Fire

Author's Notes:

I read a lot. It's fun, keeps me occupied when I'm bored, and it's a generally good hobby to have anyway. I get pangs of... a need to write from time to time. I write and forget usually, but thought it would be fun to put this one online. Would love your reactions to this guys.

Disclaimer: I make no money from this.

*****

He doesn't see red when he finally catches up with her. Before, back when he was only planning this confrontation, imagining how he'd torture the bitch until she begged, his jaw would tighten until it hurt and his vision would shimmer with a fine mist of fire. But now, now that he's here with her...

Jake's never felt such absolute clarity. Like everything has finally fallen into place, all the little jagged jigsaw pieces fitting themselves together to form the only picture in the world worth seeing.

He knows the truth, knows exactly whose orders she had been following that night, knows the reasons and motivations and logic behind the encounter and her actions. Jake's turned everything over in his mind again and again, spent hours working through every inconsistency until it all made a vicious, sharp sort of sense, and he knows where her true loyalties lie.

The thing is, he doesn't care.

Ben spent weeks trying to get him to talk about it, after they first found out the truth. For a while, Jake was able to fend him off by changing the subject. When he kept pushing (Ben always pushes, and he wonders sometimes if he'll ever learn that it's sometimes best just to let go), he flatly refused to speak to him until he stopped nagging.

Jennifer, though, was a bit smarter - the blonde sat next to him and just asked if there was anything he wanted to say, and listened silently when Jake muttered, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything, no matter the justification. She's murdered us, stamped on all the memories we made together."

He saw red fire then, and Jennifer just nodded and left.

But now, staring her down in a rickety, cobweb-ridden hut in an out-of-the-way hole of a village, he's filled with absolute clarity, diamond-sharp and sun-bright. There's no red haze anymore, no rage. Just...

Just now. Just this moment. Just faded moonlight through a grimy window, just shadows upon shadows blanketing the corners of the room, just glistening dust motes suspended in midair, swaying with each awkwardly loud exhalation, each jerking, uncertain motion of the two.

"You killed us," Jake says quietly, his tone a little too strained to be absolutely calm.

"I did," she replies with her habitual smirk, but there are no justifications in her shuttered eyes, no excuses forthcoming.

Excuses would make this easier. Would let Jake hate her just a little more, just enough to... just enough to make her bleed. Just enough to push him back into the flames.

But... murder's murder, no matter what the excuse. And he's not seeing red anymore - he's beyond the red, in the heart of the fire, where reality and knowledge and understanding flicker and dance and burn scorching blue.

Jake swallows, feels his hand clench, unclench. "I know why you did it."

"Does 'why' really matter to you, honey?" she asks almost facetiously, a thin lip curling again into a poor imitation of a smirk. She stays passive, her hands limp at her sides, and Jake finds himself wondering if his wife would even bother defending herself if attacked.

"You're going to leave," Jake says softly, not sure where the words are coming from but too tired to care very much. Too tired, and somehow too old inside to keep up the posturing, the sniping, the hatred. "You're going to go somewhere far away, and you're never going to come back. Because if you do, I'll drag you to the courts myself, and we've both seen their version of justice."

"What is this, Jake?" she demands in a low hiss, his features frozen into a blank mask. "I - "

"This isn't about you," Jake interrupts curtly. "I don't care whether you live to one hundred or die tomorrow." He blinks, hesitating, and thinks that revelations should come more loudly, shine more brightly - epiphanies aren't supposed to be quiet. He shouldn't feel like he's saying something he's known all along, deep down.

"This isn't about you," he repeats softly, dust swirling cautious as he speaks. "This is about me not becoming you."

Fire burns you up in the end, Jake suspects. It doesn't matter who set it or how you use it - anyone lost in the red ends up a charred husk.

He doesn't bother taking in her reaction, doesn't really care whether the woman is angry or shocked or offended. "You'll leave," Jake repeats, his voice steely, and he leaves the hut in a flurry of ash-fine dust.