Asunder 5/5

[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.









“What do you mean by that?”

“Look around you, Reid. When I left, you stopped allowing the poet to have voice. The power that you sought is based in solid reality. Concrete and steel. Fear and loathing. There are no dreams here.”

“Maybe building like this is the way I build my castles, Jaguar.”

The nickname made him realize just how much it fit her. Oh, when they were younger it had been perfect for her because of the fact that she had been through so much and yet kept landing on her feet. It fit the way she ran head on into whatever was coming her way – and the way that she used to curl into him when he was holding her close. Now, though, the name fit her because of how she had gotten used to doing everything by herself. A random fact he read about jaguars drifted into his mind and it caused him to have to bite back a shudder of emotion.

Jaguars often found themselves a place to be alone when they felt death coming for them.

“You don’t build castles, Reid. All you have built are fortresses.” She met his brown eyes with her fake greenish-blue ones. “When was the last time you took pen to paper for anything but signing your name to acquire a new piece of property? When was the last time that you let your heart set words to paper?”

“About a year after you left,” he finally admitted.

“And I suppose that I am to blame for that, as well?”

He let out a breath and realized that he couldn’t lie to her – especially not now. “At the time, yeah, I held you responsible for the fact that I couldn’t seem to write any longer. But it wasn’t your fault, not really. You were just easier for me to blame it on.”

“So what was the real reason that you stopped?”

“I just didn’t have the heart to write any longer.” Jhaidan looked like she was going to say something and he shook his head. “You were my muse, Jhaidan. You gave me inspiration by just being who you were.”

“You were a writer long before you met me, Reid,” she reminded him.

“I wrote things before I met you, true. But, I wasn’t a writer until you.”

Now it was her turn to shake her head. “You make it sound like there is a difference in the two.”

“There is and you know it better than anyone does, Jaguar.” He frowned at her. “Before you, I wrote words down. With you, there were new emotions in the words that I wrote down. After you left, the emotion was gone and the words became flat again. I couldn’t stand writing such flat and meaningless phrases, so I stopped trying.”

“Hate is just as strong an emotion as love.” She pointed out. "Flip sides of the same coin. If you love someone strongly, then you'll hate them just as strongly, too. You should have had plenty of vitriol to put down onto paper after I left."

“If you like,” he said with a shrug, because she was simply speaking her mind as she saw what would usually happen. She wasn't trying to antagonize him into anything with this. "But hate didn't seem to let me create the same level of emotional impact that writing with love in my mind did."

"I kept everything you had ever written me," she said, looking down at her hands as she thread her fingers together and then separated them again. "I have them in a safe deposit box at my penthouse and they're locked in a wall safe in my room."

"I know you too well to be surprised that you kept every letter or poem I wrote you," he admitted. "By why the safe?"

"Isn't that where you're supposed to put valuables? A safe?"

"Valuables usually means that they're priceless, Jhaidan."

"They are to me, Reid. You should know. I mean, you seem to have purchased at least one of each of my books, and even if you haven't read any of them, I know you at least open them and read the dedication page. Each book contains a dedication to my Lord of the Valley of the Black Orchids. Each preface starts with something from a letter or a poem that you had written for me."

"When you left, I figured that you had gotten rid of anything that would have reminded me of you since you didn't want to be around me any more." He didn't mean for the words to sound harsh or bitter, but that was how he had felt at the time.

"You're the one that sent me away, Reid," she said quietly. "You let me go."

"I didn't expect you to leave the damn country."

“It wasn’t something that I had planned on doing when it happened, Reid,” she said softly. “When we fought that night and you dropped me off at my apartment, I didn’t immediately think that I had to leave the country. I didn’t have any plans. There was just this knot of pain and it was hard to breathe around it. You didn’t want me. You sent me away because you thought that I was too reckless and didn’t know how to deal with that.”

“No, that wasn’t it at all,” Reid argued, shaking his head. “I was scared, Jhaidan. I was scared because I realized that something could happen to you and I could lose you.” He looked at her. “It wasn’t just about what happened with Michael.” When Jhaidan looked surprised to hear the name, he gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I remember the bastard’s name. He hurt you, caused me to hurt you and also caused me to lose the most important person in my life.”

“Don’t –“

“No, let me finish. I’ve been going on and on about you owing me explanations and answers, but I owe you the same thing.”

“It doesn’t matter, Reid. What’s done is done.”

“It matters to me,” he refuted her protest. “I need to say these things and I should have said them a long time ago. I should have said them that night or the next one. It shouldn’t have taken thirteen years for you to hear them.”

Jhaidan pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she tried to find a more comfortable position in the chair. Reid frowned and picked up the phone on his desk. Jhaidan closed her eyes while he did that, trying to force the last few hours to make some kind of sense in her mind. However, her eyes flew open when she felt herself being lifted in the air and her startled glance landed on Reid.

