Still Holding Out for You
Prologue
Never
thought I'd be in this place
It's someone
else's life I'm living
Wish I
were living a lie
The hardest
part is when the bough breaks
Falling
down and then forgiving
You
didn't kiss me goodbye
I'm
choking on the words I didn't get to say
And
pray I get the chance one day
Brenda Barrett-Jacks opened the door and
walked inside the silent house. When she
turned to shut the door, she glanced at the sky above and noticed again the
beautiful weather. The sky was a
perfect shade of autumn blue and the tree leaves were fading to vibrant shades
of orange, yellow, or red. A perfect
October day, she thought silently. She
let the window curtain fall shut again and turned to the house once more. Dropping her keys on the table inside the
door, she went up the steps. She
removed her black heels as she went.
Just as she reached the master bedroom, the
phone began to ring. She sighed, but
made no effort to pick it up and answer it.
Instead, she walked slowly into the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, she looked at herself, studying
her image closely. Her skin was pale
and there were large, dark circles around her eyes. Her dark brown eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red. Her usually curly, vivacious hair was pulled
back strictly into a ponytail at the base of her neck. The simple black sheath dress that she wore
hung loosely on her body. She looked
exactly like what she was, a grieving widow.
Jasper 'Jax' Jacks was dead. Her husband was dead. The true effects of those statements still
had not hit her. She still wanted to
believe that it wasn't true, that he was alive somewhere and it was just that
no one had found him or that he couldn't get home to her. Maybe it was because this had been a
memorial service. There had been no
body to bury. There was nothing left to
bury. Brenda slid to the floor as her
mind relentlessly played back the events of the week before.
She was getting ready for the meeting she had
that morning with her best friend and business partner, Lois Cerullo-Ashton. They were planning a new concert tour for
Miguel Morres and they had a lot of dates to confirm with the arena
coordinators before the tour started.
She was putting in her second earring when she
felt a pair of strong arms encircle her from behind, effectively stopping her
from what she was doing. She laughed
and looked up into the mirror to find her husband behind her, his eyes
twinkling with delight.
"Good morning, honey," she greeted
him. He was still only dressed in his
boxers that he had slept in the night before, when they finally slept. His gorgeous blond hair was mussed from the
pillow and his eyes, though open and looking at her, were still only
half-awake.
He'd been out of town until late the night
before on a marathon of business meetings.
This was his first time home in nearly two weeks now. "This is a first, you know," he
mumbled as he bent down to nuzzle her neck and give her a kiss on her shoulder.
"What is?" She automatically leaned into him, placing her hands on his arms
to embrace him in return.
"You getting up before me. And ready to go somewhere, too."
"Well, that's what happens when you go
out of town for two weeks to all those exotic places. I get busy and have to make meetings for all times of the
day."
"And there's no chance you want to skip
it and stay here with me." He
turned her in his arms and gave her a passionate kiss to properly say good
morning. "In bed." He kissed her again. "All day." He kissed her once more.
When they finally drew apart, she responded
breathlessly, "I will always want that. It's just a matter of the fact that I can't do it today. We have too much work to do with Miguel's
tour kicking off in two nights. I'm
sorry, sweetie." She smiled and
reached up to caress his jaw gently.
"Oh, all right," he pretended to
have to acquiesce, grinning. "I
suppose, in that case, I'll just have to go to work, too." He paused and looked mournful for a
moment. "Right?"
She laughed.
"Right." She stood on
her toes and kissed him. "Now, I
really do need to be going. I have to
meet Lois in less than fifteen minutes.
I will definitely see you tonight, though. Don't forget, we have dinner reservations at Mario's." She had finally broken their embrace while
she spoke and put her earring in her ear.
Quickly, she ran the brush through her hair one more time before she
left.
"I won't forget." He leaned against the vanity and watched her
as she slipped her shoes on and picked up her purse.
She ran back to give him one more searing kiss
before she said goodbye. "I love
you," she said.
"I love you, too," he responded,
watching her go.
She met with Lois for over two hours in their
offices at L&B Records. After their
meeting, she'd had to meet with a few of their artists and settle contract
negotiations. Sometime around two, her
phone rang on her desk.
"Brenda Barrett-Jacks," she answered
quickly.
"Hi, sweetie," Jax replied.
She frowned.
His voice was slightly muffled and he sounded disappointed about
something. She could hear the sound of papers rustling in the background. "What's wrong?" she asked
immediately, knowing something was up.
There was a pause of silence and then he
chuckled softly. "You always know
when something's going on, don’t you?"
"Yes, now tell me what it is." She was growing concerned.
"It's nothing serious, Brenda, I
promise. But I do have to cancel our
dinner plans tonight."
"Oh, Jax, why?" she sighed,
disappointed now, herself.
"I have to go out of town again."
"Jax--"
"Just wait a minute," he
continued. "It's only for
tonight. I need to go into Manhattan
and meet with my attorneys."
"Why?
Is something wrong?"
"No!" he assured her. "It's just about a contract that's come
up. I'm leaving in an hour and I should
be back no later than one or two tomorrow afternoon. I promise, Brenda, we can have dinner tomorrow night."
"Well, can I come with you?" She liked that idea. They'd have the plane ride there to spend
time together and then they could have dinner in New York City.
