sitting up more and not leaning into the couch as much, sets his mug down on the arm table.

The romantic and sexual tension that's been building between the two of you suddenly triples when you mirror him, shift so that your knees are no longer bent in front of your chest opening you up to him more. When Jack's eyes find yours again there's something smouldering about them, glinting with something that feels almost possessive, his pupils a little wider than they should be in this much light. And you, you're doe eyed and looking far too innocent, your pupils as wide as his as you breathe a little too deeply for someone just sitting on the couch, chest heaving a little too much.

You think Jack's about to lunge for you and kiss you, run his hands over your body and take you back to that bed that's still yours and yours alone the way he did all the time when you were together. And Jack thinks you'd let him, thinks you'd happily give in, melt into him and let him worship you and apologize for ever letting you go and coax his name from your lips in the sweetest moans over and over.

But then you look away and clear your throat, convinced Jack wouldn't be doing it because he wants you but for one of a dozen other reasons your mind makes up. You reach for your phone on the coffee table and frown as you look at it and settle back into the couch. You won't let yourself look at Jack. You're not sure you want to see whatever it is that's written on his face, try not to think about all the things that could be.

Jack's face falls when you break eye contact with him, hurt and a kind of pain that cuts him deeper than he can admit to himself right now flashing over his features. He's not sure what he was thinking, why he thought now was the time. He just got caught up in the moment and convinced himself it felt right, that it was happening naturally and on both sides and could be the start of reuniting, of getting back together.

His expression turns to concern quickly though as he takes in your face while you look over your phone. "Everything okay?"

You swallow hard and shrug. You haven't looked at your phone since you went to call Jack when you first got to the Pitt. It's just not worth it. Looking at your phone has become more of a traumatizing ordeal than anything. Because your stalker just blows it up and it seems to have escalated dramatically now that he doesn't know where you are.

"I…" You shake your head and toss your phone at Jack because you don't even know where to begin. "Passcode's the same."

Jack shares another few seconds of eye contact with you before he grabs your phone. He can't see what the messages say yet but he sure sees the notification count. 738 messages. 243 missed calls. From one number.

Shaky fingers type in the passcode and start to go through the texts and Jack's head fucking spins at them all. They vacillate between threats and declarations of love and apologies and yelling at you and calling you names and asking you out on dates to make it all up to you.

"Jesus fucking christ," Jack breathes, runs a hand through his curls. After another thirty seconds of scrolling Jack locks your phone and sets it back on the couch between the two of you.

You're staring at the wall when Jack looks at you and he easily recognizes that you're completely and totally dissociated. He's seen you dissociate before of course, but there's something different about it this time that almost scares him. "Sweetheart?"

It doesn't break through and Jack lets out a strained breath. He's not irritated or annoyed or mad or anything like that. He's just worried, and his heart hurts at how badly he knows you're hurting and how scared he knows you are. And Jack knows there's no good way to get you back to him that won't startle you.

But he needs to.

He slides down the couch so he's next to you and grabs your hands, laces your fingers together with one hand and brings your other hand under his shirt and adjusts your fingers so that they're over one of his shrapnel scars a little above his hip and in. You and Jack had figured out this was the best way for him to get you back with him when this happened. You still startle but you calm much quicker with Jack's hand squeezing yours and your fingers feeling a scar you know is his.

"Sweetheart." Jack says it much louder, squeezes your hand hard but not enough to hurt you. This time it does get through to you and you flinch and take in an audible deep breath as a moment of disorientation and fear wash over you. "It's me, it's me. It's Jack. You're okay, you're safe."

Your eyes focus on Jack and you let the breath out slowly, nodding and squeezing his hand, your fingertips running over his scar. "Fuck," you breathe. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Jack shakes his head. The look in your eye and way you shrug tells Jack you don't want to dwell on it or talk about it and why it happened. So he doesn't ask or bring it up. "I know we talked about it a little at the hospital, but what's this guy doing? How far has he gone?"

"The phone stuff, blowing it up with calls and texts, emails. I block his number but he just gets a new one through google or whatever so it just doesn't stop." Your fingers stop over his scar and just rest there. It's so natural, something you did so often when you were together, trace his scars, that it doesn't really click in your mind how somewhat inappropriate it is for exes, for two people who are now just friends.

"Thinking back I swear I've seen him on campus once or twice, but I think that's just my mind looking for something else." You shrug. "Like I said, there's nothing that makes it explicitly clear it's him and nothing violent or that suggested violence like the photos maybe do." Jack bites his tongue to not interject that it's not a maybe. They suggest violence. They're a threat. A direct threat. "It was harassing and annoying and maybe a little scary, but it wasn't bad, I guess. Like I didn't go to the police or anything because there didn't seem like much of a reason. It just kind of escalated to… what was in the envelope overnight."

"When did you find it?" Jack asks gently, squeezing your hand. "And where?"

"Last night at my front door. I didn't go inside or anything," you shake your head. "I was too scared to. Luckily I had a really great uber driver who was going to wait until I got inside and when I told her she drove me to the hospital."

"Good," Jack nods. "Good. Do-"

"Jack, I'm sorry, but can we just… take a break? From talking about it." You look so mad at yourself after you say it and it kills Jack, as does you finally pulling your hands away from him. You shut your eyes and shake your head. "I know that's a shitty ask when I'm asking so much of you because of it. I should be willing to talk about it as much as you want."

"No." Jack squeezes your hand. "No. That's not how this works. You don't owe me anything or have to talk to me about it at length or when you don't want to."

You chew on the inside of your cheek for a few seconds and then look back at him. "Okay," you whisper.

Jack knows he needs a way to lighten things, to help get your mind off everything that's going on right now, or at least as much as possible. You guys can't, or shouldn't, really leave here and be out in public for too long, just in case. Watching TV doesn't really sound like enough right now and it's not like he can take you back to bed and fuck you and the two of you can just keep yourselves occupied in there all day.

But then it hits him and he gives you a lopsided smile. "You wanna do some yoga with me?"

Over the next few days you and Jack adjust to the situation you find yourselves in, both of you hesitant to call it a new normal, and your stalker continues to make it clear via text just how displeased and angry he is that he no longer knows where you live and isn't able to track you for long you once you leave school.

The biggest 'adjustment,' to put it lightly, is Jack switching with Robby to work day shifts until you figure this all out. It had come up that Saturday while you and Jack were having breakfast. Jack said he wanted to go see Robby and when you asked why Jack explained that he was going to see if Robby would switch and work nights for him so that he could be home every night with you. You said no at first. Absolutely not. That was way the fuck too much.

Internally, of course, you were fucking delighted at the idea and that Jack had the thought. It made you realize how much just the thought of Jack being home with you during the night relaxed you. But you couldn't ask him or Robby to do that, couldn't let them. It's just you. You don't deserve that kind of treatment, from anyone, much less them, especially after being gone for five years.

Somehow, though, Jack had brought you around. All he really had to do was let his true anxiety and fear about you being home alone at night show on his face and you were in. You couldn't stomach the thought of him being that anxious over you for his entire shift.

You know you can find ways to thank and apologize to and repay Jack and Robby for having to switch shifts and for fucking up their lives. There's absolutely no way to thank or apologize to Jack for making him suffer through that anxiety when he offered to do something simple to prevent it. There's no way you'd ever forgive yourself.

And so Jack and Robby switched shifts.

On Monday you start taking ubers to and from school, scheduled ones so that you know who the driver is in advance, and you've been going and will continue to go to the hospital every evening when you're done at school, regardless of whether Jack is working. You're able to find a picture of the guy and Jack makes sure everyone in the Pitt sees it, keeps a copy taped to the back of the break room door.

The hospital is a good place to get lost with all the entrances and exits and being able to be brought back into the actual Pitt by whoever happens to see you first. You switch where you enter and where you exit, leave wearing a different shirt or Jack's jacket and casual pants and shoes kept in his locker for you to change into. And Jack has been and will continue to be there each day to make the trip back to his place with you.

Your stalker blows your phone up even more. Every blocked number is so irritatingly and quickly replaced by a new one he gets from google voice. There's texts, hundreds and hundreds of texts spanning the spectrum of emotions, usually filled with anger and annoyance, but sometimes trying to be sweet and apologize like that'll work on you.

You haven't bothered blocking his latest number, have just turned off notifications for the number and let him go off. It's more work for you to keep blocking numbers. You know you can't delete the messages but you stop reading them because it just distresses you. But with your permission, Jack reads every single one each night.

The guy calls too, but less and less when he realizes you're not going to answer because he appears to realize he can't leave a voicemail, though you wonder to yourself how long that will last and when he'll start typing shit to have the computer read it out for him. He sends some stuff to your personal email and blows that up for a while, but seems to abandon it as you block each new email address so that he can focus on creating new numbers, and then never seems to pick emailing back up again after you just silence his current number.

Your stalker is smart enough to realize that he has to be a bit more chill at the school, probably realizes that you've talked with campus police and notices their increased presence around you and the building your office is in and the classrooms you teach in. But you can just feel him watching you at times when you're walking to and from class. A few times you've seen him, you know you have. By the time you can even pull your phone out for a photo, though, he's gone.

You're sure he knows by now that you went to the police. You and Jack went that Saturday after talking with Robby. You were able to go with an officer to your place on Saturday without Jack and pack some bags so that you had clothes and toiletries and things for work and your other electronics, and you're sure he was watching your place just hoping you'd come back alone.

It had been a whole elaborate thing on the way to Jack's to make sure the guy didn't trail you after you left your townhouse and end up finding out where you were staying and that you're staying with another man. You and Jack had decided it would be best to try and keep the guy from knowing about Jack's presence in your life for a number of reasons.

But other than that the police weren't particularly helpful. They told you that as of right now proving the identity of your stalker would require search warrants for google and ISPs and potentially reviewing hours and hours of security camera footage just for the guy to either never appear or be so well covered up you can't tell it's him. All of that takes time and manpower and this is Pittsburgh where the latter of those is in short supply, and with all the crime the city faces every day, your 'non-violent' and 'vaguely threatening' stalker isn't high on the priority list.