“Relax,” he murmured. “I’m just trying to help.” As he said that, he sat her down in a more comfortably padded chair that he must have had brought in while he was on the phone. He sat her down and then retreated back to his chair behind his desk.

“The uncomfortable chairs are usually to intimidate the most troublesome of clients who think that they’ll be able to force me to create to their design specifications instead of to my own,” he explained. “Now then,” his brown eyes pierced hers. “I believe I was accounting for the past.”

She sighed, weary of fighting him on everything and nodded, leaning back in the chair.

“As I was saying, Michael was the catalyst but not the reason I pushed you away, Jhaidan. I was scared.”

Jhaidan gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re never scared.”

“I was scared that night,” he admitted. “No one had heard from you for two days and we didn’t even know where to begin looking for you. All Jason knew was that your old apartment was north of the city somewhere. None of us had even the idea of an address and since the apartment was in Michael’s name, we couldn’t find you in any of the directories. Then when Lena and Amanda found you and brought you back to us, you were beaten up and so fragile looking.” He sighed, leaning back in his chair as he looked at her. “I got scared and I didn’t like the feeling. It hit me that something worse could have happened to you and none of us would have known about it until too late – if ever.” He sighed, running a hand over his face. “I was scared of losing you. You had become so important to me in such a short time that anything happening to you scared the fuck out of me. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with that I reacted badly. Instead of holding you and taking care of you that night, instead of telling you how I was really feeling, I hurt you even more. I hurt you and made you feel bad for being the person I had fallen in love with and then to make matters even worse, I pushed you away.”

Jhaidan swallowed at the confession, unable to look at his face. She looked down into her lap, where her fingers were interlaced. “I lost everything that night – at least I thought I had because that was how it felt. I had been so scared about what was happening with Michael and I was in so much pain that I was trying not to show. All I kept thinking was that I needed to get back to you because you would let me know that it was safe and that everything was going to be all right now that I was finally free of him and his hold over me.”

“You needed me and I wasn’t there,” he sighed. “I failed you when you needed me the most. It didn’t occur to me at the time that you might need me because you seemed so strong and you were always so determined to handle anything that happened by yourself.”

“Because that’s what I was used to and had always done. Yes, I had friends and good friends that I could go to, but that usually happened only after the trouble was over, Reid. It was all I knew how to do.”

“You had me.”

“And I didn’t want to add to anything you might be going through by adding my problems to yours.”

“And in less than two weeks time, what I had been the most afraid of happened. You were gone and no one knew where you were or what had happened to you. Your big brother didn’t even know, Jhaidan. I can understand – now, sort of – you not telling me what was going on with you. However, you left Jason hanging, too. I didn’t think that you were capable of hurting him that much. I may have deserved your anger and your desire to retaliate, but Jason didn’t deserve that.”

Jhaidan stared at him in shock for a moment and then her face tightened with anger. “You think that’s what I did? You think that I left the country because I was trying to get even with you for hurting me?” She shook her head in disbelief, moving to the edge of the chair, before she slowly got to her feet. “Goddess, you are still so fucking sure that everything has always been about you.”

“Sit down before you fall down.” He winced at how much like an order that sounded.

“Fuck you,” she snarled. “You don’t get to order me around, Reid.”

At least her anger had put some color in her cheeks, Reid noted, even as he shook his head.

“Jaguar, please, sit down.” He waited until she finally complied and then sighed. “What was I supposed to think? We fought, I hurt you and then you were gone without a word.”

She sat silently, trying to regain the tattered edges of her temper to herself. When she thought she could talk calmly again, she looked at Reid.

“You were the catalyst, but not the complete reason that I left,” she said quietly. “Some months before meeting you, I had applied for a copy editing job at a publishing house that was based out of New York. I didn’t hear back from the company and thought that was the end of it. The day after we fought and you took me home, their human resources manager called me. I waited two days before I called them.”

Reid didn’t let the realization of the timing show on his face as he looked at her. She waited for two days before she called about the job. She had waited until she was sure he wasn’t going to contact her.

Damn it.

“You could have called me,” he finally commented.

“I felt that you had made it pretty clear that I was to stay away from you until you got things figured out in your head.” She ran her hands through her hair. “When three days passed and I still didn’t hear anything from you, I called the publishing house for an interview. They did a phone screening and then I flew out there for an interview. I went back home and two days later, I had a job offer. It had been two weeks since I had heard anything from you, so I took that as a clear sign that I was to take the job and start my life over.”

“You could have called me or come to see me,” he pointed out as gently as he could manage with the barrage of emotions he was feeling.

