Chapter Text
For the third night in a row, Elsa woke up to an empty bed. Jack hadn’t been able to sleep since they’d made it back home and she was starting to get worried.
Figuring he was probably downstairs, she dragged herself out of bed to go check on him.
The floorboards were cold beneath her feet, the entire room felt cold actually. A shiver ran down Elsa's spine as she realised the window to their room was open. Had someone broken in?
She grabbed a dagger and walked out the room in search of the intruder.
making her way through the ground floor -which was also completely dark- she heard footsteps coming from the dining room. Elsa swore under her breath, she turned a corner and stepped into the kitchen to be met by a pair of glowing yellow eyes.
In one swift move she lunged at the intruder, slashing through the air and bringing the dagger down on them.
“Elsa, no!” Jack screamed, blocking her attack just before the blade found its mark. “It’s just me, stop.”
“For fuck’s sake Jack,” Elsa swore. “Why are you wandering around the kitchen at three in the morning? I could have stabbed you!"
“I didn’t want to wake you up.” Jack huffed, more annoyed than anything. “And I figured I was making enough of a fuss as it was.”
He turned the lights on and walked over to the counter to resume mixing cake batter; as if she hadn’t just tried to run him clean through with a silver knife.
He'd been like this since Johannesburg; numb and distant. Elsa could tell that he felt guilty for what they’d done to Victor’s father. Even though they’d brought him back to life -and likely prevented Victor from permanently killing him- Jack was clearly still shaken by what had happened. He hadn’t slept in days, he’d barely eaten, and what was even more concerning was the fact that he didn’t seem to want to address the problem.
Elsa knew that she didn’t exactly have a leg to stand on when it came to criticising him for the way he handled his feelings.
But that was just it. Jack wasn’t like her; he always wore his heart on his sleeve. The fact that he was suddenly so quiet meant that this was affecting him far more than she thought it would. Elsa was going to have to figure out how to help him through this.
She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You’re spending a lot of time in the kitchen for someone who hasn’t had a proper meal in days.”
He kept his eyes on the batter. “Can you pass me the chocolate chips, please?” He asked.
Deflection it was, then. Great.
She placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder and let go of him to get the chocolate.
Walking into the pantry, Elsa realised that she didn’t actually know where it was kept. She didn’t know where most things were kept, if she was being entirely honest. She certainly wasn’t familiar with any of the apparently dozens of spices, herbs and pickled ingredients that Jack kept in their pantry. He was the one who made most of their meals, since Elsa was such a terrible cook. And Mr. Swan was the one who usually arranged the food deliveries from the village anyway.
“Top shelf, to your right.” Jack instructed from the kitchen, seeing how out of her depth she was. Elsa brought a jar full of chocolate chips back to the kitchen.
“So what are you making anyway?” She asked, placing the jar on the counter and leaning over next to him.
“Banana bread.” Jack folded the chocolate into the batter. “We had a few overripe bananas and I didn’t want them to go to waste.” He explained, pouring the batter into a tin.
Elsa narrowed her eyes. Jack clearly wasn’t ready to talk about Johannesburg, but maybe she could keep him company until he was.
Jack walked across the kitchen and placed the tin inside the oven.
“So what do we do while we wait for the bread to be ready?” She asked.
“I’ll check on the cookies.” He said, opening the fridge and taking out a tray of... dough balls, apparently.
“I thought you were supposed to bake cookies.” She said. “As in, in an oven.”
“You are.” Jack explained. “But they’re supposed to go into the fridge first.”
“Why?”
Jack raised a suspicious eyebrow at her. “Why are you asking? You don’t care about any of this. The last time you tried to bake something we had to call the fire brigade.”
Elsa couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re right, I suck at this, and chances are I won’t remember half of this conversation by morning.” She closed the distance between them and took his hand in hers. “But this isn’t about me. If for some reason you need to make a mess of our kitchen and talk about frozen cookie dough in order to process your feelings, then that’s what we’re going to do.”
Elsa cupped Jack’s cheek in her hand and wiped a tear from his face. “Don’t let him do this to you.” The thought of Jack suffering because of what Victor had done to her filled her with rage. “There is only one person responsible for what happened, and it is most definitely not you.”
Blinking away tears, he held her wrist and pressed a kiss to the hill of her hand. “I still can’t shake the feeling we should’ve done things differently, should’ve known better.”
“Jack, I’ve spent decades wondering if I should’ve done things differently, if I should’ve anticipated Victor’s actions, if I should’ve known better .” She drew out the last words as if they were poison. “That is what he wants, he wants you to think it’s your fault. He put us in this impossible position so we would blame ourselves for his father’s death. Even now, after having saved the old man’s life, Victor is still manipulating us into feeling guilty for killing him.”
Jack threw his arms around her and squeezed her into a hug, burying his face into the nape of her neck.
“How do you deal with it?” He asked. “How do you handle the guilt?”
“I don’t know that I do.” She confessed. “I think you just learn to live with it and try to go on despite it being there.”
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“Maybe I should try to tire you out.” Elsa teased draped over Jack’s body.
