InsaneJournal

Who: Cerise & Jack
What: Tracking down, hellos, hugs, kisses.
When: Recently?
Where: Luke's apt where Jack is staying.
Warnings: None.

Cerise might have been out of practice when it came to finding people who didn't want to be found, but it all came rushing back to her when she hit the desert. Where Georgia had been stickysweet humidity, Nevada was strictly desert. It reminded her of Mexico, which was a good thing except for all of that bad memories that tagged along with it. Although that was the case for most of her life, a speck of shipwrecked peace lost in a sea of nightmares. She took her time in tracking Jack down, but it wasn't because she didn't think he'd want her to find him. They had been friends for some time, and parted on warm terms. Jack was good memories, something worthwhile torn from Seattle's tapestry of agony and scars.

She felt like the forums might be a place to look for contact with him, but Cerise was skeptical of the connected journals. No surprise there, she didn't like the idea of being tied to imperfect strangers. Not in a city like this where crime swam thick as sharks in the streets.

It took her awhile to find the apartment. It wasn't in Jack's name, although the name tied to it was almost familiar. Something she'd seen a few times but never associated with, way back when. If this turned up to be a dead end, she could at least ask this Luke about Jack. There was a moment of traditional nerves in the hallway, where she turned and paced in her black crosstrainers. Maybe this wasn't a good idea, but before she thought on it much longer, Cerise rushed up to the door and knocked. A quick double tap of knuckles against the wood, while ancient habits had her standing out of view from the peephole.

Jack was at the apartment alone, which was unusual. Gus was out for a walk with Luke, which left Jack alone in his bedroom in the small apartment, looking over the journals yet again. He’d just finished writing to Max, there. It seemed the government work was going to happen, despite his misgivings and the trouble it would undoubtedly bring. It was something, something positive and worthwhile to be doing. He hoped. He hoped he could believe Max on that, because if it wasn’t, he’d find one way or another to get out of it.

The knock was unusual. There weren’t many visitors to the apartment, and everyone who lived there had a key. Maybe Luke had left his behind. And maybe Wren didn’t have one yet, come to think of it, she’d only been there a little while. He set the journal aside, went to the door, and peered out, seeing no one. He pulled back from the door, regarding it for a moment, then reached into his pocket. There was a knife there, as there almost always was, and he quietly unsheathed it as he turned the knob and opened the door just enough to look out.

He expected his paranoia to be for nothing, and to find no one outside, some canvasser who had already moved down the hall to the next apartment. The sight of Cerise made him straighten a little with surprise, not unpleasant, but worried, immediately. Lately, he always expected the worst. “Cerise.” he said, the surprise at the sight of her in her name. He unlatched the door with a heavy clack, pulling it open. He sheathed the knife again, backing away a step to allow her in. “It’s good to see you,” he said, after a moment’s recovery. “What are you doing in Vegas?” Jack knew there were people in her past who might reignite old wrongs and come after her any day. He hoped it wasn’t that, that she’d come looking for a place to lie low. He’d left her happy, and he’d been glad for it. She deserved a different kind of life.

The door unlocked and Cerise took a step back out of anticipation of being wrong. She wasn't wrong very often, not about things like this, but it had been a long time - years, in fact - since she'd tried to find someone in relative hiding. Jack didn't hide the way she did, or the way she'd been taught to go off the grid. Primarily because he didn't have the same kinds of things to hide from. As far as Cerise knew, Jack didn't have anything to hide from now. Not like he had once in Seattle. As far as she knew, everything from those days was far behind him. They were better now.

Knowing that didn't ease the worry in her gut or the clamp of teeth from her lip, but when he peeled the door back from it's seam, and when Cerise caught the first familiar glimpse of him, the worry was eradicated. "Jack..."

When he stepped back, she moved forward. An elbow sent the door wider, and she snagged him with an arm before he could slide back any further. "Come here," there was a quiet ignorance to the question over what she was doing in Vegas. It was nothing to address, not now. Not when there were hellos to be had, and if it came up later, that was fine.. but right now she wanted to hug him. She half leapt at him to do so, attaching her cheek to his shoulder. "You look good."

