Fic: Fresh Beginnings - Zoo
Title: Fresh Beginnings
Author: immertreu
Word count: 3736
Summary: AU fix-it for episode 2x09 "Sins of the Father". Mitch and Jamie finally talk.
A/N: AU fix-it for episode 2x09 "Sins of the Father". Written when the episode first aired because I was tired of Mitch and Jamie dancing around each other.
Many thanks to my beta IcyWaters!
Fresh Beginnings
by immertreu
Mitch Morgan was many things, but he was definitely not a morning person. Staring mournfully at his mug of coffee on the small table right in front him, clad in his customary checkered flannel shirt and black t-shirt, he seemed to be contemplating the mystery of the universe. He did not even react when Jamie stepped through the door to the lounge situated above his laboratory.
The sight would have been adorable under any other circumstances, but Jamie's anger blotted out all the feelings she could have had. Not waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, she stormed over to his seat, planted herself right in front of him and demanded, "I bet you're mighty pleased with yourself!"
Her tone could have cut through ice. As it was, it definitely pierced Mitch's tired musings.
Startled, the brilliant yet often clueless scientist glanced up at the irate woman in front of him. When he saw her expression, the contemplating visage hardened into careful neutrality. He didn't say anything, though, just stared at her.
Speechless Mitch wasn't seen often. Jamie took it as her cue to lay in on him: "I guess you thought you could have some fun with your ex and afterwards pretend nothing ever happened, huh?"
Mitch's expression froze, and his tone was as scathing as Jamie had ever heard from him before - though never directed at her. "Really?" he asked, a dangerous drawl in his voice. "You come here and demand answers of me right after ditching me? You've got some nerve!"
He tried to stand to get away, but Jamie blocked his path so he had no choice but to stay seated - or shove her away bodily, which she knew he wouldn't do. Not Mitch. Despite his gruff exterior and short fuse, he had retained a gentleness and caring nature not many people were allowed to see.
Taking full advantage of this fact, Jamie spat, "Ditch you? I ditched you?! What about you screwing your stepmom right in front of me?"
It had been the absolute wrong thing to say. Jamie realized it the same instant Mitch's face flushed from deadly white to furious red.
She had miscalculated. Suddenly not caring whether he hurt her or not, he left his seat and stormed past Jamie, pushing her out of his way and toppling his mug in the process. He didn't even notice the shards of ceramic or the coffee now dripping onto the floor.
Stopping by the staircase leading down to his lab, he paused and looked at her. His tone was icy, his normally caring, often mischievous eyes frozen flat behind his glasses: "I asked you to start over. Instead you told me to move on. So that's what I'm finally doing." And with that parting remark he vanished downstairs.
Aghast, Jamie stood rooted to the spot. When she eventually regained her senses, she sputtered, "You.... you...!", but she hadn't even taken one step to follow Mitch when an arm suddenly blocked her path. Livid, she raised a hand to fend off her "attacker", but Dariela intercepted her easily and took hold of her wrist.
"Nuh-uh," the soldier said, "We're not doing this again."
"Let go of me!" Jamie demanded, but Dariela didn't budge.
"Only if you don't try to hit me again."
Jamie was about to nod when the other woman added, "And don't try to follow him." She gestured with her free hand in the direction Mitch had taken. "He needs to cool off - and so do you."
"How dare you...?" Jamie started but cut herself off when Dariela released her arm and stepped back, holding up her hands in a placating gesture.
"In case you hadn't realized, I could hear you yelling even in my cabin on the other side of the plane. Hell, I think even Trotter in the cockpit has been able to listen to your argument. Which was pretty one-sided, if you ask me."
Blushing furiously, Jamie tried to regain some of her dignity. She replied hotly, "But I'm not asking you. So let me pass."
Dariela didn't move. "I know you're not interested in my opinion, but you..." - she pointed a finger at Jamie - "are being a selfish idiot. And he..." - she pointed downstairs - "...is the insecure idiot who loves you."