And you and Jack know it won't be unless and until you're injured or killed.

It absolutely fucking infuriates Jack.

Your stalker is unfortunately also smart enough to know that he can't outright threaten you constantly and that his threats generally need to be extremely subtle and written between the lines and phrased in terms that one could plausibly argue contain some other legitimate meaning. After the outright threatening nature of the photos he left you on Friday he doesn't explicitly threaten you again until Tuesday when you're walking accompanied by a campus police officer to the uber that'll take you to the hospital.

The longer you hide, my darling love, the longer my love will have to hurt you once I make you mine.

You only see it because it comes up as you're looking at your phone to confirm which car is your uber. And it's the only message you've received so far that you seriously consider deleting so that Jack doesn't see it because you know he'll lose his fucking mind over it.

And he does.

In a way it's adorable of him, how protective he gets, the way he paces to try and burn off some of the adrenaline and how he breathes harder with his jaw set and rolling, mouth in a line when he isn't voicing what he thinks about this guy and brainstorming ways to keep you safe. It's loving. It's how a boyfriend would react.

There's a couple of seconds there where you forget that you and Jack aren't together. This isn't your boyfriend pacing in front of you. You can't go fuck this out for lack of a better phrase, can't take him into the bedroom and help him relax and burn off that adrenaline and end soft and sweet and intensely intimate. You can't do anything other than try to verbally reassure him things will be okay.

It's around ten p.m. on Wednesday night and you and Jack are chilling on the couch and finishing up the bottle of wine you started while cooking and that you've been sharing since he got home. It was a long day for both of you, but especially for Jack. Today was Jack's first shift since you showed up at the Pitt on Saturday a little past one in the morning. It was his first day shift in he can't remember how long.

It was rough. Not so much the shift itself, nothing of great note happened and he enjoys his day shift colleagues, but the missing you and the worrying about you and the not being able to have his phone on loud and know he could run to you the second he needed to if something happened. That was rough, to say the least.

He held his breath every time Dana told him an ambulance was on its way, just waiting for the time she said a professor at CMU was viciously attacked or stabbed or shot. Sitting on the couch now he realizes he doesn't even know off the top of his head if CMU is in the Pitt's catchment, if you'd even be brought to him if something like that happened. He needs to find out.

The two of you finally got to the conversation about your love lives tonight, talked about what it was like for the last five years. You've spent the last hour or so sharing stories about the cringe worthy first and second dates you went on over the last five years. You'd touched briefly on your romantic histories at breakfast on Saturday but nothing overly specific. You both know far more now.

Jack didn't really consistently see anyone, didn't really try to. He'd go out on one or two dates, maybe three and inevitably break it off, a few developed into something closer to friends with benefits, with friends being a loose term. It was more someone known and safe where there was enough attraction and good sex. Jack doesn't tell you but he just couldn't do it. He couldn't date someone who wasn't you. It took him a while to be able to have sex with someone who wasn't you and it had to be with someone he didn't really have any feelings for, it had to be meaningless, about stress relief and feeling good and distraction and that's it.

Like Jack you had a few friends with benefits, but yours were closer to true friends, guys from your university who were in your friend group or your friend group's orbit who were known and safe and you were attracted to enough for there to be good sex that was understood to be meaningless and for stress relief and to feel good and be distracted and nothing more. It had taken you longer to even try dating and to have sex than it took Jack.

But unlike Jack, you did consistently see a few guys long enough to reach the define the relationship conversation. Only one survived that conversation and was labeled a relationship where you called him your boyfriend and he got to call you his girlfriend. You were only together for seven or eight months, and when Jack asks you're candid and share that he told you that he loved you, but you never said you loved him because you didn't, and ultimately that's why you broke up. You knew you would never love him.

Still. It's hard for Jack to hear. It's hard to know that another man got to share a bed with you for seven or eight months, got to fuck you and make love to you and kiss you and hold you for seven or eight months. Got to call you his for five or six or seven or however many months. He knows he shouldn't be relieved that you didn't love the guy, that he should want you to be happy, whoever that's with. But he wants you to be happy with him. He can't help the jealousy that works its way through him.

And it's fucked up and Jack knows it but it hurts that you wanted that. That you were able to do it, to date someone who wasn't him, to be in a relationship with someone who wasn't him. It doesn't feel like betrayal or like you cheated on him, you very clearly weren't together, and he doesn't hold it against you or think anything less of you for it, he isn't hurt by you. He's jealous. And he knows it. He knows that's what he's feeling.

There's a lull in the conversation as you split the rest of the wine between your two glasses and both of you take a few sips.

Jack breaks the comfortable silence as he sets his glass down and watches you take another sip. "Can I ask you something?"

You smile at him softly and it's almost enough to make his mind go blank and reset. Almost. "Of course."

"Why didn't you call me when you moved back?"

It's a fair question. You know it is. And he's asking it with genuine curiosity, you can tell. He's not trying to be a dick, and while you can tell there's hurt to it and can hear the pain and self-doubt and sadness behind his words, and can put the pieces together fast enough to realize that your conversation helped bring this on, you know it's not meant to make you feel bad or to hurt you because he's hurting. It's not vindictive.

It's a question you've asked yourself a thousand times.

The worst part is that you don't have a great answer, you don't have any answer other than, effectively, you were a coward. You were too scared to. You love him enough that you wanted him to be happy and fulfilled and being actively loved and getting to love someone back even if it wasn't you. You were just terrified you'd find out that he was happy and in love with someone who wasn't you.

You were terrified you'd find out Jack had replaced you.

You were terrified you'd find out you were replaceable to the one and only person who ever truly mattered.

And that's not a fair characterization, you know, and it's not what it truly would've been, you know, but it's how your heart and your brain and your soul would've taken it and the move and total life upheaval again and all of the change had you even more fragile. So your mind just paralyzed you so that you couldn't. It didn't matter that you might have found him single and wanting you back, your brain in some sort of weird self-preservation wouldn't let you risk it.

You swallow your sip and set your glass down, take another twenty seconds to try to organize your thoughts and formulate an answer.

"I was scared," you finally whisper. "I was scared of finding you happily married, maybe with kids, or happily in a relationship."

Jack nods slowly. So it's not that you don't want to be with him again. That you just weren't interested. He's not sure if that would've hurt more or less because now he just kind of feels like he wasn't worth it. He wasn't enough. "Finding out I was single wasn't worth the risk?"

Your face falls and you tilt your head at him slowly before straightening it back out. It's another fair question. It's another fair question that's asked out of curiosity and not spite or to be mean and that's even more loaded with self-doubt than the first.

But it’s impossible for your mind not to read him blaming you into the question. "Don't. Please don't do that Jack. Don't blame me. Don't make me feel worse than I already do, about everything. I'm not asking you questions like that. It's not that you weren't worth the risk. It wasn't that at all. You were and you are and I, I, it's not that I didn't want to be with you again either, or that I don't want to, it's not, it's, it's… It's not that I didn't want to call you, I did, I constantly did. I was just paralyzed by my anxiety and fear. I couldn't, I didn't know if I'd survive finding out I'd been replaced. I was scared. I was fucking scared. I don't know how to explain it. I was frozen Jack. I couldn't, no matter how much I wanted to. I know I would've once I was feeling better, once I had come out of it a bit and was more settled, I just, I, I needed time. I needed time."

The question rolls off his tongue before he can stop it.

"How much time?"

It shatters you.

"I don't know Jack, I don't know. I don't know how much time." Tears hit your eyes and are so obvious in your voice and you know your reaction is out of proportion. You know it's not even him or his questions that are hurting you but your own internal voice and thoughts about yourself that the questions trigger. You know your reaction is ridiculous and dramatic and way the fuck too much but you just… have it.

"Please, Jack, don't. Please don't. I get it, I do. I know. I know I fucked up, I know I fucked up when I even started contemplating actually going over there, and then I fucked up more when I even contemplated it once I knew it would mean we would break up. I know I fucked up every day I didn't quit and come home to you. I know I fucked up by not calling you or trying to find you as soon as I got back, and I know I fucked up trying to see other people and landing us in this whole mess."

"I know I fucked up, I know I constantly fucked up, I hate myself for it all the fucking time, I don't need you hating me for it too. I wrote to you every single fucking day, Jack. I kept journals, diaries, but instead of 'Dear Diary' every entry was 'Dear Jack,'" your voice breaks over his name, tears finally starting to stream down your face, "and I have them all. Five years and however many months and days worth, I fucking have them all. You can read them, they're at my place, we can bring them over. I know how it must feel like I'm using you and how unfair of me it was to just show up and drop this all on you and ask you for your help and how unfair it is for you to take me in like a helpless stray and change your fucking work schedule, I know how unfair it was, it is, and I hate myself for that too. So please, Jackie, I know. I fucking know. I know and I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry for all of it. I, I, I know and I…"

You sniffle, wipe away the tears just for them to be replaced and then take in a deep shuddery breath and let it out. "I'm sorry," you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear. You sound crushed and defeated and resigned. You sound like you truly hate yourself like you just said. It makes Jack nauseous. He didn't want this. He didn't mean to cause any of this. "I'll get out of your hair as much as possible tomorrow, be out of here and take as much of my stuff as I can, come back for the rest at some point that works for you. Thank you for everything Jack and for how truly above and beyond you've gone for me, with all of this and when we were together. For whatever it's worth I really do, and will, cherish these few days we had together. I'll um, I'll leave my key under the mat."

Jack's eyes widen and his face falls as he takes in all of your words and watches tears start to fall and you rush toward the bedrooms.

"Woah, hey. Hey." He sits up quickly as he calls your name, grabs his crutches and starts standing to go after you. "Sweetheart! Please come back and talk."

He crutches forward a few steps but stops when he hears a door shut. You need space, some time to yourself before you talk again. He knows. He recognizes the signs. So as much as he's desperate to follow you and hold you and talk it out with you, he sits back down on the couch.