It was funny, how easy it was to forget simple things like easy physical affection. There wasn't much of that in his life these days, and the hug was a nice, warm surprise that he sank into after a moment. He squeezed her, briefly. It reassured him that she was alright, and his worst suspicions were likely nothing. "You look better," he said, and it was true enough. He hadn't improved since he'd last seen her. He'd gotten worse, really, but she didn't need to know that. She, on the other hand, was still such a contrast from the woman he’d met in Seattle. The ensuing years might not have been easy, but they had been better.

He finally pulled back to look at her. "Come in," he said, moving toward the couch in the living room. "Sit down. Do you want anything?" There was a comfortable couch in the living room for her to settle on, and he moved toward the adjacent kitchen. He had a laundry list of questions - where she'd been staying, if she'd met anyone. He hoped so. He wondered why she was in Vegas, and hoped it didn't have a thing to do with voices in her head. That mess had brought enough of his friends grief already.

Cerise made a little annoyed sound when he said that she looked better, a groaning kind of half sigh that was usually accompanied by rolling eyes. But it was in good spirits, and she pushed away from him only after getting that affectionate squeeze from him. She followed Jack inside at his instruction and after giving a cursory glance around the room, took a seat on the edge of the couch. "I don't need anything, Jack." She called toward him as he moved toward the kitchen. With palms pressed together and wedged between beauty marked knees. "It's a nice place you've got here." Although the fact that it wasn't actually his place went largely unspoken.

Jack stopped halfway to the door, and turned back to her. He sat in a chair adjacent to her. It was a little like having a ghost in the apartment. He’d thought about her off and on since he’d come to Las Vegas, but he’d never contacted her, too worried he might taint some goodness she’d found with the various messes he’d managed to get himself into. “It isn’t mine,” he said, “But you likely know that, if you knew how to find me. How did you find me, by the way?” He hadn’t been hiding from her, far from it, but it was surprising. Not many people knew where he was staying. It was odd that she hadn’t just contacted him to find out where he was, and that thought itched at him. Something still seemed a bit off.

"Yeah, Jack," she sighed with the confession. As if she could somehow sense that the lightheartedness of their conversation was slipping away, soon to be lost. "I know this isn't your place." It would be insulting to pretend otherwise, and ridiculous to somehow feign that she had come here looking for anybody other than him. "It took me awhile, but you're not impossible to find." Not for somebody like her, anyway. It could have been harder, and the fact that it wasn't was comforting. That probably meant that Jack wasn't getting into trouble out here. Probably. Sensing that he probably wanted more information, Cerise drew a breath and glanced around the living room for an escape from what was beginning to feel like a corner she wasn't prepared for. "Nothing's wrong though.. I just.. the East coast didn't have anything for me anymore, and I wanted to see how you were doing." Her attention befell him, honest. "With my own eyes." She could at least tell if he was lying that way, or so she liked to think. "How've you been?"

Jack listened, and watched her as she talked. It did seem like she was holding something back, and obviously she was entitled to her secrets - he had a few of his own, after all. Still, he worried for her. “Did anything push you to leave?” he asked. Just pulling up stakes because there was nothing to stay for, of course that was a possibility. But he wanted to be sure, and even if she didn’t want to say, at least he’d asked, then, and she could tell when she was ready.

“Alright,” he said, automatically, unthinking. He glanced down the hallway. No one was there, but it had become habit, lately, when he was in the living room after Gus had gone to bed and Luke was still at work, always keeping an eye out for an eye to appear, peering out, or a small head. “I’m staying here with Luke. I don’t know if you remember him, but he was in Seattle around the same time we were. He has a son, now. I live here, keep an eye on him for Luke and Wren, his girlfriend, and I work. I just got a new job, nothing special, but it’ll let me pay Luke real rent.” A new cover, more like, but the job with the CIA was real indeed, and it would pay, though he hadn’t taken it for the money - not by a long shot. The money was just a nice bonus. Luke and Wren needed all the help they could get, and at least if he was paying it through rent, they wouldn’t treat it like charity.

