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serene_quillTitle: Possessed
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
serene_quill
Pairing: Jack/Nathan, past Nathan/Allison
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~7200
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Warnings: Spoilers for season 3.5, AU- Ignores one half of the departures in 318. For the "Halloween Hollywood Horror Tropes" Challenge at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
starks_lab
Summary: Jack’s not himself lately...
It started the day Jack forgot to shave.
“Nice look, Dad,” Zoë smirked at him over her glass of orange juice. When Jack looked at her blankly, she rubbed her cheeks demonstratively. Jack reached up, frowning a little.
“Guess I forgot,” he muttered, stepping into the living room to check his reflection in a mirrored surface. “Maybe I’ll grow a beard.”
“Really?” Zoë asked skeptically. “Is this like a rebound thing from you and Tess finally calling the whole long distance thing off? Cuz I only budgeted for you to have like a six week period of weirdness. If I need to make room for more ice cream and football flicks…”
“Nah, I’m good,” Jack mused thumbing his chin thoughtfully. “I had a beard once, when you were three.”
“Oh god, a graduation thing then!” she groaned, flipping her hair carefully. “Staying here, GD internship, remember?”
“No, Zoë, it’s just an impulse,” Jack replied tiredly. He rubbed his eyes. “Ugh, doesn’t feel like I slept at all last night.”
“You probably didn’t,” Zoë retorted, rolling her eyes. “Sounded like you had some hard nightmares, even SARAH commented on it.”
“It’s true, Sheriff, I was concerned by your distress while sleeping,” SARAH reported, and Jack shrugged.
“Can’t help you, I don’t remember it,” he told them, nipping a quick bit of cereal straight and dry from the box, ignoring the weird look Zoë gave him when he didn’t reach for a bowl or the milk. “If I have another one, SARAH, see if Dr. Sueños will refill that prescription for a sleep aid, okay?” The dream doctor had given him a prescription after the time loop incident (as Jack referred to it mentally), and it helped alleviate nightmares.
“I will call him today, as this is the third consecutive night you’ve had nightmares,” SARAH replied, and Jack rolled his eyes at her too helpful tone.
“Fine, whatever,” Jack called to her, snagging his badge and grabbing his coat. “See you at dinner?” he asked Zoë.
“Got a project with Pilar,” she told him.
“See you tomorrow?” he hazarded a guess, and she gave him a thumbs up.
*-*
His beard had come in quickly and neatly, much to Zane’s chagrin; despite the scientist’s best efforts, he didn’t seem to be capable of getting past the stubble on the cheeks phase, and Jo was getting a little annoyed at him.
“Shave, or you’re on the couch,” Jack heard her threaten Zane one morning as he entered the station, and he made sure to straighten his beard a little as he passed Zane, enjoying the disgruntled noises the taunting produced.
Jo rolled her eyes as he came in, a little smug and demanded, “What is it with men and their beards?”
“Proof of manly, testosterone driven adulthood,” Jack replied with a cocky grin, and Jo paused, considering it.
“Yeah, that actually makes sense,” she decided, a little sarcastically. “Probably easier than whipping them out and finding a measuring tape.”
“Sorry to hear Zane’s having trouble in that department,” Jack returned the insult quickly, enjoying Jo’s quick shock. “Growing a beard, I mean.”
“Ha ha, Carter,” Jo slid back to her desk, picking up a pink phone message slip. “By the way, Henry called. He wants you to stop by the garage, ASAP.”
“Anything else pressing?” Jack asked, straightening his cuffs as he prepared to head out, and Jo looked at him oddly for a moment, before finally replying.
“No, go ahead,” she said distractedly. “The way you just did that reminded me of something, but I can’t place it.”
“Right,” the words didn’t register with Jack as he left, waving to her. “Back in a bit, Deputy Lupo.”
“Deputy Lupo?” she echoed, sitting back down in her desk, frowning. Carter only referred to her by rank and last name if she had pissed him off.
*-*
Henry was half under a car in his garage when Jack strolled in. He rolled himself out from under it when he heard Jack’s greeting. “Hey, Jack,” he replied, standing and shaking his head at the carefully groomed soupcatcher on his friend’s face. “Figured you would have shaved by now.”
“I’m enjoying it,” Jack replied, stroking his chin briefly. “So what’s the big emergency?”
Henry paused, folding his arms and taking in Jack for a long moment. “You look like you’ve started sleeping again,” he observed quietly. “Can you manage without Sueños’s little nightmare pills?”
“I’ve tried,” Jack burst out, a little exasperated. Henry had made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like Jack taking the pills. “I either go on no sleep or the non-natural REM-less kind. Easy call.”
Henry nodded, sighing. “I get that, Jack. I was just hoping you’d reconsidered letting me do an MRI, run a couple tests.”
“Henry, we both know my problems may be in my head, but they won’t show up on your scanners.” Jack shifted uncomfortably, a little look of guilt on his face. “But… I actually agreed to let Sueños run some sleep studies and hook my brain up to machines while I sleep if it doesn’t get better in a couple days,” he admitted sheepishly. “He’d probably let you help.”
Henry considered it, then nodded. “Sounds good,” he agreed, deciding a sideways attack, approaching Sueños in order to add an MRI to the battery of tests, would be a more efficient use of his time.
“Any reason other than worrying at me for why you called me out here?” Jack asked, picking up on of Henry’s tools and playing with it, the typical Jack movement making Henry smile as he shook his head in response. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re planning a big explosion.” He pointed with the end of the tool at the whiteboard in the far corner of the garage, which was covered in Henry’s scrawl.
“It shouldn’t explode,” Henry protested, folding his arms. “Why would you think that?”
“First,” Jack remarked dryly, “because it always explodes with you. And second,” he added as he opened the door to step out, “Because your third equation is off.” With that, Jack was gone.
“Third equation is wrong,” Henry laughed after Jack, picking up his markers and absentmindedly switching his name badge from ‘mechanic’ to ‘engineer’. He frowned, suddenly spotting a variable in the third equation which, as Jack had joked, was off. “Huh,” Henry mused to himself as he erased the data and started again.
*-*
“Hey, Allie,” Jack greeted Allison as he sat down in the chair across her desk, and for one brief moment, Allison had to stare long and hard at her friend.
“Are you losing your voice?” she demanded, eyes widening.
“I don’t think so,” he replied, and the tension drained back out of her muscles. He sounded like Jack, the same as he always had.
“Sorry, you sounded odd when you said my name,” she informed him, trying to push away the annoying thought that was tugging at her brain cells. “You here for Henry and Dr. Sueños’s exam?”
“Yup. Just hoping they draw the line before I end up with needles through my eyeballs or something,” Jack grimaced, making Allison smile. “So, yet another hot date tonight with Doc Rocks,” he added casually, getting an amused rolling of her eyes from Allison at the nickname some of the GD staff had given the geologist.
“Dr. Cole,” Allison started. “And it’s only been four weeks, and—”
“Uh huh,” Jack grinned knowingly. “And you’re crazy head over heels for him.”
Allison rolled her eyes, grinning sheepishly. “Okay, maybe I am,” she admitted, shrugging slightly at Jack’s knowing grin. “It’s nice, having someone I click with. He makes me feel… happy.”
“Good for him,” Jack replied, smiling at her gently. “You deserve something good.”
Allison allowed herself a moment of sadness that Jack wasn’t the one who was able to step into that place, then forced her smile back onto her face. “You better get going,” she told him, tapping her watch. “Before Henry comes to find you.”
Jack groaned, but waved as he left, and Allison settled back into her paperwork, firmly tucking away her earlier thoughts. Jack sounding like her ex-husband was merely a by-product of her subconscious worry about her date that evening. Checking her watch, she realized she was running late, and it took a lot of time and effort to squeeze into the sexy little red dress she’d let Jo talk her into buying for the date.
*-*
Jack waited patiently as Paul Sueños pasted little electronic monitors to his forehead. As far as the GD geeks went, Sueños was easily one of his favorites—easy to talk to, enjoyed baseball, action movies, and they shared a similar military past. But at the moment, on a cot and being hooked up to machines, Jack could easily have done without the scientist. “You really think this will tell you why I’m having nightmares?” he asked, and Sueños smiled.
“Or it can hopefully give us some idea as to the substance of the nightmares, since you can’t seem to remember,” Sueños reassured him. “Get the issue out of your subconscious, and the nightmares should lessen. Hopefully.”
“Well, when you have to psychoanalyze why I’m having nightmares about baking cakes or carnival fun houses, be sure to leave me out,” Jack remarked dryly.
“Maybe you’ll just be dreaming that the Red Sox won’t make the playoffs,” Sueños smirked at him. “Oh wait, that’s reality.”
“Can’t believe I’m letting a Yankees fan poke into my brain,” Jack grumbled, and Sueños made a face.
“Don’t have anyone else you can watch games with or who gets why you complain about fake baseball every spring,” Sueños reminded him. “And the reverse is true for me, so be still and let me run my tests.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack replied dryly, laying back and trying to relax while the machine took images of his brain for Henry to analyze later. “How are things with Vince?” Jack asked quietly.
“Slow,” Sueños replied, shrugging. “He’s worried I’m not sincere, and I’m worried I’m completely out of my depth here.”
