If I Recall

Chapter 8

Brenda was beginning to worry about the fact that she hadn't heard a sound from Jax in a long time.  She'd left him in the bedroom more than an hour before.  She checked on him and found that he'd fallen asleep in the window seat with his head against the window.  She let him sleep, knowing he hadn't the night before.

She sat back down on the couch and watched out the window at the snow.  She didn't know what to do.  It was so difficult to keep herself occupied alone.  If she sat still too long, she thought about Jax and what she should do about their situation.  The problem was she could think about it all she wanted.  She just couldn't come up with a good solution.  She felt more alone now than she ever had after she left the penthouse.  And Jax was still in the next room.

About an hour later, Brenda heard a loud sound coming from outside.  She got up quickly to see what it was and what was going on.  As she looked out the window, she could see a truck attempting to get up the road, but it was stuck behind the fallen trees.  Eventually, it turned around carefully and aimed back down the road.  At least now someone knew the trees were down and they needed to be moved.  Maybe it meant they could get out of the cabin soon.  Or maybe all it meant was that someone would assume no one was up there because of the fallen tress.  Her car was, after all, buried almost completely in the snow. 

But just as she gave up and thought the driver would just turn around and head back down the road, he got out and stepped over to the side of the road.  He walked up to where Brenda's car was in the drift and dug down until he was able to see it better.  He looked around the surrounding area to see if there was anything else around that the driver of this car could have gotten to.

Brenda nearly cried in relief.  She grabbed her coat and went out onto the front porch, waving frantically at the person down the road.  She must have caught his attention because he began walking up towards her.  He made his way carefully to the front door of the cabin and eventually stood before Brenda on the front steps.

"You look a little stranded up here," the man smiled warmly at her.  He was about Jax's height with brown hair and a similar build.  He wore blue jeans and a heavy parka over a cable knit sweater.  His feet were covered in heavy work boots.  There was an outdoors look to him that reassured Brenda quite a bit.

"Yes, I think you could say that," Brenda responded.  After sizing the guy up for a few seconds, she figured it would be alright if she invited him inside to warm up so that he could get back down to his truck when he left without getting frostbite.  "Would you like to come inside and warm up a little bit?"  Besides, Jax was in there if anything happened.

They entered the warmth of the cabin and went immediately to stand in front of the fire.  Brenda removed her coat and hung it back up.  She offered to take the man's coat, as well, but he declined, saying he would only stay a few minutes.

"I figure," he told her, "if I can get out of here pretty soon and back down the side of the mountain, I can get you some help up here all that much faster.  How long have you been up here, Miss?  Is that your car I saw back there?"

"Brenda," she responded automatically.

"Brenda," he repeated.  "Nice to meet you.  I'm Tom."  He held out a hand to her and shook hers.

"Yeah, it's my car.  I got it stuck in the drift when I drove up here.  We've been up here about four days now.  I guess we didn't realize the snow would be so bad this early this year.  It's rarely like this."

"You sound like you've had some experience up here," he commented.

"We've owned this place for awhile now, yes.  Though we haven't been up here in almost two years."  She was remembering to keep her distance from Tom and she stood closer to the bedroom door than he did.  She just wanted to make sure that if anything were to go wrong, she would be within easy shot of Jax.

"There's someone else here?" he observed.

She realized then that it did look like she was alone and the only way he knew she wasn't was her reference to more than one person.  "Oh yeah, my boyfriend is in the other room," she covered to make sure he got the emphasis, true or not.  She gestured back toward the bedroom.

He glanced at the mantle and saw the picture of her in Jax's embrace.  Tom moved towards the door again with an easy smile.  "Well, all right then.  I guess I'll get on out of here and get down the road to get you some help.  It'll probably take a few more days, two or so what with Christmas tomorrow, but I'll get someone up here to take care of these trees for you.  If you think you'll be okay until then…"

Brenda smiled.  "Yes, we'll be fine.  Thank you so much, Tom.  Have a Merry Christmas."  She followed him to the door and shook hands with him again just before she closed it.  She immediately locked the door again.  Leaning against the door, she sighed and then grinned.  Now she knew they'd be okay.

As she was walking over to the fire to put another log on it, she heard, "Brenda, what the hell were you thinking?"

She jumped and laid a hand over her heart.  "Jax!  You scared the living daylights out of me!"  She turned to face him and saw him in the doorway of the bedroom, leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed in front of him.  His face was not one of happiness, in fact, he looked downright angry with her.