There was everything that had happened, though, and the voice in his head, but he had no idea how to even begin telling her about a thing like that. If someone wasn’t in the situation, he was sure they would think the whole lot of them were insane, even someone who knew him as well as Cerise did. He would think the same, in her position.

When he asked that, if anything pushed her away from the East coast, the truth flinched across Cerise's expression. A moment of pain that shut down into a scowling knot of brow, something that wasn't worth hiding from a friend she'd known for so long. So many years together pulled a lot of old walls down. Jack knew her better than anyone.. anyone she knew these days, anyway. "Yeah, but it was my mistake.. and.." Drawing a breath for reflection, Cerise ran palms across her eyes like a baptismal. She could have told him about the teacher out of Georgia, but felt shameful and ridiculous about lamenting over such a failure on her own part. And such a small thing! What was a relationship in the timeline of her life? What was another fuck up but a reminder that she wasn't meant for domesticity and normalcy and.. suburbia.. Cerise derailed at the last minute in a loss of nerve. "It's nothing."

Slumping back against the couch with some exhaustion, she exhaled and smiled at him. The smile wasn't a diversion from topic, it was real. It was willing to drop off, to give up, to talk about something else... it was likely to be what they both wanted anyway. A happy reunion, not one laden down with bullshit. "To be honest, I.. was pretty sure you were here." Mentioning the voice - the organic surge of beauty in her chest that vineclimbed up her spine and into the back of her brain. It had whispered to her then, names she didn't understand, injustice she could barely relate to.. and it felt crazy to justify it, but here she was.

The way she mentioned it and then brushed it off made Jack want to press harder, but he hesitated. It had pulled her up short, that memory, but her reaction didn’t make him think violence. No, something more personal, an intimate failing, not a dangerous act. “You’re sure?” He wanted to know, without a doubt, and that rapport they’d formed in Georgia made him feel like he could ask again. If she pushed back a second time, though, he’d leave it alone.

That response pricked up curiosity again. “Just a hunch?” he asked. That didn’t look to be the case, not by that tired, sweet smile. “Or did you hear it from someone?"

"I fell in love and fucked it up back in Georgia, but what else is new?" Her smile was sour before it was sweet. Now that all was said and done, it was easy to forget. Easy to shrug off like just another mistake, another misreading of the poker game when hearts were on the line. It was over now, so bury it with a shrug and a fuck it and deep breath. Cerise had always been that way. Once wronged, she could turn her back and burn every bridge without so much as a letter of goodbye. Except for with Sid.. except for with Lucien.. except maybe not at all, but a girl can dream in disillusions if she wants. When Jack asked on, she sighed. She slumped back against the couch with a cross of tawny, freckled legs. Head thrown back, exhausted just thinking about the journal. The voice had come only once, but the journal held notes that were as difficult to decipher as any hieroglyphic etching. "If I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy.."

The confession didn’t altogether surprise him, and it was a bit of a relief. A broken heart, while painful, was hardly life-threatening. Most of the time, anyway. “You know I know how that goes,” he said. “You can tell me about it sometime.” When she’d moved past it, and when it didn’t still sting. Her slump and declaration he’d think she was insane echoed sharply. That sounded familiar. “I doubt that,” he said. “You’ve already heard everything from me a person would need to lock me away for a very long time. Try me.”

