Xmas Drabble
Title: Xmas Drabble Author: callisto24 Rating: PG Authors Notes: After the finale of Season8 which I loved, which makes me hope impatiently for a movie. Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, no money made Characters: Jack, Tony Warnings: Unbetaed, written in a hurry, hadn’t done something in English for ages, apologies for all mistakes, corrections are totally welcome. • * * *
No need to turn around. Jack knew the person approaching him from behind. He knew him better than himself, hadn’t seen him for years and still sensed his presence with a sudden clearness that stroke him as impossible. Yet, he wasn’t surprised when the familiar voice reached his ears. A voice he hadn’t admitted to himself as having missed like a reason to smile or breathe or be. There was this void he had been drifting through for years. No aims, no sense in existing but the pure, idiotic instinct to survive. An instinct he never lost, no matter what happened to him. He had cursed this instinct once, wanting to give up thousands of times and just failing again and again. But the voice calling him now woke something up, he had buried deep inside. And though he had tried to stiffen the pain by trying to become normal again, to stay with his family, to build something up with Renee, there never had been a single chance to succeed, nor the true wish. Maybe this had made it easy to lose the path again, to go underground and to damn himself to a life of loneliness. Until now. He closed his eyes, though the picture of the ocean stayed in this mind. Endless waves rolling against the coast, never changing, never failing, never giving up. The sky was grey and the wind cold against his face. His body shivering in the far to thin clothes. Maybe he shivered because of the hand settling carefully on his shoulder, like countless times before. Unforgotten, but still too close to imagination. It couldn’t be true. “How have you been, Jack?” Jack opened his eyes to the sight of the sea. He took a deep breath before turning around and looking into Tony’s dark eyes. “What are you doing here?” Jack’s voice shook when he fought the urge to make sure that Tony was real by touching him, hugging him, bringing him close to his cold body. Tony blinked without allowing his eyes to leave Jacks gaze. “Chloe”, he said shortly and didn’t need to say more. Jack understood. He understood the worries Chloe suffered from. He understood that she felt responsibility. And he understood that she was the only person who had looked inside of him. It must have taken a while but she never had been the person to give up. He could see her visiting Tony in jail, listening to him, waiting until he spat out their secret history. And pulling all the strings possible to get him free, no matter what it took. Just because she knew what a life like this did to him. Because she knew when he suffered. And when he missed the one person he had fought, he had loved and he still needed to go on. “So she …” His voice sounded hoarsely. “She sent me through psychological institutions I forgot to count. Made presidents from past and present vote for me. Then she set me on your trace and told me to never stop searching. Told me I’d be the only person able to track you down. Which I did.” “So, this is a mission.” Tony smiled. “It’s my mission. I swore to myself that – once, I’ve found you - I won’t ever let you go.” Jack bit his lip. Tony looked exhausted. Slim and with his hair hanging in his eyes he clearly had seen better days. “Why?” Jack hated his voice for cracking up again. Tony pulled him into his arms and to Jack’s surprise he found no resistance in himself. “Because I love you”, Tony whispered. “And you’re supposed to see your loved ones, when it’s Christmas time.”