Jack feels awful. He truly does. He never meant for his original question to become this, to make you run off feeling awful and like you need to leave. That's the absolute fucking last thing he wants. But as he reflects on what just happened and what he said and how he felt when he said it, Jack realizes that subconsciously, yeah, he was probably trying to make you hurt a little bit the way that hearing you had a boyfriend, someone serious in your life who wasn't him, hurt him.

While he can honestly say it wasn't his conscious intent, he still should've caught himself, should've thought about his words and the context and how he was saying them and how they'd make you feel more than he did.

His head also spins with everything you said. He hates the fact that it seems like you think and feel, at least sometimes, like all you did was fuck up over the last five years. Like every choice you made was wrong. Like it was all your fault and you were the only one who made choices and decisions relating to your relationship and potentially getting back together over the last five years. Because it wasn't just you. It was him. He could've quit at the beginning or he could've quit and gone to you at any time.

He hates that you think this, coming to him and staying with him once your stalker escalated, is somehow using him and unfair. He hates that you hate yourself for doing it because he is so fucking glad you did, that he can help protect you. He hates that you think of yourself like a helpless stray, because you're not. You're so overwhelmingly not, and Jack really hopes that you don't think he sees you like that and that he doesn't make you feel like you are.

And Jack hates the fact that you hate yourself all the time, for anything, but especially for what happened between the two of you and you coming to him for help. He hates it so much his skin itches and it's almost hard to breathe. He can't stand the thought of you thinking about yourself like that, of you being in that much psychological and emotional pain, because Jack gets it, he understands what it's like to hate yourself. And he never wants you to hate yourself, never wants you to feel like that.

Then there's the journals. The revelation that you wrote to him every fucking day for the last five years and however many months and days. He is desperate to read them, wonders what you had to say to him every day, how you wrote to him when you were in a relationship, if your words will make him laugh or cry, if they're short little entries or longer ones. Jack ruminates on them while he gives you space.

You stare at the spare bed for a moment before walking over to it. It's made again. You haven't slept in it since that first night when you only did for a couple of hours. After that first night it was just one of those unspoken things like you sleeping in the spare room had been originally.

The justifications are unspoken, it's safer and it lets you both sleep better. You haven't cuddled like you did that first night, haven't been close like that and snuggled up together. Not deliberately or consciously, at least, but you always end up waking up curled into each other somehow, drawn to each other in your sleep.

You pull the comforter and sheets back and slide in, roll onto your side and curl in on yourself as you start to cry silently. All the things you said to Jack that you feel are amplified right now, swirling through your mind so fast all you are is one big ball of sadness and anxiety and self-hate and worthlessness. It's hard to even organize your thoughts with how loud they scream at you but somehow you're able to hear and feel every single one of them.

Tears are still streaming down your face intermittently when there's a knock on the door and a quiet call of your name. You don't say anything, a move that makes you feel like even more of an asshole and a childish one at that. Jack opens the door and uses the light from the hallway to look at you. Your back is to the door, your breathing fairly even. And you're still. Still enough that from the doorway Jack can't quite tell if you're asleep.

He leaves the hall light on for now and the door open a crack so just enough light trickles into the spare room. He crutches over to the empty side of the bed and sets his crutches aside, slides in behind you. You're awake. He can just tell now that he's closer to you. You're not necessarily pretending to be asleep, you're just being quiet and still.

Jack knows you'll tell him if you want him to stop so he feels comfortable getting closer to you. He slides further over toward you, his top arm wrapping around your tummy and pulling you back into him gently as he presses himself up against the back of you, spooning you from behind.

You don't respond because you don't know what to say. Instead you respond with touch, move your top arm and grab the hand of Jack's top arm that's wrapped around you, hold onto it and tuck his arm under yours, guide his hand to your chest and lace your fingers through the back of his and hold your hands there.

"I'm sorry," Jack whispers, kissing the top of the back of your head. "Please, please don't hate yourself Sweetheart. And please don't blame yourself, for anything relating to us and to this situation." The words are truly and genuinely begged. Jack is begging you. "I don't want that. I don't want that at all. I don't blame you and I certainly don't hate you. I never could."

"I never meant to make it seem like I blamed you for anything or like I resented you or like I wanted you to blame yourself. I know that doesn't mean I didn't make you feel like that and stir up those emotions, I just want you to know it wasn't intentional, that I wasn't trying to be mean. I'm very sorry my words hurt you and I can easily see how they would've made you feel like I was blaming you or thought you'd fucked up."

Jack takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "If I'm honest with myself I can admit that I think there was a piece of me that was subconsciously trying to be a bit dick-ish because I was hurting after hearing about your relationship. But I promise that I wasn't consciously trying to hurt you even though I know I did. I didn't think about what I said before I said it or about how I said it. I'm truly sorry and I hope you can forgive me."

"It wasn't you," you whisper. "It wasn't you. I appreciate you coming and apologizing and if you need my forgiveness I forgive you but it wasn't you, Jackie. You have nothing to apologize for, I don't feel like you have anything to apologize for. You didn't say anything mean, you asked simple questions. You didn't blame me. I was twisting your words because of how I feel. You and your words didn't cause any of this. I've been feeling like this and telling myself everything I just said or at least parts of it for the last five years. It's been constant since I moved back." You pause for a second and squeeze Jack's hand, his lips pressing another soft kiss over your hair in return.

"I know you don't blame me, but I blame me." You let go of Jack's hand and scoot away from him, roll over to your other side so you can see him, your bodies naturally coming together, Jack's arms wrapped around how you both need and want. You're teary and the small, albeit somewhat sad smile drops from Jack's face almost instantly. You take a shuddery breath in, lips and chin trembling as you shrug. "And I don't know how to forgive myself or let it go or move past it. I'm sorry Jack, I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry for everything, for all of it. I'm so sorry."

Jack brings his hand up to your face and wipes away some of the tears even though they're quickly replaced. He makes sure he has your eye contact or at least the best he can through your tears. "I forgive you," Jack murmurs firmly but with all the warmth and softness and love in the world. "I don't think you have anything to apologize for and I don't blame you for anything, but I know you need to hear this. I forgive you." He leans his head forward and kisses your forehead before settling back and looking at you again. "I forgive you and I want you to forgive yourself. And I'm going to help you get there."

Your tears finally become audible as you start crying properly again. You shake your head at Jack because you hate that you're like this, that you're just crying instead of talking more because your head is too fuzzy from your previous crying and the thoughts flying around and the wine.

"It's okay," he whispers. You know exactly what he means, that even though there's still more to talk about, it's okay that the talking has ended for tonight, that he knows it was a long day for you and it was for him too, that he knows you're both tired and struggling with your emotions more because of it and that it's better to continue this conversation when you're both fresher. "Come here."

Jack's arms wrap around you a little tighter and you naturally move further into him, your head tucked just under his chin as you cry into him again. He holds you through it, steady and unwavering as he rubs your back and whispers little reassurances and squeezes you to let you know he's there with you. That he's got you, no matter what you are to each other.

He gives you a couple of minutes of silence once you stop crying to let you settle before speaking. "Come to bed with me?" Jack murmurs. "Please."

You nod against him. "Yes please," you whisper back to him.

The two of you force yourselves to separate and make your way into Jack's bedroom. You both get ready for bed quickly and then turn off the lights and slide into Jack's bed, meeting in the middle. And just like that first night you snuggle into each other, little, if any, space between you. You fall asleep in Jack's arms again, the lines of what exactly you and Jack are to each other right now blurrier than ever.

Friday night finds you and Jack in bed laying on your sides chatting.

There hasn't been much change with your stalker and his behaviors. You and Jack are both thankful for that and that there hasn't been an escalation. Or at least not a provable one. You're sure he's been on campus watching you more but you can't prove it so it leaves you feeling like a paranoid mess, which is probably what he wants.

You try to ignore it once you get home, distract yourself with Jack and making dinner and baking him his favorites and anything to get your mind off it.

"So you're actually liking day shift?" you smirk at him, eyebrows raising a touch.

You both know there's probably something a little too intimate about laying in bed together like this on your sides and chatting, even with all the space in between you and the way you're not touching at all. You guys can't help it. You end up like this naturally. You did yesterday and nothing really happened so you tell yourselves it's fine, you're just talking, winding down before bed, only the soft glow of the warm toned light-bulb Jack keeps in his bedside lamp illuminating the room.

But unlike yesterday you both start to move closer to the other every time you speak. It's subconscious and not something either of you even realize is happening.

It's leading somewhere, to something even the universe is surprised has taken this long to happen.

"I am," Jack laughs. "It's been a refreshing change of pace."

"Yeah?" Your smirk deepens as you laugh with him.

"Yeah," he nods, laughter trailing off into a smile that steals your breath. "And I like that it gives me more time with you. Or at least it feels like it does right now."

"Jack," you giggle, "that is so not a reason to like a shift."

He tuts at you. "Abso-fucking-lutely it is!"

It's not that neither of you realize exactly what Jack's words about day shift giving him more time with you mean. It's that the meaning is so natural, so obvious and true and makes so much sense with what the two of you have together that it's just not something that strikes you.

But the thing is, you both seem to be forgetting the two of you don't have that together anymore. That you're not together, not a couple.

Since Wednesday night the tension between you and Jack has started to break like a sheet of ice over a pond, cracks forming just beneath the surface that strain to keep separation between water and air. Between you and Jack.

You roll your eyes at him playfully, close enough now that your legs tangle with Jack's. "You're ridiculous."

Jack continues moving closer, your thighs pressing against each other's and then your lower abdomens, and then your upper abdomens, the two of you pressed together and cuddling like you used to when you were lovers. You couldn't get any closer and still be able to easily see all of each other's faces as you chat. Jack pulls his lips down in consideration, raises his eyebrows, eyes glinting mischievously, but in a way that tells you he means it and is being serious. "Might ask Robby to make it permanent."

"You love the night shift." You shiver when Jack drapes his arm over your side and starts running his index finger up and down your spine. "You'd resent me for making you change after a while."

"You're not making me do anything. It would be my choice." Jack's head moves closer to yours and you rest your top hand along the crook of his neck, thumb brushing absentmindedly over his skin. "And we'd have to try to actually work it out, but if day shift gave me more time with you then I'd easily love it more than the night shift."

