Asunder 2/5

[deeperwonderment]

Title: Asunder
Author: shadowcat
Rating: R.
Word Count: 33,279
Fandom: Original Work
Characters/Pairings: Jhaidan Matthews/Reid Jacobs
Challenge: Written for angstbigbang
Summary: Once upon a time, Romeo met Juliet and they thought they were soulmates that would be together forever. Then Juliet did something that Romeo disapproved of and Juliet disappeared. Thirteen years later, Romeo has turned into the Big Bad Wolf and he's going to make Juliet regret breaking his heart. Or something like that. Reality being that after a fight where her boyfriend told her she shouldn't come around for awhile, eightteen year old fantasy writer Jhaidan took him further than his word and left town without a word to anyone -- including him. Thirteen years later, Reid is the most powerful man in the state and when their paths cross once again, Reid is going to make Jhaidan regret ever running away like she did.
Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to me. Maggie Grace and Naveen Andrews belong to themselves.
Author's Notes: I've wanted to write this story for awhile and am relieved that I fnally did so. Thanks to everyone who kept pushing me to finish it and special thanks to enochiansigils for refusing to let me drop out no matter how worried I got about writing original fiction for the first time in years.








His first observation was that she was much paler than he remembered. He took his time to try to see what other changes had taken place in her appearance as he took his place in the line outside of the bookstore. Her hair was still flaming red with copper highlights that she had always favored, but there was something different about her eyes. He frowned as he got closer and was able to see her face clearly. She was wearing contact lenses that hid her natural eye color. Why in the hell would she disguise her own unique blue-gray eyes with something so foolish as turquoise contacts?

Inwardly shaking his head, he paid attention to the way she interacted with each of the customers that came up to her table with something for her to sign. Her voice had a new huskiness to it that she didn’t seem to be consciously affecting. Each time she took a book, she would look down and ask what they wanted her to inscribe, and once they told her, she would look up and engage them in conversation for a few moments. She talked to each customer until the person acting as her assistant would direct the customer into the store or somewhere else so that the next person in line could take their place.

By the time it was his turn at the table, he knew exactly how he was going to greet her.

Jhaidan took the book that was handed to her and opened it up to the front cover. "And how should I make this out?" she asked in a soft and pleasant voice.

"How about starting out with 'To my dearest Lord, the reason I left without saying goodbye was...'?"

Jhaidan's hand clenched around the pen she was holding as she froze and it seemed like it took forever for her to raise her eyes to look into his. "Reid..." she whispered slowly as her face drained of color. She swallowed several times and then she stood up abruptly, knocking her chair to the floor with a loud clatter. "Foster!" she called to her assistant. "I need a break. I'll be back shortly." She then turned and ran for the service entrance.

Reid watched as she bolted, and shook his head. "Oh no you don't, Jaguar, " he muttered as he chased after her. "You're not getting away from me again that easily."

He caught up with her in the service tunnel and was completely surprised by how he found her. She was leaning against the wall with her face in her hands. He grabbed her arms and pulled him to her, looking down at her as her hands came away from her face. She was sobbing, and it wasn't the silent, stoic tears he had seen that last night.

"How could you?" he demanded, letting his worry and his despair bleed out as anger into his voice. He shook her. "How could you do that to me, Jaguar? To us?"

"What do you want from me, Reid?" she whispered between sobs. "You sent me away, remember? You didn't love me enough to want me. I was too messy for your perfectly organized little world."

"God damn you, Jhaidan!" he snarled at her. "I never said I didn't love you. I said..."

She jerked away from him, looking at him through tear-filled eyes. "You told me that you couldn't be with someone as reckless as me. You said that I wasn't the person you needed to be in your life." She shook her head, trying to stop her tears. "You told me not to come around for awhile. You sent me away."

"I didn't send you out of the fucking country!"

"Like hell you didn't!" she snapped back at him, trying to fight her hysterics. "Did you think I could go on as before? Hanging out with all of our friends, seeing you in that close proximity? Being that fucking close to you, and always feeling that loss, that chasm between us? I'm sorry if I didn't measure up to the chart of stoicism and strength that the mighty Reid Jacobs lives his life by."