Neither of them had been able to go back to sleep after their late night baking session, but at least she’d convinced him to come back to bed. How much resting they would actually accomplish remained to be seen.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” His fingers played lazily with the strap of her top. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you’re trying to seduce me, Miss Bloodstone.”
“Like I would need to seduce you.”
He gasped in mock offence. “I’ll have you know, I’m quite the catch. Countess Karnstein said so herself.”
Elsa couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “You did not have sex with Carmilla Karnstein.”
“Of course not,” He said mirthfully. “She wouldn’t even give me the time of day.”
It took at least a minute for both of them to stop laughing. Elsa couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this at ease.
Jack bit his lip, “Thank you,” He said after a long pause. “for trying to help me feel better. I know you’re worried.”
Elsa rolled off of him and laid on her side so as to better look at him “It’s just that you tend to be so open about your feelings,” She explained. “I guess it’s weird seeing you like this; so quiet and distant, and-”
“Like you?” He raised his brow.
Shit. He was completely right, wasn’t he.
“It’s not a critique.” He chuckled. “I know you do have your own ways of deal with your issues, and I’m always happy to help.” He brushed his fingers against her cheek. “I guess this time I’m also having a hard time processing what happened.”
“I know, I hate seeing you like this.” She said. “I feel like I don’t really know how to help.”
“This is helping, just talking. It’s like-”
The words died in Jack’s mouth.
His eyes widened in shock as he craned up his head and scrunched up his nose. Elsa’s stomach twisted itself into a knot; she’d seen that face enough times to recognise it for the harbinger of bad news that it was.
“Someone did break in, didn’t they?”
Suddenly, Jack wrapped himself around Elsa and rolled over, shielding her from the shrapnel that rained on them as the door to their bedroom was blown open.
He cried in pain as a few wooden shards had found their way onto his bare back.
“Well, isn’t this cosy?” Victor stood at the threshold, his gaze stabbing Elsa in place. “Here I was worrying about our mission, meanwhile you’re shagging it up with this arsehole.”
Elsa reached for the bloodstone on her bedside table, but Victor was quicker. He strode into the room and dragged Jack out of the bed like a rag doll.
“This is quite the downgrade.” He propped him up and held him by the neck.
Elsa carefully stood up and raised her hands.
“Let him go, Victor.” She warned, slowly stepping forward. “This is between you and me.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. He growled, grabbing Victor’s arm and flipping him overhead. The hunter rolled backwards and stood back up, looking between Jack and Elsa for a moment before erupting in a horrible laughter that made Elsa’s skin crawl.
“You fucking whore.” He spat. “It wasn’t enough to mock me by leaving and embarrassing me in front of the entire hunt* all those years ago, but you chose that... thing instead of me.”
Victor drew out a dagger and strode towards Jack. Knowing the blade was most likely silver, Elsa lunged at Victor and tackled him away from Jack. She twisted Victor’s arm and managed to take his knife and plunged it up his chin and into his head.
Blood erupted from his mouth as the life drained from his eyes and he finally collapsed onto the floor.
Elsa staggered backwards. As she raised her gaze she was met with Jack’s horrified grimace.
“Elsa.” He whispered, rushing to her side with tears in her eyes. “It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay.”
What is going on about? Elsa though, following his gaze down her own body and to the gushing, stain on her abdomen.
Fuck.
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Elsa forced her eyes open to see Jack’s face right above hers.
“You’re awake.” He wiped tears from his face. “How are you feeling? Are you thirsty? Do you need-”
“Jack, stop. what is going on?” She tried to sit up, only for her entire body to scream in agony. No sitting then it seemed.
“You killed Victor.” Jack explained. “But he managed to stab you when you tackled him away from me. I never thought I’d be glad to be so close to the bloodstone.”
Elsa looked down at herself to see the stone resting on her injury, Jack must've put it there so she would be able to heal.
“Wait,” A thought suddenly struck her. “You touched the bloodstone? You could've been hurt or worse.”
“I wrapped my hand in one of the bedsheets to grab it so I could grab it,” He looked down at his hand, the skin on his palm had been burnt and black shreds of dead tissue were beginning to peel off his flesh. “I guess it wasn’t thick enough and I burned my hand on the silver chain.”
Clutching the bloodstone against the wound as if the pressure could even remotely help at this point, Elsa managed to sit up despite her body’s protest. She looked into Jacks tired eyes as he helped her sit with her back against the wall. For a moment, she genuinely thought she wouldn’t see those eyes again.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” She winced as another bolt of pain surged from her wound. “And I’m sorry about your hand.”
He leant against the wall next to her, cradling his hand against his chest. “It will get heal, eventually.”
“Assuming it doesn’t get infected first.” She groaned, trying to will her body to stand up. It, of course, did not obey.
Jack chuckled tiredly. “I’ll get to it in a second. I barely touched the chain though, it’s going to be fine. I’m not the one who almost died today.”
“She looked down at her wound. The irony of having finally gotten rid of Vicotr’s curse only for a new wound that would leave a permanent scar in the same place was not lost on her.”
“You shouldn’t have to bear a scar that reminds you of what he did to you.” He siad.
“It doesn’t.” She said. “It reminds me that I beat him.”