I woke on the sofa in the back room of the shop, most of my cuts still stinging a bit, but healing quickly and otherwise feeling pretty good all things considered. The curtains were open for the window onto the alley but it was dark enough outside it didn’t cast much light in the room except when the odd set of headlights would pass. I stretched, rolling off of the sofa to my feet and moving to look out on the quiet town; it was nice to be back after the overwhelming sights, sounds, and smells that came with cities the size of New York.

The door to the shop opened behind me, but I didn’t look even when I recognized Michael’s scent and heard him pause there in the doorway.

“You’re awake, then.” He kept his voice low—quiet enough not to aggravate the slight headache I had, the last repercussion from breaking the djinn’s spell.

“How long was I out?” I glanced back at him as a tense smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“A day,” he closed the door and settled in the desk chair, “I know you’ve survived worse, but just because you’re capable of that much magic doesn’t mean your body will always survive it,” he paused to study me for a moment as if to make sure I was listening, “especially when it aggravates the Wild Hunt.” I forced a smile that was meant to be more reassuring than it probably was before looking back out the window with a deep breath; the future the djinn had created for me was still fresh in my mind, as if I couldn’t quite shake it. “What did he show you?” Maybe I was being unusually quiet because Michael seemed to read in my body language just how much it was bothering me. I looked back at him again, thinking it over for a moment before I decided to remain silent and offered only a shrug in answer.

“Doesn’t matter; I’ll be fine in a day or two.” He gave me a look like he doubted my answer but didn’t press the subject, opting instead to pick up one of the books from the desk and opening it to pick up where he’d left off. “You should wear your glasses when you read,” I spoke after a moment, pausing to collapse sideways into the armchair with my legs draped over one arm, “you make this face when you read without them that makes it look like you’re gonna kill someone.” Michael looked up, eyebrow raised as he studied me with his mismatched eyes—one his natural black and the other a milky white.

“I never needed them before, I’m not used to needing them.” I’m not sure if he intended for it to sound as sharp as it did, but it was enough to make me wince.

“Don’ start with that,” I couldn’t help the defensive tone to my words even if part of me still considered him a friend; there was something to be said for keeping someone around who grew up similar to how I did. “You started that mess, not me.” He laughed at that—short, but genuinely amused.

“You started that mess, all I did was follow orders.” The sound that escaped me at that was somewhere between a groan and a growl as I hung my head back; he wasn’t technically wrong, I was the one who decided to enforce the Caeleste Lex—the laws protecting us from humans and humans from us—within the East Coast resulting in what the Council liked to call a massacre that took almost a year to end.

He hadn’t been the first Reaper they sent to kill me at the time, but he’d been the only one to go about it without pride blinding him.

“Asshole,” I finally muttered the word as he stood, taking his book with him.

“I picked that up from you,” Michael spoke with a smile, relaxed and free of the tension he’d been carrying around since our trip to Maryland.

It felt easier this way, when I thought about it, we both knew we weren’t exactly good for each other the way we’d been before.

“Where’re you off to?” He paused at the question, glancing back at me over his shoulder.

“To bed,” he paused, looking away again for a moment as he seemed to hesitate, “you should eat something, Reyna. There’re leftovers from dinner in the fridge upstairs from dinner.” I nodded slightly, listening as he disappeared quickly upstairs. Then I leaned back again, pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes to stave off the slowly growing headache.

-----

I must’ve dozed off again curled up on the armchair because the sound of quiet footsteps coming down the stairs woke me.

“Mum?” I stifled a yawn and rubbed sleep from my eyes as I looked toward Zevi where he hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, listening for my location.

“Hey love,” my voice was soft and I caught a small smile flicker across his lips for a moment in the dark before he made his way carefully across the room toward me, stumbling over the coffee table along the way still mostly asleep, it seemed. “What’re you still doing up?” I scooped him up on top of me with one arm once he was within reach, wrapping my arms around him when I noticed the trembling in his grip on my shirt and the fear in his scent.