No other argument could have stopped Jamie dead in her tracks. "He loves me?" she scoffed disdainfully. "He and Allison...!"
"I know what they did," Dariela interrupted. "Your words were clear enough - and so were his. I realize I haven't known you guys for long, yet it's obvious Mitch cares about you deeply. Your miscommunication - or rather lack of communication at all - has caused some serious damage here, lady. So if...when you go after him, you better be prepared for some awful truths you don't wanna hear."
No other member of their close-knit group could have gotten away with talking to Jamie like Dariela did. But her unique perspective allowed her to speak freely, no matter how harsh she had to be.
Recognizing some truth in the other woman's words, Jamie finally paused in her fury and took a deep breath.
"Fine," she grumbled and sank down into the seat Mitch had just vacated. "In two minutes I'm gonna go down there and talk to him, whether he wants it or not. I'm done with all this avoidance crap."
"Uh-huh," was Dariela's doubtful reply before she left for her cabin.
Finally alone again, Jamie put her head between her hands and massaged her pounding temples. Her restless night had been plagued by snatched images she'd glimpsed in Mitch's room last night. Jackson's violent disappearance and Abe's devastating confession had only added to her nightmares.
Jackson's transmitter he had implanted into himself wasn't working. Mitch had theorized that he was either too far underground for it to work - which was unlikely given the terrain they were in - or that he had sabotaged it in order to keep anyone from finding him.
Jamie's colorful imagination had supplied her with pictures of Jackson digging deep into his own flesh, fishing around for the tiny metallic object in his arm, all night long. Just thinking about it made her gag again, so she stopped that train of thought and got up, pacing the small space in constant circles.
How dare Dariela judge her and Mitch? And how dare the cheating bastard...? But no, that wasn't fair, she suddenly realized. They had never been an item, had never defined if there even was a them. But he'd had to have known how Jamie felt, right? After that moment in the hospital in Zambia? And their kiss on the plane? Their desperate embrace in Caraquet? He had been the only reason that had kept her going in the Canadian wilderness. Then how could he...? Again, she didn't finish the thought. It hurt too much.
Enraged once more, Jamie finally stormed down the stairs in search of Mitch. The coward had to be hiding in his lab somewhere.
He stood with his back to Jamie, hunched over some sample or other under his microscope. His glasses sat atop his mop of hair, out of his way but within easy reach. The scene looked so familiar and yet so strange on this big flying plane they were currently inhabiting.
Jamie would never bring herself to call it home, not after everything that had happened here and what it represented: unhappiness, betrayal, death. Yet for now she had no choice but to let it take her wherever the team went.
Mitch didn't turn around, but he stiffened imperceptibly, still looking into the viewer of the microscope. His voice when he spoke was unexpected. "What do you want?" he asked, his tone harsh and broken.
Startled, Jamie stopped a few steps behind him. "I..." She faltered and tried again. "I think we need to talk."
"Oh yeah?" His sarcasm could have cut through steel.
Mitch finally turned around to face her, and Jamie gasped. He looked as if he'd aged ten years in the past five minutes. His features were even more drawn than before, his eyes red-rimmed and wounded. He hadn't bothered to put on his glasses, wasn't hiding behind the reflective lenses which was only one more painful reminder that Jamie was the only one allowed to see him and his real, hurting self - or so she'd thought until last night, at least.
The man was a walking contradiction, and it was driving her mad.
Mitch didn't give her a chance to speak. Finally settling his glasses back onto his nose, he took a breath, his anger flaring up again at the sight of her.
"You want to talk about last night?" he suddenly snapped, getting into her face. "Fine! I made a mistake, okay? But after everything that had happened? After seeing Max again, remembering all those times he would come home drunk, dragging in a new woman and later on discarding her, constantly dismissing me as unimportant and stupid, and finally taking my girlfriend for himself...? For once I decided to be the selfish bastard everyone thinks me to be and took advantage of Allison's advances I've been enduring for weeks now."
