Re: The woods
Her agreement that no, he'd never met her, was as much as he was expecting, and so it was barely acknowledged. Whether intentional or an oversight, not-Luke missed her sadness, the nervous twist of fabric between fingers, which might have puzzled him had he seen it; why would the two of them never having met make her feel anything at all? And he laughed when she said Sebastian needed time to make a different choice. He laughed, and it wasn't a kind laugh, or even one with humor. No, it was one which knew too much, knew truths she couldn't even comprehend. "A lot happened while you were gone, in case you weren't already aware," was all he said on that, however.
There weren't quite words for the derision in his gaze as he looked at her, impervious to her shaky explanations of being pregnant and nothing having gone bad yet. Even here, not-Luke had heard such excuses before, as though they might soothe the sting of abandonment, and he was having none of it from her. "You can't justify yourself to me," he frowned, "so don't bother trying." Whatever empathy he might have had left was buried deep, and for someone he knew, someone he cared for, he might have been able to unearth it, but all dreams of love conquering things aside, Wren was a stranger to him. There was no magical connection that made him feel anything for her, but then, the real Luke was still there, and he felt enough for the both of them. Not that she noticed, the real Luke thought, too wrapped up in the version of himself that had no idea who she was.
In his anger, not-Luke turned on her when she said she understood why Jack was on death row, twisting her words into something he knew, deep down, she hadn't meant at all. "He doesn't belong there," he snapped. "Lethal or not, he shouldn't be in that hell with men who aren't men at all, waiting to die." He took a deep, deep breath, fingers twitching towards his suit jacket, but he didn't go for his pills again, not yet. "I don't know. Maybe he's trying to protect me, in his own way. All I know is that I used to visit every week, sometimes more, and then one day he started refusing to see me. What could I do? I still go, sometimes, hoping that he might change his mind, but he hasn't yet."
The mention of Jude had more of an effect on him than anything else up until that point. Not-Luke froze, and his face went pale, more so than hers, a dead white as though all the blood had drained out and left him dry. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, soundlessly, as he searched for words that were not there. Then she was saying she wanted to know, please, and he shook his head, backing away when she stood and moved closer, as though getting away from her would also distance himself from what she spoke of. He stumbled, caught himself, and kept going, passing unwittingly close to the real Luke, still curled in his chair.
"What do you mean, she still kidnapped me?" His voice shook, despite his attempts to maintain the upper hand. "How dare you-- how dare-- you have no right. No right at all!"