“I—I had a bad dream,” his voice sounded small enough I began stroking my fingers through his hair and down his back almost unconsciously.

“Why did you come find me instead of Michael? Then you wouldn’t have needed to come down the stairs by yourself.” He shook his head at the question, burying his face in my chest rather than answer so I let slip a breathless lap as I leaned against the back of the chair again, “Yeah, I’m kind of on the fence with him too, lately.” Then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, “Do you want to talk about your nightmare? Or just sleep down here with me for a while?” Zevi was quiet for long enough that I thought for a moment that he’d fallen asleep again, but eventually he raised his face from my chest just enough to be barely audible.

“We were at the park for a picnic,” he spoke slowly, “Loki and I were playing in the grass while you guys made sandwiches,” I tipped my head slightly to one side, not sure who he meant when he said ‘you guys’, but I didn’t ask. “Then I heard a phone ring and Loki and I stopped, we thought you’d have to go, but you shook your head when you checked yours and he answered his. He talked on his phone for a while and when he finally hung up, he looked so sad, and the park had gotten dark. He said he had to go and you smiled even though you looked sad, but when he started to walk away, you were crying.” Zevi paused just long enough to swallow, “Mum, you were crying and smiling at the same time.” I studied him for a long time, unsure of what to say. “Mum?” I swallowed and reminded myself I needed to breathe.

“Yeah Zevi?” My voice sounded hollow when I finally found it.

“He left, didn’t he?” I tipped my head slightly in my confusion, running my fingers through Zevi’s silvery hair as much for my comfort as for his at this point.

“Who?”

“Jack.” My breath caught again. “He’s coming back though, right?” I hesitated, exhaling slowly through my teeth to buy myself time.

“Is he who was leaving in your dream?” He nodded slightly. “You miss him too, hmm?” He flashed a small smile and nodded again. “Yeah, he’ll come back.” I leaned back slightly as Zevi curled up in the small space between me and the back of the chair, his head resting lightly on my chest as he closed his eyes with a tiny, wolfish yawn.

“Promise?” He seemed to be drifting back into sleep as he spoke and I couldn’t help my smile.

“Promise.” He gave another small smile as his grip on my shirt relaxed slightly and gradually, I could feel his breathing fall into the steady rhythm of sleep.

It wasn’t a promise I’d usually be able to make, seeing as it was mostly out of my control, but based on the fact Jack moved to an entirely new country to stay nearby, I suspected he wouldn’t be gone for long.

Even if he was, it wasn’t like I didn’t have ways to get him to come back.

-----

I’d fallen asleep again there in the armchair with Zevi on top of me when I found myself woken again, this time by the sound of someone knocking on the window into the alley. A quiet grumble of mild annoyance escaped my lips as I looked toward the window to find a vaguely familiar silhouette outside and quickly rolled out of the chair to my feet, supporting Zevi with one arm.

“Jack?” I whispered his name in question as I approached the window with silent steps and his all too familiar wicked grin flashed across his face. He waved me outside but I still hesitated, taking a deep breath as I shifted my grip on Zevi, using the moment to focus on my sense of smell and sort through everything I was picking up within the block at least.

Sure smelled like Jack…

Still weird for him to just show up in the middle of the night when he’s supposed to be in another state though.

There was a cool breeze blowing through the alley when I finally stepped outside so I paused again to close my eyes and take another deep breath, relaxing slightly under the night sky. Jack was grinning at me when I opened my eyes again, leaning against the old brick with all the ease as if he was some sort of fixture there. “What’re you doing here?” His smile widened slightly despite the wariness in my tone even now that I knew that scent was his.

“You look great,” his laugh was light and considering how ripped up and bloody my clothes were at this point, I was surprised when I didn’t smell any alcohol on him, “and kind of sweet.” His gaze drifted to Zevi where he still slept in my arms.

“I look like I was in a wrestling match with a wechuge. Answer the question, Jack.” My voice was a low growl, paranoia and mental exhaustion had me tense and hostile even with as long as I’ve known him.