Seeing her shocked expression but ignoring the tears starting to well up in her eyes as well as his own, he ranted on: "You must have thought me pretty stupid, stringing me along while planning to get rid of me at the opportune moment. Ever since you came back, you've been pretty clear in your distaste for me. Every time I tried to talk to you, you either cut me off or basically told me to go to hell. Do I know what you had to do in order to survive out there, what you've seen and experienced? No, of course not, because you wouldn't tell me!"
He was shouting now, wild gestures accompanying his mad stream of frantic words. "Whenever I asked you to let me in, when I tried to be the man you had made me into by reminding me that it was okay to feel, to care, you shut me out."
Jamie stepped back as if slapped, Mitch's tirade a perversion of his stumbling but heartfelt confession in the hospital lab in Zambia so many weeks ago.
"I...I didn't mean to...," she said, but he wasn't hearing her, the often taciturn scientist replaced by this new Mitch she didn't know at all.
"I tried to be understanding, to give you time, to look out for you. I even defended you against Allison who wanted you off the team. I can't do it anymore." He took a deep breath. "Did you know I almost got eaten by wolves when we went to the coordinates in Canada to pick you up the first time and you weren't there? Abe and a soldier had to drag me back to the helicopter because I wouldn't leave. I mourned you when I thought you had died in that plane crash. I drank myself into a stupor every day and picked fights with the other patrons just so I didn't have to feel for as long as I could. I even left the team and only came back when they promised to send a crew to get you - one after the other, as many soldiers as it would take.
"I can't do it anymore!" he suddenly repeated, his voice breaking. He rubbed his burning eyes under his glasses and abruptly turned away from Jamie. "So go and do what you think you need to do. I've got a world - and Jackson's life - to save."
His cold, hurtful dismissal shocked her to the core and made her realize how little she'd thought about him and the others, about how it must have been for them when they thought her dead or lost. Jamie had been through hell, yes, but her team members - her friends - had as well.
Especially Mitch who had just begun to function as a human, emotional being again. He must have been devastated. And instead of reassuring him that she was back and safe and would be okay, she'd snapped at everyone, distrusted her friends, and turned to the only person she thought could understand her pain - and who had betrayed them all in the end.
Shaking and ashamed of herself, Jamie finally found her voice when Mitch reached the door leading into the storage room at the back of his lab: "Did you really refuse to leave when you'd found the leopard and I was gone?"
Slowly, he turned back towards her and nodded, his expression frozen somewhere between fury and agony. "I did."
"And you left the team because of me?"
"Yes."
She couldn't help herself. "You went to a bar? Every day while I was gone?"
"Yes."
"But why?" It came out a half-sob, half-wail, all her previous anger forgotten, the emotional turmoil of the past twenty-four hours and all those awful weeks before finally catching up with her.
"Because I love you."
His answer was simple and wonderful and scary. It made her feel dirty and unworthy of his love.
It was said with perfect clarity and such a feeling of defeat that Jamie had no answer.
And for the first time since her return and private breakdown in the shower, she let it all go and collapsed, right in front of poor, confused, hurting Mitch. The Mitch who had once told her he preferred it when people and their pain weren't around and who was so bad at expressing his feelings that it had taken this much despair and anger for him to finally get it all out into the open in one mad rush. The stubborn, unpredictable Mitch who suddenly caught her when she pitched forward and fell to her knees in the middle of his lab, sobbing her heart out.
"I'm sorry," was all she could whimper between painful shivers wracking her body. "Mitch, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."
Now that Jamie had finally allowed herself to feel anything other than anger and self-righteous contempt, she couldn't stop the heartache shaking her apart. "I’m sorry!" she half-shouted into his shirt, clinging to him in desperation, trying to bury herself in his comfortable warmth she had feared and wanted for so long.
"Shh," he murmured, holding her. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry, too."
"No, it's not!" she cried. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" she lamented.
Jamie didn't know how many times she repeated that simple, awful phrase. When she finally came back to herself, her head was cushioned on Mitch's chest, his arms protectively wrapped around her. He sat leaning back against the lower part of a lab bench, his legs stretched out in front of him.
