THE VOID a jack & bobby fan fiction. By Cappuccino Girl Notes: A post-ep for And Justice for All. Many thanks to the delightful Cheapmetaphor for the beta. Maybe that remixredux will play in your favor one of these days. Rating: PG for language Summary: In a few months you'll be tired of me... It's started snowing again, not that they needed anymore but here it comes anyway. Grace parks her car and walks up the drive, the snowflakes defiantly covering her with polka dots. She sees him there, standing outside the door without his coat on. Stupid boy, she thinks. "I'm sorry," he says. Grace just puts her scarf around his neck and opens the door. He follows her inside. It's nearly one in the morning and the boys are long asleep. Everything passes her by these days. "I'm really sorry," he says again, a little more pleading this time. "Sorry for what?" "For earlier, for everything." Grace drops her things on the kitchen table, then grabs two beers from the fridge. She carries them into the living room where they both collapse onto the couch. The room is almost dark, except for the small lamp that stays on all night. They drink in silence, watching the minutes flash by on the stereo's digital clock while Tom tries to formulate a sentence. "Don't you like apologies?" he asks eventually. "It's not about the apology." "What then?" "Are you really sorry, or do you just say it? You're always saying you're sorry, Tom. You screw up and then you apologise but I don't think that you realise you're making mistakes, do you?" He sighs heavily. She looks up and strokes his hand, pats it a little. "One day," she says, "you'll be fifty and you'll have fallen for a young woman and in that moment you'll think of me," she says, a wistful smile forming at the corners of her mouth. "I'm here to stay," he tells her as he begins to slide his hand up under her sweater. "Hell would freeze over before I'd leave." She pushes his hand away, gently, but it leaves her stomach exposed. He stares at it. "I think we both know that isn't true," she tells him. "There isn't a hell anyway, although the events of the past few days have made me begin to wonder." "Benedict really hurt you, didn't he?" Her eyes widen a little in surprise. Maybe this boy isn't as naive as she'd thought. She stops picking the label from the bottle that she's holding. "He tried to kiss me last week." And the sentence just hangs there for a while. "I pushed him away." She can see that she's hurt him. It's probably the first time that she's seen that look in his eyes. She might as well have told him that there is no Santa Claus. "He's more suitable, isn't he?" Tom asks quietly. "None of this would have happened if I'd have kissed him that night." "You're flattering yourself there." "He got his revenge though, didn't he? I mean, he's ruined my career without technically doing anything, he's demoted Merle, and you're without a supervisor. Congratulations, Mr. Benedict," she exclaims, raising her beer in salute. "He can't hate you just because you didn't kiss him. Him kissing you would have been just as unethical as what we've got here." "You are so very young," she says with a laugh. "You actually still think the best of people." She cautiously kisses his cheek. He runs his hands through her hair, saying, "Benedict would have been pissed at us whether you would have kissed him or not." "I know, but in my position, I don't have the liberty of making mistakes. Everyone's waiting at my office door, anxious to be the first to witness my downfall. I know I'm not perfect. God knows I try. Over the years, I've taken all of the insults and damnation that have been thrown at me without flinching, but this, Benedict taking his anger at my rejection out on my career... It hurts, you know?" Tom takes his hands from her face, pushes her back a little. He sits there, motionless for a while. Then he swallows, stares into her eyes and says in the quietest of tones,"Oh stop being such a fucking martyr, Grace." "What?" He's looking away from her now, looking at the pattern on the blanket that's draped over the back of the couch. "You're doing that thing again where you think it's all about you, and it's not." "You're just like all the others, aren't you? You think I'm playing this up for attention." She stands up and walks away from him. He follows her. She wishes he wouldn't. "No I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm-" "Fuck you." "I'm just mad that he tried to kiss you." "I am sick and tired of your apologies. Grow up, Tom, and then come back to me when you're ready to behave like an adult." He grabs hold of her and pushes her against the wall. Her eyes spark with anger but she's too worn out to fight him. "I'm an adult, and you need to stop treating me like a child." "I told you my inner most feelings just now," she says, and she's not sure whether it's true or the reflex of self-defence. "I'm not going to fill the void that Bobby's left now that he's growing up. I won't do that." "I don't want you to." She twists her wrists a little, trying to loosen the grip he has on her. He doesn't. "Do you think that I wanted this relationship? Because I didn't. I wanted you to take yourself as far away from me as humanly possible and instead you walked into my office and sat in my car and called me beautiful." "I did." "I'm fifty-one years old. My boys hate me, and now my boss does too and in a few months you'll be tired of me. I'll be the joke of the university. You're pretty, but I can resist you." He kisses her hard, not letting go of her hands which are pinned against the wall. When he's finished with her, she's gasping for breath. "You think that if you stop seeing me everyone will love you again? They won't." With that, he walks away. She stands there, unable to move. He's actually going toward the front door. He's going to leave her now. He hates her just like everybody else does. "Wait." Tom doesn't look back. "Wait. Please wait." He stops when he reaches the door. She's stumbling towards him and he thinks she's crying but then Grace doesn't really cry. Her voice just cracks and her eyes go red and he thinks it's the prettiest thing he's ever seen. She touches his nose and his mouth with her fingers. He doesn't look tired around the eyes like she does so she traces imaginary lines on his face. Tom lets go of the door handle. "Come to bed," she whispers. She takes his hand and they walk towards the stairs. ~* *~ It's the middle of the night and the house is quiet now. Her children are fast asleep in the other room. She turns over and looks at the man lying next to her. She wonders whether he's at peace with himself while he sleeps. He looks quiet now. Maybe he's dreaming of reading soggy comic books in the bath when he was little. She imagines that he kept this big pile in a cabinet under the sink, and over the years, the pages had crinkled and the ink became all smeary, but by the time he noticed it, he'd memorised all the words written in the tiny bubbles. She goes to kiss his forehead but stops short. She pulls the covers up to her nose and turns away from him again. *~ fin. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The author loves feedback. Send any and all to cappuccinogirlie@hotmail.com