Or thought I knew him…

…once upon a time, maybe.

“Jesse called, she said you guys ran into a djinn at her premiere.” Jack shrugged as if it really had nothing to do with him beyond playing the good brother, “She sounded like she was still worried about you, so I promised I’d try to get in touch.” I studied him, runnin my tongue over my canines almost unconsciously as I tasted the worry radiating off of him in waves.

“You do remember I can smell and see people’s emotions, right?” He exhaled slowly, as if he didn’t want to admit he’d been worried to.

“Yeah, I remember.” He didn’t correct the lie though.

“And that doesn’t answer why you’re here in person,” I continued once I’d decided I didn’t care enough at the moment to press the subject. “I thought you were in Massachusetts. Do you have time to be coming back in the middle of the night on a work day?” He shrugged.

“To be perfectly honest, I probably shouldn’t be here.” I started to agree, to send him back, but he wasn’t finished, “but I don’t care.” Any argument I had died on my tongue at that. A small smile appeared on his lips for a moment, almost shy compared to what I was used to seeing on his face and therefore alien to me. “I wanted to see you,” he moved closer—slowly, as if he was approaching a wild animal.

I took a sudden breath and started breathing again.

I was forgetting that a lot tonight, it seemed.

But I still had no words to answer him with.

We stood in silence like that for a long time before I heard a door open and close upstairs and glanced over my shoulder, listening.

“Reyna?” Michael called down the stairs in a stage whisper and I glanced back at Jack, pressing a finger to my lips.

“Yeah?” I called back without looking.

“You coming to bed tonight?” Jack seemed to flinch at Michael’s question, but the look was gone so quick that I couldn’t be sure.

“Eventually?” I paused for a moment, “Just go back to sleep.” I could swear I could hear Michael’s exasperated sigh from here before I heard the bedroom door close again as he went back to sleep.

“You forgave him?” Jack sounded genuinely surprised and I studied him while I hummed in thought.

“Define forgive,” I bit out the words before raking my fingers through my hair and exhaling through my teeth. “We’re not back together like that, that was an accident in the first place—” He opened his mouth as if to ask, but I could guess the question so I didn’t give him the chance, “alcohol in December, you remember how I—” I swallowed, “how I get. Anyway, no, I’m not sure if I’ll ever trust him again, but he can’t survive without me and that’s my doing,” I forced a smile that probably wasn’t all that convincing, “Jesse’s always on me about being more responsible for my actions, so here we are.” There was a cold to the fire in Jack’s amber eyes that made me continue almost as if to explain, “I sleep in the armchair most of the time I’m here anyway, it’s not a big deal.”

“Damn it,” he drew a hand down his face, “why do you have to do that?” It was a rhetorical question… or at least I hoped it was because I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant by ‘that’.

Then he started laughing, a dry, frustrated laugh as if he’d suddenly lost his mind…

or what was left of it anyway.

As a genius, it was hard to say if he had much of one to begin with.

“You were never supposed to mean so much to me; I was supposed to be fine when you took off,” there was something in his scent and his expression with those words, an odd mix of hatred, frustration, and desperation, “but I wasn’t fine, it hurt like hell when you left—seeing you with that damn ring made me want to hate you and hate him and I couldn’t because he was a good guy and he made you happy and I still love you.”

‘Love,’ present tense.

I swallowed hard.

“Jack,” I began but I wasn’t sure what to say when I wasn’t sure how I felt about much of anything anymore…

If I still felt anything.

We stood in silence for a long time before he took a deep breath and dug a hand into his pocket to pull out a necklace chain with a familiar ring hanging on the end of it and my gaze narrowed slightly even as he held it out to me. “Wow,” I drew out the word as I took it, “you heard about the funeral and still stole the ring he gave me. That’s a new low.”

Not that I was one to talk when it came to ‘new lows’.