When he noticed her stirring, he loosened his grip but didn't let go of her, just allowed her some breathing room and himself the space to look into her face. "Hey," he said mildly, a worried frown marring his tired face.
"Hey," she replied, her voice like shattered glass. She felt terrible. Inside and out.
She sat up abruptly, almost cracking the top of her head into Mitch's chin while breaking his hold. Only his quick reflexes saved them both.
"Whoa!" he explained, startled by her sudden movement and jerking his head back at the last second. "Where are you going?"
His voice was unbelievably calm. If Jamie hadn't heard his desperate outburst before, she wouldn't have believed him capable of it. Mitch Morgan, still the enigma.
"Uhm." It definitely wasn't her most eloquent reply but the most honest one she'd given in weeks. She simply didn't know.
Sitting back on the cold metal deck, she raked a hand through her messy hair and tried again. "I...uh...I should...go," she said lamely, cursing her legs that felt like jelly and the jackhammer happily drilling around in her skull.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, some semblance of the old, playful Mitch peeking through. "I don't think so," he stated, forestalling her protest by producing something from his pocket and holding it out to her.
When she stared at it dumbly, he sighed and opened the bottle of painkillers he'd once "borrowed" from the first aid kit and conveniently forgotten to return. It had been sitting on his work table ever since.
"Here." He held his hand out again. "Take them." When she still hesitated, he added more forcefully, "I'm a doctor, remember?"
Too tired to think of a reply to his half-truth, she accepted two aspirin from him and put one into her mouth, relieved when a bottle of water magically appeared in her other hand a few seconds later. She first swallowed one, then the other pill while Mitch looked on.
Eventually satisfied, he grabbed the bottle from her unresisting hand and placed it next to him on the floor. Then he scooted closer so he could kneel in front of her, uncharacteristic trepidation on his face. His next question was not what she had expected: "Do you trust me?"
It was a loaded query.
Jamie stared at him in shock, not knowing what to say. Did she trust him? Did she trust anybody these days? Was she even capable of surrendering part of her to someone else anymore? Of trusting in someone other than herself to have her back?
Mitch's face fell when no answer was forthcoming, but he shook it off heroically and continued, "I realize that in your eyes I'm a pretty shady character, and I'm sorry. You're right. But I don't think you can walk up these stairs on your own right now, and I refuse to let you sit here on the cold floor for much longer. So will you allow me to help you upstairs and put you to bed?" He winced at how his words could be interpreted and hastily added, "To sleep, I mean. I bet you haven't had a good night's rest ever since that plane crashed into the ocean."
Mitch Morgan, the forgiving cavalier. The man was unbelievable! Jamie had sent him through hell and he still looked out for her - after thoroughly chewing her out, that was.
To be fair, she had started this whole mess, so... She interrupted him before he could dig himself an even bigger hole: "Yes."
Switching gears in the middle of his argument, Mitch grunted in affirmation and held out his hands to her. "Come on then. You need to get back on your feet first, though."
"No," Jamie said, and he shrank back as if burned.
"Make up your mind!" he demanded, his well-hidden anger threatening to bubble to the surface again.
Jamie hurried to clarify. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant no, not yet. And yes, I do trust you."
"You do?"
His deer-in-the-headlights-look was adorable. There finally was hope in his gaze, too.
"Yes," she repeated, and nodded for emphasis - regretting it right away when her head felt as if it was about to explode. Closing her eyes against the pain, she added, "I do. And you're not such a shady character as you think. I've definitely seen worse in the past few weeks."
When silence reigned, she opened her eyes again. Mitch's expression was pained, so she babbled on. "I didn't mean that like it sounded! God, I'm s...."
Mitch interrupted her: "If you say you're sorry one more time, I think I'm going to scream."
She actually chuckled at that. "Fair enough. I think that goes for both of us, though. We've done enough damage to each other as it is. Apologizing endlessly won't make it any better."
