Lois rapped softly on the door to Jax's penthouse as though afraid of his answer. She listened intently for permission to enter, but did not receive it. She'd stopped at the front desk to inquire whether Jax had returned from his drive yet, and had been informed of his arrival only a half-hour previous.
"Jax, it's Lois… Come on, they told me you were back. Didn't we just do this song and dance last week? Jax?"
The lack of answer concerned her, and she fumbled through her purse for the key Brenda had given her months before. She fingered it warily and wondered if she should take the liberty of using it. What if he was in the shower? Jax might take exception to walking naked into his living room to find his first Port Charles flame standing there in embarrassed shock.
But what if he wasn't?
Heaving a nervous sigh, Lois slipped the key into the lock and steeled herself for what might lay inside. She peered around the open door to discover a disheveled Jax sleeping on the far couch. She closed the door, careful not to disturb him, and set her purse down on the desk. As she came closer, she could see Jax was drenched in a feverish sweat. Feeling his face anxiously, she found him to be burning up. At her touch, Jax rolled over and moaned fitfully, as if in the throes of a nightmare. Lois headed for the bathroom to find a washcloth and something for his fever while trying to remember Monica Quartermaine's phone number. Just before leaving the room, she heard Jax shudder Brenda's name in a frantic tone that brought tears to her eyes.
It should have been beautiful to her but it wasn’t.
The sky overhead was heavy with clouds. She felt the dark gray weight of them on her soul as she looked out the window The snow capped mountains were a familiar sight to her, and the forest loomed all around them like an effective prison.
Wrapping her arms around herself she walked into the main room of the cabin. . A cozy fire roared in the fireplace, and a cup of tea steeped on the table. It was there for her to drink, but her appetite just didn’t exist anymore. Nothing did but her urge to leave, and that grew stronger everyday.
"You should be resting. "
His voice was soft but forceful and she cringed at the sound of it.
"I’m fine. "
"You need to take it easy for a while yet…"
"What I NEED…" She snapped out hatefully, turning to face him, "…is to go home. "
"You are home. "
"No, I’m not. You know it and I know it. Why don’t you just let me leave? "
"Because I need you here."
"I want to leave." She squared her shoulders to him and prepared for his inevitable response.
"No." He moved slowly toward her like predator to its prey. She waited until he was close enough to see the fire reflecting eerily in his eyes, then gave her final word.
"YES."
With more force than she thought possible she reached out and grabbed the lamp on the table and brought it down on his head. He crumpled to the ground and she threw the door open. When she could manage to she ran, looking over her shoulder knowing that any time now someone was going to come after her and she would be punished. Topping a small hill, she breathed a small sigh of relief. No one yet.
Lois returned to the couch with a wet washcloth and applied it to Jax's forehead. Jax winced at the coolness and moaned again.
"Brenda…No…Brenda!" His speech slurred as his body shook violently. Lois watched Jax's secret struggle ensuing, frowning deeply. Ever since he'd gone out the other day he had been so distracted, even more so than when she came. It was almost as if Jax were two different people. One minute he was rational, albeit distraught, and the next his eyes took on this feverish, maddened gleam while delusional mutterings spewed from his mouth.
"Don't go near the water!!"
She gauged the distance to the other side of the clearing and continued. A resounding crack startled her and before she could react she was being sucked into a chasm of ice. Every inch of her body started to burn and her breath was coming in short little gasps. She sank lower and the swirl of water threatened to pull her under the layer of ice on the pond. As much as she hated to do it she started screaming for help. Her hands clawed at the surface, and as they slipped away they left trails of blood on the ice above her. Her head started to sink and her scream gave way into a coughing fit as her mouth filled with the freezing water.
Her body went numb in seconds and her mind started to go next. She thought she heard an angel calling her name but that was impossible. He was lost to her forever and she knew it. Some of the fight in her seeped out and she started to let herself slip into the depths. If she just let go it wouldn’t matter, there was no escape for her. No one here to save her.
As she let the cold envelope her she screamed one last time.
"NOBODY LEAVES!!!"