“You told me to stay away from you, Reid,” she reminded him tiredly. “You said that I shouldn’t come around you for awhile and that you needed time to work things out in your head.”

“And you listened to me?” His voice was incredulous. “You’d never listened to advice from any of us before.”

“I thought if I listened and did what you said it would show you that I was worth the trouble and you would like me again.” She stared down at her hands. “I didn’t expect that the phone call wouldn’t come … that you wouldn’t knock on my door a few days afterward.”

“Oh, Jaguar …”

She shrugged, still looking down at her hands. What more was there for her to say? Things changed and she had done her best to move on with her life.

“And your brother? Why didn’t you tell him where you were?”

“I didn’t leave him with a whole lot of questions. I mean, I told him that I was safe and that I had a new job that I loved. I called him when my first book was being picked up for publishing.”

“But you didn’t tell him where you were.” He pointed out. “Why not?”

She shook her head slowly. “I couldn’t tell him where I was because I knew he could never lie to you or keep a secret from you, Reid. By that time, I just didn’t want to talk about you because it hurt too damn much. I also figured that by that time, you were doing your own thing and didn’t need to be reminded of the mistake you almost made.”

“The mistake I almost made?” He could think about a lot of mistakes he had made with her, but he wasn’t sure what she meant by almost. Looking at her face, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like her answer.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Staying with me.”

He didn’t yell at her for that. God knew that his first reaction was anger and he wanted to yell, but he could tell from her face and her voice that it was something she believed was true. Never once in all of the time between the last time he’d seen her and now had he ever viewed anything that happened with her to be a mistake. The biggest mistake he’d made had been in letting her go and he had kicked himself in the head over and over again for that.

“Why didn’t you tell me at the signing, or even at your hotel that you were ill?” He demanded as calmly as he could.

“Dying, Reid. I’m not ill, I’m dying. There’s a difference.”

“And what would you say the difference is?”

Her voice was gentle as she looked at him. “I can’t take medicine for this, Reid. I’m not going to get better and not even you with all of your anger and stubbornness and brute force can change that.”

“I don’t know if I can accept that.”

“You don’t have a choice. This is reality. It’s the reality that I have raged and screamed and cried against, but it’s the reality that I had to face. And now, because you couldn’t leave well enough alone, it’s a reality that you have to face, too.”

He decided to leave that argument alone for right now. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“What was the point, Reid? I wasn’t going to let you think it was some ploy to make you feel bad or that I was trying to get pity. I don’t want your pity and I didn’t want you feeling bad over something you couldn’t control.” She sighed. “I thought it was better that you remember me with anger than with pity.” She swallowed. “And hey, you got a good fuck out of it. Hate sex is a lot more fun than pity sex would be.”

He flinched, remembering what he had told her the other night when she protested because he didn’t even like her any longer. “Liking someone has precious little to do with fucking someone sometimes.”

“Jaguar,” he whispered, but she put up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t. Don’t apologize for that night because you were right. I did want you, Reid.” Her voice was husky, but with emotion. “I’ve never stopped wanting you and that night… well, would you have been so determined to seduce me if you had known I was dying before you broke into the hotel suite?”

“Of course not!” And then he realized what she was getting at.

“Exactly,” she said quietly. “You might have broken into my hotel suite to get me to talk to you and give you the answers that you needed, but nothing else would have happened and it’s not something that I regret happening.”

“I was so rough with you, Jaguar,” he said, shaking his head. “I took everything from you that I wanted to and I got you to do things that I shouldn’t have.”

Jhaidan stood up and reached across the desk to put her hand over his. “You didn’t take anything that I didn’t already want to give you, Reid. Everything that happened did so because I wanted it very much.” She swallowed and looked into his face. “Reid, I wanted you and I wanted you to let go and come at me with everything that you have. I needed that as much as you did -- whether you admit to it or not. If you knew that I was dying, you would have changed everything. You have been careful and overly gentle when you touched me."

"Damn right I would have been!"

"And that's why I didn't tell you. Having you being hesitant to touch me because of what is happening to me would have broken something in me all over again. I got to have things real with you for one night, Reid." She shook her head. "I wouldn't have given that up for anything. Having you just go at me with no worries was one of the best nights I have ever had."

"I could have seriously hurt you, Jaguar," he said with self-loathing in his voice. "I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to hurt you and make you see how good it could still be with us. I wanted to prove how well we still fit together so that I could convince you to stay."

"You didn't hurt me, Reid. You made me feel more alive than I have in a very long time and I will always be thankful to you for that."

"I don't want your gratitude, Jhaidan."

"Then what do you want from me now, Reid? You know what happened thirteen years ago. You know why I left and what happened. You know why I was rushed to the hospital. There are no more parts of my life for you to peel away to get your answers. You know everything now."