The relationship between Vince and Sueños was one of the most widely known and ill kept secrets in town. The courtship, almost primetime drama slow in developing, was what happened when you put a fish out of water divorcee scientist and an almost painfully skittish chef together and added a heaping dose of attraction, Jack suspected.
Sueños finished attaching monitors to Jack’s forehead and helped him settle back into the dream net machine. Next, he produced a slightly purple colored injection that had Jack raising an eyebrow. “Relax, it’s a mild sedative, with a hormone cocktail that helps improve REM sleep.”
“Oh, so heightened nightmares then?” Jack quipped sarcastically, grimacing as Sueños stuck him with the pressure syringe. He sighed, trying to relax, and surprisingly, aided by the drug, his body obeyed the thought, sleep spiraling in to his mind.
*-*
Sueños was flipping through the dream data as it streamed in when Henry entered the lab, a worried scowl creasing the dream scientist’s forehead. “Something’s wrong,” Henry observed flatly, tapping his data pad against his palm, knowing he hadn’t misread the MRI.
“I don’t know how, but I’ve got two distinct sets of delta waves,” Sueños informed him. He adjusted the controls, fingers moving a little too rapidly, then sighed. “I’ve checked all the equipment, all my sensors, I can’t find the glitch.”
“I’m not sure it is a glitch,” Henry replied, handing the data pad over. “Take a look at the alpha wave readings.” In his mind, he could see the images clearly. Jack’s thoughts, with the occasional, seconds long burst of a second set of brain waves alongside the first. Occasionally, Jack’s pattern seemed to recede, and the second became dominant, though such bursts lasted mere fractions of seconds.
“What is this, DID?” Sueños guessed, and Henry took the data pad back, pulling up information from the GD database.
“This is what happens with the brain waves of a patient with dissociative identity disorder,” Henry explained, handing over the archived images. “See how there’s no overlap, just a pattern shift from one to the next? They also tend to occur in much larger chunks of time, and the patterns look very similar. The differences are subtle, not so radically different as they are here.”
“If it’s not DID, then what are we looking at?” Sueños asked worriedly.
*-*
Jack whistled to himself, surprised that Henry and Sueños had sent him home, despite the worried looks both had worn. He changed out of his uniform, poured himself a snifter of brandy, and settled in with a book, a sci-fi mystery that had been sitting on his bed stand to read for ages.
He was surprisingly content for the first time in weeks, his mind entangled in the plot. Even the science parts didn’t seem so bad, and SARAH had to prompt him to go to bed when it grew late.
Remembering Sueños’s warning about drug interaction, he took the book up to his room with him, prepared to spend half the night with it after he woke up from his nightmares.
Jack Carter went to sleep shortly before midnight.
Shortly after midnight, Nathan Stark woke up.
*-*
Henry looked up from his data scans when the phone in his lab beeped noisily at him, and he was thankful for the moment he spared to look at caller ID rather than ignoring it. “SARAH?” he asked hesitantly, more than a little surprised.
“I apologize for the late hour, Dr. Deacon, however you and Dr. Sueños asked to be apprised of any odd movements on the part of Sheriff Carter.”
That had Henry sitting up straight. “What happened, SARAH?”
“Sheriff Carter went to bed about an hour ago,” she informed him primly. “Then, for no apparent reason, half an hour ago, he got up again. He dressed in his best suit and tie and left, not responding to my queries. My GPS location system has placed the location of the Jeep somewhere just off Turing Turnpike.”
“Turing?” Henry murmured, trying to remember what was out in that direction. Some old labs, mostly closed down, the better parts of several burned out. His musings were interrupted by an out of breath Paul Sueños bursting into his lab and shoving a set of brain scans into his hands.
Henry glanced at them then back at Sueños. “Our second pattern?” he asked, baffled.
Sueños shook his head. “Read the tag,” he panted, coughing slightly. “I’ve checked it against several records in the GD databanks, not just my own. Henry, how can it be…?”
He trailed off, seeming unwilling to voice the name Henry had just read of the bottom of the scan. “Nathan had a lab on Turing, his AI workshop,” Henry muttered, and awareness suddenly snapped in. “Paul, have you got a car?”
*-*
Nathan surveyed the ruined shells of the AI creations he’d made what felt like lifetimes ago and sighed. His hold on Jack Carter’s body was tenuous, barely allowing his control, but Sueños’s REM enhancers had given him a good foothold. Unfortunately, transferring himself to one of the AI shells in storage at the lab wouldn’t be feasible given the amount of smoke and fire damage they had sustained. He needed another plan, but he wasn’t sure he’d get another opportunity to take control this way. His usual outbursts were limited to a word or two here and there.
A strand of memory from the sleeping mind of Jack floated up into his consciousness, and Nathan realized that Jack had had brain scans conducted earlier that day. His time might be more limited than he though, he realized, knowing Henry and Sueños could probably put it all together, given enough time.
He sat on the edge of a table, examining his hold on Jack’s brain, wondering if he could latch on tight enough to keep his little fingernail holds in Jack’s consciousness after the other man woke up. It didn’t seem hard, but as Nathan had learned over the past months of being stored inside Carter, the man was ridiculously well controlled and stubborn. He’d started with only the tiniest kernel of brain cells, and it had taken the better part of his time in banishment to claw his way up to the surface.
Nights were the worst. He’d burrowed into Jack’s subconscious most easily of all Jack’s thoughts, but the man had seen horrific things as a US Marshal, and any time he’d thought about them or dreamed about them, Nathan had lived them. Small murdered children, serial killers, crime scenes… Nathan shuddered involuntarily.
“I need a new body,” he mused aloud, and the sound of his words in Jack’s voice startling him.
A door opened, but Nathan didn’t look up. “Nathan?” Henry asked softly, approaching cautiously, as though the man were a wild animal of some sort. “Is… is that really you?”
“Yes,” Nathan replied with a snort, rolling his eyes. “Trapped in a 111 brain, in fact,” he added spitefully, though he had to admit Carter’s unusual brilliance and intuitive powers had made a profound impression on him during his time expanding into the right brain and pre frontal cortex areas.
“Fascinating,” Sueños muttered, and Nathan became aware for the first time that the scientist had crept into the lab, a few steps behind Henry. “Humans only use 10% of their brain, and in the temporally accelerated phase, the brain waves, essentially the consciousness of Nathan Stark could have grabbed on to a corporeal, functioning electrical neural system. Jack Carter being the nearest person at the time, the brain waves most likely imprinted onto spare bits of his neurons, cells that weren’t being used.”
“Sure,” Nathan shrugged, sighing. “I don’t know how it happened. It was almost three months before I was present enough to be aware and figure out where I was.”
“So the weird things Jack’s been doing, fixing my equations, growing a beard… that was you,” Henry murmured, and Nathan rolled his eyes at the familiar look of ethical revulsion on Henry’s face.
“Look, I came to see if I could get my neural pattern transferred to an AI shell, but they’ve degraded too much. I haven’t gotten to making up plan B yet, but if you could help instead of standing there judging what happened,” Nathan snapped, but getting angry was a mistake. Carter’s control on the brain stirred, then shoved past him to take control, wake himself up.
To Nathan’s surprise, either because of Sueños’ drug or his own stubbornness, he managed to keep his hold on Jack’s brain and was hit the knowledge that if Carter let down his guard or fell asleep, he could probably push his way back into control.
*-*
Jack blinked, looking at Henry and Paul for a moment, baffled. “How did I get—” he broke off when he saw Henry’s sympathetic look, a moment before he felt a little push in his mind, total awareness of the consciousness hidden in his own brain suddenly rushing in. “Stark?” he demanded incredulously, and the answering tingle in his brain felt like an arrogant smirk. “Oh god, I can feel him in there,” Jack groaned, fingertips pressing to his temples automatically.
“Stop being such a baby,” he heard Stark snap, and a moment later, his eyes widened, realizing the words had tumbled from his own mouth.
“I’m sharing a body with a dead man,” he staggered, lucky Henry had an arm under his elbow and eased him into a chair quickly. “I’m possessed.”
“It’s not technically possession,” Henry remarked, apparently unable to resist sharing his own scientific deductions.
“It’d make sense, Stark really is the spawn of the devil. Next I’ll be spewing pea soup everywhere,” Jack continued, half hysterically, and the next wave from the other consciousness was a hard slap, a neural firing that made him jerk under its impact.
“Being trapped in here isn’t my idea of a good time,” his mouth snapped, but his ears were starting to hear Stark, not his own voice. “You’ve got a lot of bad shit locked in here, Carter.”
“No one asked you to go poking around in my dark memories,” Jack replied automatically, ignoring the looks of alarm on Henry and Sueños’ faces. “God, is it just him messing with my brain, or is he actually making me sound like him when he talks through me?”
“It’s just you. Your auditory neurons are trying to compensate for the mental memory of what Stark thinks he sound like,” Paul hazarded the guess reassuringly, shooting Henry a desperate look that Jack pretended not to notice. “To us you sound the same.”
“Great, I still need a plan B on getting my own brain space,” Jack’s voice snapped, and he recoiled. “Stop doing that, Stark, it’s my goddamn body!”
“Can you hear me otherwise?” This time, the question was limited to Jack’s ears and not piping out his mouth.
“I heard that,” he replied, and Henry raised his eyebrows, obviously not having heard the question. “Guess it’s better than him hijacking my body. But he’s right, we do need to get him out of my head.”