"Yeah?" you breathe, everything finally hitting your conscious mind at once. Your head only moves closer to Jack's in response.

Jack's conscious mind is hit by it all at the same time, his heart starting to race at how close yet how achingly far away his lips are from yours. "Yeah," he whispers as you both move your heads in to close the last of the distance.

Your lips hover a millimeter apart for a few seconds ghosting over each other with breaths that are hot against sensitive skin before they brush a little more firmly, something you can really feel as you both whisper another "yeah."

You and Jack finally kiss, soft and short and sweet. Your foreheads rest against each other's for a second before you both pull back just enough to look the other in the eyes.

And then the tension shatters around you, and you and Jack are finally kissing.

Kissing like you used to. Kisses that are gentle and achingly loving and lingering building into kisses that are hungry and needy and passionate building into kisses that are hard and consuming and possessive.

The first time Jack's tongue slides into your mouth and he lets out one of those groans from deep in his chest that says I love you so fucking much and always will just as loudly as it says I fucking need you and to be inside of you it's like everything falls back into place in your world, and it's exactly the same for Jack when you moan into his mouth and wordlessly say the same exact thing. Everything is okay again. Happiness feels real again. You think you could make it through anything again.

Jack lets you into his mouth, sucks on your tongue because he fucking can and because he knows you like it, nips and sucks on your bottom lip for the same reason. Your hands roam each other, rub and tease at all the right spots because you still have each other memorized. When your hand finds the curls at the nape of his neck and tug Jack needs more, knows you need more too.

It's natural the way Jack rolls you onto your back in the middle of the bed while still kissing you, still pulling the sweetest sighs and hums from you. Your legs wrap around him to keep him close and open yourself up for him further. It lets you both get more friction when your hips start to grind and roll against each other's.

After who knows how long you slide your hands under his shirt, let them glide over firm muscle that's covered by the perfect amount of softness that's always driven you insane, that you've nibbled on and sucked hickeys into hundreds of times. The fabric comes with you as you move your hands up Jack's chest and he gets the picture, shifts to support his body weight on his knees while your legs drop off him so that he can reach back and pull his shirt off like you're silently asking him to.

There's hardly any time to truly appreciate him and his body in earnest because his abs are strong enough that he can stay low and hold himself up without his arms to get his shirt off. You'd whine about it but Jack's lips are back on yours claiming you again, and his warm, smooth skin and the muscles you can feel rippling beneath it make it all better.

When you both need more air than you can get while kissing each other Jack moves his lips to your neck. As you try to catch your breath while he lavishes your neck with kisses it hits you.

You fucking can't. You cannot do this.

"Jack," you breathe out. You move your hands to his chest and push gently. "We, we have to stop, we can't…."

"What?" he asks in a breath of his own as he pulls his head from your neck. He sits back on his knees between your legs, always a man to stop and get off you first and ask questions second. "What's wrong?"

You look up at him and open your mouth to say something but no words come out. It's unusual, and it almost never happens, or it almost never happened in at least the last two years you were together, but Jack can't read the look in your eyes. He can't tell what this is.

Jack lets the confusion wash over his face, brows furrowed as he cocks his head at you and shakes it slightly. "I, I have condoms and I'm clean if that's what you're worried about."

You shake your head slowly, tears filling your eyes and something Jack easily recognizes as heartbreak and emotional pain pulling onto your face. "It's not that Jack," you whisper. "We can't because I, in the morning we'll, I'll…" You have no idea why you can't find the words to finish your sentence and explain how you feel.

But you don't need to say anything else. It clicks in his mind.

"Oh," Jack whispers.

Regret. That's the look in your eyes that he couldn't place, couldn't read, regret. Because you've never looked at him with regret, like he's something or someone you could regret until now. A pain so sharp he can't breathe for a minute hits his heart, his stomach in a knot and head fuzzy as the blow emotionally levels him.

"Wow," Jack finally breathes. You don't think you've ever heard him sound so hurt and it destroys you, tears falling immediately because you did that. You hurt him like that. You made him feel like that. Other than the slight creak of the bed and the sheets rustling as Jack moves away from you to the edge of the bed so that his back is to you the room is silent and still. Tears line Jack's eyes as he forces the words out. Forces himself to acknowledge it. "I didn't think I'd ever be something you could regret. A mistake."

"What?" you whisper, genuine confusion and horror in your tone.

"We have to stop and you can't because you'll regret this in the morning, that's what you were going to say. Regret being with me. Regret me." Jack thinks he might actually be sick as the tears start to fall, is so breathless and having such deep pain in his chest he's worried he might actually be having a heart attack. "Fuck, wow. That… That hurts."

"No!" you gasp, the shock still running its way through your system. "No. No, no, no, no." You sit up and scramble to sit on your knees next to him at the edge of the bed. "Oh my god, Jack no! No. That's not why, that's not why at all." You've started to shake, watching Jack's heart break in front of you something you'll never be able to unsee or unhear. When you broke up you'd both managed to keep it together until you parted, fell apart and let your hearts break in private. But Jack's just broke right in front of you.

Tears that match Jack's own stream down your face as you beg him. "Look at me, please. Please, Jack." It takes him a second but he does, looks at you without trying to hide a single emotion on his face because he knows it would be futile, that he couldn't right now. "Never," you breathe, shaking your head at him. You take his head in your hands and hold his gaze as intensely as ever. "I could never regret you. You could never be a mistake. Please know that. I'm sorry for making it seem and feel otherwise for even a second. I'm so sorry, Jackie. But that is not what I meant, I promise. There is no part of me that could ever regret you, regret being with you and loving you."

Jack's lips tremble and a cascade of tears fall down his cheeks before he leans his head into one of your hands, your words and how desperate and panicked you look for him to believe you reassuring him that this has been some sort of miscommunication.

"That's what I thought," he whispers. "That's how you always made me feel, like you could never regret me and that's why it hurt so badly. I shouldn't have assumed, shouldn't have put words in your mouth."

"It's okay," you murmur. Jack nods his head in the direction of the headboard and shifts, gets comfortable sitting up and leaning against it. You crawl onto his lap, wrap your legs around him between his back and the headboard and hug him. He hugs you back just as tightly, holds the back of your head to keep you close. "It's okay, Jackie."

The two of you sit like that for a while, soak up each other's presence and closeness and heal so many pieces that neither of you thought you'd ever be able to.

It's Jack who breaks the silence praying his curiosity won't ruin everything. "If it's not that… I respect you saying no and that we have to stop and I'm not pushing you for anything or to start again and I recognize you don't owe me an explanation so you don't have to answer of course, but why…? Why we can't do this again?"

You pull out of the hug and look at him, hopeless and helpless almost. You start to move and Jack thinks he's ruined everything but you just move back off his lap so that you're sitting between his legs, your calves still on top of his thighs.

"I just, I said we can't because… It's me, Jack." You shrug at him as tears hit your eyes again. "I'm not strong enough for this. I don't want you to regret this in the morning. And I don't want you to be doing this because you feel bad for me or feel bad in general or because you're tired and your judgment lapsed or because I'm here and comfortable and familiar and sex is good stress relief or because of some sort of trauma bonding thing that's happening and bringing us together for a short time."

You shake your head at him, crying and looking devastated in the most beautiful way that makes Jack want to sob. "I can't do this casually with you, Jack. I can't just be friends with benefits and two people having sex and almost playing house because of circumstance. I know we're halfway there and just the playing house alone is killing me slowly I think. I need the divide, the intimacy divide. So I can't do this and have there not be an us. I can't do this and not have you, for real. Like I used to. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I just can't. I promise you it has nothing to do with regret though, Jack. I could never regret you."

"I just couldn't survive our casual arrangement ending and losing you again. I barely survived losing you the first time, Jack, and I never got over you." You sniffle, wipe away some of your tears just for them to be replaced. "I'm still hopelessly and completely in love with you Jack. So I can't do this, I can't be with you casually until all of this passes and then we just go back to strangers who know each other far too well. I can't do this and not be in a relationship with you, not be yours again and get to call you mine and show you and tell you I love you."

"And there's way too much going on for you to be able to decide with any clarity whether getting back together with me, truly getting back together, is something you'd want or would be good for you and your life. It's not fair of me to ask you to make that decision right now. So I'm sorry." Your lips and chin tremble as you take in a deep, shuddery breath and let it out, tears flooding your cheeks again as you do. "I'm so sorry, Jack."

It's quiet for a few seconds as Jack lets all your words sink in. And then he gives you the quietest breathed out laugh because this is so fucking silly of you and you're so fucking cute and precious and worried for no fucking reason and he gets it, he so fucking gets it because he feels the exact same way and he just loves you so much.

"Sweetheart," he whispers. Jack tilts his head at you and licks his lips before giving you an empathetic smile. "First of all, you never need to apologize to me or anyone else for having a boundary and setting it and enforcing it, okay?"

You nod and sniffle again, wipe away some of your tears as you try to pull it together. Jack leans forward and grabs his shirt from up near the other pillow where he tossed it after he pulled it off and offers it to you as a handkerchief. You huff a laugh and smile all watery at him as you take it and use it and Jack thinks he has to be glowing at how good and how proud he feels for making you smile and laugh, as small as they were.

"Second of all," he continues on, "I could never regret you either. You are the best thing I could ever do, will have ever done.” Jack gives you a little wink. "In all senses."

"Third, this, what we were just doing, kissing and working towards foreplay and sex, it was never casual or just sex to me. With everything else going on, how we were talking and interacting, how we have been since you moved back in," that's a little Freudian slip because you haven't really technically moved back in, "this was us getting back together. For me this was us getting back together. And I very much should've clarified that and asked you and not assumed you just knew and felt and thought the same way as me, but that's what this was. For me this was the start of you getting to call me yours and me getting to call you mine again."

"And fourth," Jack has to laugh a little at how adorable you are wiping your nose and face with his shirt and then looking at him so earnest and concerned and in love. "You think I'm not hopelessly and completely in love with you still? You really think there's any question in my mind about whether I want to be in a relationship with you again? A question about whether I want us again and to call you mine and be called yours?"