Cerise had to smile at that, "We could both be locked up for some good fucking reasons." Mainly multiple counts of murder. It said something about the company one kept, didn't it? Birds of a feather. Survivors plagued by old wounds that were never going to heal, not matter what fresh avenues they took. Jack and herself also had a keen knack for not getting caught. Not on the more serious charges, anyway. There were a couple of minor charges in her youth, but they'd been erased a long, long time ago. That devil man she'd walked into the sunset with all those years ago had a real magic hand when it came to making witnesses and documents disappear. He'd done that for her at least, even if he'd ruined the rest of her. "Well, I.." Drawing a breath, Cerise slumped back with her arms out as she considered how in the hell she was supposed to even fucking start with this kind of thing. "Got a key. A phone too, actually. Nice fucking thing with no return address, it just turned up. I turned it on, and there was a note to me. Listed a hotel, a couple of addresses that have turned up nothing.. some names.." Here's where she swallowed, absinthe soaked sugar eyes flicking up to him. "One of which was yours."

Jack knew he was never going to be able to tell Cerise what had happened in the past few weeks - getting caught red-handed by the CIA and then recruited. Those were things he was going to have to keep to himself always, things he could never, ever talk to anyone not involved about for their own safety. Better to keep the secret than let anyone get hurt, though. In the end, it was fitting. Cerise was right - if either of them ever got locked away, it wasn’t like it wouldn’t be without reason.

The mention of the key solidified Jack’s suspicions, and he stood up a little straighter. He listened, watching her, and then, after a brief pause, reached into his pocket. Out of it came a heavy silver key, long and made of dense, silvery metal. It looked like an old-fashioned skeleton key, with simple square teeth. The head appeared to have been elaborately decorated once, but it was scarred up, the patina marred into a bright shine, as if someone had recently gone at it with a sharp object, obscuring whatever monogram had been molded there. He set it on the coffee table and leaned back, looking at her, saying nothing. His mismatched eyes remained fixed on her, knowing, and a little tired. One more person pulled into this mess. He would have hoped better for Cerise.

The tragic part of this reunion was that Cerise never would have suspected that Jack would keep something from her, not after everything that they'd been through. She'd shared so much with him back in Seattle, and he'd been open with her about so many hurtful things from his past. They'd moved on together, they'd grown stronger and more functional. They didn't need to subsist off of vengeance and such a viral lack of control. Or maybe that's just how Cerise had seen it. If she'd been blind to Jack's continued troubles, maybe she'd been reflecting her own progress onto him. She wasn't ever going to be destined for a happy ever after, but things could be better. They didn't have to be the walking dead, the angry haunts of what fate had given them so long ago. That's what she believed. Maybe she was still so naive in some respects. Never having a childhood had the strangest consequences.

When he produced the key, she blinked in momentary silence. It had been a long time since she'd conveyed surprise, emotional reaction had been beaten out of her so many years ago that it might never come back. Not without significant stalling, like she only remembered to react a few seconds in. Reaching into her back pocket, Cerise put her own key on the table. Her own was more rust than shine, like it had been exposed to plenty of water. There was filigree carvings -- perhaps leaves or wings -- it was impossible to tell, as some kind of chemical erosion seemed to have eaten at bits of the metal. The keys sat there, side by side. Not similar, even if they might, just might, fit the same lock.

Cerise watched his face, wordless in this strange plunge into silence. As he said nothing, she tried to read his expression. He looked tired, and almost disappointed. It was her that finally broke the silence. She knew from years of experience that he could sit there like that forever, ever the musing poet, quiet and thoughtful. "Say something, Jack.."

Jack looked up at her, after looking over her key. There was no way to know if her alter was through his door from the key alone, and it didn't ring any bells with him. "I was just thinking that it was a shame, you getting that in the mail," he said. "Maybe things will be easy through your door. But even out here...this double life we have, those of us with the keys? It’s messy. It bleeds over. You do things you wouldn’t do otherwise, get dragged to that hotel..." He shook his head. "It's not the sort of extra worry I would have wanted for you, Cerise.” He shrugged. He felt so resigned, lately, like his future was laid out flat in front of him, only a few more forks left in the road to choose from, none of them leading anywhere good and constantly, constantly pruned back, like errant tree branches, until they led only one way. “Maybe you can make something good of it."