“I know it’s bad, I don’t know what I was thinking, I just…” He breathed a heavy sigh, “I don’t know, I didn’t even realize I took it until I got back to the hotel that day. I wanted to give it back, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Sorry to wake you in the middle of the night like this.” I stuffed the ring and its chain into my pocket and scratched the back of my head as he started to drift toward the street, “I’ll see you around,” the way he said those words made it sound like he didn’t plan on coming back.

That thought drew out more pain in my chest than I would’ve thought, maybe because of all of the references to him leaving I’d been seeing or hearing lately.

“Jack,” my voice cracked slightly as I called out to him, but I barely noticed. Jack stopped at least, but he kept his back toward me for the time being. “We missed you, too.” He looked back at me over his shoulder, his eyes alight with the familiar spark that had been gone the last time I’d seen him before leaving, and I couldn’t look away. “I—I’m glad you came back,” my voice was barely a whisper, as if I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit the words aloud. An easy smile tugged slightly at the corner of his mouth at the words, the same smile he used to show me back in London.

-----

We’d climbed up to the roof from the fire escape for a better view of the stars while we talked. Zevi lay sound asleep wrapped in Jack’s coat between us while we pointed out constellations and swapped stories about life since I left London. They became more recent as I told him what I remembered of Jesse’s movie and about the djinn and the off-brand wechuge.

“How’d you kill it? If you didn’t see the end of the movie it was based on?” He’d rolled to face me as he asked and I hesitated under his gaze for a moment.

“Basically?” I shrugged as best I could laying on my back, speaking slowly, “I tore its head off and burned the body.” Jack’s laugh was short with disbelief.

“Jesse mentioned you dropped a head on the table, I thought she was exaggerating.”

“I wanted to make a point.” Another laugh escaped him and he shook his head slightly as if somewhere between disbelief and resignation. Then he changed the subject, using it as a segue into telling me about the pitch he had to make later today.

The image came to mind of Jack—the man who’d started his cybersecurity business by hacking into a handful of major firms and then walking in with a flashdrive to show them all of the holes he’d found—in a suit giving a presentation like a normal businessman and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“How is that funny?” He sounded almost indignant, but there was still a smile on his face.

“Cambion or not, I have a hard time picturing you giving a pitch without holding something over them,” I grinned as I rolled to face him, “I mean the first thing you said to me was a bad pickup line.” His lips tugged into a smirk even as his amber gaze narrowed into a glare.

“It worked, didn’t it?” I raised an eyebrow at that, humming as if in thought as he continued, “Besides, you know me; I’m well versed in the art of pretending to be a gentleman.” My laugh came a little harsher than I’d meant it.

“I do know you, and that is debatable.” I reached out on impulse to touch him, running my thumb across his lip as if to feel his smile, marveling quietly at the way I could feel his breath catch and hear his heart rate pick up at the contact, “And it only worked because I was looking for someone to eat,” I licked my lips slowly as my fingers traced down to his neck where I could feel him swallow whatever he might’ve wanted to say, “and you happened to taste delicious.” Jack closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before he rolled onto his back again, out of my reach to watch the colors in the sky change. His movement was enough to snap me out of my reverie and draw back, swallowing hard on whatever impulses I might’ve been about to follow as I rolled back as well.

“I’m glad I came back,” he finally broke the silence with a contented sigh, folding his arms behind his head, “even if it was just for the night.” I started to reply even before I really knew how, but the sound of the back door cut me off.

Damn was his heartbeat distracting.

“Reyna?” I exhaled through my teeth before rolling to my feet in a low crouch.

“Yeah?” I called back once I’d reached the edge of the roof overlooking the alley, careful not to wake Zevi. Michael looked up, following the sound of my voice with mild surprise.

“What’re you doing up there?” I shrugged, glancing back briefly when I heard Jack shift to prop himself up on an elbow.

“Couldn’t sleep, figured I’d do some stargazing.” Michael studied me for a moment, his expression making me suspect he was debating whether or not to press for details considering he knew I was still hung up on the djinn’s dream.

“You have the other kid up there with you?” Guess he decided against it so I nodded slightly.

“He’s asleep.” He covered his mouth as he yawned and shook his head slightly.