“Okay, so I take it creating a whole new AI mainframe is out?” Sueños hazarded. “And can we even perform the transfer?”
“We have the PX-24,” Henry replied, and Jack groaned, remembering having dug into Dr. Thatcher’s brain. “It can be modified to lock onto the signature that belongs just to Nathan and remove it, transfer it to a new body. AI could work, but it would take the better part of two years to develop a sufficient positronic brain.”
“He can’t stay here for two years,” Jack grumbled. “Can’t you just grow him his own brain or something?”
Henry lit up, nodding. “Actually, maybe we can. I need to talk with Walter Perkins.”
*-*
Henry had sent Jack home to rest, while he went to discuss the possibility of creating a clone with Walter Perkins. Nathan, meanwhile, turned the possibility of a clone form of himself over in his mind, calculating how to draw his brain waves into it, and a myriad of other possibilities, finally making Jack sigh, rolling over once more in bed.
“Can you stop?” he demanded. “It’s hard enough to sleep with just my thoughts rolling around in there, I don’t need yours too!”
“I can’t help it, I don’t need sleep,” Nathan complained, sending the mental equivalent of making a face at Jack’s brain. “Besides, your dreams are no walk in the park.”
“There’s plenty of good stuff in there, I don’t know why you’re poking around the serial killers and people I’ve had to track down,” Jack observed, huffing his breath out tiredly. “And by the way, why are you suddenly so loud, all the time, here in my head?”
“I think it was Sueños’s drug,” Nathan mused, trying to project a shrug. “By the way? You and Tess Fontana? Creepiest thing ever.”
“Excuse me?” Jack’s voice was frosty, and Nathan could feel jagged edges of offended thoughts aimed his way.
“Mostly that time where you wondered if she was a replacement for me and then thought about the idea the whole time,” Nathan continued mercilessly. It had shocked him, the intensity Jack had felt for him, the powerful turmoil and battering between despair and lust that had churned him about in Jack’s mind that night.
“Clearly didn’t know you were there,” Jack’s words were bitten off, and he rolled onto his side, tucking inward a little, as though he were turning away from Nathan, the scientist mused. The problem, of course, was that where Jack went, Nathan was bound to follow now.
“You have to admit, you had really awkward, boring sex,” Nathan remarked ever more fervently. “She was so awkward I started suspecting she had ulterior motives on Allison.”
Jack punched the pillow, closing his eyes determinedly, but Nathan was relentless. “Speaking of, why didn’t you go after her? She’d have welcomed you at one time. Now she’s fallen head over heels for Dr. Cole.”
“Is that’s what’s bothering you?” Jack groaned, wrapping his pillow around his ears for one moment before remembering it would do no good. “Alison moved on, fell for someone else. And now that you’re sort of back, you’re not going to be able to compete?”
Nathan was silent for a long time, but Jack could feel the confused swirl of emotions from the other presence in his mind. First he picked out a small twinge of jealousy, but it was only as significant as his own was when it came to Allison. Next bewildered curiosity—being in his mind apparently had stirred up a bit of attraction and interest that made little sense to Nathan. Finally, he felt a genuine contentment. Allie was taken care of, safe, and was falling in love. If she was happy, Nathan could be content with it. “Wow,” Jack mused, and flinched when Nathan slammed mental barriers against him. “Oh grow up, Stark, you’ve gotten to be a voyeur on my sex life for the past year and ransacked all my painful memories. Why shouldn’t I get a few in return?”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” Nathan replied coolly, closing himself off, not wanting to talk with Carter any longer. Jack thought about it for a little while, but ended up drifting to sleep.
*-*
Zoë was not a morning person, nor very tolerant of unexpected news first thing in the morning, so when she woke to an email from Henry explaining that her father was possessed (only in overly elevated scientific terms), she double checked the calendar, confirmed Halloween was right around the corner, hit delete and started sorting clothing in her closet to try and find a good costume for next week.
She gave up after eliminating a number of dresses her dad would object to on principle, then headed down to breakfast, slowing her gait as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
Her dad was arguing with himself.
And what was weird was that either Henry and her dad had cooked up a very elaborate prank and her dad did a much more accurate impression of Stark than he’d ever managed while the scientist was alive or…
“Dad?” she asked, watching the interplay of expressions suddenly halt, coalescing into a worried look.
“Hey, Zo, pancakes for breakfast?” he asked in a tone that reminded Zoë of when he and her Mom had been trying to hide just how bad things were.
“Henry emailed me, I already know, Dad,” she replied. “You’ve got Stark’s brain pattern or soul or whatever stuck inside you.”
“Yeah,” he agreed quietly, gesturing her to a seat. “But Henry, Paul, and Walter Perkins are working on cloning a new Stark body, so we can transfer him out of my head. Hopefully soon,” he added in a grumble.
Zoë’s head reeled, unable to believe her dad was so easily accepting of this. “So that’s it?” she demanded, aghast. “He gets to be privy to our lives for the past year? Dig around your head, find out anything he wants?”
“Zoë,” Jack started, but she could see the ripple of change across his face as suddenly Stark started talking.
“I’ve done the best I can to respect your privacy, to stay away from your father’s memories of you,” he informed her quietly.
“Had any compulsions about doing that with Dad?” she accused, and seeing the flinch, knew she was right. “You’re the one dredging up his nightmares and putting him through hell, aren’t you?”
“It’s okay, Zo,” her dad started to say, and she cut him off quickly.
“No, it’s not!” she burst out. “Stay out of his head and mouth when I’m around, Stark, and stay the hell away from his memories, or I’ll find a priest to try an old fashioned exorcism.”
Tears threatening, she grabbed her backpack and hurried out, ordering SARAH to slam the door behind her. She didn’t wait to hear if the house complied.
*-*
Jack stayed silent, letting Nathan sort through the emotional waves that Zoë’s outburst had caused. “I don’t understand,” Nathan admitted finally.
“This town has given her some phobias about the privacy of her thoughts,” Jack explained softly. “Dream sharing, mind reading, possession, nothing is private or sacred in this town. Were you around about six months ago when Dr. Forstell used the OL-984 thought reader to win over dates, trick them into sleeping with him?”
“Oh,” Nathan’s thoughts were racing, and suddenly Jack was aware that Nathan was comparing his own actions to that of the scientist and finding himself no better than the other man.
“No,” Jack protested, sighing. “I wasn’t saying you were like that, I was saying it’s what she sees. It’s… well, it’s a phobia for her now. And she’s right, it is an invasion of my privacy, but given that the other option is you gone for good…I guess I’d choose this.”
“That’s… almost nice of you, Carter,” Nathan decided. “I’ll try to stay out of your way today, I promise.”
That proved to be easier said than done, Jack realized several hours later. It seemed everyone in town had heard that Nathan was living in Jack’s head and was eager to test it out. Jack finally quarantined himself to the station, and Jo, equally annoyed by some of the crass questioning, had volunteered to run for lunch.
Jack was sitting at his desk, reading through a case file when Allison strolled in, grinning at him. “Good morning,” she greeted him, and Jack checked his watch.
“Afternoon,” he replied, folding his arms. “Please tell me this isn’t the start of another pollen disaster and you’re just running late.”
“Took the morning off,” she replied, sitting in a chair with a grin. “I miss anything good?”
“She doesn’t know,” Nathan said, careful to confine his voice to inside Jack’s head. “No one told her.”
“Ah, you talked with Henry about my test results yet?” Jack hazarded, and she shook her head.
“Figured it couldn’t be anything serious, or he would have called me and forbidden you from being here today,” she observed logically. “Did he find something?”
“Ah, not something, no,” Jack hedged, shifting uncomfortably. “Someone?”
“Someone?” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow. “Carter, I don’t have time for riddles, what did Henry find?”
“He found… uh, I guess you could say I’m possessed?” he turned it into a question, and Allison smirked.
“Nice Halloween prank,” she chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Come on, what’d Henry find?”
“He found Nathan,” Jack said softly. “His brain pattern in my mind.”
Allison stared at him for a long moment, eyes darkening. “That isn’t funny.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“Is this because I’m moving in with Cole?” she demanded. “Finally making your play to wreck things?”
“Allie.” Jack fell back, allowing Stark to take control. “Remember the first time I proposed to you? Had Vincent hide the ring in a piece of sacre tort cake? Took you on a picnic, and the minute you saw that ring, you told me I was a moron, thinking you’d marry me after only six weeks.”
“Oh my god,” Allison whispered, eyes filling.
“Only took me another year and a half to convince you to marry me,” Nathan continued, and Jack projected a little surprise. Somehow he’d envisioned some grand romance the first go round between the pair, but what he was gleaning from Nathan’s memories was nothing like that. Nathan opened the memories to him, to explore, and continued talking with Allison while Jack cautiously sorted through the memories, surprised at the liberties Stark allowed.
*-*
Jack had a headache by the time they got home that night, unsurprised to find a message from Zoë claiming a study session at Pilar’s he knew to be non-existent. It was an excuse to stay away from the situation, and he couldn’t fault her for it.
Nathan had been quiet ever since Allie had left the station, after a long conversation that ended with him reassuring her he was happy she had moved on, but establishing he would take partial custody of Jenna as soon as he could. Jack sighed, pulling out a beer, but set it aside, bracing his hands on the counter. “Can’t believe I’m inviting this, but are you okay?” he asked, and Nathan stirred, sighing.
