Caitlin Kittredge - Street Magic

"Name them," said Pete instantly. She'd clear whatever-it-was with Chief Inspector Newell later—right now Diana and Patrick's timetable was winding inexorably down.

"Condition one: I get a shower, clean clothes, a place to stay—and not some dodgy hostel you shove witnesses into either, a real place," Jack said. "Whether or not I decide to tell you anything, you take me there right now."

He'd never tell her anything useful, of course. Pete wasn't stupid and she could see from the way Jack talked and held himself that he was hating her for something, that her need for what he had was getting him off.

But she wasn't stupid, so she said, "Done."

"Condition two," said Jack. "If I tell you something, Pete, no matter how bloody outlandish it sounds to your cotton-packed copper ears—you listen. And you believe me."

How she'd wanted to do that, every second they'd spent together. Couldn't, because admitting the truth of the matter with Jack would have driven anyone reasonable mad. Believing him would be admitting that everything in the world wasn't in plain sight, and it ran contrary to Pete's whole life, the new one she'd built after Jack.

"Pete," Jack snapped. His expression was hard-edged, the mask in place, waiting to see if she'd give in to his demands.

"Yes, Jack," she said with a sigh. "I'll believe you."

Jack glared suspiciously at the door of Pete's flat. "This doesn't look like any bloody hotel I've ever seen."

"It's not," said Pete, peeling the package notices and the card from the estate agent off the door and sliding her key home. "It's my flat."

One dark eyebrow crawled upward on Jack's forehead. "And this is part of our arrangement how, exactly?"

Pete flicked on lights and put up her bag and coat, motioning Jack inside. "It's a very nice flat. You can have a shower and put on some of Terry's old clothes."

"Who in bloody fuck-all is Terry?"

"My ex-fiance," said Pete shortly, "Bath's down the hall. I'll put the kettle on."

She left Jack standing and went into the kitchen, careful to keep her back turned so he wouldn't catch on she was watching him. After a moment and a spate of muttering, she heard Jack go down the hall. A door closed and water ran in the basin, rattling the old pipes like a disgruntled poltergeist.

Pete moved swiftly. She threw the bolts on the front door and locked the padlock she and Terry had never used because the area wasn't that bad, shoving the key deep into the catch-all drawer in the kitchen. All the windows were painted shut and covered with safety lattice, so he wouldn't be getting out that way. No back stairs.

Pete crossed herself reflexively, a move she hadn't performed in the eight years since Connor's death, but which seemed highly appropriate now.

She would not allow herself to think about what Jack would say once he emerged from the loo. He'd be bloody angry, but she figured that in his diminished state she could probably take him on. Plus, there were always the handcuffs.

"I'm starved," Jack announced. "Call for takeaway."

Pete jumped and silently berated herself. He was silent as a shade, just as he'd always been, appearing practically out of ether.

Jack's mouth curled into a slow grin. "Sorry. Didn't mean to frighten you."

"Not frightened," said Pete. "You never frightened me, Jack."

"Come now, Pete," he teased. "I was the scariest thing your little head ever laid eyes on."

Pete handed him a menu for the curry stand at the corner. "For a time," she said. "A very short time, until I realized what was standing just behind you, in shadow."

The grin vanished and Jack's grim set returned. "And you didn't stick around long then, did you? Ran right back to Daddy and safety."

"Saffron rice or naan?" Pete said quietly.

Jack gauged her, seeing if his pinprick had drawn blood. Pete didn't let him know that ever since he'd appeared back at her shoulder all the old wounds had slipped their stitches. She was bleeding in the open, her scars exposed.

But fuck if she'd let Jack and his new, persistent hostility see it.

And she succeeded, because he shrugged in an elaborate display of apathy and said, "Rice, I guess."

One of these days, she'd ask him about that rage he carried like a stone on his back. Pete dialed for takeaway and ordered two curries. If Jack ate, it would be a good sign—not all was lost if he ate.

She turned from the phone and saw him examining the photograph of herself and Terry on the fireplace mantel. Pete had laid it facedown, but Jack picked it up. "This the bloke?"

"That's Terry," Pete confirmed.

"He looks like a git."

"Thank you for the assessment," Pete said. "You look like a transient, but we won't delve into that comparison, will we?"

"Ouch!" Jack said with what may have been a faint admiration. "You bloody well learned to go for the bollocks, didn't you?"

"I may have picked up a skill or two since you last knew me," Pete agreed. Jack slouched on her sofa and flicked on the telly, changing until he found a Manchester game. "You got any lager?"

"Not for you," Pete said. She crossed her arms, uncrossed them, brushed her straight black hair behind her ears, where it promptly fell free again. How could Jack Winter be sitting there, watching telly and waiting for takeaway and demanding a drink? She'd seen what Jack could do with little more than a thought and a muttered word or two of the old language, and she had entrapped him into her flat, her home.

Was she mad ?

A knock made her start. Jack barely stirred, asleep within seconds once he relaxed.

"That'll be curry," Pete said. Jack snored, familiar and at the same time as alien as if she'd invited Frankenstein's monster to sleep on her sofa.

Pete paid for the takeaway and tried to eat, but she kept craning over the sounds of Manchester winning to see if Jack was awake. But he slept, still as a breathing corpse, until Pete dumped her dinner into the bin and sat down to write reports on the two missing children that Jack was supposed to help her find. Two days now, when it faded to black outside her windows, Two days—hardly any time at all.

She could wake Jack up, but what purpose would that serve? And if she were completely honest, would a part of her admit to a certain Tightness at Jack being in her flat, at Jack being alive at all?

Pete felt her eyelids drift down, dreamily, and she let herself sleep lulled by Jack's rattling breath and the receding waves of sound from the telly. She woke to the ITV logo bouncing around the screen and Jack's incensed expression, his knotty hand on her shoulder, shaking her.

"Let go!" She brushed him off.

"Open the bloody door!" he grated.

Pete yawned and blinked, not intending to appear indifferent, but she did, and Jack kicked at her scatter rug. "Fuck it, open up!"

"What could possibly be that important at this hour?" Pete said, rubbing her temples. Purely rhetorical, because she knew without having to ponder. It was the only driving force junkies obeyed.

"Well, let's start with you sodding locking me in!" Jack said.

Pete stood, flexing her foot where it had gone to sleep. "It isn't a safe neighborhood, Jack." Flimsy. Didn't Da teach you to be a better liar than that ? She prayed, another habit that she'd mostly excised since Jack and Connor had died. Please, let this work out in my favor. Don't let hint see how afraid I am of what he can still do .

"I'm leaving now," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Thanks for the curry and the washup."

"You've only just gotten here," Pete protested, in what to her ears sounded like a fairly innocent manner. "And you didn't eat a thing."

"I've just… got to go," Jack said. "Open the door, please?"