"Because there's not," he shakes his head, smiling widely at you, though it falters a little with tears you know are of love and happiness. "Wanting this, wanting you and us again, it's not because of trauma bonding or because you're here and familiar and comforting, though you are. It's because I am so goddamn out of my fucking mind in love with you. And I want to get to tell you that I love you again, get to show you again, and I want to wake up and have the privilege of loving you and on you every day for the rest of my life."

"I've lost over five years with you and I don't need to lose a second more thinking about whether I want you as mine again and whether I'm doing this for the right reasons because the answer is yes. You know how many times I thought about quitting or taking a leave of absence and going to you and begging you to take me back and for us to figure it out? Too many to fucking count. There hasn't been a single day that has gone by since we broke up that I haven't thought about you and haven't wanted you back."

Jack drops his voice a little, a heartfelt if not slightly anxious smile pulling onto his features. "But you have a lot going on too and it would be hard for you to make that decision with clarity. I don’t want you to feel like you have to or like I’m taking advantage of you and how you're feeling and where you're at emotionally. I respect you saying no. I don't want you to think you have to do this for me, have sex or get back together with me, in order for me to help you and protect you because you don't. You absolutely fucking don't. If you want to get back together, like you do with me, I want it to be for the right reasons and not-"

You toss Jack's shirt to the side and shift, climb back onto Jack's lap properly and shut him up with a lingering kiss that turns into several. "I love you too. I always have and I always will. There hasn't been a single day since we broke up that I didn't love you. I can show you the journals. I didn't always say it explicitly but I'm pretty sure it's there in the words," you murmur.

"I want to be yours again. I want you to be mine again. I never didn't want to be yours Jack, and the number of times I almost quit and came back for you is probably concerning," you laugh softly. "I wanted to find you as soon as I got back but I was too controlled by my fear of finding you with someone else or married with kids or whatever. I'm sorry I didn't call you the second I landed, shit, the second I took the job and knew I'd be coming back."

"I haven't said anything or tried to instigate something or anything like that because I didn't want you to feel forced or like any of the other things we talked about. But I've been dying for this, Jackie. For us to be back together." You kiss one of his cheeks. "For me to be yours again and you to be mine." A kiss to his other cheek. "For you." You kiss his lips chastely. "I've been dying for you, Jack."

"You want to be together again?" Jack just has to double check. "You want to be us again?"

"Yeah," you giggle, nodding at him. "To both. Do you?"

Jack laughs, his hands coming up to hold your face. "Yeah, I do."

You and Jack smile at each other for half a second and then your lips are on each other's again, picking up right where you left off. It's a little more hurried this time, each of you loving this but desperate for Jack to be inside of you.

He sits up onto his knees carefully and repositions the two of you so that you're beneath him again, your head comfortably against a pillow as he grinds down into you, his mouth claiming yours until you have to pull away from him a little to catch your breath. Jack uses the time you need to catch your breath to pull your shirt and pajama shorts off so fast you've barely processed your shirt coming off by the time Jack has your legs in front of him and resting against his shoulders as he pulls your shorts off and sets your legs back on either side of him like they were putting you on full display for him.

Jack's eyes run over your body greedily, his chest starting to heave because fucking look at you. "God, fuck!" he groans, palming his cock over his pajama pants as he stares down at you, at all of you. "All five years did was make you get even more beautiful for me. Look at you. Your beautiful face. Your fucking tits and pussy, so perfect just like the rest of you, fuck. I'm so fucking lucky."

"You're one to talk," you breathe out, eyes raking over the half of Jack's body revealed to you just as greedily. "You're so handsome it's almost painful Jack. And the salt and pepper and the white stubble."

"And the crow's feet?" Jack drags his eyes up to yours and smirks at you.

You laugh softly and lick your lips. "You won't believe me but yes. Fucking yes. I find them so hot, you have no fucking idea."

He teasingly rolls his eyes at you and goes to lean back over you to kiss you again and grind into you more but you stop him. "Nu-uh, Sir. Take your pants off."

Jack clenches his jaw, you calling him sir and the needy, desperate look in your eyes making him leak for you. "Anything for you, Sweetheart." He works his pants off and tosses them aside, gives you what you want and pushes up so he's standing on his knees and you can take him in.

Your eyes roam him just as greedily as his did yours, and you can feel yourself get wetter for him. "Fuck, Jack," you moan. "Look at you." Even with your legs spread enough to accommodate his frame you can start to feel your heartbeat in between them.

You lean up on one elbow and reach out with your other arm and take Jack's cock in your hand, stroke him up and down slowly, twisting at his head how you know he loves. He feels good in your hand and it makes you realize how badly you need him in your mouth.

"You, you gotta stop, Sweetheart," Jack groans a laugh. "I'll embarrass myself and come way too fast for you. Being inside of you again is already going to be challenging."

"I don't care," you hum, but let him pull your hand away from his cock. "Just as long as I get to feel you inside of me."

"You're very sweet." Jack leans back over you and goes to kiss you again, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pinning it to the bed. "But I care," he murmurs against your lips.

He moves his hand off your wrists and brings it down between the two of you, shifts so that he's on his side a bit, one arm planted and taking some of his body weight for you as the fingers of his other hand nudge your clit.

"Oh." The word is almost all air as Jack's fingers start playing with your clit, teasingly diving down closer to your pussy every few strokes. "Jack, fuck!"

"So wet for me already," Jack whispers at your ear as he starts to kiss your neck, suck and nip at it in the places he knows are the most sensitive for you. He starts circling one of his fingers around your entrance teasingly, will barely dip inside and smile against your skin when you buck your hips as much as you can to try to get him inside of you. He can feel how hard you clench when his finger starts to dip inside. "Relax for me, Sweetheart."

"Jesus Jack," you laugh through a moan. "How the fuck do you expect me to do that when you're teasing me with your fingers?"

"I believe in you."

You have absolutely no explanation for why that's one of the hottest things Jack's ever said to you but it sure fucking is, sends a bolt of pleasure up your spine and makes you clench even harder for a second. Your eyes flutter closed and you focus on relaxing, focus on staying relaxed when Jack's finger starts to push inside of you, your mind fixating on the praise you hope to earn.

"Mm," Jack hums in approval as he starts to pull his finger out. He starts to finger you properly, crooks his finger and drags it just where he needs to. His lips find yours for something soft, that barely counts as a kiss. "See, I knew you could do it." He gives you a kiss this time, followed by what you were so hoping to hear. "My good girl."

As he says it he slips a second finger inside of you with the first and you jolt for him, eyes flying open at the rush of pleasure his two thick fingers bring you when they work that spongy spot inside of you so insistently before starting to fuck you again. He keeps at it, works you so perfectly and has you teetering so close to the edge before he finally puts his palm flat for you and lets you grind your clit up against it.

"Jack," you pant, stilling your hips so your clit doesn't grind against his palm as hard anymore. "Jackie I'm so close, I'm so… You're so good, make me feel so good."

"I know you are Sweetheart." He kisses along your jaw, starts to suck and lave at one of the most sensitive spots you have just below and slightly behind your ear. "Come for me."

"No." You shake your head and wrap your hand around as much of his wrist as possible to stop his movements. "The first place I'm coming for you after five years is on your cock Jack Abbot."

Jack chokes out a groaned laugh, his cock throbbing against him and smearing precum over his abs at your words. "Jesus fuckin' christ, Sweetheart."

"Jackie," you pout, play into it for him a little. "Please! I need you inside me. Need your cock inside of me."

He shivers at the thought, can't believe he's about to be again and not just in his dreams. "Alright, shh, I've got you." Jack pulls his fingers from you, moans when he sucks them clean and gets his first taste of you in five years.

You can see it in his eyes, know what he's thinking about. "Later," you pant. "You can eat me out later. I need you to fuck me, Jack. No condom unless you want. I'm clean and still on birth control." Both you and Jack are struck by how inadvertently heady your words are, the thought of him fucking you raw and coming inside of you making both of you a little dizzy for a second. "I need you inside of me, need you back where you belong, please."

"I know," he soothes, "I know, I'm gonna give it to you, I promise. Tell me if you need me to stop or slow down, okay?"

You bite your bottom lip and nod and Jack adjusts both of you, slides his cock through you a few times to get himself slick. He notches himself at your entrance so all he has to do is press in steadily and claim you again.

Before he does he slides his arms under your shoulders and takes your face in his hands so gently. He holds your face like that and the two of you hold eye contact as Jack sinks inside of you, the stretch exactly what you remember, almost too much but also almost not enough, intoxicating and addictive, words that also describe how your pussy feels to Jack.

"Fuck Sweetheart," Jack groans, raw and vulnerable almost, so clearly holding nothing back and letting you hear exactly how you make him feel.

"Jack!" you gasp, your breath stolen by so many things, the size of Jack, the way he feels so familiar, how right it feels to have him sliding back inside of you, how good him just being inside of you makes you feel. "JackJackJack."

"Oh god, I missed you," Jack rasps, his chest heaving. He couldn't describe this, how good he feels, how right and perfect everything feels if he tried. "Missed you like this, so fucking much."

Jack's still, rests his forehead against yours as he gives you time to adjust and both of you time to just enjoy this, the feeling of each other, of being one again.

"I love you," he whispers through soft pants. He pulls his forehead from yours and looks down at you. "I never stopped, I could never stop. I never didn't want you." Jack leans down to kiss you and just that little movement of him inside you makes you both keen. "You've always had me and you always will. I'll always be yours. That's all I want in life, to be yours."

"Oh Jack," you whisper. Tears start to leak from the corners of your eyes and Jack's face furrows in concern and confusion. "They're good tears, Baby," you reassure him. You press your lips together hard and click your tongue against the back of your teeth before you speak again. "I just missed you. I missed you so much and I never stopped loving you either, I never didn't want you. I was and will always be yours too, and that's the only thing I'll ever need in life to be happy. You're the only thing I'll ever need. Just you." You lean up a little and capture his lips with yours, kiss him like you're trying to pour five years of missed love into his heart and soul, because you are. "I love you."