“Alright then,” he waved it off, “I guess I’ll go back to sleep then.” I watched in silence as he disappeared back into the building, closing the back door behind him. Jack watched me, waiting while I cocked my head to one side, listening until I heard the faint click of the bedroom door before I moved back to my space beside Zevi. He remained silent again for a while, watching as the sun began to peek above the horizon.

“Hey,” even to me, my voice sounded almost hollow when I broke the silence, “you should start heading back.” Jack was almost glaring at the sun through narrowed eyes when I glanced back at him, as if daring it to continue.

It ignored him of course; Skoll was a bigger threat than anything he could do, really.

After a moment, he seemed to give up, the dark haze around him dissipating some as he exhaled slowly.

“Yeah,” he didn’t exactly sound convinced as he met my gaze, “guess I should.” So he said, but he made no move to get up just yet.

“It’s a six hour drive minimum, Jack, you’re gonna be late as is.” He let slip a defeated laugh.

“Alright, alright,” he reached out to me, “give me a hand up?” I clasped his forearm and braced to pull him up, but instead found myself tumbling forward—around Zevi—and landing on top of him with a surprised yelp. Jack clamped a hand over my mouth to muffle any other sound I might’ve made as he pressed a finger to his lips and flashed a mischievous grin. “You’ll wake Zevi,” he whispered the words with a teasing tone as he uncovered my mouth in favor of an iron grip on my waist, pinning me where I lay. My gaze narrowed slightly, pupils constricting with the dim light and my focus on him, but he didn’t give me the chance to speak, “I’d nearly forgotten how good you looked in a dress shirt.” I considered pointing out that my shirt was going straight into the fireplace when I changed, it was so stained with dried blood and viscera, but it didn’t seem to slow him down any as he laced his fingers through my hair, shifting it out of the way to press his lips to the side of my neck. A low hum escaped my lips as he trailed more kisses along the vein there until I snapped out of it long enough to block him, my hand pressed over his mouth.

“Jack—” my voice cracked—cause, fuck me, of course it cracked—and I felt him smile against my fingers before he gripped my wrist, pulling my hand away enough to nibble on my fingertips, grazing all of the hypersensitive nerves between the long faded scars there and sending an unconscious shiver down my spine.

“Mum?” We both froze at Zevi’s quiet voice, though I was quick to extract my fingers from Jack’s mouth.

He only flashed a sort of devious grin that made me want to kiss him and punch him all at once.

The bastard.

“Yeah, love?” It turned into a knowing smirk at my word choice—I’d picked that up from him, after all—but I was quick to ignore him.

“I smell Jack.” A chuckle escaped my lips and I pulled away from Jack’s grip to scoop Zevi up into my arms again.

“I told you he’d come back.” Jack raised an eyebrow at me in a question I was quick to ignore.

“Hey Jackie?” A wicked smirk flickered across my lips as Jack winced, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers at Zevi’s use of the nickname.

“Yeah Zevi?” He sounded like he was having a hard time not commenting on it.

“If you stay, does that mean you’ll be our dad?” My eyes widened in shock at the question.

“Zevi,” I began slowly, intending to choose my words carefully to put the idea out of his head, but Jack just flashed that infernal smile of his and cut in before I could figure out what to say.

“I don’t know kid, that one’s kind of up to her,” he was still laughing as he answered and all I could do was shoot him a dirty look.

“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” Even phrased as a question as it was, the look in my eyes must’ve made it clear it wasn’t because for once, Jack actually seemed to listen.

“Yeah, I’m going,” he shifted close to me again, pressing his lips to my cheek in a quick kiss while he ruffled Zevi’s hair before he was out of reach again with one last smile. Then he disappeared over the edge of the roof, “I’ll see you guys when I get back.” I took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of my nose while I listened to his steps recede down the fire escape and out into the street before I couldn’t quite pick them out anymore. Zevi yawned in my lap, already dozing off again as I turned my attention back to the rising sun;

I didn’t want to go back down—

—not yet.