Jax had woken up as soon as he became aware of another voice within the cabin, talking to Brenda.  He got up from the window seat and listened at the door to make sure everything was okay.  He heard the other man telling Brenda he would send help and then he heard the door close and lock.  "Brenda, who was that and why was he in the cabin?"

She smiled happily at him.  "He came up to help me, Jax.  I saw him driving up the mountain and he found my car in the drift down there.  So I waved him up here and he came to make sure everything was alright.  I told him it was and then he left to go tell someone to send help.  He said it'd probably be a day or two, but that he'd get someone up here."

"Or so he told you," Jax said harshly.

Brenda's face fell.  "What do you mean?"

"He may not be anything like what he made you think he was, Brenda!  Don't you think it might be possible he'll be back to hurt you in some way?  He could be some kind of maniac trying to find the next person he wants to kill!"  He pushed himself out of the doorway and came into the main room.  Standing directly in front of Brenda, he waited for her answer.

Brenda's eyes glinted defiantly.  "DO NOT treat me like I am six years old, Jax!  Yes, that man may be a maniac, but did it ever occur to you that he may be a perfectly nice man who happens to be in the spirit of Christmas?  Maybe he just wanted to help me--us--out.  Don't you think that's possible?"  She stood up to him and refused to back down.  She'd be damned if he wouldn't trust her judgment for once.

"Anything's possible, Brenda--"

"That's right!  Anything's possible, Jax!  Now, until something awful happens, why don't we just take the man on good faith that he will send help?"

"Because he may not BE sending help, Brenda!" Jax raised his voice in frustration.

"God, Jax!  When did you become so cynical?" she yelled at him.

"Gee, I don't know, Brenda.  Why don't you tell me?" he shouted back.

Silence fell inside the cabin as Brenda froze in shock.  She closed her lips tightly as they threatened to tremble and belie her emotions welling up inside her.  She nodded once and then turned and walked away from him.  She sat down on the couch, facing away in the opposite direction.

Jax immediately regretted what he'd said, but it was too late.  It was already said and he couldn't take it back.  He put his arm up on the fireplace mantle and leaned his head into his hand.  The minutes passed as they remained in silence.  Finally, Jax sighed.  "Brenda, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean that," he tried to apologize.

"Yes, you did, Jax," her voice shook slightly.  She got up from the couch and went to stand in front of him, tears sparkled in her eyes.  "But that's okay, you know.  I know I did that to you.  I made you cynical to the rest of the world.  I did that.  You…you just made me realize it again.  And if there's anyone here who needs to apologize, it's me.  You were only speaking the truth.  But you see, Jax, I don't know how many times I can keep apologizing.  You know I'm sorry.  You know how deeply I regret what I did.  I don't know how many times or how many different ways I can say it.  But if I have to…if I have to, Jax, I will tell you I'm sorry and that I regret what happened for the rest of my life."

Jax was quiet for a second.  "How is it that we always get back to this?"  He smiled slightly.  "I am sorry for bringing it up again."

"It's okay," she assured him.  Trying to lighten the mood a little bit, she smiled and said, "So, are you hungry?"  It was nearly dinnertime and she was certainly starving.  She had to imagine that he was, too.  He had eaten less in four days than she had for one meal over the same time.  She was actually concerned about that, but she wasn't going to tell him.

He realized that for the first time in the last few days, he was hungry.  Actually, he was practically famished.  "You know what?  I am hungry," he smiled back at her tentatively.  He was willing to put everything aside once in awhile to make the next few days a little easier for them to get through.

"Good, then let's eat!"  She headed into the kitchen to find something to fix.

Jax remained behind for a minute or so.  He was trying.  God, he was trying so hard.

Brenda was cleaning up the kitchen from their meal as Jax relaxed on the couch in the other room.  He stared into the fire, watching the glowing embers jump and crackle.  He tried to block everything else from his mind and let go of the tensions from earlier that day and the days before.  Leaning his head back against the couch, he closed his eyes briefly.  He never realized he fell asleep.

Brenda came out of the kitchen a few minutes later and smiled when she saw Jax sleeping.  She decided to wake him because of the conversation they'd had during their dinner.  Jax had told her that he was tired of leaving her alone in the cabin to occupy herself.  With his illness and their problems, they'd spent more time alone than they had with each other.  He was getting lonely himself and was willing to push things aside just to have a little company right now.