“I’m fine,” he replied, his voice sounding heavy with irony in Jack’s mind. “That’s the problem. A year of watching her move on was enough for me to move on?”
“Maybe being my head is influencing you?” Jack suggested. “I’m okay with it, so you are.”
“No, I know my own mind,” Nathan replied, and Jack was suddenly aware that they were both speaking aloud. “Sorry, I’ll try to get better at that before Zoë comes home tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Jack agreed, not wanting to relive the argument.
“Would you like to grab a shower before dinner, Sheriff and Dr. Stark?” SARAH asked suddenly. “I have half an hour left until the Pastetli is finished.”
“Yeah, thanks SARAH,” Jack replied for them, heading up the stairs.
He was finishing rinsing off his body when suddenly Nathan shoved mentally, taking control. “Trust me,” Nathan murmured when Jack pushed at him, pushed aside again in response to his attempt. Jack finally sighed, relinquishing control, only to nearly claw his way to the surface in shock when Nathan took hold of his cock, stroking firmly.
“Whoa,” Jack groaned, and Nathan pushed again, reassuringly this time.
“I want to do this for you, want to be with you,” Nathan murmured, fingers slowly toying with Jack’s balls, his cock hardening quickly in response to the sensation. “Do you want me to finish?”
Jack was tempted to say no, for reasons ranging from Nathan actually loathing him to Nathan rebounding, but each was quickly rebuked in a wave of feelings from Nathan, and Nathan now had his other hand stroking his nipples, creating ripples of sensation. Jack knew he was touching himself technically, but it didn’t feel the same, since Nathan was in control, his touch exploring and unfamiliar. “Yes, please,” he finally gasped, rewarded by Nathan starting to stroke again.
His touch was an odd mix of familiar and strange, and once Jack closed his eyes, he was immersed in the fantasy that it actually was Nathan, separate and whole, slowly exploring him. It didn’t help that Nathan was starting to project images at him, things he wanted to do once he was in a cloned body.
Images of Jack on his knees were quickly followed by Nathan on his, kinky suggestions about his handcuffs were followed by the image of a slow, lazy Sunday in bed. The images came faster and fragmented as both men lost control, and Jack came, slumping into the wall with a strangled cry.
The first words that slipped from Jack’s mouth were, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.” He cringed, feeling Nathan’s instant awkwardness and the scientist reaching for his barriers, trying to scramble to find a bit of wit to protect himself with. Jack instantly leapt for his own defenses. “Whoa, not a criticism, just… sort of hoping you were really planning on following through with some of what you just showed me.”
“The past few months, floating around in your mind… that wasn’t where it started,” Nathan informed him, and Jack sighed. Sharing a brain meant there was no hiding the subtext, he decided, ducking his face under the stream of hot water.
“I was attracted to what you show everyone else, but it was attraction, not much more,” Nathan told him. “I knew it could be, but I never took the time to get to know you before I died.”
“You didn’t die,” Jack murmured quietly. “So, finding out there’s actually some depth to me, dark things that I don’t want in my life now, that’s what tipped the balance?”
“Yes,” Nathan replied honestly, and Jack could see he was scared, knowing how much that information could cost him. “My mind’s an open book to you, Jack,” the scientist offered. “You can do some digging through too.”
Jack hesitated, curious, but a corner of his mind not wanting to pry either. “Pick some to show me,” he decided finally, and he felt Nathan considering.
Almost instantly the memory of being hit, hard, across the face, surfaced. The man behind the hand looks oddly like Nathan, but the eyes are dark and cold. Jack can see just past him to the paper on the desk, a test marked with a B+.
“Uh, try something lighter,” Jack winced, the single memory painting a very clear image of what Nathan’s childhood had been like.
“Not all like that,” Nathan replied and showed him the image of a beautiful woman, curling auburn hair and bright green eyes, with a hint of Nathan’s mischievous smile. A very small, young Nathan was curled up next to her on a sofa, listening to her read “Treasure Island”.
It took hours, but Jack and Nathan explored his memories, comparing childhood scars and triumphs, and spending a lot of time laughing. When Jack finally slid off to sleep, he felt oddly content for the first time in over a year.
*-*
The cloning process, to Henry’s surprise, had taken a little over a week, and Jack hadn’t been by to complain to him once. He smiled a little as he kept one eye on the DNA chain replication process, resisting the urge to hum contentedly. He’d always suspected with time and an inability to escape each other, Jack and Nathan would be able to eke out some middle ground, even be friends. It was just too bad he’d never had a good space to lock them in before now.
Zoë had taken the situation hard, Henry knew, but she seemed to have adapted, or at least had relaxed enough not to flinch away every time Nathan spoke through her dad. Henry couldn’t blame her, as the idea of sharing a brain with anyone gave him a bit of a chill. He tried to imagine it with Kim, and that eased the chill, but Jack and Nathan had no such luxury, Henry mused to himself.
Jack’s brain scans showed little sign of any wear or tear on his own mental pattern, though Henry had noticed that the area of memory overlap was growing more and more each day. Since it hadn’t caused any problems for either man, he hadn’t discouraged their sharing. Anything to make the situation more bearable, he’d decided.
He realized he was humming and sighed, turning back to watch the DNA molecules line up ever so neatly.
*-*
When Jack showed up to the bioengineering labs, he stopped short, completely amazed by the sight before him. The tank in the middle of the room contained the body of Nathan Stark, all but naked, and exactly the way he remembered. At the mental smirk from Nathan, Jack flushed a little, projecting back his own imagination about what was under the small strap of fabric.
Henry was hooking up the pieces of the PX-24 machine, the cables running from the chair next to the tank down to the head of the clone. “Relax, nothing to worry about on your end, Jack,” he remarked, helping Jack to the chair. “You won’t even suffer the behavioral ticks like you did with Dr. Thatcher. Quite the opposite actually, and may I say it will be a relief when Nathan stops helping you correct my equations.”
Jack managed a weak laugh, which was more than Nathan, curled in anticipation and excitement inside him, could manage. “Throw the switch, Dr. Frankenstein,” Jack joked, and Henry smiled.
*-*
Jack woke up, Zoë at his side and Henry taking readings on the machines monitoring him. “What happened?” he asked, and Henry reached down, bracing his shoulder and stopping his attempt to sit up.
“Whoa, nice and easy,” Henry said, shaking his head. “To finish the transfer, your brain had to shut down for a few moments, almost like… a computer reboot, if you will. You’ve only been out for a few hours, but it was just time for your brain to get used to not sharing the space.”
“But I’m all right? Rebooted okay and all?” Jack asked, and Henry nodded, his smile not quite touching his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nathan hasn’t woken up, Jack,” Henry told him, this time letting Jack sit up enough to see that Nathan was on a gurney next to him. “His brain scans show all the activity is present, it just hasn’t sorted out where it belongs. It could take months, just like it did for him to learn your brain.”
Jack stared over at the sleeping clone, a heavy weight settling on his chest. Months.
*-*
It became part of Jack’s routine. Everyday he’d have lunch in the infirmary at GD. He’d tell Nathan stories, some of the latest disasters around town, or Paul’s latest failed attempt to woo Vince, but mostly stories about their shared memories. He didn’t tell anyone why he did it, but he hoped maybe being reminded of the memories would help Nathan’s brain sort them out faster.
It wasn’t until he was trapped in the infirmary for a week (Fargo’s synthetic adrenaline plus Taggart’s wolf-jackal-hyena hybrids meant a total lockdown, several levels being submitted to a thermal cleaning and Jack in the infirmary while Jo used the really big guns) that he had any confirmation that he was helping.
“What do you talk to him about?”
Jack looked up from his book, frowning at Henry. “Who do I talk to about what now?” he asked, and Henry smiled.
“What do you talk to Nathan about?” Henry clarified, and Jack shrugged, feeling a bit sheepish.
“Mostly… his memories, things I learned about him. Sort of trying to help him find his way back,” Jack finished quietly, giving Henry a cautious look. “Am I hurting him?”
“No,” Henry jumped forward, shaking his head vehemently. “Jack, you’ve been talking to him, reading to him, sharing those memories all week. And his rate of expansion into the brain tissue has been nearly triple what we normally see.”
Jack’s heart kicked up a notch. “How close…?”
“A week,” Henry admitted, his grin growing. “Maybe less. But definitely before Christmas.”
*-*
Nathan’s eyes fluttered open for a moment, but the room way too bright, so he paused, listening instead. Jack’s familiar tenor filled his mind. “…My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door.”
“Treasure Island,” Nathan managed to say, his voice barely croaking with disuse.
“Hey,” Jack murmured, and a moment later his hand was cradling Nathan’s. “I’ve paged Henry and your nurse. You need anything?”
“Got it,” Nathan replied, squeezing Jack’s hand lightly. “You here every day?” It should have been a statement, because Nathan’s mind recognized it as fact, but he wanted it confirmed.
“Yeah, I was,” Jack replied. “It’s two weeks till Christmas, before you ask.” There was a long pause, and Jack’s thumb travelled over Nathan’s knuckles. “You sure I can’t get you something?”
“Keep reading?” Nathan requested, and Jack arranged the book against him, so he could continue, without letting go of his hold on Nathan’s hand.
“I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar…”
Nathan smiled, Jack’s voice washing over him softly, his hand clasped tightly. Home, he thought, finally able to open his eyes.