"And you're no longer going to through any of this alone."

Jhaidan blinked at him, not sure what he was saying. "What do you mean, Reid?"

"You're mine and always have been mine," he said gently as he came around the desk to stand in front of her. "You're not doing all of this alone, Jaguar. You're not going to face the pain all on your own and you're not going to face your death alone. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere."

She swallowed, looking up into his face. "So what happens now?"

“I don’t entirely know,” he admitted. “But whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together.”

“I can’t ask that of you, Reid.”

“But you’re not,” he pointed out.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “I’ve read all about what’s going to happen and I wouldn’t wish experiencing all of that on my worst enemy.”

“I want to be there, Jhaidan,” he said. “I know it’s not going to be good and it’s not going to be pretty, but I want to be there.”

“Why? Why would you put yourself through something like that when you don’t have to?”

“Because I love you.”

“I can’t do this to you.” Her voice was soft.

“You’re not doing anything to me.”

Now the tears were sliding down her cheeks. “I care too much about you, Reid.”

He simply pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Jhaidan. I’m not going to run just because things aren’t going to end well. Because it’s the time in between now and the end that matters.”

She leaned against him. “I don’t want you to be hurt, Reid. I don't.”

“I know you don’t,” he said, running a hand over her hair. “And I appreciate the concern for my feelings and well being. But any time I get with you, it’s amazing and I’ll be grateful for it.”

“I may not have more than a few months left, love. That hardly seems fair to you.”

“Stop worrying about what’s fair to me,” Reid said softly. “For the moment, stop worrying about that and tell me what you want.”

“If it was any other time, I would tell you that I wanted to be with you and that I loved you.”

“Put aside everything for the moment. Focus on what would make you happy for the remainder of your time.”

“I want to know that I won’t die with you hating me for putting you through all of this.”

“No matter what, I will never hate you for any of it,” he promised solemnly.

“I love you, Reid,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to hurt.”

“I know you don’t. You keep saying that so there's no way to doubt how much you're fighting against doing anything that can hurt me.”

“But I can’t lie and say that I don’t want to do this alone.”

“I don’t want you to lie. I want you to be honest.”

“I want you to be with me... but I also don’t want you hurting.”

“The hurt will be worth it.”

“How can you say that so calmly?”

“Because I love you, Jhaidan.”

“I couldn’t take … I couldn’t handle another fight and losing you again, Reid,” she admitted her fears in a very soft voice. “It would destroy me even worse now.” She choked back a sob. “I know you don’t understand that feeling right now, but it’s what I’m worried about. In my dreams I --” She stopped her words with a firm snap of her jaw.

“If you’re so convinced I don’t understand, then explain it to me.”

“I keep seeing you walk away,” she confessed softly. “I see it in my dreams. I see you trying to be strong and telling me that you’re never leaving me, but then you walk away. I call your name but you don’t even seem to hear me.”

“Oh, love...” He looked at her helplessly. “I wish I knew how to convince you that I never would.”

She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “I want you so much,” she admitted. “I want you and I want you with me.”

“Then I’ll be with you.”

She tugged at a stand of her hair, a sign of her worry. “Because you want to, not because you think you have some kind of guilt to deal with?”

“Because I want to,” he promised.

“And if I say that I need you...” She swallowed.

“Yes, love?”

“I need you.” Her voice was almost too soft to hear. “I love you so much and I need you...”

“How do you need me?”

“Any way that you’ll have me.” She looked up at him. “I love you and I need you.”

“I’ll have you in several ways.” He grinned faintly.

“Are you absolutely sure, Reid?”

“Positive.”

She looked up at him for a long moment and then reached out for him.

His response was to pull her close, ducking his head to kiss her fiercely.

Jhaidan whimpered and melted against him as she responded to his kiss.

Reid pulled her even closer as he deepened the kiss.

She made another sound in her throat, letting herself be pulled closer to him.

“I love the sounds you make,” he murmured.

“You cause me to make them.”

“I know, but I still love them.”

“I hope you’ll keep doing so.”

“I will.”

She swallowed. “I love you, Reid.”

“And I love you,” he said. “Will always love you.”

“Can I … I need to ask you a question that you may not like.”

“All right,” he said, looking at her warily.

Her shoulders hunched in, a sure sign that she was expecting anger or rejection. “Would you still be this determined to be with me and love me if I wasn’t dying?”

“I don’t know as I’d be feeling this particularly intense about it,” he said honestly. “But it would not change the fact that I’ve spent the past thirteen years wishing we were back together.”

“You have? All of that time?”

“I have, yes,” he said with a slight inclination of his head.

“I didn’t realize...”

“I’ve been telling you this for a while now.”

“I guess maybe I didn’t really hear it or believe it since there was so much anger and other things going on with us the last couple of days.”