Jack's teary when pulls back to look down at you and hold your gaze as he says it back with the sweetest love drunk smile. "I love you."

Jack draws his hips back slowly, groaning low as he thrusts back inside of you at the same speed. He wants to make this last, wishes it could never end, this feeling of being reunited and finally home and how good you feel after over five years.

"I missed this," Jack groans, "I missed you, missed you like this, god I missed you so much." He can't stop going on about it because he did, he missed you more than should be humanly possible, your reunion underscoring the feeling for him.

"I missed you too. Love you so much Jackie," you sigh, the sound so pretty Jack chokes on his breath and has to clench his abs hard to make sure he doesn't lose it and spill into you far too early.

Jack continues to fuck you slowly, but hard, with his whole body, his back hunching with every thrust as he uses it to drive himself into you. With your legs wrapped around him Jack's able to hit deep, makes you feel like he's the only thing to exist in the moment as he steals your ability to think of anything but him.

You slip a hand into his curls while the other wraps under his arm and back over his shoulder, clawing at the muscle to help keep you grounded to something. Jack grunts in pleasure when your hand finds his curls. He loves the way you tug at them, scratch at his scalp before you get so fucked out that all you can do is pull on them.

Jack buries his head in your neck at first, whispers the sweetest little things. And then he starts sucking and kissing at your neck, nipping at it as he makes his way up to your jaw and then over until he's finally kissing your lips again.

You make out for what feels like forever but isn't anywhere near long enough as Jack fucks you, moan and sigh into each other's mouths as you take all the pleasure you can from each other, show the other how much you love them with your bodies. When you break for air Jack pulls one of his hands from your face and slides it between the two of you and starts rubbing your clit perfectly.

"Fuck, Jack, you feel so good, make me feel so good," you start to babble, a little oxygen deprived on top of how fucked out and cock drunk Jack has you.

Jack picks up his pace, but it's nothing too fast, still very much love making as opposed to outright fucking. "Yeah, you feel so good too, pretty girl," Jack pants. "You're so fucking tight, so fucking wet for me."

You tug at Jack's curls hard, claw your fingers into his skin enough for it to give him the perfect little edge of pain that encourages him to pick his pace up just a little more.

"Jack," you breathe his name and he can hear it, can hear how close you are for him, can feel how close you are, how good he's making you feel. "Don't stop, please don't stop. Jackie, please… please, I love you, don't stop."

"Come for me Sweetheart," Jack murmurs, voice raspy from all of his groans. "Make me come." He gives you a lingering kiss and then nuzzles his nose against yours before looking you in the eyes as he pants out another instruction to you, uses the pet name he doesn’t use often to keep it special, the one he knows is simultaneously the one you find hottest when he calls you it in bed and the one that makes you tear up and get all mushy and lovey when he says it outside of bed. "Let me feel you, Baby."

And you do. You absolutely shatter around Jack, soundless with how hard your orgasm crashes into you. All of it, Jack's words and the look in his eyes and his cock and his fingers, is far too much for your system to handle in the best way.

"Jack!" you moan loudly, higher-pitched and needy. "Oh, god, Baby! Fuck- Jack, I love you," you pant, so obviously fucked out of your mind that you're struggling to remember how to catch your breath. "Shit I can't breathe, it's too much, you feel too good, can feel you everywhere."

"Fuck you look so pretty when you come," Jack nearly growls, pulling his hand from between you to give your clit a break, his pace picking up just a little more, fucking you through your orgasm and chasing his own. "Just like I remembered, just like I fucking remembered, could never forget my beautiful girl." The words drip off his tongue, pleasure slurred and nearly pained in ecstasy. "Shit, Sweetheart! I'm gonna come, fuck, fuck, I'm gonna come."

The thought of Jack coming in you brings you back enough to encourage him, to focus on him and how he's feeling and how it feels when he comes in you, your pussy clenching and fluttering around him at the thought. "Please, Jack, I need it. Need you to come, need to feel you come in me."

"Yeah," he pants, "yeah, I will. Claim you again, make you mine… yeah."

Jack comes with the most erotic groan of your name, the sound pure gravel and sex, lined with an adoration that screams how hopelessly in love with you he is and how much he loves that fact. "Oh, oh Sweetheart, fuck," he groans. "Oh I love you, I love you so fucking much, fuck, you feel so good, I missed you."

He fucks himself through it, his entire body trembling with the sheer amount of pleasure rushing through his veins, oxytocin and endorphins and adrenaline and dopamine flooding Jack's system as he slows, mumbling your name and "so good for me, you're so so good for me, thank you Baby, love you so much," over and over until he stills completely, keeps his cock buried inside of you.

"Jack," you whisper, staring up at him with eyes drowning in pleasure, airy smile on your face as the intoxicating afterglow of sex with Jack settles over you. "That was…"

"I know," he whispers back, his blissed out smile taking over his face far too much for him to give you the teasing, self-satisfied smirk he tries to. "I agree."

Jack leans down and kisses you, the two of you making out slowly as your heart rates return to normal, your breaks for air punctuated by kisses to each other's faces. When Jack starts moving his kisses down your neck and keeping them teasingly soft to tickle you, you tug gently on his curls.

"Come here, Handsome," you say softly, knowing he'll understand your request for him to lay on top of you and cuddle.

Jack nods, presses one last kiss against your lips. He looks down at you for a moment, eyes running over your face and then holding your gaze. "You really are my beautiful girl, you know that? You always have been, even thousands of miles apart and not together," he murmurs.

A lump forms in your throat and you can feel the tears start to threaten. You never thought you'd be one of those people lucky enough to be looked at the way Jack is looking at you, and it hits you that, while there is something special and particularly intimate about this moment that adds a bit of an extra edge, Jack is looking at you the way he always looks at you.

What you don't realize is that you look at him the exact same way. Always.

"Jack," you whisper, unable to come up with anything to say other than the only thing that matters to you. Him.

There's so much you want to say to him, so much that you need to say, to make sure he knows just like there's so much he wants and needs to say to you, to make sure you know. But it's not the time, both of you know that. So you settle on the words that say everything all at once but will still never be enough to truly express how you feel about him. "I love you."

He smiles at you, teasing and a little smirked, too handsome for his own good, and so genuinely and purely happy that you think time stops for you. "Yeah," he breathes out, lowers himself on top of you and buries his face in your neck, nuzzling his nose against you. "I know." You bite your lip and giggle quietly, barely let the sound out of your chest and Jack hums a laugh with you, moves his face and kisses just below your ear, sweet and tender and lingering. "I love you too."

The next two weeks go by surprisingly fast.

You're pretty sure the first of the two weeks went by so fast because your stalker seemed to keep intensifying and get more threatening without doing anything that would be enough for the police to get truly involved, and so you were just so scared that time was blurry. He continued to blow up your phone and you continued to do your best to ignore it. You know you saw him on campus each day, but still never got a picture. It was like he wanted you to see him and know he was there and watching you, waiting patiently for what exactly you weren't sure and weren't going to think about too hard.

You found little gifts outside your office door that first Tuesday and Friday. At first you thought the one on Tuesday was from Jack, a cute little plush of your favorite animal, a sweet note that it's there to keep you company until you're back together again. When you called Jack to thank him and he had told you that it wasn't him, that he didn't get you anything, and you realized it was your stalker you actually had to hang up on Jack and were sick into your trash can at work. Jack had called you back in a panic of course, but you reassured him you were fine and went about your day as much as you could with how distracted you were. When you saw the box on Friday you immediately texted Jack and when he said it wasn't him again you didn't even open it, just threw it away.

That Saturday you'd gone with a couple of Jack's friends to your old place and finished packing everything and getting it all out. Luckily you'd rented a furnished place since you were moving back from another country, so you didn't have a ton to move, mostly just personal stuff. It was a whole fucking ruse to get everything to Jack's while making sure you weren't tailed, but you all seemed to have pulled it off together.

You're pretty sure the second week, this past week, goes by quickly because it's so… quiet. You don't hear anything from your stalker that Sunday. You think it's strange and the silence is almost more disconcerting than anything but you try to rationalize that, as awful as it is, the guy probably found someone else, and so you try to be cautiously optimistic. Jack is less so. He doesn't like the sudden complete disappearance.

Because that's what happens. It stays silent. Your stalker disappears. You don't hear from him the rest of the week, don't find any presents outside your office, don't see him on campus or feel like you're being watched. He's just gone.

You'd been terrified when you went into work yesterday morning. Despite your attempt at being cautiously optimistic you couldn't help the pit that had formed in your stomach and told you something was wrong and was going to happen. You were sure you were going to walk to your office Monday morning and find something, that your phone would start to go off again with even worse and more threatening messages. But there was nothing waiting for you anywhere and nothing happened. It was a normal Monday.

And Tuesday starts normally.

Jack sits on the bed next to you and leans down, kisses your face and lips until you wake up for him. He has to leave to get to work on time far earlier than you have to leave for work, especially today. "Hi Sleepy," he greets you with another kiss.

"Hi," you hum against his lips. "You off?"

"Unfortunately," he sighs. He hates leaving you, even now that things have calmed down. The silence feels wrong. It feels like your stalker is trying to lure you into a false sense of safety.

"It'll be okay." You reach up and run your hair through his curls. "Just another day still sticking to the plan. I'll make sure I'm not alone and I'll come to the Pitt right after my last class, okay?"

"Okay," Jack nods slowly, biting his lip. His face furrows, lips pull down in a frown. "I'm not trying to be controlling, you know? It’s the thought of something happening to you, I, I-"

"Hey," you interrupt him gently, give him what you hope is a reassuring smile. "I don't think you are or are trying to be controlling, I promise. I know it's just that you love me."

"Good," he nods again, looking so serious for a few seconds before he lets out a long breath and manages to give you a small smile. "Good. Because I do and that's what this is, it's just me loving you and needing you and to keep you safe. I love you so much. I love you more than you'll ever know."

"I love you that much too, Jackie." You lean up on your elbows so you can kiss him. "I love you as much as you love me. And a little extra because I love you more."