She sat down next to him on the couch and observed him for a minute, just watching him sleep.  Then, she placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently.  His eyes slowly opened again and he turned his head to look at her, smiling a little. 

"I fell asleep, didn't I?" he said sheepishly.  He sat up straighter on the couch.

Brenda nodded.  "Yeah, you did.  You can go back to sleep if you want.  I only woke you because I thought you'd want me to.  You'd at least be more comfortable in the bed."

"No, I'm glad you woke me.  I don't want to sleep right now."

"And what is it you'd like to do then?"

"I don't know.  We'll think of something."

And they did.  They spent the rest of the evening playing games again.  There was no tension as they played, just fun and sometimes even laughter.  There was nothing personal said and nothing mentioned about the two of them.  They were just two people playing a game.

Nearly four hours later, Jax could barely keep his eyes open and Brenda wasn't about to force him any longer.  She quietly suggested that he go to bed and he didn't argue with her.  He was absolutely exhausted, having only gotten about two hours of sleep in the previous two days.  As he neared the bedroom door, he turned to her and said, "Brenda, you don't need to sleep on the couch tonight."

It was a simple statement and he turned into the bedroom after it without waiting for her response, but it meant the world to her.  She blinked back tears at his concession.  It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Brenda did sleep on the couch, though.  She decided to let Jax keep his space and distance, knowing that too much at one time might ruin any progress they'd made.  She pulled out the bed from the couch, as she had the night before, and fell asleep without any troubling thoughts in her mind.

Jax woke the next morning, surprised to find the spot beside him in the bed empty.  He'd expected Brenda would still be there, but when he looked at the clock, he realized it was possible she had gotten up before him.  It was nearly ten o'clock as he lay in the bed, thinking.  He placed his hands beneath his head and looked up at the ceiling.

Merry Christmas, he thought silently.  It was certainly not one of the happiest he'd ever had.  No, that one had been the year before.  He never thought it would be possible to dread a holiday as much he dreaded this one.  Christmas had always been his favorite time of the year and Brenda's.  It was why he'd proposed to her then.  Now, as he spent the first few hours of it alone in the bed and stranded in a cabin with his now ex-fiancée, he found himself hating the day.

He'd been working so hard at the office to forget that it was approaching and thought that at one time, he probably would have been there working today, if he weren't stranded in the mountains.  He wanted to think about the happier times of his life, like the previous two years, but all it did now was bring pain to his heart.  He didn't want the pain, but he wanted the memories.

He wanted the memories he'd been working so hard to forget over the last six months.  Trying to block Brenda from his mind altogether hadn't worked.  In fact, sometimes it made him think of her even more often, if that were possible.  For a woman he had banished from his life, she had never left his thoughts or his heart.  Not even for an instant.

Shortly after Jax woke in the bedroom, Brenda was awake on the couch.  She lay for a few minutes, listening to see if Jax was awake yet.  When she didn't hear anything, she assumed he wasn't and that he was still sleeping off the effects of not having slept the night before.  She got up and put the couch back in order.  After she showered and dressed in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, she began to fix breakfast for the two of them.  She was going to wait until he got up to eat, but she wanted to have the time to fix something nice for him.

Jax smelled Brenda cooking something in the kitchen, rather, he smelled Brenda burning something in the kitchen.  When he heard a loud clatter followed by an equally loud expletive, he leapt from the bed at top speed.

"Brenda!  Are you okay?" he called as he ran into the kitchen.

She whirled around and smiled sheepishly at him as he entered the room to see what had happened.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  I just burned myself on the pan and when I burned myself, I dropped it on the floor.  Sorry, did I wake you up?"  She crouched down to pick up the pan and the food that had flown around the floor when it had landed.

He resisted the urge to laugh and stood in the doorway watching her clean up.  "No, I was already awake."  He watched for a few more minutes.  "Would you like some help in here?"  He knew that either he would have to help her or they'd end up eating one of the worst breakfasts they'd ever had.

She glanced at him wearing only his silk pajama bottoms and shook her head.  "Nope," she said cheerfully.  "I want to do this.  You made breakfast yesterday.  Now, it's my turn.  You just go get dressed and if you take long enough, I'll have everything done by the time you return."