“Understandable enough, I suppose,” he said. “But it’s the truth, Jhaidan.”

“I thought you would have found someone else,” she said softly. “I used to imagine the kind of girl that you would find after you were free of me.”

“There were other women, yes, I won’t lie to you and say that there weren’t. And I even cared deeply for one or two of them. But I loved none of them the way I love you.”

“I never wished for you to be unhappy, Reid,” she said softly. “Even when I was so hurt that I wasn’t sure how I was going to function after you sent me away, I couldn’t wish unhappiness on you. I always hoped you found someone that would be worthy of you and treat you well.”

“My last girlfriend... was the kind of woman you would have liked, I think,” he said. “The kind of woman you’d be friends with if she weren’t my ex. I think that was why it was so easy for me to date her -- it was almost like I had your... well, not approval. But it was almost like I had your opinion on her without actually having your opinion.” He smiled sheepishly.

“Why did you break up, then? She sounds like she was the kind of woman that you needed.”

“She wasn’t you,” he said simply. “My heart always returned to you.”

“I couldn’t stop loving you,” she said softly. “I just couldn’t do it.”

“I couldn’t stop loving you, either,” he said. “I never really tried, because I knew it’d never work.”

“It hurt being without you, but I just … you were my soul mate.”

“And you were mine.”

“Dating … I couldn’t let it happen.”

“So you haven’t dated at all?”

She shook her head. “I first threw myself into work and then … I just couldn’t. There was no one that I wanted.”

“Then I feel as though I should apologize for dating others.”

“No you shouldn’t.”

“I was never truly trying to replace you, I promise.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations for that, Reid,” she said softly. “I was gone.”

“It was still betraying you, your memory. I shouldn’t have.”

“But I left you,” she reminded him. “You had no idea where I was.”

“I was in love with you but I tried to move on.”

“Which is not a crime, Reid.” Her voice was gentle. “You had every reason to and I can’t fault you for that.”

“I think the fact that I never truly managed says something, though,” he said thoughtfully.

“It’s possible.”

“I was always looking for someone like you.”

“I’m not irreplaceable, love.” Jhaidan said softly. "Hell, I'm not the easiest woman to be around sometimes. I know that."

“You are to me.”

“I never knew that.”

“I’m sorry I never communicated that to you.”

“You …” She swallowed. “You can make it up to me.” Her sentence was hesitant, not sure if there was still anger there between them even with the determination he had to be with her.

“How?” he asked, without so much as a hesitation or second thought. “Name it.”

“Take me to bed?”

He smiled at that. “Gladly.”

“Do … do I have to go back to the hotel?”

“Not unless you want to.”

She shook her head. “I can send Foster to get my stuff.”

“Then you don’t have to go back.”

She nodded. “All right. I just want to stay with you for as long as possible.”

“I like the idea of you staying with me.”

“I like that you want me to stay now.” She flushed slightly and shook her head.

He just gave her a warm smile.

“I sound really stupid and dependant, don’t I?”

“No, you sound frightened. It’s understandable.”

“But it’s not you I’m afraid of.” And it wasn’t. She never had been afraid of him.

“I know,” he assured her. “I know.”

“I’ve never been afraid of you.”

“That means the world to me.” He’d always worried about that, after their parting. He’d prayed that she wasn’t, though.

She pressed closer to him, shaking her head. “How could I ever be afraid of you?”

“I worried about a lot of things after we parted ways. Some of them not always founded in reality.”

She was quiet for a long moment and then when she spoke, her voice was very soft. “I worried about a lot of things, too, but never once was there fear of you.”

“Thank you for that,” he said, his voice not quite as soft as hers.

“You don’t need to thank me for that.”

“I know, but I still feel like I should.”

“Why?”

“You could have been afraid of me, after everything went so badly...”

She shook her head. “Hurting and broken-hearted, yes. I can’t deny that I thought my world ended. But I was never afraid of you, Reid. Never.”

“Thank God for that. I think it would break something in me if you’d been afraid of me,” he said honestly. “Afraid of how I’d react to something is one thing. Afraid of me personally is another thing entirely.”

“No, love,” she whispered. “Never afraid of you personally. If there was ever one man that I was not afraid of like that, it’s you. It’s always been you.”

He quirked a smile. “Good.”

She gave him a shy smile back.

“Now, we have something more important to worry about.” He grinned. “Namely that whole taking you to bed thing.”

She grinned. “Yes, love. Take me to bed.”

“Requires there being a bed.”

“Then you should probably take me to your bedroom instead of your office.”

“I suppose I should.” He smiled warmly. “Come on, then, love.”

She smiled, tucking herself against his side. She was tired, so very tired, but she was with Reid and she would fight against her body’s urge to just collapse.