"I wish you could, I really do,
sweetie. But if you want me to be back
in time for dinner tomorrow night, you can't go with me tonight. It's just going to be a business meeting
tonight and tomorrow morning."
She sighed deeply, showing how disappointed
she really was. But she relented. "All right, then I guess I'll see you
tomorrow afternoon, right?"
"Right.
I'll come back straight to your offices. I won't even go back to work tomorrow afternoon. When I get home, I'm all yours. How's that sound?"
"Oh, I like that idea," she said,
seductively. Just then she heard a
sound on the other end of the line in his office.
"Damn," he swore softly. "Listen, Brenda, I have to go. I will see you tomorrow. I love you," he rushed to say as he was
hanging up the phone.
"I love you, too," she responded to
the dial tone.
She was upset that they couldn't have dinner
that night, but the promise of the afternoon and evening together with her
husband the following night almost made up for it. She turned back to her work.
Now that she wasn't meeting Jax for dinner, she was able to stay later
to get more work done. She was supposed
to fly with Miguel and Lois to New York City to attend the opening concert, but
she was coming back that same night.
Jax was supposed to accompany her, too.
She spent the next several hours firming up details and getting
everything ready. At six-thirty, she
got into her car and went home to the empty house.
The answering machine was flashing when she
got in and she depressed the button to hear the messages. "Mrs. Jacks, this is Steven Adams at
the Port Charles Airfield. I'm calling
to find out if you have heard from Mr. Jacks in the last hour. Now, it's nothing to be alarmed about, but
his plane disappeared from the radar and we're thinking it's just a
malfunction, but we need to hear from you to confirm that. Please give me a call back here when you get
in."
She picked up the phone immediately and dialed
quickly. When someone picked up on the
other line, she said, "This is Brenda Barrett-Jacks. I'd like to speak to Steven Adams,
please." She waited only a few
moments before he came on the line.
"Mrs. Jacks, have you heard from your
husband?" His voice was anxious
and hurried.
"I…No, I haven't, Mr. Adams. What is going on?" She didn't want to panic, but now everything
in her was telling her that something was horribly wrong with Jax. She heard the phone transferring hands and
then another voice came on the line.
"Mrs. Jacks, I am Officer Petersen."
"A police officer, I assume?" She moved her free hand up toward her mouth,
trepidation creeping in very quickly.
"Yes, ma'am, I am. Perhaps it would be best if you came down
here yourself and we can explain what is happening right now."
She didn't wait for him to say anything
else. "I'll be right
there." She threw the phone down
into its cradle, grabbed her keys, and ran for her car.
An hour later, everything had been explained
to her, over and over it seemed. Jax's
plane had disappeared from the radar at about four o'clock that afternoon. They had contacted the destination airport
in Manhattan immediately and then called Brenda. Since then, the airmen had called the police and a search was
being set up. They had waited to hear
from her whether she knew what was going on.
When she didn't, the go-ahead was given for the search to begin.
The theory was that Jax had had to make an
emergency landing for whatever reason between Port Charles and Manhattan. He hadn't had time to radio for help, or if
he did, the calls went unanswered.
Since the travel area wasn't all that big, helicopters were dispatched
already to begin the search. They would
be looking for something, anything that indicated Jax's plane had gone down in
one particular area.
Three hours later, the search was
hopeless. She had been at the airport
the entire time, but after the first hour, most of it was just a blur. When no word came back about finding his
plane, she knew the news they would finally get was going to be bad.
And finally, in the fourth hour, the news came
back. They had found the plane, about
fifty miles off course. There was very
little left of it, most of it having burned in the crash. The rescue teams were scouring the area, but
they found nothing to indicate that Jax had escaped the plane before it
crashed.
The last thing she remembered from that night
was an officer telling her that the plane had been found and that there were no
survivors to be found. She only
remembered darkness after that. The
next thing she knew, she was home again, at their house, and Ned and Lois were
beside her. She had no idea how she'd
gotten there. But then the horrible
truth came back to her.
It always did that, she realized as she sat on
the floor of the bathroom, crying. She
always remembered what had happened. Jax
was not coming home and she wasn't going to see him ever again. At least, not in the one way that counted
most. God, how she missed him already.
In the past week, the last hopes she'd had
that he could still be alive had dwindled.
The rescue teams had recovered everything they could from the crash site
by now. It had all been analyzed and
there was nothing left. Even the hope
she'd had that maybe he hadn't been in the crash because they hadn't found a
body had been dashed now, too. They had
convinced her that it was possible for there to be absolutely nothing left of
any body in the plane. The way the
plane had crashed, the cockpit exploded first.
The intense heat may have destroyed everything that there was. Including her hopes of seeing her husband
again.
She wanted to believe it. Oh how she wanted to. She only wished she could. But at the same time, she wished she didn't
believe it, too. The constant pain in
her heart, even for just this week, that reminded her how much she loved him and
how much she needed him was almost too much to bear. She wished she could finally accept that he wasn't coming home to
her, but it just wasn't happening.
Something in her would always believe he was coming home. It was a promise they had made to each other
years before. Nobody leaves…and he
hadn't left, not her head or her heart and he never would.
~*~ Song
Credit - "Still Holding Out for You" by SheDaisy found on the album The
Whole SheBang.