He picked his key up again, and slid it back into his pocket. "The voice," he said. "Do they have a name?" That would be the real test. He'd know the name, or he wouldn't, and he could try to help her from there.

There were very few people that could pry such a sad-eyed worry from Cerise. She could count them on less than one hand, but Jack had made the list a long time ago. It was his reaction to the key more so than the key itself that drew her brows up and softened her eyes into dewy concern. "What do you mean that you do things you wouldn't do otherwise?" Once upon a time, the things that Cerise wasn't willing to do was a damn short list. She liked to think she was different now, and she knew Jack was different now. All that blood and all that pain didn't have to exist here, key or no key.

"Did.. did something happen?" Her expression crumbled into something that bordered on insulted when he said that she could get dragged to the hotel. As naive and strangely softhearted as she could be, nobody and nothing got her to do something she didn't want to do. Past truths be damned.

Drawing a breath, she concentrated on the last of his inquiry. Just before she'd left for Vegas, the emotional disgust and turmoil had been enough that everything felt like a bit of a haze. Sometimes her days here even felt like such. "It was a voice, but it wasn't. It felt like a.. like a ghost talkin' or something." She winced, realizing it sounded strange. "It woke me up one night, just whispering. Whispering things that made no sense.." She shrugged and swallowed, dismissing the involuntary shiver that came with memory. "The key and the phone came the next day. I haven't heard the voice since."

Jack watched her face crumble, and knew immediately that this place was going to be no good for her. How to explain it, without leaving her saddened or anxious all the time? "There have been times when we've all been compelled to go to the hotel," he said. "And once we're there...strange things happen. It's difficult to explain. And sometimes things happen when you're not even there. A few weeks ago, all of us had to watch other people's memories. There was a period a few months ago when the people from the other side broke through to here for a week or so. It's just...it isn't predictable." At her implied question of whether he'd done something, Jack shied away. He'd gotten over that whole mess, but just, and it was still raw to think about what he'd done, how he'd acted.

The story of Cerise' voice was strange, and Jack couldn't decide whether he ought to be concerned or not. "Maybe they're one of the quiet ones," he offered. "The one I have doesn't talk to me much. Some people don't talk to theirs at all, and don't remember what happens when they go through the doors in the hotel. It's different for all of us. Like I said - nothing about this is really predictable." He leaned forward slightly toward her, brows drawn down in concern. "But that doesn't mean you have anything to worry about. Things might be just fine for you. They are, for some people."

"I'm not worried about me," she defended so quickly. Vehement and almost hurt with disbelief that Jack could have somehow derived that she'd come this far to worry about herself. She cared about him. "So why don't we leave?" Suddenly revived with the energy of a girl that knew nothing but running, nothing but escape. Just let the bridges burn. Cerise pushed to her feet, not quite as dexterous as she'd once been, but still quick enough to reach him. She pulled on Jack's hand like a child compelling him to listen to her. "I came here to find you, to make sure you were okay, you don't have to be here.. you don't have to stay here. Fuck the hotel."

That vehement rejection of the idea surprised Jack, and his shoulders sagged a little. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Really.” Things weren’t great. Things were worse than they’d ever been in Seattle or afterward, and he was certainly worse. But he felt as if he’d finally hit rock bottom, recently. There had even been tiny, minute improvements along the line, enough to make him feel a little less like nothing was worthy of hope anymore. His outlook of his future hadn’t changed, but his present had become easier to take. The drag on his shoulder was another way, though, an alternate route. She was right, of course. They could leave. He could go back to running - but he couldn’t. Not anymore, not really. He shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, apologetic as he could be. “Nothing says you have to stay, Cerise. You could forget about the voice, go anywhere. But the people I live with...they need all the help they can get. Maybe if things even out, and they get better for them, I’ll feel like it’s alright to go. Right now, though...I promised myself I’d stay here and do whatever I can to help. I can’t abandon them.”