Jax cracked a smile at her perseverance.  "All right, if you insist."  He turned and went into the bathroom to shower and dress.

"Now, if only you'll take long enough for me to go get some edible food," Brenda said to herself, wishing it was possible and wondering why she hadn't accepted help.

Half an hour later, Jax came back into the kitchen wearing his black jeans and a gray cable knit sweater.  He was surprised to find what looked like real food on the table waiting for him.  It actually looked edible.  He glanced at Brenda skeptically, but kept his mouth shut and sat down at the table.

Brenda held her breath as Jax lifted the first forkful of eggs into his mouth.  When he didn't spit it back out or keel over dead on the spot, she exhaled quietly, relieved.  In fact, he looked like he might actually be enjoying her meal.

"Is it okay?" she asked tentatively before she tasted her own.

Jax smiled.  "Yes, it's okay.  I'm impressed, you know.  I didn't know you knew how to make these things."

"Neither did I," she admitted.  They ate their breakfast in relative silence, but it was pleasant.

When they were finished, Jax cleaned up the kitchen as payment for the breakfast.  Brenda went over to look out the window and saw another gorgeous winter day was upon them.  The bright blue sky reflected the sun onto the snow and made everything sparkle.  Jax came up behind her when he was finished with the dishes and looked out the window with her.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he said quietly. 

"Yeah, it really is," she agreed.

"I almost wish I weren't going to sell this place, on days like these."

"Then why do you have to sell it?"

"You know why, Brenda," he said and turned away from the window.  But before they could get anything else started, he grabbed his coat and handed Brenda's to her.  "What do you say we try to go for a little walk?"

"Oh, Jax, are you sure you're okay to do that?"  She was concerned and didn't want him getting sick again.

"Yes, I feel fine."  He opened the door after zipping up his leather parka and waved her through it in front of him. 

The snow just off the front steps gave way to their weights and they sunk into it deeply.  But after a little while, it began to pack down enough to hold them on top of it.  Jax figured they were standing on top of somewhere around three feet of snow.  He'd been up to the tops of his legs when he'd sunk into it. 

If he stood still and looked out over the land, he could almost imagine they were in a different place, in a different time.  He almost wished they were at a resort instead and that these were conditions for skiing.  He used to ski every year in every exotic location there was, Switzerland, Aspen, France.  He realized he hadn't been skiing in nearly two years now.  The last time had been with Brenda that first year.

"I'll race to the bottom of the hill, Jax!" Brenda challenged as they stood atop one of the intermediate slopes at a Canadian ski resort.

"I really don't think that's a good idea, Brenda," he protested.  "You just learned how to ski two days ago and now you want to race me?"

"Yes!  I've had a whole two days of practice!  Just because you've been skiing longer than me--"

"I've been skiing since I was twelve years old, Brenda."

"Just because you've been skiing longer than me," she continued without missing a beat and flashed him a dazzling smile, "doesn't mean that you can beat me down this little hill.  That is, unless you're too chicken to try.  Maybe you're afraid I'll beat you?" she teased him.

"Oh, I don't think that's it at all.  I just don't want your feelings to be hurt when I get to the bottom first!" he began to feel the competition between them and knew there was no turning back now.

"Now you've done it.  You're on, Jax!  You ready?  Let's go!  On your mark, get set…" and she was off down the hill, cheating already as her laughter followed her down the path.

"Brenda!" he shouted after her, laughing.  He shot off after her, catching up easily.  She was still a little unsteady over the ice bumps and had to slow to navigate them successfully.  He stayed close without making her think he wasn't going as fast as he could.  He just wanted to make sure she made it down the hill in one piece. 

She was doing well and he was admiring her near perfect form, thinking he'd been a good teacher for her.  He was paying too much attention to what she was doing and not enough attention to what he was doing.  Another skier, a teenager, crossed his path a little too close and he tried to get around him, but it was too late.  He'd already lost his balance and was going down.  It was just a matter of whether he got into a position that would prevent him from getting hurt.

Brenda turned her head to check to see where he was when she noticed that he wasn't beside her as he had been.  She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him fall into the snow.

He lay still for several long moments after he hit the hard-packed snow.  His skis had released on impact, as they were supposed to, and he had slid a few more feet down the hill.  He tried to catch his breath as he lay there.  He opened his eyes and saw bursts of light in his vision, but the longer he kept them open, the more his vision cleared and focused on his surroundings.  His limbs felt numb from the jolt of hitting the ground.