Jack laughs softly against your lips. "In your dreams, Sweetheart."

You smirk against his lips, press a light kiss to them. "In my reality, Sir."

Jack pulls back and shakes his head at you, chuckling as you giggle for him. "Just text me yeah?" He raises his eyebrows at you a touch. "So I know you're okay. I might not be able to respond much depending on how things get there, but I like knowing."

"Of course," you nod. "And I'll call once I'm in an uber on my way to the Pitt. If I don't get you I'll call the desk."

"Thank you." Jack leans back down and wraps his arms under you in a hug and kisses you. And kisses you and kisses you and kisses you until he knows he has to pull away and finds the strength to do so. "I love you, Sweetheart. I love you so much."

"I love you so much too, Jackie." You steal one last kiss from him before letting him go.

Jack walks over to the bedroom door and looks back at you, heart aching beautifully at the sight of you already looking at him, curled up on his side of the bed with your head on his pillow. He smiles at you. "Bye. I love you."

You give him a beaming smile back, happy you were able to make him smile one last time before he really had to go. "Bye. I love you."

When you get to school you head to your office to get your stuff for your first class, check your email. There's nothing waiting for you outside the door and you feel some tension melt away. And when you get back to your office from your first class there's still nothing waiting, your phone still silent other than wanted texts from Jack. You lock your office door and spend the next few hours working until it's time for your second class, and then you go straight from your second class to your third when a couple of students stay after class with you and chat with you in the busy hallway.

After your third class you're relieved when you walk up to your office door and don't see any packages waiting outside for you. Another day without anything happening at school. You unlock the door and walk in, set the bag you use for all of the class shit you have to haul around with you in its spot and then go to grab your purse.

But that's when you see it. Another present, placed right on the center of your desk.

It's an oversized ring box that's intricately wrapped with what would in any other situation be a very beautiful bow. This present hits harder than all the rest for two reasons. One, it was quiet. You had over a week of silence. He was gone. He was supposed to be gone, your life was supposed to be able to go back to normal. And two, it was in your office. Your locked office. He had to break in to plant it. Sure it's not some biometric ultra secure lock situation, but still. He broke in. During the day. That's an escalation.

You scream at yourself not to open it, to do what you did with the last one you got and just throw it away. But there's just some nagging feeling you have that tells you that you should open it.

So, with shaky hands, you do.

You sit in your chair and then tear the paper off unceremoniously and throw it away before opening the box. What you find is so fucking cliché that in any other circumstance you'd laugh or roll your eyes at it. But right now, knowing it's from your stalker who has a gun it's anything but. It's a threat all on its own.

Where there would normally be a ring there's a bullet with your name literally engraved on it.

You stare at it for a solid minute before you're able to remember how to move your eyes and look at something else. A neatly rolled scroll of paper wrapped in dainty twine is wedged into the top of the box. At this point you don't want to look at it. You don't want to know.

But you have to know.

You pull the note out and get the twine off, unfurl it and start reading.

Make sure you have this with you when I get you from school. And don't worry, my love, as long as you finally behave and cooperate I won't use it anywhere fatal, just somewhere it'll hurt enough to teach you a lesson.

Your blood pressure skyrockets so fast so quickly that you think you lose vision for a moment, are able to feel your heart pounding in your eyes. You take in a gasping breath, hadn't realized you’d been holding it since you started to read the note.

You're frozen as your brain tries to process the last four minutes. Tears hit your eyes but they're not even for yourself. They're for Jack, for what you know this is going to do to him. You can already hear him talking again about getting out of the city while he hires a private investigator to prove it's the guy.

There's a knock on your door and you leap out of your seat and turn around, think all of this might not matter in the end because you're going to have a fucking heart attack and die right here on your office fucking floor. Your hand flies to your chest and you take in gasping breaths when you see it's just one of the campus police officers.

The officer looks horrified at the reaction he caused. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you Miss."

"No," you shake your head at him, take a second for a couple of deep breaths before grabbing the box and closing it. You shove it in your purse and grab your phone. "No, it's me, I'm jumpy." You force a laugh. "I'll call the uber while we walk if you're okay waiting with me there?"

"Of course," he nods.

"Thanks," you give him a small smile that doesn't meet your eyes and walk out your door with him, lock it behind you and wonder why you're bothering when it's apparently so easy to pick.

Normally you chat with whoever's walking with you but not today. You can't. Your brain is way too consumed by what you just found. Ordering the uber as you walk is hard enough, but you manage to do it.

You're so in your head as you order it and walk that you don't hear the officer telling you to hold up, he has to go check on the kid that just crashed his god damn e-scooter and call for someone else to come.

So you don't stop walking.

You don't follow the officer over to where the injured kid is and hover close enough to be safe. You just keep walking by yourself to the area of campus always deserted at this hour because classes in these buildings finish much earlier, the usual desertion amplified by the threatening thunderstorm such that the area is nearly empty, only a few students in headphones with their heads down trudging along. You just keep walking until you're by yourself.

Alone.

You only notice when you go to look up at the officer and tell him it should only be three minutes. Your head turns sharply to the other side when you don't see him next to you, but he's not on the other side of you either. You turn all the way around hoping he's right behind you and you were just walking faster than normal. But no. He's not here. You're all alone.

You're all alone and you already know it's going to happen. It doesn't matter how you came to be alone, just that you are. Your stalker will capitalize on this moment of vulnerability, on your fucking mistake. How could you have let this happen?

It doesn't even occur to you at first that you're just standing out in the open and not at least continuing to move and get to where your uber is supposed to pick you up and where there will hopefully be more people. Your heart races again, just as fast as when the officer startled you but now it's sustained, it's tiring, mentally and physically.

And you're scared. You're fucking terrified.

It's the movement in the corner of your eye that makes you realize you have to start walking again. You turn your head in the direction to see if it's the officer, but it's not. You catch another glimpse of him before he's hidden by pillars supporting the building and you know it's him. You know.

Fight or flight finally kicks enough for you to take off at essentially a run. When you hear footsteps pounding behind you instinct tells you it's time to hide, that you're never going to outrun him.

You duck into the next building you pass, mercifully spot a single stall bathroom and run into it and lock the door. As you walk backwards until you hit the opposite wall and slide down it so you're sitting on the floor you clamp your hand over your mouth to try and quiet yourself so that maybe he won't know where you went to hide. You know that's unlikely because it's so fucking obvious, especially because you're sure the classrooms are all locked by now, but it's worth a try.

Time ticks by, your sense of it skewed, you're sure. But nothing happens. You don't hear a door to the building open or footsteps outside of the bathroom. Could you seriously have made all of that up? Seeing him? Being chased?

Tears sting at the back of your eyes now that you're not in quite the state of extreme panic you were when you were running. You start to stand to splash some cold water on your face when someone tries to open the door, pressing down on the handle and jiggling it, pushing the door against the frame and lock and clearly leaning their body weight into it.

Your stomach drops again as a jolt of panic and terror and fear rocking your system so hard everything goes blurry for a few seconds. You cover your mouth with your hand again and bring your knees in front of your chest like it's going to do anything to protect you.

Then it stops just as abruptly as it started.

You have no idea if the person walked away, couldn't possibly hear footsteps over the beat of your heart and how hard you're breathing. You're sure it's not over, tell yourself to be prepared for him to come back.

It's useless. You jolt just as hard again when they start playing with the door handle again, jiggling it and pushing against it like they had been. But then the noise changes and it dawns on you. It sounds almost like they're trying to remove the handle so they can get it.

"Yo!" The noise stops. "Wrong bathroom. We're here for the one on the second floor."

"Oh," a male voice from right outside the door calls back to the other one. "Makes sense. I wondered why this one was locked." When you hold your breath you can hear footsteps receding in the direction you know the stairs are.

The relief that floods over you is euphoric in its own way. You've never known anything like it.

Slowly you move your hand from your mouth and let yourself take in the big, panting breaths that you need to recover. Somehow your mind is still, almost feels empty and like pure fuzz as you get your breathing back to normal.

When the ability to think starts to come back you try to figure out what the fuck just happened. Maybe it wasn't footsteps pounding behind you, just the beat of your heart, or your footsteps echoing, or your mind imagining things. It doesn't matter, you chastise yourself, that's really not the thing to be focusing on right now.

You take a second to try and calm yourself down, sort a few things out in your head now that you're at least in a locked room. You can't leave. He could be counting on that and waiting right outside for you. Someone is going to have to come get you and it's going to have to be one of the officers you know, so that you know their voice and that it's really a campus police officer before you open the door. That sounds so fucking paranoid and you have to let out a pained laugh as you sit on the bathroom floor because this is your fucking reality.

Your hands, like the rest of your body, are shaking so badly that you fumble with your phone. But you're able to get it unlocked and your contacts unlocked and instead of calling campus police first like he'd absolutely fucking want you to, you call Jack.

"Jack?" you ask the second the ringing stops mid-ring and he picks up. "Jack, I'm so sorry but-"

"Guess again, Sweetheart."

And just like that three words bring your entire world crashing down around you.

Ice runs through your veins, your entire body going nearly numb in seconds as the unmistakable voice of your stalker comes through crystal fucking clear. As the unmistakable voice of your voice comes through Jack's fucking phone.

Which means…

"No," you whisper, barely audible, heart racing in a completely different way now. "No."

"Mm," your stalker hums, a laugh to it that almost makes you sick. "Yes. He's right here with me. You're on speaker."

You thought you knew what fear and terror were, thought you had experienced true fear and true terror, though you had felt both. Fuck, you thought you just did when the officer scared you and when you realized you were alone.

But in this moment you realize you had absolutely no fucking clue what true fear and true terror felt like and had never experienced them before. Because you're feeling both now and it's unlike anything you've ever felt before, suffocating and almost blinding in intensity.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to know about Jack, he never said anything about Jack. Jack was never supposed to be in danger. It wasn't something you'd even really considered because you thought he didn't know about Jack, were sure that if he did he would've texted something about Jack.