Absolutely none of that sounded promising. When Jack swore up and down that he was fine, Cerise took a step back. She dropped his hand, not with immediate rejection but rather a slow unfurling of fingers so that he could slip free. Her own hand fell lifeless and disappointed to her side where nervous fingertips tangled in the ancient fray that came from well worn shorts. Some blue khaki gone velveteen soft over the years. She pulled at a loose thread where it brushed like a spiderweb against a summery thigh. She wanted to believe him, he was her only friend -- and maybe that was a daunting title to give him, but it was true. He wouldn't lie to her. No, she just didn't want to believe he'd lie to her. "The people you live with.. they're in trouble?" There was a solemn shake of her head. A silent sigh conveyed only through the eyes. Oh, Jack. What had he gotten himself into?

He nodded. He saw the disappointment he’d been feeling for where she’d ended up reflected back at him now in her eyes. Her dropped hand sparked guilt deep in his chest, and he almost reached for it again, just to comfort her, to try to make the lies he was being forced to tell her alright. “They’ve both had a hard time, here,” he said. “It’s a long story. But they have a young son who neither of them really knew, and now he’s finally with them again. On top of that, they both have alters through the same door mine is, and it’s a difficult place to live. Dangerous. They’ve both been hurt, at one time or another. And there’s a good deal of baggage between them from back in Seattle...honestly, it’s a mess. I want to try to at least get them through it before I go anywhere, and they refuse to leave, no matter what I say.”

If Jack was staying here for friends, that she believed. Its why he'd traveled the country with her, wasn't it? A seemingly unending journey to help her escape from the drugs and the death. It wasn't anything he had to do, but after awhile she understood that he was running from his own things too. Unrequited love, the violence inside him that churned with every fading memory. Sometimes Cerise wondered if the more he forgot about his wife, the worse it was. Like it was just another thing to hate criminals for. Of course, he'd quit that vigilante work long ago. She scanned him quietly with wise, spring eyes. Searching for any hints of recent wounds or injuries. His clothing naturally didn't offer much, she glanced down to his knuckles with thought. "You know I'd do anything for you, right?" She hated that she had to ask, although her loyalties had been so very questionable in Seattle. She didn't want to ask if he'd killed anyone of had to hurt anyone here.. and maybe Jack didn't want to ask if she was still squeaky clean. She was, but there was an apprehension around his mismatched eyes that she read as a guilt he wouldn't admit to. Not allowed, maybe not to himself. She'd lived beside him for years, and she knew his expressions probably better than he wanted to know. "You're not in any kind of trouble here, are you?"

The vague feelings of regret and concern for Luke and Wren faded as Cerise asked her question. It was something he knew, of course, but hearing her say it out loud was a different thing entirely. “I do,” he said. His attention focused back on her, more keenly this time. “I’d do the same for you, you know that.” Maybe she had sensed there was something he was holding back, or maybe she was just hearing the worry for everything and everyone come through in his voice, and wanted to be sure he knew someone was worrying about him in return. He’d always shied away from that, fought it as much as possible. He’d taken on a life where he was a protector for his friends, and sometimes everyone else. That meant that when things went wrong in his own life, he dealt with them on his own, not bothering anyone else with things he should work through himself. He couldn’t be much help, after all, if he was always seeking help in return. That was the thought, anyway.

Cerise’s offer, open-ended and trusting, almost stung. He knew what it meant to offer to do anything for someone else, but he couldn’t tell her what had happened. Even if he’d wanted to, some of it had to be held back. And she deserved the kind of life where she didn’t have to worry about the violence and the wicked pull of all the things he’d managed to find since he’d arrived in Seattle, externally and within himself. “No, I’m not in trouble.” And he wasn’t - not really. Of course, he’d been caught out, but no one was dragging him off to jail, or locking him away for the rest of his life. He had a chance to prove himself, to show that killing didn’t make him like the people he railed against, the blood he spilled and bones he cracked. It might be the last chance he’d have. Forced or not, it was another path. “I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t been hard,” he said, carefully, “But I think it’s going to be alright. You don’t have to worry about me.” But he would worry about her. Those dark, pretty, trusting eyes sometimes roved. He knew she’d put her faith in monsters before. He wasn’t much of an exception to that. The trick would be keeping her away from the worst of the worst. Here, she’d be wading back into the mud.