Author:
serene_quillPairing: Jack/Nathan, past Nathan/Allison
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~7200
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Warnings: Spoilers for season 3.5, AU- Ignores one half of the departures in 318. For the "Halloween Hollywood Horror Tropes" Challenge at
starks_labSummary: Jack’s not himself lately...
It started the day Jack forgot to shave.
“Nice look, Dad,” Zoë smirked at him over her glass of orange juice. When Jack looked at her blankly, she rubbed her cheeks demonstratively. Jack reached up, frowning a little.
“Guess I forgot,” he muttered, stepping into the living room to check his reflection in a mirrored surface. “Maybe I’ll grow a beard.”
“Really?” Zoë asked skeptically. “Is this like a rebound thing from you and Tess finally calling the whole long distance thing off? Cuz I only budgeted for you to have like a six week period of weirdness. If I need to make room for more ice cream and football flicks…”
“Nah, I’m good,” Jack mused thumbing his chin thoughtfully. “I had a beard once, when you were three.”
“Oh god, a graduation thing then!” she groaned, flipping her hair carefully. “Staying here, GD internship, remember?”
“No, Zoë, it’s just an impulse,” Jack replied tiredly. He rubbed his eyes. “Ugh, doesn’t feel like I slept at all last night.”
“You probably didn’t,” Zoë retorted, rolling her eyes. “Sounded like you had some hard nightmares, even SARAH commented on it.”
“It’s true, Sheriff, I was concerned by your distress while sleeping,” SARAH reported, and Jack shrugged.
“Can’t help you, I don’t remember it,” he told them, nipping a quick bit of cereal straight and dry from the box, ignoring the weird look Zoë gave him when he didn’t reach for a bowl or the milk. “If I have another one, SARAH, see if Dr. Sueños will refill that prescription for a sleep aid, okay?” The dream doctor had given him a prescription after the time loop incident (as Jack referred to it mentally), and it helped alleviate nightmares.
“I will call him today, as this is the third consecutive night you’ve had nightmares,” SARAH replied, and Jack rolled his eyes at her too helpful tone.
“Fine, whatever,” Jack called to her, snagging his badge and grabbing his coat. “See you at dinner?” he asked Zoë.
“Got a project with Pilar,” she told him.
“See you tomorrow?” he hazarded a guess, and she gave him a thumbs up.
*-*
His beard had come in quickly and neatly, much to Zane’s chagrin; despite the scientist’s best efforts, he didn’t seem to be capable of getting past the stubble on the cheeks phase, and Jo was getting a little annoyed at him.
“Shave, or you’re on the couch,” Jack heard her threaten Zane one morning as he entered the station, and he made sure to straighten his beard a little as he passed Zane, enjoying the disgruntled noises the taunting produced.
Jo rolled her eyes as he came in, a little smug and demanded, “What is it with men and their beards?”
“Proof of manly, testosterone driven adulthood,” Jack replied with a cocky grin, and Jo paused, considering it.
“Yeah, that actually makes sense,” she decided, a little sarcastically. “Probably easier than whipping them out and finding a measuring tape.”
“Sorry to hear Zane’s having trouble in that department,” Jack returned the insult quickly, enjoying Jo’s quick shock. “Growing a beard, I mean.”
“Ha ha, Carter,” Jo slid back to her desk, picking up a pink phone message slip. “By the way, Henry called. He wants you to stop by the garage, ASAP.”
“Anything else pressing?” Jack asked, straightening his cuffs as he prepared to head out, and Jo looked at him oddly for a moment, before finally replying.
“No, go ahead,” she said distractedly. “The way you just did that reminded me of something, but I can’t place it.”
“Right,” the words didn’t register with Jack as he left, waving to her. “Back in a bit, Deputy Lupo.”
“Deputy Lupo?” she echoed, sitting back down in her desk, frowning. Carter only referred to her by rank and last name if she had pissed him off.
*-*
Henry was half under a car in his garage when Jack strolled in. He rolled himself out from under it when he heard Jack’s greeting. “Hey, Jack,” he replied, standing and shaking his head at the carefully groomed soupcatcher on his friend’s face. “Figured you would have shaved by now.”
“I’m enjoying it,” Jack replied, stroking his chin briefly. “So what’s the big emergency?”
Henry paused, folding his arms and taking in Jack for a long moment. “You look like you’ve started sleeping again,” he observed quietly. “Can you manage without Sueños’s little nightmare pills?”
“I’ve tried,” Jack burst out, a little exasperated. Henry had made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like Jack taking the pills. “I either go on no sleep or the non-natural REM-less kind. Easy call.”
Henry nodded, sighing. “I get that, Jack. I was just hoping you’d reconsidered letting me do an MRI, run a couple tests.”
“Henry, we both know my problems may be in my head, but they won’t show up on your scanners.” Jack shifted uncomfortably, a little look of guilt on his face. “But… I actually agreed to let Sueños run some sleep studies and hook my brain up to machines while I sleep if it doesn’t get better in a couple days,” he admitted sheepishly. “He’d probably let you help.”
Henry considered it, then nodded. “Sounds good,” he agreed, deciding a sideways attack, approaching Sueños in order to add an MRI to the battery of tests, would be a more efficient use of his time.
“Any reason other than worrying at me for why you called me out here?” Jack asked, picking up on of Henry’s tools and playing with it, the typical Jack movement making Henry smile as he shook his head in response. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re planning a big explosion.” He pointed with the end of the tool at the whiteboard in the far corner of the garage, which was covered in Henry’s scrawl.
“It shouldn’t explode,” Henry protested, folding his arms. “Why would you think that?”
“First,” Jack remarked dryly, “because it always explodes with you. And second,” he added as he opened the door to step out, “Because your third equation is off.” With that, Jack was gone.
“Third equation is wrong,” Henry laughed after Jack, picking up his markers and absentmindedly switching his name badge from ‘mechanic’ to ‘engineer’. He frowned, suddenly spotting a variable in the third equation which, as Jack had joked, was off. “Huh,” Henry mused to himself as he erased the data and started again.
*-*
“Hey, Allie,” Jack greeted Allison as he sat down in the chair across her desk, and for one brief moment, Allison had to stare long and hard at her friend.
“Are you losing your voice?” she demanded, eyes widening.
“I don’t think so,” he replied, and the tension drained back out of her muscles. He sounded like Jack, the same as he always had.
“Sorry, you sounded odd when you said my name,” she informed him, trying to push away the annoying thought that was tugging at her brain cells. “You here for Henry and Dr. Sueños’s exam?”
“Yup. Just hoping they draw the line before I end up with needles through my eyeballs or something,” Jack grimaced, making Allison smile. “So, yet another hot date tonight with Doc Rocks,” he added casually, getting an amused rolling of her eyes from Allison at the nickname some of the GD staff had given the geologist.
“Dr. Cole,” Allison started. “And it’s only been four weeks, and—”
“Uh huh,” Jack grinned knowingly. “And you’re crazy head over heels for him.”
Allison rolled her eyes, grinning sheepishly. “Okay, maybe I am,” she admitted, shrugging slightly at Jack’s knowing grin. “It’s nice, having someone I click with. He makes me feel… happy.”
“Good for him,” Jack replied, smiling at her gently. “You deserve something good.”
Allison allowed herself a moment of sadness that Jack wasn’t the one who was able to step into that place, then forced her smile back onto her face. “You better get going,” she told him, tapping her watch. “Before Henry comes to find you.”
Jack groaned, but waved as he left, and Allison settled back into her paperwork, firmly tucking away her earlier thoughts. Jack sounding like her ex-husband was merely a by-product of her subconscious worry about her date that evening. Checking her watch, she realized she was running late, and it took a lot of time and effort to squeeze into the sexy little red dress she’d let Jo talk her into buying for the date.
*-*
Jack waited patiently as Paul Sueños pasted little electronic monitors to his forehead. As far as the GD geeks went, Sueños was easily one of his favorites—easy to talk to, enjoyed baseball, action movies, and they shared a similar military past. But at the moment, on a cot and being hooked up to machines, Jack could easily have done without the scientist. “You really think this will tell you why I’m having nightmares?” he asked, and Sueños smiled.
“Or it can hopefully give us some idea as to the substance of the nightmares, since you can’t seem to remember,” Sueños reassured him. “Get the issue out of your subconscious, and the nightmares should lessen. Hopefully.”
“Well, when you have to psychoanalyze why I’m having nightmares about baking cakes or carnival fun houses, be sure to leave me out,” Jack remarked dryly.
“Maybe you’ll just be dreaming that the Red Sox won’t make the playoffs,” Sueños smirked at him. “Oh wait, that’s reality.”
“Can’t believe I’m letting a Yankees fan poke into my brain,” Jack grumbled, and Sueños made a face.
“Don’t have anyone else you can watch games with or who gets why you complain about fake baseball every spring,” Sueños reminded him. “And the reverse is true for me, so be still and let me run my tests.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack replied dryly, laying back and trying to relax while the machine took images of his brain for Henry to analyze later. “How are things with Vince?” Jack asked quietly.
“Slow,” Sueños replied, shrugging. “He’s worried I’m not sincere, and I’m worried I’m completely out of my depth here.”
The relationship between Vince and Sueños was one of the most widely known and ill kept secrets in town. The courtship, almost primetime drama slow in developing, was what happened when you put a fish out of water divorcee scientist and an almost painfully skittish chef together and added a heaping dose of attraction, Jack suspected.