As though he sensed how tired she was, he made sure they moved slowly.

“You slowed down,” she murmured. “Change your mind?” There was teasing in her voice so he would know she didn’t seriously think that.

“Of course not, love. You seem a little tired, though. Didn’t want to move too fast.”

“It’s been a long few days -- even before all of this. But I’ll be okay.”

“You promise?”

She nodded. “Just take me to bed and fuck me senseless and everything will be fine.”

“I can do that.”

“I feel very lucky right now.”

“Oh?” he asked as he led her towards the bedroom.

“I’m with you and you want me.”

“I feel lucky that you want me, so we’re even.”

She lifted her head up to give him a smile. “I never stopped wanting you.”

“Just like I never stopped wanting you.” He might have felt a lot of other things in there, as well, but he’d definitely never stopped wanting her.

“I’m yours.”

“Damn right you are.”

“That never stopped. Even when I … I never stopped thinking of myself as yours.”

They reached the bedroom and he pulled her close again. “You’ve always been mine.”

“I’m glad that you have never stopped thinking that.”

“I didn’t think you still wanted to be mine, but I never stopped thinking of you as mine.”

“I have always been yours -- even while in New York.”

“And now you’re mine again for real and for true.”

She nodded. “I am.”

He smiled at that, even as he tugged her shirt up.

She was happy to help him get rid of her shirt.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

“You’re biased.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s still the truth.”

She slid her hands beneath his shirt, pushing it up gently.

He shivered at her touch, pulling back to take his shirt off quickly.

“I’ve always loved looking at you.”

“Why?”

She flushed. “Because you’ve always been gorgeous.”

“You’re no slouch in that area, yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. It’s the truth.”

“No one has ever made me feel like I am besides you.”

“That’s because we complete each other.”

“I used to be afraid to believe that,” she admitted.

“And now?”

She looked up at him. “And now I’m not afraid I’ll be cold or alone again.”

“I don’t ever want you to be afraid again.”

“With you here with me, I don’t think I ever will be.”

“Good.”

She smiled slightly as she let her hands move across his chest. “I’ve always liked touching you,” she said shyly.

“I certainly won’t stop you if you continue touching me.”

She ran her hands up his chest and then along his shoulders and arms.

He smiled faintly and let Jhaidan’s hands wander where they pleased.

She continued exploring with her hands, running them over his back and then down to the dip above his hips.

“I always liked the way you touched me,” he said. “Like you couldn’t entirely believe your luck.”

“That’s a pretty apt description of it,” she admitted.

“Really?”

She nodded. “Really.”

“Why?”

“Gorgeous guys like you didn't generally notice the girls like me,” she shrugged.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

She blushed softly. “No one has ever said that and meant it before.”

“Well, I mean it. I very much mean it.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t ever need to thank me for telling you the truth.”

She blushed again.

“You are so beautiful when you blush, you know that?”

She shook her head.

“Well, you are.”

“You might be a little bit biased.”

“So?”

“Just pointing that out.”

“Well, don’t.” But he smiled at her as he said it.

She laughed softly, leaning against him.

“I love it when I can make you laugh.”

“I don’t think I’ve really laughed much in awhile.”

“I hope to be able to make you laugh more.”

“I have no doubts that you will.”

“I hope I can make you laugh every day right up until the end.”

Tears filled her eyes at the simple declaration and she wrapped her arms around him, holding him tighter.

He wrapped his arms around her and just held her close, saying nothing but being there for her.

"I need you," she said softly.

“You’ve got me, love. You’ve got me.”

“Thank you.”

“And you don’t need to thank me for it, either.”

“It’s a habit.”

He smiled, pulling her tightly against him. "It's all right, my Jaguar. I'll have plenty of time to break you of that habit."




«u»TOMORROW«/u»«/b»


The funeral service was beautiful -- at least that was what her was told when it was all over. He was still too wrapped up in his own grief and anger to recall much of anything about the day. He didn't care about the damn service or how nice people may have thought it was -- as if it could have been anything else when it was for her. What he cared about was that she was gone. He had finally been able to bring her back into his life and now she was gone again. Only this time, there was no getting her to come back to him. Death was one of those insurmountable difficulties that he couldn't fight against and no amount of money would be able to make any bargains. He knew that he should have been grateful that he had been given any amount of time with her at all, but it hadn't been enough. It would have never been enough.

After the two of them had talked and they received their answers from each other about what had happened between the two of them all of those years ago, he had packed her up and moved her back to Vancouver. They wanted to be together for however much time that she had left, and there was no way in hell that he was ever again going to be away from her side by choice. Craig was able to manage his business so that he could make the most of whatever time that she had left. That way, he wouldn't have to worry about something with his business taking him away from her when she needed him most.