"You didn't even say goodbye, Jhaidan! You didn't have the decency--"

"Decency?!" she cried out, batting him away from her. "You broke up with me, you sanctimonious bastard. You made it crystal clear that you and I were over. You broke my heart and threw my love for you back in my face, so fucking forgive me if telling you where I was going wasn't the first thought in mind."

"I didn't break up with you, I just said that we needed some time apart to get things into some semblance of an order after everything that had just happened." He shook her again. "You didn't have to leave like that." He growled at her, knowing that he was causing more problems between them with his anger, but being unable to react any other way. She was alive and she was safe...and she was here... He grabbed at her arms again, pulling her closer to him.

"There were so many things you could have said, or done," he spat down at her upturned face. "You didn't have to flee like some princess in some fucking melodrama."

"I didn't flee," she snapped back at him. "I simply took an offer I was given and I left. There was clearly nothing left for me here."

I was here... he wanted to say to her, but he didn't. Instead he said "Your family and friends were here, Jhaidan. You had a life here."

She looked at him, sadness in her eyes. "No, Reid, I didn't. That ended when you cut me out of yours."

Of all of the things she could have said to him, that was one he hadn't been expecting. His hands dropped from her arms in shock as he reeled from her words. She stepped away from him, wiping her eyes.

"Look, I didn't come back here to cause you any trouble, Reid," she whispered haltingly. "I never would do that to you."

"Why did you come back, Jhaidan?" he asked, his words coming out harsher than he had intended. It was too late to take them back, though part of him wanted to when he saw how she flinched at the sound of them.

"My publisher wanted the publicity of me doing appearances in the province I grew up in. I figured that by now you had gone on to bigger and better things. I never thought you would still be living here, Reid. " Her voice was quiet. "I assumed that you would have gone somewhere that could give you more than this city could." She ran a shaking hand through her hair. "I never would have allowed this part of the tour to be booked if I had known that you were still here."

How could I go anywhere else when there was always the hope that you would come back and I could make up for everything I said? Reid bit back everything he was turning over in his head. It didn't matter how he felt, she had made that clear when she ran away.

"I never took you for a coward, Jhaidan." He said harshly, needing to say something. "I also never expected to see you go to pieces over a simple little reunion. You must have taken some acting classes while you've been gone because you're really good at playing the emotionally wrecked heroine. I think I've read that book, though. The text is better than the real thing."

He stared at her for a long moment and she drew a ragged breath, trying to push away from him. It took her several tries before she finally managed to speak again.

"I have to go back in. It wasn't very professional of me to bolt like that and I owe my fans more than that behavior." She swallowed, but her voice still shook. "I'm sure Foster will have spun some tale about me being overcome by the memory of love lost or something and that you merely followed me to play the chivalrous knight."

Fuck your fans. "This isn't over, Jhaidan," he warned her. "This isn't over by a long shot."

Jhaidan sighed and shook her head. "What do you want from me, Reid? I'll tell my publicist that we have to cancel the rest of the appearances here for some reason. I'll be a bad memory by the morning and you can forget that you ever saw me again."

"No you will not. I want answers to many questions and a few explanations. You owe me at least that much." He watched her shoulders slump and knew that the guilt card had worked. It always had before and he was glad to see that at least for now, it was still working. He took a pen and a business card out of his pocket and wrote his address on the back of it. "Be there, tonight at ten, Jhaidan."

She looked at him with defeat shining in her eyes. "And if I'm not?" Where she managed to pull up a shred of defiance, she didn't know.

He smiled darkly. "You won't get a moment's peace or relaxation the whole time you're here, Jaguar. I will show up everywhere you are making appearances. I will show up to every interview, every signing that you have scheduled, and don't think I won't. There isn't a place you can go in this city where I won't find you. Trust me. It's very definitely in your best interest to be at my place tonight."

"You won't be able to do that if I leave town right after this signing."

"You'll never make it to the airport until I'm satisfied." He couldn't believe that he was actually threatening her of all people, but he also knew that she would run out of town the first chance that she got. Hadn't she shown him that already thirteen years ago?

"You never used to be this much of a bastard, Reid." There was an emptiness in her voice that he was damn sure he didn't like.

"Thirteen years of worry and betrayal serve to change a man, Jhaidan."

Her shoulders slumped again and she turned away to return to the store she had left in such a hurry.

"Oh, and Jhaidan..."