Sueños finished attaching monitors to Jack’s forehead and helped him settle back into the dream net machine. Next, he produced a slightly purple colored injection that had Jack raising an eyebrow. “Relax, it’s a mild sedative, with a hormone cocktail that helps improve REM sleep.”
“Oh, so heightened nightmares then?” Jack quipped sarcastically, grimacing as Sueños stuck him with the pressure syringe. He sighed, trying to relax, and surprisingly, aided by the drug, his body obeyed the thought, sleep spiraling in to his mind.
*-*
Sueños was flipping through the dream data as it streamed in when Henry entered the lab, a worried scowl creasing the dream scientist’s forehead. “Something’s wrong,” Henry observed flatly, tapping his data pad against his palm, knowing he hadn’t misread the MRI.
“I don’t know how, but I’ve got two distinct sets of delta waves,” Sueños informed him. He adjusted the controls, fingers moving a little too rapidly, then sighed. “I’ve checked all the equipment, all my sensors, I can’t find the glitch.”
“I’m not sure it is a glitch,” Henry replied, handing the data pad over. “Take a look at the alpha wave readings.” In his mind, he could see the images clearly. Jack’s thoughts, with the occasional, seconds long burst of a second set of brain waves alongside the first. Occasionally, Jack’s pattern seemed to recede, and the second became dominant, though such bursts lasted mere fractions of seconds.
“What is this, DID?” Sueños guessed, and Henry took the data pad back, pulling up information from the GD database.
“This is what happens with the brain waves of a patient with dissociative identity disorder,” Henry explained, handing over the archived images. “See how there’s no overlap, just a pattern shift from one to the next? They also tend to occur in much larger chunks of time, and the patterns look very similar. The differences are subtle, not so radically different as they are here.”
“If it’s not DID, then what are we looking at?” Sueños asked worriedly.
*-*
Jack whistled to himself, surprised that Henry and Sueños had sent him home, despite the worried looks both had worn. He changed out of his uniform, poured himself a snifter of brandy, and settled in with a book, a sci-fi mystery that had been sitting on his bed stand to read for ages.
He was surprisingly content for the first time in weeks, his mind entangled in the plot. Even the science parts didn’t seem so bad, and SARAH had to prompt him to go to bed when it grew late.
Remembering Sueños’s warning about drug interaction, he took the book up to his room with him, prepared to spend half the night with it after he woke up from his nightmares.
Jack Carter went to sleep shortly before midnight.
Shortly after midnight, Nathan Stark woke up.
*-*
Henry looked up from his data scans when the phone in his lab beeped noisily at him, and he was thankful for the moment he spared to look at caller ID rather than ignoring it. “SARAH?” he asked hesitantly, more than a little surprised.
“I apologize for the late hour, Dr. Deacon, however you and Dr. Sueños asked to be apprised of any odd movements on the part of Sheriff Carter.”
That had Henry sitting up straight. “What happened, SARAH?”
“Sheriff Carter went to bed about an hour ago,” she informed him primly. “Then, for no apparent reason, half an hour ago, he got up again. He dressed in his best suit and tie and left, not responding to my queries. My GPS location system has placed the location of the Jeep somewhere just off Turing Turnpike.”
“Turing?” Henry murmured, trying to remember what was out in that direction. Some old labs, mostly closed down, the better parts of several burned out. His musings were interrupted by an out of breath Paul Sueños bursting into his lab and shoving a set of brain scans into his hands.
Henry glanced at them then back at Sueños. “Our second pattern?” he asked, baffled.
Sueños shook his head. “Read the tag,” he panted, coughing slightly. “I’ve checked it against several records in the GD databanks, not just my own. Henry, how can it be…?”
He trailed off, seeming unwilling to voice the name Henry had just read of the bottom of the scan. “Nathan had a lab on Turing, his AI workshop,” Henry muttered, and awareness suddenly snapped in. “Paul, have you got a car?”
*-*
Nathan surveyed the ruined shells of the AI creations he’d made what felt like lifetimes ago and sighed. His hold on Jack Carter’s body was tenuous, barely allowing his control, but Sueños’s REM enhancers had given him a good foothold. Unfortunately, transferring himself to one of the AI shells in storage at the lab wouldn’t be feasible given the amount of smoke and fire damage they had sustained. He needed another plan, but he wasn’t sure he’d get another opportunity to take control this way. His usual outbursts were limited to a word or two here and there.
A strand of memory from the sleeping mind of Jack floated up into his consciousness, and Nathan realized that Jack had had brain scans conducted earlier that day. His time might be more limited than he though, he realized, knowing Henry and Sueños could probably put it all together, given enough time.
He sat on the edge of a table, examining his hold on Jack’s brain, wondering if he could latch on tight enough to keep his little fingernail holds in Jack’s consciousness after the other man woke up. It didn’t seem hard, but as Nathan had learned over the past months of being stored inside Carter, the man was ridiculously well controlled and stubborn. He’d started with only the tiniest kernel of brain cells, and it had taken the better part of his time in banishment to claw his way up to the surface.
Nights were the worst. He’d burrowed into Jack’s subconscious most easily of all Jack’s thoughts, but the man had seen horrific things as a US Marshal, and any time he’d thought about them or dreamed about them, Nathan had lived them. Small murdered children, serial killers, crime scenes… Nathan shuddered involuntarily.
“I need a new body,” he mused aloud, and the sound of his words in Jack’s voice startling him.
A door opened, but Nathan didn’t look up. “Nathan?” Henry asked softly, approaching cautiously, as though the man were a wild animal of some sort. “Is… is that really you?”
“Yes,” Nathan replied with a snort, rolling his eyes. “Trapped in a 111 brain, in fact,” he added spitefully, though he had to admit Carter’s unusual brilliance and intuitive powers had made a profound impression on him during his time expanding into the right brain and pre frontal cortex areas.
“Fascinating,” Sueños muttered, and Nathan became aware for the first time that the scientist had crept into the lab, a few steps behind Henry. “Humans only use 10% of their brain, and in the temporally accelerated phase, the brain waves, essentially the consciousness of Nathan Stark could have grabbed on to a corporeal, functioning electrical neural system. Jack Carter being the nearest person at the time, the brain waves most likely imprinted onto spare bits of his neurons, cells that weren’t being used.”
“Sure,” Nathan shrugged, sighing. “I don’t know how it happened. It was almost three months before I was present enough to be aware and figure out where I was.”
“So the weird things Jack’s been doing, fixing my equations, growing a beard… that was you,” Henry murmured, and Nathan rolled his eyes at the familiar look of ethical revulsion on Henry’s face.
“Look, I came to see if I could get my neural pattern transferred to an AI shell, but they’ve degraded too much. I haven’t gotten to making up plan B yet, but if you could help instead of standing there judging what happened,” Nathan snapped, but getting angry was a mistake. Carter’s control on the brain stirred, then shoved past him to take control, wake himself up.
To Nathan’s surprise, either because of Sueños’ drug or his own stubbornness, he managed to keep his hold on Jack’s brain and was hit the knowledge that if Carter let down his guard or fell asleep, he could probably push his way back into control.
*-*
Jack blinked, looking at Henry and Paul for a moment, baffled. “How did I get—” he broke off when he saw Henry’s sympathetic look, a moment before he felt a little push in his mind, total awareness of the consciousness hidden in his own brain suddenly rushing in. “Stark?” he demanded incredulously, and the answering tingle in his brain felt like an arrogant smirk. “Oh god, I can feel him in there,” Jack groaned, fingertips pressing to his temples automatically.
“Stop being such a baby,” he heard Stark snap, and a moment later, his eyes widened, realizing the words had tumbled from his own mouth.
“I’m sharing a body with a dead man,” he staggered, lucky Henry had an arm under his elbow and eased him into a chair quickly. “I’m possessed.”
“It’s not technically possession,” Henry remarked, apparently unable to resist sharing his own scientific deductions.
“It’d make sense, Stark really is the spawn of the devil. Next I’ll be spewing pea soup everywhere,” Jack continued, half hysterically, and the next wave from the other consciousness was a hard slap, a neural firing that made him jerk under its impact.
“Being trapped in here isn’t my idea of a good time,” his mouth snapped, but his ears were starting to hear Stark, not his own voice. “You’ve got a lot of bad shit locked in here, Carter.”
“No one asked you to go poking around in my dark memories,” Jack replied automatically, ignoring the looks of alarm on Henry and Sueños’ faces. “God, is it just him messing with my brain, or is he actually making me sound like him when he talks through me?”
“It’s just you. Your auditory neurons are trying to compensate for the mental memory of what Stark thinks he sound like,” Paul hazarded the guess reassuringly, shooting Henry a desperate look that Jack pretended not to notice. “To us you sound the same.”
“Great, I still need a plan B on getting my own brain space,” Jack’s voice snapped, and he recoiled. “Stop doing that, Stark, it’s my goddamn body!”
“Can you hear me otherwise?” This time, the question was limited to Jack’s ears and not piping out his mouth.
“I heard that,” he replied, and Henry raised his eyebrows, obviously not having heard the question. “Guess it’s better than him hijacking my body. But he’s right, we do need to get him out of my head.”