One year.

Thirteen years of separation and all of the time they ended up having left together had been a single year.

The time they had left together was the best time she had ever had in her life. He had damn well made sure of that fact. He didn't allow for there to be anything less than perfection for her. She worried about him witnessing what she was going through and she was heartbroken over the pain he was feeling because of that. He did his best to shield her from what he was feeling, but she still knew him to damn well for that to work on her very often. Still, he tried. He didn't like the idea of her having to worry about anything.

There were days that were better than others and they would go out horseback riding or something else that allowed them to be doing something normal together. They would go out hiking or exploring and then he'd take her to dinner somewhere nice and fancy. There were times that he would take her shopping and she would laugh because she didn't think she needed anything beyond what she already had.

Other days, she would be in too much pain or just too weak to get out of their bed on her own. On those days, he would tuck her against his body or on his lap in a chair while they watched DVDs of her favorite movies or else he would read to her. When she told him once that his voice soothed her mind on the bad days, he started reading to her more and more. If he wasn't reading to her, he would just hold her and talk to her about whatever might enter his mind.

They often talked for hours and filled each other in on the events of the least thirteen years of their lives. They talked of their experiences and of plans that they had once dreamed about.

Some nights they would make love for hours, exploring all of the memories of things they liked or wanted to try. He tried to be careful of any of the rough stuff for fear of harming her. However, she explained to him that when he let himself go and made love to her with nothing held back it helped her because something other than the illness had control over what was happening to her. The way he made her feel pushed the pain away.

It had been nine months when she started getting worse. It wasn't a gradual decline as far as he was able to see. One day, she was fine and then the next day, she couldn't walk on her own. She started forgetting things and getting lost even when she was standing still. She wasn't able to go about her normal routine without needing help. It was when she could no longer hold a pen in her hand and write that he felt something break within him.

Being unable to write after it had been her soul for all of her life impacted her ability to continue to keep up a brave front for him. It was also the sign that forced him to accept that their time together was running out.

He spent more time holding her as they talked. Invariably, their conversations would turn into spiritual discussions. Being together again like they were meant to be, he found himself once again embracing his spirituality and pondering his entire belief system in a way that he hadn't done in years.

"I'm not sure that thirteen was the charm," she said weakly one night. "No eternal happiness for us this time."

"I'll see you in the fourteenth, love. Don't you ever doubt that I will find you again."

"I'm not ready, Reid," her voice broke and sent a pain through his heart. "I'm not strong enough to face this like I thought I was."

"You're not alone, Jhaidan ... my Jaguar. You're not going to have to deal with any of this without me by your side."

"I'm scared," she admitted softly. "I'm not as brave as I wanted to be for you."

"You don't need to be brave for me, love. I'm not going anywhere. I'm here with you for as long as we've got left."

It was the conversation that they had when she was barely hanging on that would be the one to stay with him forever...

He was on the bed with her, and she was curled into body with his arms wrapped around her. She had lost so much weight that he had to be careful not to crush her when he held her to him tightly.

Her body was barely managing to function like she needed it to and both of them knew that they would be facing the end soon.

"I used to dream about you all of the time." Her voice was just a whisper from the pain and the effects of the medication she was on. He knew that it took her quite a bit of effort for her to talk to him through her pain.

"You did?" He kissed the top of her head.

"Yes," she admitted. "I would dream that you found me. You would bust through my door, shove me up against a wall and kiss me until I could barely breathe. Then you would scoop me up and take me home." She swallowed and he felt her body tense against his with the pain. "Sometimes, I would dream that you found me and just held me close, never willing to let me go."

"I would have done exactly that, love," he assured her. "You're mine and I would have found you and reminded you of that."

"When they told me what was going to happen to me, all I wanted was for you to come busting through the door and carry me away from all of that." She swallowed again, wetting her lips. "Which, made no sense because I was the one who had run away from you in the first place."

"That doesn't matter, love. If I had known that you needed me, I would have been there no matter what. No one could have kept me away from you in that case."

"After the way I left the country, I wasn't sure you would come for me if I called you."

"I would have come for you if I had known you needed me. You wouldn't have had to go through so much of the pain and fear by yourself." His voice was soft as he kissed her forehead. "I wasn't there when you needed me before, but I promised myself that the next time that you needed me, I would be there and I would make it up to you."

He held her close, feeling that it was almost over.

"I was very young then and I acted more with passionate emotions than logic." She turned her head up as much as she could. "I made such a nightmare for us both and I am so sorry, Reid. So sorry, my Black Orchid. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Oh love," he whispered. "I forgave you a very long time ago but we were both at fault. I'm only sorry that you carried such guilt along for so long. I love you, no matter the circumstances of our past were."