"No. No! No, please, please, don't hurt him, don't hurt him! Please don't fucking hurt him," you beg, breathless and trying so hard to come up with things to say or offer or do while your brain just uselessly sits there, too overwhelmed to do much of anything. "What do you want? Tell me what you want and you can have it if you'll let him go and don't hurt him." The tears finally hit and you stifle a sob. "Anything. Just please don't hurt him."

"You, my love. I want you." He says it like it's so simple. Like it's a choice you're going to make, him over Jack. And then you're leveled. "In the interest of honesty, and a bit to shut you up, you should know that it's a little too late for you to beg me not to hurt him."

"What did you do?" You've never heard yourself sound this way before, sobs and terror and fear transformed in a quarter of a second into sheer rage, quiet and calculated, the question snarled as you think about what you'll do to him if he hurt Jack and you get your hands on him, consequences to yourself fatal or not be damned. But then just like that another quarter of a second passes and your voice and brain and emotions are right back where they were. "Is he alive?" you whisper just loud enough to know your stalker will hear you.

"Yes, he's alive and… Well, he's alive. Here." Seconds that feel like an eternity pass and you feel your phone buzz as your stalker starts to speak again. "Check your texts quickly. I sent you photos to update you on his condition and prove he's alive."

You close your eyes and swallow hard. Selfishly, you don't want to look. You don't want to see what you caused to happen to Jack. But you have to. You owe Jack it if nothing else and he's the love of your life, you have to know how badly he's hurt, have to know just how alive he is, if he's alive but really closer to death than life.

You pull your phone from your ear and pull up your messages, click on Jack, the only person you have pinned. And while you know that you're not prepared for what you're going to see there's some part of your brain that tries to tell you that you are because that would mean it wasn't that bad.

But there is nothing that could've ever prepared you for what you see.

Jack is bound to a chair, forearms zip-tied to the armrests with his hands splayed out at the wider endings, upper calves just below his knees zip-tied to the front legs of the chair. He's naked except for his boxer briefs, his prosthetic removed and mouth covered in duct tape. Seeing him bound and gagged like that is bad enough but that's the easiest part of it all to look at if you had to pick an easiest part.

You torture yourself and flick through the photos. Once you save Jack you won’t survive this. You’ll never be able to live with yourself for causing him to be beaten like this, tortured like this.

Jack's right hand is definitely broken, swollen and bruised, and his right wrist isn't at quite the correct angle for the position it's in telling you it must be dislocated. He’s covered from head to toe in bruises, cuts and abrasions that you're not sure if they were made by a knife or some other weapon deliberately or if what he was hit with just happened to break skin. His left knee is disturbingly bruised and swollen and it spreads both up into his thigh and down into his calf and you know there's likely multiple fractures and torn ligaments.

Jack is littered in bruises and burn marks from what you're guessing is a cattle prod, and the longer you look the more you realize his one collarbone is swollen, the same shoulder being held a little too high leaving you assuming it's dislocated too. And he is bloody everywhere from the cuts to his skin and what’s dripped down from his face and head.

Because his face hasn't made out any better than the rest of him, one eye swollen and black, his nose clearly broken with how swollen it is, fresh blood still dripping from it down over the duct tape covering his mouth and onto his chest. Another bruise is blooming along his swollen jaw on one side, and he has to have a deep laceration somewhere on his scalp because while you know scalp wounds bleed a lot, this seems excessive even for that, his curls matted and one half of his face and neck and chest covered in blood that obviously originated at his scalp.

All of Jack's bruises are concerning and nauseating and dizzying, but for you the worst are the ones that are deep blue and purple, almost black in some areas. Because those ones, they cover the sides of Jack's chest at his ribs and are present on way too much of his abdomen and chest. You know most, if not all of his ribs have to be broken. And it's impossible to know if his bruising is truly from his skin or if it's reflective of internal bleeding deeper in his chest and abdomen. It’s impossible to know if it's reflective of Jack slowly bleeding out internally.

Words and diagnoses and brief descriptions of them that you haven't really thought about in five years suddenly pop up from memory just to terrorize you more. Hemothorax and pneumothorax and flail chest and punctured lungs and ruptured spleen and shattered kidney and lacerated liver and myocardial contusion and valvular disruption and hemopericardium and hypovolemic shock.

It's all too awful and horrific to even begin to describe, but the worst part is how exhausted Jack looks, how you can tell he's struggling to keep his head up because it's so much work for his body as it deals with the assault and his injuries, with the pain and the blood loss and the way he's not getting enough air because his mouth is covered with duct tape and his broken, swollen nose has narrowed his sinuses so it's hard to move air, a problem only compounded by his certainly damaged lungs.

The sob that rips from your chest is tortured, reflects the emotional and psychological fucking agony you find yourself in. It's a pain like nothing you've ever known.

"Oh!" You think it's screamed but it's strangled and choked out at best, barely audible because all the air has truly been knocked from your lungs and the little that's left struggles to find its way out. "Oh, Jack," you whimper. "Oh Jack, no, no." You put the phone back to your ear hoping he'll be able to hear you, that he's conscious enough to hear you say words that will never come anywhere close to enough. "I'm so sorry," you sob, barely comprehensible. "I'm so sorry, Jackie, I'm so sorry," you choke out. "Jack, oh my god, no. No, this can't be happening, this can't be happening."

"And yet it is Sweetheart." You can hear the smirk in your stalker's voice.

"Please," you whimper, "please don't, don't, don't hu-hurt him anymore! I'll do anything, anything, please."

"I take it you found my present?" You make some strangled sound of affirmation that's good enough for him. "Good. Why don't you tell Jack about it?"

"It," you're overcome by a huge wracking breath that you try to rush through so he doesn't get mad at you. "It, it was a, a," another uncontrollable wracked breath, "a bullet, and my, it," and another, "it has my name engraved on it."

Your stalker must be closer to Jack because even over the sound of your sobs and breathing you can hear a muffled reaction from Jack like he's yelling and straining against the zip-ties.

"The message is a little moot now, but I thought you should read it anyway since that last part is still so true. Read it out for Jack, hm?" he hums. There's a groan of pain from Jack and you know your stalker is likely pressing on one of his injuries or inflicting another one.

As you pull the box from your bag to get the message you force yourself to get control of your breathing, the shot of additional adrenaline that hearing Jack in pain and being desperate to avoid hearing again gives you helping you keep it together long enough to get the message out.

"Make sure you have this with you when I get you from school. And don't worry, my love, as long as you finally behave and cooperate I won't use it anywhere fatal, just somewhere it'll hurt enough to teach you a lesson."

"Very good," he hums at you. "Tell me, do you know what kind of bullet it is, my darling?"

"No," you whisper.

"We can't have that, Jack in particular must know! It's a nice 9mm JHP. These ones are specially made for me, designed for maximum damage. They're in the gun now," he laughs darkly, and you try to tell yourself it’s not what you think, but you hear the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. "What do you think about that?"

There’s a vague ripping sound and then a voice that's barely recognizable as Jack's.

"I'll fucking kill you," Jack takes a wheezy and labored and clearly pained breath in, "if you even try," another breath in that sounds so painful it's hard to listen to, "to touch her."

"Is that so?" your stalker chuckles. "Look at you, Jack. You’re too weak to do anything right now. And she's going to hand deliver herself to me. So I think I will touch her, wherever and however I want. Maybe even in front of you." You can hear Jack say something in the background but can't make out any words because your stalker just talks louder. "I'm texting you our address to come to. Your life for the life of your dear Jackie."

"Okay!" you cry at the same time Jack's voice is clear in the background yelling as best he can, "Do not!"

"I'll be there." You sniffle, try to wipe your face off and pull it together because you have to do this. You have to do this for Jack. "I'll come, I promise, just give me time! Please don't hurt him, please don't hurt him anymore, I'll come, I promise."

"Do not!" Jack yells. "Do not come here!" His breath in is gasping and it somehow kills you even more inside. "You do not fucking come here!"

"As much as I'd like to kill him, I promise that I'll let him go if you come. At least I'll know he has to live knowing you're with me. That you chose me over him." You can just hear the smirk in your stalker's voice again.

"Okay," you whisper.

"Do not," Jack is so clearly forcing and straining out as many words as he can in one breath, his cadence punctuated by them. You'll never forget it. "Do fucking not!… Don't! Don't come here!… Don't do this, I don't… I don't want you to do this… I don't want you to trade your life for mine."

Your stalker scoffs. "He really is so dramatic isn't he?"

"Please," Jack has dropped his voice, his tone pleading and desperate and sad. "I love you… so much and I need you… to please do this… one last thing for me… and don't… don't come here, please Baby." As Jack gets the words out through labored breaths you realize what he's doing.

He's saying goodbye.

Jack asking you, pleading with you to do this one last thing for him and using that name while doing so absolutely fucking decimates you.

There is nothing left of the you that existed thirty minutes ago.

"I have to Jack, I'm sorry." You sniffle hard, tears pouring down your face again as your sobs return. "I have to. I can't let you die for me. I couldn't live with myself knowing I got you killed. Getting you beaten and, and tortured," you choke out the word, "is bad enough. I have to Jack, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry and I love you so much."

"There's an awful lot of talking going on and not very much getting in a car and getting to where I fucking told you to come going on," your stalker snarls, a much louder groan coming from Jack this time.

"Okay! Okay! I'm going, I promise! Please don't hurt him, I'm sorry!" You scramble to try and get up and on your feet.

As you try and fail to stand with how dizzy you get, you hear his voice again. "What? Wait- How did you get out-"

The next three things you hear are far too loud and clear for the circumstances, and knock the wind completely out of you, make your heart stop, and tear a scream from your chest in that order.

A scuffle, a gunshot, and a body hitting the floor.

Reader can't be the only one who's ever in mortal danger, right?

I really don't have much to say for myself. 😶

I have plans for a Part 2 obviously lol, as long as it's wanted. I'm not sure if we're over me and my cliffhangers and same species of angst. 😭 I just really love it, I find it so fun to write. 🫠 Thank you so much for taking the time to read, I know it was long!! I really do love hearing your thoughts and comments and reactions, they often make my day and week! ♥️ Thank you again for all of your support!! ♥️

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