Jax jerked upright and screamed loud enough to cause Lois to scream as well. Both looked around the room with startled hearts in throats. As the realization of what happened dawned on them, Lois sat back down and clutched her fear-tightened chest while Jax ran a frustrated hand through his sweat-soaked hair.
"One more scream like that will turn me permanently grey..." Lois gasped to ease the pain in her chest, "…or we'll both end up in the hospital from it."
Jax look up sharply at her with a questioning glare.
"Cause if you do that again, I'm gonna have to beat ya before I have a massive coronary!" She put a hand to her head to try and stop the pounding adrenaline.
"Lois, how did you get in?" Jax reached up and took the thermal throw from the back of the sofa. He was freezing, just like that dream…
"Brenda gave me a key the last time I saw her. She asked me to decorate it for your birthday as a surprise, but your plans changed at the last minute. Jax, what in God's name was that scream all about? What were you dreaming?"
Curling deeper into the sofa, Jax pulled the blanket close around himself and closed his eyes.
"The same thing I always dream about: Brenda." His breathing slowed slightly, and Lois knew he'd drifted off again. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut to keep from crying. She'd been here only twenty minutes, but was already mentally exhausted. God, please let Brenda reach out to him somehow and give him some kind of peace. She opened her eyes to peer at Jax critically before standing up to use the phone in the other room to call Ned.
Jax's eyes popped back open as she left the room. He gazed at the game piece ship on the fireplace mantle forlornly. He didn't want to dream anymore. It simply hurt too much. Jax felt himself falling into an abysmal despair. Even the smallest act of breathing was painful to him. There was no escape. He didn't want the light at the end of the tunnel, but the darkness within. Brenda was everywhere every moment. He longed only for her return, and since that was impossible he longed for blissful nothingness.
I can't take this anymore! I can't stand this endless pain…
He got off the couch and walked slowly to the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet and procured the bottle of sleeping pills Monica had prescribed for him. It was a powerful medicine guaranteed to prevent the listless dreams he was growing to despise. Stumbling back to the couch, he clumsily pried the bottle open. His hands trembled so from the fever and fatigue that he dumped half the bottle into his hand. He reached for the drink he'd left on the table earlier, ignoring the fact that it was brandy. Who cared as long as the dreams and nightmares stopped? It was his only motivation.
His mouth sufficiently filled with the drink and a pills on the way, Jax didn't notice Lois entering the room. Her outraged squeal distracted him just long enough for her to knock the snifter and pills out of his hands. He half choked on the alcohol still in his mouth and glowered vehemently at the crazy woman above him.
"Christ Lois!"
"Don't you take the Lord's name in vain at me, you big rotten coward! What the hell are you doing? You're not going to check out on me mister!" Steam practically blew from her ears, and her eyes took on a whole new shade of cobalt fury.
"I'm trying to end the dreams! Can't you understand that?" Jax was lost now. He let his head fall weakly back to the pillow and his eyes drooped. He seemed so helpless somehow and Lois' anger gave way to fear. She wondered how many pills he'd already taken. She watched terrified as he fell off into another tumultuous slumber, then ran to the desk to call Monica.
She woke to him standing over her bed, his head stitched neatly above the brow. Although outwardly calm, he exuded boiling wrath. She ached so much that his mood was irrelevant. He could hit her all he wanted. Nothing could compare to that icy hell she'd been pulled from.
"Just so we don't have a repeat episode…" He pulled the handcuffs from behind his back and coldly secured one hand to the bedpost. She looked at it with detachment. He would not only get no further tantrums from her, but no other emotions either. Nothing. She would from now on be just as cold and steely as the cuffs that bound her. She imagined herself catatonic and prayed her body would follow suit. Far away she heard him telling her it was time to move on. Time to escape the heat coming down. She stifled the tiny ember of hope that sparked inside her gut. Whatever heat that was pervading his paranoid mind would never come so close as to do her any good. She fixated on the idea of hopelessness and of dying in his hellish embrace. When he left the room finally, she buried her head into the pillows and sobbed.