"Jax!" Brenda yelled as she made her way back up the hill to where he was.  "Jax, are you alright?" she asked as she stood above him.  She looked terrified that he wasn't.  She released her skis and kneeled next to him on the snow, checking him over for any signs of injury.  "Can you move?  Is anything broken?"

He didn't know since he hadn't tried to move yet.  Having the wind knocked out of him had seriously limited that capability.  "I think so," he told her.  He slowly flexed his hands and then his arms, moving every joint carefully.  He only found a couple of bruises on his upper body.  When he was able to sit up, he put a hand to the back of his head and felt for a bump in the place where the pain seemed to be coming from, but didn't find one.  "I'm fine, Brenda," he reassured her.

She stood in front of him and held out her hands to him to help him stand.  He took hold of both her hands and put his legs beneath him to stand.  But before he could stand, his right knee buckled and he cried out in pain, falling back to the snow.

"Jax!" Brenda exclaimed. 

"I'm alright," he said through clenched teeth.  "It's just my knee.  Brenda, go get help," he tried to keep his voice calm so as not to make her panic too much.

"No!  No, Jax!  I'm not leaving you up here by yourself!"

"Brenda, please, just do as I say.  Put your skis on, go down the hill, and get someone from the ski patrol to come up here."  His voice shook with unexpressed pain since he was trying not to scare her.

She absolutely refused to leave him.  Instead, she flagged down the next skier who passed them, told him what had happened, and the skier went to get the patrol.  Brenda wouldn't leave his side.

She felt responsible for it happening, Jax knew.  She'd challenged him to the race and he'd been watching her instead of paying attention to the other skier.  For the entire ride to the hospital and the next several days, he had to continually reassure her that it was his fault and not hers that had caused him to fall.  She insisted on taking care of him.  He'd torn ligaments in his knee, requiring surgery, and she was determined to help him get through the next weeks following it.

They grew closer despite his constant protesting that she was overbearing and suffocating him.  He thought she was trying to do too much and she wouldn't let him do enough on his own.  But she wouldn't leave his side.  It was the first time he'd ever felt anything more than friendship for her.  It was another three months before they admitted anything to each other.

Jax turned to wait for Brenda to catch up to him while they were walking.  They didn't go far from the cabin, but they walked the perimeter of the land they owned.  As they passed the wood shed, he noticed it was a good thing they hadn't needed anymore wood, since the roof had fallen in on it.  While he waited for her to get to where he was standing, he looked down the side of the mountain.  From where he stood, he could see the small general store at the bottom of the road and the few small buildings surrounding the area.  There was no activity on the streets.  He figured it was because it was Christmas Day.

"I love the view from here," Brenda said softly as she came to a stop beside him.  "I remember in the summertime, it looks like you can see forever.  And it's so green and beautiful."

"I remember."  He remembered everything about the cabin.  He remembered everything about every moment he spent with her.

They walked a little bit further until they got into the trees on the edge of the property.  Jax walked silently, lost in his own thoughts until he looked up and noticed Brenda was nowhere in sight.  He looked around a few times, praying she was just behind him and she hadn't gotten lost or stepped somewhere she shouldn't have.  "Brenda?" he called out.  He didn't get a response.  "Brenda!" he called again, his voice rising a few more decimals.  Still nothing.

Suddenly, he felt something explode against the back of his jacket and the sound of laughter followed shortly thereafter.  He whirled around to find Brenda standing there, brushing off her gloves from the snowball she'd just thrown at him, with pretty good accuracy.

"You should see your face, Jax!" she laughed. 

He didn't smile.  "That's not funny, Brenda," he said.  "You shouldn't have done that."

Brenda's face fell at his tone and she stopped laughing.  She walked towards him slowly.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't realize…" her voice trailed off as she regretted what she'd done.  "I just thought…"

Jax bent over at the waist to tie his shoelace.  He said, "You should have realized that if you did that…" he stood up quickly with a handful of packed snow, throwing it at her with deadly aim, "…I'd have to retaliate!"

She shrieked as the snowball hit her smack in the center of her chest.  It started an all-out snowball fight with Jax running for cover behind a nearby pine tree and Brenda running after him.  They threw the snow at each other until one made the other beg for mercy.

Jax had Brenda pinned on the ground beneath him as he straddled her chest.  "Do you give?" he asked her calmly as he held a snowball in his hand.