"That's good to know, my Lord of the Valley of the Black Orchids." She sighed softly. "I love you, Reid. I will always love you."

Tears stung Reid's eyes because he knew that this was the final goodbye for the two of them.

"I love you and will always love you, Jhaidan, my fierce Jaguar."

"I'm so tired, Reid."

"I know, love," he said gently with tears in his eyes. "You close your eyes and sleep. I'll stay right here with you."

He felt her close her eyes and then let out a sigh.

He lay down, holding her against him. He tried to get some rest, but there was no way he could. That was why he was awake and holding her when the life left her body.



Now, he sat on the bed they had shared for such a short time and stared into the dimness of the room. He couldn't believe that she was gone. No matter how much preparation he had tried to do for this, he couldn't seem to accept what had happened. It was like he thought if he didn't accept it then it would never happen. He had fought against everything else in his life and had gotten his way. That didn’t work this time and it had been too soon that the light had been taken out of his life again.

Jhaidan had tried to get him to promise that he wouldn’t mourn her, but he had refused to give her that promise. He would have promised her almost anything in the world, but even at the end, he couldn’t do that. To pretend that he agreed to it – to say that he wouldn’t mourn her would be like someone saying that she had never existed. To refuse to mourn her would have been to deny how much she had meant to him and he just wouldn’t allow that to be even a thought in anyone’s mind. He didn’t really care what they thought of him personally, but he would not have any doubts cast on how much the two of them had loved each other.

To even pretend such a thing would have been the coward’s way out.

For thirteen years he had thought the worst of her and allowed her to think that he didn’t care about her. It was a mistake that he would never be able to take back, but he wouldn’t fail her again by pretending to the world that he could move on so easily from her.

His Jaguar wasn’t the kind of woman that you just moved on from.

He ran his hand through his hair and looked down at the floor. This hurt a hell of a lot more than he knew how to handle. He knew that it would hurt – fuck, how could it not hurt? He just spent the last few months watching his soul mate and the only woman he would ever love so completely waste away to nothing. He had held her in his arms as she died. On the one hand, he wouldn’t have changed being there for her for anything in the world. He was glad that he got even that short amount of time with her; that he had been able to offer what comfort he had been able to when she needed it.

On the other hand, he would have done almost anything to have gotten more time with her. There was so much that they had been robbed of and there was so much that they had needed to make up for.

There were so many things that he had needed to make up to her – so many things that she had deserved and had been robbed of. She was too damn young to die like she had.

He didn’t care that she told him that the last year with him had made everything worth it. She had deserved so much more and all of that had been stolen from her. That damn illness had stolen everything from her and then death had taken her from him.

He wasn’t used to feeling like ranting and raving against something that he knew couldn’t be changed. It wasn’t like Jhaidan had run away from him again and it wasn’t like he could send out private investigators to find her and bring her back to him. He wasn’t Orpheus and she wasn’t Eurydice. (Although, if he did have the chance that Orpheus did, he would never have risked Jhaidan by looking for her before he was supposed to. Stupid idiotic man to risk everything because he had a moment of doubt.)

He got up from the bed and walked over to the writing desk Jhaidan had used before it became too difficult for her to sit up in the chair. He ran his hand against the smooth wood and then down along the indentations of the lowered roll top. He hadn’t paid much attention to the desk since she had stopped being able to use it. There were several images in his head of him sitting in one of the easy chairs and watching her as she worked.

Sighing, and not understanding why he was torturing himself this way right now, he sat down in her chair and slowly opened the roll top of the desk and pushed it back until it locked into place.

To his surprise, the desk had been straightened up and there was an envelope sitting in the middle of her desk with his name written on it. Next to the envelope was a single dark-colored orchid made of silk. He frowned, because the handwriting was Jhaidan’s, but he knew that no one had been in the desk since he helped Jhaidan box up her work to send on to her publisher. When had the letter and flower been placed in here? Where had the flower come from?

He reached to pick up the envelope and realized that his hand was shaking. Taking a deep breath, he opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper that was waiting inside.

Reid,

No matter what happens, never forget how much I love you. I know that it seems hard right now, but I know that you can get through this. You’ve always been so strong even with things that you never like to think about. I want you to believe me when I say that this year has been amazing for me. Just having this time to be with you has made everything worth it. I can imagine the face that you’re making as you read this, but do not doubt that I mean every word I say – especially now. Being able to have this final amount of time to spend with you has made me less afraid of everything that comes next. I know this sounds trite, but death is not the ending. You taught me that and you’ve gotten me to believe that again. I now know that I’ll see you soon, but I hope not too soon. You have a wonderful life still ahead of you, Reid. Live life and enjoy it, sweetheart. I love you so much and I always will. When the days are hard, just remember that simple fact.

Love always,
Jhaidan








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