“Okay, so I take it creating a whole new AI mainframe is out?” Sueños hazarded. “And can we even perform the transfer?”
“We have the PX-24,” Henry replied, and Jack groaned, remembering having dug into Dr. Thatcher’s brain. “It can be modified to lock onto the signature that belongs just to Nathan and remove it, transfer it to a new body. AI could work, but it would take the better part of two years to develop a sufficient positronic brain.”
“He can’t stay here for two years,” Jack grumbled. “Can’t you just grow him his own brain or something?”
Henry lit up, nodding. “Actually, maybe we can. I need to talk with Walter Perkins.”
*-*
Henry had sent Jack home to rest, while he went to discuss the possibility of creating a clone with Walter Perkins. Nathan, meanwhile, turned the possibility of a clone form of himself over in his mind, calculating how to draw his brain waves into it, and a myriad of other possibilities, finally making Jack sigh, rolling over once more in bed.
“Can you stop?” he demanded. “It’s hard enough to sleep with just my thoughts rolling around in there, I don’t need yours too!”
“I can’t help it, I don’t need sleep,” Nathan complained, sending the mental equivalent of making a face at Jack’s brain. “Besides, your dreams are no walk in the park.”
“There’s plenty of good stuff in there, I don’t know why you’re poking around the serial killers and people I’ve had to track down,” Jack observed, huffing his breath out tiredly. “And by the way, why are you suddenly so loud, all the time, here in my head?”
“I think it was Sueños’s drug,” Nathan mused, trying to project a shrug. “By the way? You and Tess Fontana? Creepiest thing ever.”
“Excuse me?” Jack’s voice was frosty, and Nathan could feel jagged edges of offended thoughts aimed his way.
“Mostly that time where you wondered if she was a replacement for me and then thought about the idea the whole time,” Nathan continued mercilessly. It had shocked him, the intensity Jack had felt for him, the powerful turmoil and battering between despair and lust that had churned him about in Jack’s mind that night.
“Clearly didn’t know you were there,” Jack’s words were bitten off, and he rolled onto his side, tucking inward a little, as though he were turning away from Nathan, the scientist mused. The problem, of course, was that where Jack went, Nathan was bound to follow now.
“You have to admit, you had really awkward, boring sex,” Nathan remarked ever more fervently. “She was so awkward I started suspecting she had ulterior motives on Allison.”
Jack punched the pillow, closing his eyes determinedly, but Nathan was relentless. “Speaking of, why didn’t you go after her? She’d have welcomed you at one time. Now she’s fallen head over heels for Dr. Cole.”
“Is that’s what’s bothering you?” Jack groaned, wrapping his pillow around his ears for one moment before remembering it would do no good. “Alison moved on, fell for someone else. And now that you’re sort of back, you’re not going to be able to compete?”
Nathan was silent for a long time, but Jack could feel the confused swirl of emotions from the other presence in his mind. First he picked out a small twinge of jealousy, but it was only as significant as his own was when it came to Allison. Next bewildered curiosity—being in his mind apparently had stirred up a bit of attraction and interest that made little sense to Nathan. Finally, he felt a genuine contentment. Allie was taken care of, safe, and was falling in love. If she was happy, Nathan could be content with it. “Wow,” Jack mused, and flinched when Nathan slammed mental barriers against him. “Oh grow up, Stark, you’ve gotten to be a voyeur on my sex life for the past year and ransacked all my painful memories. Why shouldn’t I get a few in return?”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” Nathan replied coolly, closing himself off, not wanting to talk with Carter any longer. Jack thought about it for a little while, but ended up drifting to sleep.
*-*
Zoë was not a morning person, nor very tolerant of unexpected news first thing in the morning, so when she woke to an email from Henry explaining that her father was possessed (only in overly elevated scientific terms), she double checked the calendar, confirmed Halloween was right around the corner, hit delete and started sorting clothing in her closet to try and find a good costume for next week.
She gave up after eliminating a number of dresses her dad would object to on principle, then headed down to breakfast, slowing her gait as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
Her dad was arguing with himself.
And what was weird was that either Henry and her dad had cooked up a very elaborate prank and her dad did a much more accurate impression of Stark than he’d ever managed while the scientist was alive or…
“Dad?” she asked, watching the interplay of expressions suddenly halt, coalescing into a worried look.
“Hey, Zo, pancakes for breakfast?” he asked in a tone that reminded Zoë of when he and her Mom had been trying to hide just how bad things were.
“Henry emailed me, I already know, Dad,” she replied. “You’ve got Stark’s brain pattern or soul or whatever stuck inside you.”
“Yeah,” he agreed quietly, gesturing her to a seat. “But Henry, Paul, and Walter Perkins are working on cloning a new Stark body, so we can transfer him out of my head. Hopefully soon,” he added in a grumble.
Zoë’s head reeled, unable to believe her dad was so easily accepting of this. “So that’s it?” she demanded, aghast. “He gets to be privy to our lives for the past year? Dig around your head, find out anything he wants?”
“Zoë,” Jack started, but she could see the ripple of change across his face as suddenly Stark started talking.
“I’ve done the best I can to respect your privacy, to stay away from your father’s memories of you,” he informed her quietly.
“Had any compulsions about doing that with Dad?” she accused, and seeing the flinch, knew she was right. “You’re the one dredging up his nightmares and putting him through hell, aren’t you?”
“It’s okay, Zo,” her dad started to say, and she cut him off quickly.
“No, it’s not!” she burst out. “Stay out of his head and mouth when I’m around, Stark, and stay the hell away from his memories, or I’ll find a priest to try an old fashioned exorcism.”
Tears threatening, she grabbed her backpack and hurried out, ordering SARAH to slam the door behind her. She didn’t wait to hear if the house complied.
*-*
Jack stayed silent, letting Nathan sort through the emotional waves that Zoë’s outburst had caused. “I don’t understand,” Nathan admitted finally.
“This town has given her some phobias about the privacy of her thoughts,” Jack explained softly. “Dream sharing, mind reading, possession, nothing is private or sacred in this town. Were you around about six months ago when Dr. Forstell used the OL-984 thought reader to win over dates, trick them into sleeping with him?”
“Oh,” Nathan’s thoughts were racing, and suddenly Jack was aware that Nathan was comparing his own actions to that of the scientist and finding himself no better than the other man.
“No,” Jack protested, sighing. “I wasn’t saying you were like that, I was saying it’s what she sees. It’s… well, it’s a phobia for her now. And she’s right, it is an invasion of my privacy, but given that the other option is you gone for good…I guess I’d choose this.”
“That’s… almost nice of you, Carter,” Nathan decided. “I’ll try to stay out of your way today, I promise.”
That proved to be easier said than done, Jack realized several hours later. It seemed everyone in town had heard that Nathan was living in Jack’s head and was eager to test it out. Jack finally quarantined himself to the station, and Jo, equally annoyed by some of the crass questioning, had volunteered to run for lunch.
Jack was sitting at his desk, reading through a case file when Allison strolled in, grinning at him. “Good morning,” she greeted him, and Jack checked his watch.
“Afternoon,” he replied, folding his arms. “Please tell me this isn’t the start of another pollen disaster and you’re just running late.”
“Took the morning off,” she replied, sitting in a chair with a grin. “I miss anything good?”
“She doesn’t know,” Nathan said, careful to confine his voice to inside Jack’s head. “No one told her.”
“Ah, you talked with Henry about my test results yet?” Jack hazarded, and she shook her head.
“Figured it couldn’t be anything serious, or he would have called me and forbidden you from being here today,” she observed logically. “Did he find something?”
“Ah, not something, no,” Jack hedged, shifting uncomfortably. “Someone?”
“Someone?” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow. “Carter, I don’t have time for riddles, what did Henry find?”
“He found… uh, I guess you could say I’m possessed?” he turned it into a question, and Allison smirked.
“Nice Halloween prank,” she chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Come on, what’d Henry find?”
“He found Nathan,” Jack said softly. “His brain pattern in my mind.”
Allison stared at him for a long moment, eyes darkening. “That isn’t funny.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“Is this because I’m moving in with Cole?” she demanded. “Finally making your play to wreck things?”
“Allie.” Jack fell back, allowing Stark to take control. “Remember the first time I proposed to you? Had Vincent hide the ring in a piece of sacre tort cake? Took you on a picnic, and the minute you saw that ring, you told me I was a moron, thinking you’d marry me after only six weeks.”
“Oh my god,” Allison whispered, eyes filling.
“Only took me another year and a half to convince you to marry me,” Nathan continued, and Jack projected a little surprise. Somehow he’d envisioned some grand romance the first go round between the pair, but what he was gleaning from Nathan’s memories was nothing like that. Nathan opened the memories to him, to explore, and continued talking with Allison while Jack cautiously sorted through the memories, surprised at the liberties Stark allowed.
*-*
Jack had a headache by the time they got home that night, unsurprised to find a message from Zoë claiming a study session at Pilar’s he knew to be non-existent. It was an excuse to stay away from the situation, and he couldn’t fault her for it.
Nathan had been quiet ever since Allie had left the station, after a long conversation that ended with him reassuring her he was happy she had moved on, but establishing he would take partial custody of Jenna as soon as he could. Jack sighed, pulling out a beer, but set it aside, bracing his hands on the counter. “Can’t believe I’m inviting this, but are you okay?” he asked, and Nathan stirred, sighing.