Mischief twinkled in her eyes and she shook her head slowly.  "Never," she replied just as calmly.

He knew she thought she had something planned, but he also knew he was bigger and stronger than her.  He lowered the snowball a little closer to her.  "Are you sure about that?"  He smiled arrogantly at her, convinced he had her.

Using a move from her younger days, she threw her weight to her upper body with enough force to startle Jax.  While he was recovering, she thrust upward and literally threw him off of her.  Unfortunately for Jax, she caught him in a sensitive spot, crippling him immediately to the ground.

His laughter was suddenly gone as he fought to catch his breath.  He lay on his side on the ground, huddled into a slight ball.  He squeezed his eyes shut tightly to block out the pain.

Brenda stopped in her own moves.  "Oh God, Jax!  I'm so sorry!  I didn't mean to do that!"  She kneeled beside him on the ground as he tried to control his breathing.

When he could finally sit up on the ground, he looked at her, a little amazed.  "Where did you learn to move like that?" he asked, awed.

She exhaled a breath of relief.  "It was something I learned a long time ago when I took a self-defense class.  I'm really sorry, Jax.  I didn't mean to hit you."

"It's okay, Brenda," he assured her.  He smiled at her as best he could through the residual pain.  "It definitely works.  I'm duly impressed by your agility."

"Well, agility or not, I think it's time we got inside."  She had noticed his cheeks were extremely red and she was sure hers were equally so from the cold.  She stood and held out her hands to help him stand again.

Jax took her hands and stood up, bending at the waist for a second as he stood.  He took a deep breath when he was finally upright.  He had to admit, it was pretty funny when he thought about it.  It was definitely part of the story that would likely be left out in the retelling to Jerry when it was all over with.

When they were finally back inside, they removed their cold, damp coats and boots and Brenda fixed them both some hot chocolate.  Jax sat on the couch with his feet up on the table in front of him after she handed him his cup of cocoa. 

Several minutes passed in silence as they both thought about different things.  The next time Brenda glanced at Jax, he appeared to have fallen asleep, still holding his mug.  His head rested against the back of the couch and his breathing was even as she watched him.  She picked up a blanket from the back of the couch and stood to put it over him.  She took the mug from his hands and placed it on the table in front of him, far enough away from his feet that he wouldn't inadvertently kick it in his sleep.  When she sat back down, she sat a little closer to him so that they would share the blanket.  She lay horizontally on the couch with her head on a pillow and her feet close to Jax's legs.  It wasn't long before she drifted to sleep, as well.

"Yeah, well, you have to know I'm in love with you," Brenda said.

He dropped the glass he was holding.  His back was to her as he stood in the living room of the penthouse apartment.  It was Brenda's twenty-third birthday and they'd just come back to his place after he'd taken her out to dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.  The glass he'd been holding bounced on the carpeted floor, spilling the scotch in it.

"Jax, you dropped your drink," she told him matter-of-factly, her speech slurring slightly.

She was drunk, he knew that.  He'd gotten her that way.  It was nowhere near on purpose and he'd had as much to drink as she had, but he held his alcohol better.  As soon as they'd come in the door, Brenda had stumbled to the couch and laid down on it.  He'd gone straight to the bar for another drink.  He was trying to relieve the tension he felt from having spent the entire evening with her.  It was so hard for him not to just tell her he was in love with her all the time.  Ever since that water fight in the kitchen, he'd known.  She didn't know yet.

He could just chalk her confession up to her intoxication, but he wanted to believe there was some truth in it.  After all, 'in vino, veritas,' right?  If there was ever a time for her to speak the truth, maybe it was when she was drunk.  The tongue was looser then and they did say that things said when you are drunk are only things you've thought about beforehand.

She'd been talking the entire way up in the elevator about how much she wanted to find a relationship in this next year.  How she was getting older now and it was time for her to find a stable man who wanted to settle down.  How maybe it was time for her to start thinking about marriage.  That was what had led to her earlier comment about loving him.

Brushing it off for the time being, he said blithely, "Yeah, well, you know I love you, too."  He walked over to her after he picked up his glass and sat beside her on the couch.  He peered at her closely.  "Brenda, you are drunk."

She burst out laughing.  "No, I'm not.  I'm just…happy!" she shouted the last word and threw her arms around his neck.

