Chapter 12: Tender Wounds
Later, in the quiet hum of the makeshift infirmary, Tim took a knee by Jack’s cot, watching the slow, steady rhythm of her breathing in sleep. Her face, often sharp with focus or tight with pain, was softened into an unfamiliar peace, the harsh basement light carving gentle shadows along her cheekbones. He quietly moved a stray strand of hair from her forehead, his thumb brushing her temple, and as he leaned back in the creaking chair, his lips unconsciously grazed against hers in a breath-light touch that lingered for a heartbeat.. Jack was still dead asleep, exhaustion and injuries probably taking it out of her. but Tim could swear that he saw a smile. It was a small, unguarded thing that softened the harsh lines of pain, and it made his chest ache.
Tim quietly started talking to Jack but as she wasn’t conscious he was ostensibly talking to himself. Tim watched the steady rise and fall of the blanket over Jack’s shoulders in the dim light. “Jack why am I an idiot,” he finally said, his voice low and rough. “I was too much of a coward to see it, or say it, until someone tried to burn my whole world down to keep me from figuring it out. I love you Jack always have and always will.”
The words hung in the cold, oily air, and Tim froze, his breath catching in his throat. He hadn’t heard her stir, hadn’t sensed her listening from the cot in the shadows. Her voice was a raw scrape of sound, barely audible over the hum of the old generator. Jack quietly replied, “I love you too, dumdum.” The confession, so long buried under protocol and pain, now lay between them like a live wire, its meaning shifting everything in the dark, sterile room.
Tim found Jack awake in the dim quiet, her eyes reflecting the faint red glow of an exit sign. “The kiss wasn’t a mistake,” he said, the words raw and simple, his hand finding hers in the shadows. Her fingers tightened around his, knuckles white. “I know,” she whispered, her voice cracking with a fatigue deeper than bone. “I’ve loved you since that first damned convoy.” Jack’s eyes were open, watching him with a faint, tired amusement. He was at her side in an instant, his professional check of her pulse melting into his fingers simply lingering on her wrist. “Just debating my terrible taste in women,” he murmured, the words meant only for her. “Turns out I’ve always had a type: stubborn, brilliant, and terrible at following orders.”
Jack’s voice, rough from sleep and pain, cut through the gloom from her cot near the weapons rack. “Hey, for the record,” she said, a dry, cracked smile in her words, “I’m not that bad at following orders.” Tim turned, the guilt on his face shifting into weary relief at seeing her awake and alert. Spooks didn’t turn around, but his shoulders loosened a fraction as he kept his eyes on the door’s monitors. “Only when they’re medically sound, Captain,” Tim replied, the ghost of his own smile touching his lips as he moved toward her.
Tim said nothing, the weight of it all pressing down until his lungs felt tight. He turned and walked back into the sterile chill of the armory where Jack stood, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared blankly at a rack of rifle magazines. He didn't speak, just stepped into her space, his hands finding the curve of her shoulders, and pulled her into him. She stiffened for a fraction of a second, a habit of a lifetime spent on guard, then melted, her forehead dropping against his collarbone as her arms wound around his back. They held on like that, in the silent, weapon-lined room, breathing each other in until the world outside the door ceased to exist.
Tim had no rebuttal, only the cold taste of oil and concrete in the air. He found Jack in the dim armory, her fingers tracing the serial number on a grenade launcher’s stock with a mechanic’s focus. He turned her toward him, the question dying on his lips as he kissed her—a firm, desperate press of silence and shared survival. She went still for a heartbeat, then her hand came up, her knuckles brushing his stubbled jaw. The humming fluorescent light flickered once, casting their joined shadow sharply against the rack of rifles..
Tim stared at the oil-stained concrete, the ghost of Jack’s unconscious smile in the infirmary flitting through his mind before the present fear smothered it. “So what’s the inventive part we haven’t seen yet?” he asked, the words tasting like metal. A sudden, shuddering boom echoed from deep within the mountain, a distinct sound of shaped charges vaporizing a blast door. Spooks didn’t even flinch, just checked his sidearm with a dry click. He smiles softly.