“I’m fine,” he replied, his voice sounding heavy with irony in Jack’s mind. “That’s the problem. A year of watching her move on was enough for me to move on?”
“Maybe being my head is influencing you?” Jack suggested. “I’m okay with it, so you are.”
“No, I know my own mind,” Nathan replied, and Jack was suddenly aware that they were both speaking aloud. “Sorry, I’ll try to get better at that before Zoë comes home tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Jack agreed, not wanting to relive the argument.
“Would you like to grab a shower before dinner, Sheriff and Dr. Stark?” SARAH asked suddenly. “I have half an hour left until the Pastetli is finished.”
“Yeah, thanks SARAH,” Jack replied for them, heading up the stairs.
He was finishing rinsing off his body when suddenly Nathan shoved mentally, taking control. “Trust me,” Nathan murmured when Jack pushed at him, pushed aside again in response to his attempt. Jack finally sighed, relinquishing control, only to nearly claw his way to the surface in shock when Nathan took hold of his cock, stroking firmly.
“Whoa,” Jack groaned, and Nathan pushed again, reassuringly this time.
“I want to do this for you, want to be with you,” Nathan murmured, fingers slowly toying with Jack’s balls, his cock hardening quickly in response to the sensation. “Do you want me to finish?”
Jack was tempted to say no, for reasons ranging from Nathan actually loathing him to Nathan rebounding, but each was quickly rebuked in a wave of feelings from Nathan, and Nathan now had his other hand stroking his nipples, creating ripples of sensation. Jack knew he was touching himself technically, but it didn’t feel the same, since Nathan was in control, his touch exploring and unfamiliar. “Yes, please,” he finally gasped, rewarded by Nathan starting to stroke again.
His touch was an odd mix of familiar and strange, and once Jack closed his eyes, he was immersed in the fantasy that it actually was Nathan, separate and whole, slowly exploring him. It didn’t help that Nathan was starting to project images at him, things he wanted to do once he was in a cloned body.
Images of Jack on his knees were quickly followed by Nathan on his, kinky suggestions about his handcuffs were followed by the image of a slow, lazy Sunday in bed. The images came faster and fragmented as both men lost control, and Jack came, slumping into the wall with a strangled cry.
The first words that slipped from Jack’s mouth were, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.” He cringed, feeling Nathan’s instant awkwardness and the scientist reaching for his barriers, trying to scramble to find a bit of wit to protect himself with. Jack instantly leapt for his own defenses. “Whoa, not a criticism, just… sort of hoping you were really planning on following through with some of what you just showed me.”
“The past few months, floating around in your mind… that wasn’t where it started,” Nathan informed him, and Jack sighed. Sharing a brain meant there was no hiding the subtext, he decided, ducking his face under the stream of hot water.
“I was attracted to what you show everyone else, but it was attraction, not much more,” Nathan told him. “I knew it could be, but I never took the time to get to know you before I died.”
“You didn’t die,” Jack murmured quietly. “So, finding out there’s actually some depth to me, dark things that I don’t want in my life now, that’s what tipped the balance?”
“Yes,” Nathan replied honestly, and Jack could see he was scared, knowing how much that information could cost him. “My mind’s an open book to you, Jack,” the scientist offered. “You can do some digging through too.”
Jack hesitated, curious, but a corner of his mind not wanting to pry either. “Pick some to show me,” he decided finally, and he felt Nathan considering.
Almost instantly the memory of being hit, hard, across the face, surfaced. The man behind the hand looks oddly like Nathan, but the eyes are dark and cold. Jack can see just past him to the paper on the desk, a test marked with a B+.
“Uh, try something lighter,” Jack winced, the single memory painting a very clear image of what Nathan’s childhood had been like.
“Not all like that,” Nathan replied and showed him the image of a beautiful woman, curling auburn hair and bright green eyes, with a hint of Nathan’s mischievous smile. A very small, young Nathan was curled up next to her on a sofa, listening to her read “Treasure Island”.
It took hours, but Jack and Nathan explored his memories, comparing childhood scars and triumphs, and spending a lot of time laughing. When Jack finally slid off to sleep, he felt oddly content for the first time in over a year.
*-*
The cloning process, to Henry’s surprise, had taken a little over a week, and Jack hadn’t been by to complain to him once. He smiled a little as he kept one eye on the DNA chain replication process, resisting the urge to hum contentedly. He’d always suspected with time and an inability to escape each other, Jack and Nathan would be able to eke out some middle ground, even be friends. It was just too bad he’d never had a good space to lock them in before now.
Zoë had taken the situation hard, Henry knew, but she seemed to have adapted, or at least had relaxed enough not to flinch away every time Nathan spoke through her dad. Henry couldn’t blame her, as the idea of sharing a brain with anyone gave him a bit of a chill. He tried to imagine it with Kim, and that eased the chill, but Jack and Nathan had no such luxury, Henry mused to himself.
Jack’s brain scans showed little sign of any wear or tear on his own mental pattern, though Henry had noticed that the area of memory overlap was growing more and more each day. Since it hadn’t caused any problems for either man, he hadn’t discouraged their sharing. Anything to make the situation more bearable, he’d decided.
He realized he was humming and sighed, turning back to watch the DNA molecules line up ever so neatly.
*-*
When Jack showed up to the bioengineering labs, he stopped short, completely amazed by the sight before him. The tank in the middle of the room contained the body of Nathan Stark, all but naked, and exactly the way he remembered. At the mental smirk from Nathan, Jack flushed a little, projecting back his own imagination about what was under the small strap of fabric.
Henry was hooking up the pieces of the PX-24 machine, the cables running from the chair next to the tank down to the head of the clone. “Relax, nothing to worry about on your end, Jack,” he remarked, helping Jack to the chair. “You won’t even suffer the behavioral ticks like you did with Dr. Thatcher. Quite the opposite actually, and may I say it will be a relief when Nathan stops helping you correct my equations.”
Jack managed a weak laugh, which was more than Nathan, curled in anticipation and excitement inside him, could manage. “Throw the switch, Dr. Frankenstein,” Jack joked, and Henry smiled.
*-*
Jack woke up, Zoë at his side and Henry taking readings on the machines monitoring him. “What happened?” he asked, and Henry reached down, bracing his shoulder and stopping his attempt to sit up.
“Whoa, nice and easy,” Henry said, shaking his head. “To finish the transfer, your brain had to shut down for a few moments, almost like… a computer reboot, if you will. You’ve only been out for a few hours, but it was just time for your brain to get used to not sharing the space.”
“But I’m all right? Rebooted okay and all?” Jack asked, and Henry nodded, his smile not quite touching his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nathan hasn’t woken up, Jack,” Henry told him, this time letting Jack sit up enough to see that Nathan was on a gurney next to him. “His brain scans show all the activity is present, it just hasn’t sorted out where it belongs. It could take months, just like it did for him to learn your brain.”
Jack stared over at the sleeping clone, a heavy weight settling on his chest. Months.
*-*
It became part of Jack’s routine. Everyday he’d have lunch in the infirmary at GD. He’d tell Nathan stories, some of the latest disasters around town, or Paul’s latest failed attempt to woo Vince, but mostly stories about their shared memories. He didn’t tell anyone why he did it, but he hoped maybe being reminded of the memories would help Nathan’s brain sort them out faster.
It wasn’t until he was trapped in the infirmary for a week (Fargo’s synthetic adrenaline plus Taggart’s wolf-jackal-hyena hybrids meant a total lockdown, several levels being submitted to a thermal cleaning and Jack in the infirmary while Jo used the really big guns) that he had any confirmation that he was helping.
“What do you talk to him about?”
Jack looked up from his book, frowning at Henry. “Who do I talk to about what now?” he asked, and Henry smiled.
“What do you talk to Nathan about?” Henry clarified, and Jack shrugged, feeling a bit sheepish.
“Mostly… his memories, things I learned about him. Sort of trying to help him find his way back,” Jack finished quietly, giving Henry a cautious look. “Am I hurting him?”
“No,” Henry jumped forward, shaking his head vehemently. “Jack, you’ve been talking to him, reading to him, sharing those memories all week. And his rate of expansion into the brain tissue has been nearly triple what we normally see.”
Jack’s heart kicked up a notch. “How close…?”
“A week,” Henry admitted, his grin growing. “Maybe less. But definitely before Christmas.”
*-*
Nathan’s eyes fluttered open for a moment, but the room way too bright, so he paused, listening instead. Jack’s familiar tenor filled his mind. “…My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door.”
“Treasure Island,” Nathan managed to say, his voice barely croaking with disuse.
“Hey,” Jack murmured, and a moment later his hand was cradling Nathan’s. “I’ve paged Henry and your nurse. You need anything?”
“Got it,” Nathan replied, squeezing Jack’s hand lightly. “You here every day?” It should have been a statement, because Nathan’s mind recognized it as fact, but he wanted it confirmed.
“Yeah, I was,” Jack replied. “It’s two weeks till Christmas, before you ask.” There was a long pause, and Jack’s thumb travelled over Nathan’s knuckles. “You sure I can’t get you something?”
“Keep reading?” Nathan requested, and Jack arranged the book against him, so he could continue, without letting go of his hold on Nathan’s hand.
“I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar…”
Nathan smiled, Jack’s voice washing over him softly, his hand clasped tightly. Home, he thought, finally able to open his eyes.