She stiffened and then turned to look at him. "What?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her back against the wall. He tangled one hand in her hair and yanked her head back so he could stare into her eyes. He growled something and slammed his mouth down over hers. Thirteen years of pent up rage and longing went into that kiss. After a long moment, he let her go and threw himself away from her. Once he was able to catch his breath and saw that she hadn't recovered yet, he moved back to stand in front of her. He reached out and gently caressed her face, holding her chin in his hand.

"Don't be late, Jaguar."



Jhaidan sat on the edge of the bed in her hotel room. She was turning the business card over and over in her hand. Of everyone to show up at her signings, she had never thought to see him.

Reid...

He was supposed to be long gone. After all, he had had big plans and they were plans that would never have been satisfied in the city where they had met. He should have been far away building dream towers and turning wisps of fantasy into realities of steel and wood.

Thirteen years ago he had ripped her world apart, and she had let him do it.

...She had fallen hard for him at eighteen and they had only dated for a couple of months when he had dumped her.

His reasons hadn't made any sense to her at the time, and to be honest, they still didn't make any sense to her.

"You take too many risks."

"It's who I am!"

He had grabbed her and dragged her to the large mirror over his dresser. "Look!" he had snarled. "Look what who you are has done to you!"

She had stared silently at her black eye and her shattered lip and then looked back at him. Her temper had been close to rising.

"Are you saying that I brought this beating on myself? That I deserved what Jared did?!"

Reid had stared at her in shock. "No...Jhaidan, that's not what ... I didn't mean that. It's just that you need to be more careful. You need to not..."

"Not what?"

"Not come around for awhile."

She had stared at him and hadn't spoken very much after that. After he had left her at her house, she had sat in her chair in the dark and cried the rest of the night. She hadn't left her house in three days and let the answering machine handle her calls. On the fourth day, she started packing and making some calls. On the fifth day, she was gone. ...

She sighed and started pacing back and forth, her hands crumpling and uncrumpling the business card.

Was she going to go like he had ordered?

Or...did she dare to call his bluff? He couldn't watch everything. No matter what he said, she could probably get out of the hotel and be on a plane before he even realized that she was gone.

Her shoulders slumped. No, she couldn’t do that again. No matter how much easier it might be to just run away again, she couldn’t. There were things that needed to be said between them and this was probably the only chance that they would ever have to clear the air and tie up the loose ends. If she took off without a word to him, it would add even more regret to the pile she had already been carrying around for the last thirteen years since she had fled Vancouver.

She sighed, leaning against the counter and rubbing her head tiredly at the headache that was building as she tried to work things out in her mind. Thirteen years ago, everything had been done on a kind of auto pilot. She was hurting and convinced that things would never be repaired between her and Reid. When she didn’t hear from him that night or the next, she had found herself breaking down more and more. To her, the breakdown was proof that she was really in love with Reid. When he didn’t call her within a short period of time, she assumed that it meant that he didn’t love her as much as she loved him.

Originally, when she started making plans to do something with her life to deal with the pain, it had never crossed her mind to leave town. Yes, she had considered moving in with friends that weren’t mutual with Reid, and yes she had considered changing her phone number, but she had been reacting with emotion and pain. It wasn’t just the pain of seeming to lose Reid that was driving her, but everything she had experienced leading up to the confrontation with him.

Then the phone had rang and she had been offered a job doing copy editing for a publishing company that she had forgotten about applying for several months before. It required her to relocate and where she might have hesitated originally, she had assumed that there was nothing left for her in Vancouver. She accepted the job and within the week she was on a plane and to a future that had to be better than the present was.

The job had been perfect for her. She was able to be a nonentity in the building and slowly start healing from her broken heart. She worked on other people’s creations during the day and at night she kept up with her own writing.

It had been a fluke that got her first book published. When she dropped off the corrections she had made for her boss, she had accidentally left behind her own manuscript…

Jhaidan sighed again and went to her luggage to pull out her overnight bag. She would take something for her headache and then decide what she was going to do about Reid. Obviously she couldn’t leave things as they were, but she didn’t know how they should proceed from here. She didn’t like the idea of him hating her, but that was far better than him being disappointed in her. Disappointment always cut a lot deeper than simple anger or hatred.

She headed into the main area of the hotel suite so that she could grab something from the mini fridge beneath the bar and tossed back the pills. She looked at the clock on the nightstand and frowned.

She was running out of time.




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