"Okay," she whispered with a skeptical grin that managed to be trusting and playfully not-so. She was giving him an out here and now, he could tell her anything. He knew that, didn't he? There was something different about him, something that made her not quite want to believe him when he said it was going to be alright. Maybe she'd just been away from him too long, maybe she didn't know the difference anymore. Still, she knew he wouldn't lie to her. Not after everything they'd escaped. "You spent so many of those years worryin' about me, it wouldn't be right for me not to do the same." Cerise smiled like she was trying to win one from him. That was the difference between Seattle and now, she could smile and mean it. The difference was something beautiful in the way that nature could be, bright teeth and proud eyes. Stepping a little closer, Cerise caught him by the arm again. Was there tension in his body, was he anxious about her arrival.. and if so, why? She tugged on him, impatient as a siamese sibling. Or maybe more like the devil pulling on the angel across a set of shoulderblades. "It's good to see you.. I love you." Pushing onto crosstrainer toes with a squeak, she smacked him on the mouth with a chaste kiss. The words were truther than he'd ever realize, Jack was the only one.. the only man she'd known that hadn't used her, lied to her, deceived her, hurt her, or controlled her. Maybe that's what kept things from getting sexual during their years of kinship after Seattle. They had some serious fucking hangups, and why ruin the innocence of something so selfless, so pure? Pulling back with a sigh, Cerise fished a permanent marker out of her backpocket. It was something she'd swiped from a waitress while on her drink date with Kellan - which was really nothing she wanted to bring up just yet. Turning Jack's palm over, she carved her phone number down. Green eyes level and unlifting, "If you need me." Although they both now knew that they could probably use the journals to contact one another.

"I wouldn't dream of trying to deny you your worry," Jack said. It was so good to see her smile and feel that it was real, so reassuring that he almost forgot about everything else, about what might be in store for her, what might come next. But they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. If nothing else, he knew she was resilient. If anybody could stick out a place like this, it would be Cerise.

The brief, chaste kiss left Jack both reassured and a bit ashamed of himself. He should be able to tell her everything, and the fact that he couldn't stung down deep. He didn't want to violate her trust, or ever give him reason to doubt his honesty to her. He could only assure himself that it would just be this one thing - nothing more. "I love you too," he said. Cerise was one of the few people he'd managed to remain close to for any length of time in the long years since Helen's death. Why he'd never been in love with her was a mystery even to him. It would have been an easier life if he'd managed to find his way to someone like her, but that just hadn't been in the cards for him. But it did nothing to change his affection for her, and his fervent wish that things be right, that things go right in her life. He had a sneaking feeling that he might not be so much a positive influence in that direction as a negative one, but if the time ever came where removing himself would do more good than staying, he'd do it. He watched her run the soft, wet marker over his palm, and read the numbers. "I'll call," he said. "I promise." He didn't know if that would reassure her, thinking he'd tell her if something went wrong, but maybe she'd forgotten enough how much he cared about not being a burden to anybody to believe it when he said it.

She beamed, sunshine and gold dust, when he returned the affection. Maybe nobody else would understand what she felt for him.. but for a girl with no family, he was it. An unfit mother, and a twisted adoptive father. A life of lies mixing with truth and nobody to trust but herself and the man she was in love with -- who turned out to as worthless a contradiction as herself. Then again, everybody she fell for did that. Lie, cheat, and use. Nothing could have labeled it more perfectly, at least in her case, why she'd never been in love with Jack. Cerise just had a way of infecting all that good in people, and she should have faced it a long, long time ago. Some people were meant to be alone. When Jack said he'd call, she gave him a knowing drop of lashes from one eye, suspicious squint on her backtrack out the door. "You better. I know where you live, Jack Corvus."