He picked her up in one swift movement and carried her toward the guest bedroom.  He put her down softly on the bed and pulled the covers over her.  "You aren't going anywhere tonight, my dear.  Happy Birthday," he said quietly as she had already drifted off to sleep.  He kissed her gently on the forehead and left the room.

He went back into the living room, where he proceed to finish the bottle of scotch he'd poured the first drink from.

The next morning, he had passed out on the couch, more drunk than he'd ever been in his life.  Brenda found him still dressed in his shirt and pants from the previous night.  She had a heck of hangover and had been slightly confused to wake up in his apartment.

She sat down beside him on the couch.  "Jax?" she whispered.  "Jax, are you awake?"  She raised her voice a little, but winced at the volume herself.  He didn’t wake.

A few minutes later, she went into the kitchen and made one of her known recipes to cure a hangover.  He had always refused to drink any of them, saying he never needed one since he could hold his liquor so well.  It was one of their running jokes whenever she got drunk.  She'd never seen him in any other state to disprove his comments.  Except this morning.  She figured he'd been doing some more drinking the night before after he'd put her in bed.  She just didn't know why.

When she came out of the kitchen, after drinking her concoction, she heard a horrible moan coming from the couch.  She was worried for a moment before she realized it was coming from him.  He pushed himself to sit up straighter and immediately regretted the rush of blood to his head.

"Oh God," he moaned.

In that second, she realized that he was extremely hungover.  And if he was, she wondered just exactly how much he'd had to drink the night before.  And she still wondered why.  She decided to tease him a little since she was feeling better after a night of drinking than he was, for once.

"Geez, Jax, you look like hell," she said cheerfully and somewhat loudly.

It caused him to wince and put a hand to his head.  "Brenda," he whispered.  He'd actually forgotten she'd spent the night there.

"That's me."  She sat down on the couch beside him, bouncing just a little.

He slid over onto his side and put one hand to his stomach, his other was on his head.  "Oh God," he moaned again.

Brenda nearly laughed out loud.  "Jax, you look awful.  How much did you have to drink last night?"

"I have no idea," came his soft reply.  The only thing was, he may not have remembered how much he'd had to drink, but he definitely remembered why he'd had so much to drink.

"Uh-huh," she said knowingly.  "And just why exactly did you drink yourself into a coma last night?"

"You don't want to know," he warned her.

Yes, she really did.  She thought she remembered most of what happened, but there was blank space after they got off the elevator and he opened the door to the apartment.  She thought she remembered talking about finding a stable relationship.  Suddenly, it hit her.  "Oh no," she said.

He pushed himself back into a sitting position, opening his eyes to look at her and squinting against the light.  She looked stricken at whatever thought she'd just had.  "What?" he asked.

"Oh tell me I didn't.  Please, tell me I didn't," she said softly, more to herself than to him.  She was trying desperately to remember.

"Didn't what?"

"Jax," she said.  "Last night, did I say some things?"

"You said a lot of things.  Did you mean something in particular?"

"Did I--Did I tell you that I was in love with you?"  She knew by the hesitation in his answer.  "Oh God, I knew it.  Oh!  I cannot believe I was that stupid!  I cannot believe I said that to you!"

She was raising her voice while she yelled at herself, causing him to wince and put his hands near his ears.  His headache intensified severely.  "Brenda," he said quietly.

"I can't believe I let myself get that drunk and I said those things to you," she continued to rail at herself.

"Brenda," he repeated just as softly.

"What, Jax?" she asked, exasperated.

"Does that mean it's not true?"  As much as he was dreading the answer, he had to know. He closed his eyes again. And now that he was hungover, it was as good a time as any.  He already felt the worst he'd ever felt in his life.

She stopped and sat back down, staring at him in surprise.  "What?"

"Does that mean it's not true?  You don't love me, is that what you're trying to say?"  Please let her say that's not what she meant, he thought.

She considered it for a long time and by the time she answered, she almost thought he'd gone back to sleep.  She sighed and admitted it.  "No, Jax, that's not what I meant.  It was true.  I am in love with you."

"Good," he said.  "Me, too."  He said the words as he fell back asleep, oblivious of the stunned look on her face.

As Jax dreamed, he moved closer to Brenda's end of the couch.  His arm reached out to her and he put his hand on her leg as he slept.  A faint smile played on his lips as he remembered happier times in his dream world.

 

Chapter 9