He looked at her ruefully. "True. You deserve an apology, though. I behaved like... like..." He searched for the perfect insult - a first, as far as Jamie could tell - and eventually blurted, "Max!"
"Uh-uh," she protested, and finally took his hand. "You didn't. I pushed you away. I gave you no reason to think there was even a chance there could ever be an 'us'. So how about we both shut up now and go to bed and talk about the other stuff later?"
He raised both eyebrows this time, clearly amused.
"Not what I meant!" she added a second later, horrified when her own words registered. Now it was her turn to wince and blush. "I'm really putting my foot in my mouth here, aren't I?" she sighed.
Mitch laughed softly, the sound music to her tired ears. "You're in good company then. Come on," he repeated. He finally hauled her to her feet, silently supporting her on their way to the stairs.
He suddenly stopped when they reached the base and turned to her. "I want you to know, I'm really sorry." He grinned sheepishly at her expression. "Yes, I know, we didn't want to say sorry anymore, but I mean it. And you need to hear it one more time. Allison and I... She knows it will never happen again. Max's appearance... We both thought we needed each other, but we were wrong."
She smiled despite herself. He was trying so hard to reassure her. What a difference to how this day had started!
"I'm glad," she whispered, turning to go on, and heard his heartful echo next to her ear: "Me too."
He took her up the stairs, one step at a time.
The End
Thanks for reading!
Author: immertreu
Word count: 3736
Summary: AU fix-it for episode 2x09 "Sins of the Father". Mitch and Jamie finally talk.
A/N: AU fix-it for episode 2x09 "Sins of the Father". Written when the episode first aired because I was tired of Mitch and Jamie dancing around each other.
Many thanks to my beta IcyWaters!
Fresh Beginnings
by immertreu
Mitch Morgan was many things, but he was definitely not a morning person. Staring mournfully at his mug of coffee on the small table right in front him, clad in his customary checkered flannel shirt and black t-shirt, he seemed to be contemplating the mystery of the universe. He did not even react when Jamie stepped through the door to the lounge situated above his laboratory.
The sight would have been adorable under any other circumstances, but Jamie's anger blotted out all the feelings she could have had. Not waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, she stormed over to his seat, planted herself right in front of him and demanded, "I bet you're mighty pleased with yourself!"
Her tone could have cut through ice. As it was, it definitely pierced Mitch's tired musings.
Startled, the brilliant yet often clueless scientist glanced up at the irate woman in front of him. When he saw her expression, the contemplating visage hardened into careful neutrality. He didn't say anything, though, just stared at her.
Speechless Mitch wasn't seen often. Jamie took it as her cue to lay in on him: "I guess you thought you could have some fun with your ex and afterwards pretend nothing ever happened, huh?"
Mitch's expression froze, and his tone was as scathing as Jamie had ever heard from him before - though never directed at her. "Really?" he asked, a dangerous drawl in his voice. "You come here and demand answers of me right after ditching me? You've got some nerve!"
He tried to stand to get away, but Jamie blocked his path so he had no choice but to stay seated - or shove her away bodily, which she knew he wouldn't do. Not Mitch. Despite his gruff exterior and short fuse, he had retained a gentleness and caring nature not many people were allowed to see.
Taking full advantage of this fact, Jamie spat, "Ditch you? I ditched you?! What about you screwing your stepmom right in front of me?"
It had been the absolute wrong thing to say. Jamie realized it the same instant Mitch's face flushed from deadly white to furious red.
She had miscalculated. Suddenly not caring whether he hurt her or not, he left his seat and stormed past Jamie, pushing her out of his way and toppling his mug in the process. He didn't even notice the shards of ceramic or the coffee now dripping onto the floor.
Stopping by the staircase leading down to his lab, he paused and looked at her. His tone was icy, his normally caring, often mischievous eyes frozen flat behind his glasses: "I asked you to start over. Instead you told me to move on. So that's what I'm finally doing." And with that parting remark he vanished downstairs.
Aghast, Jamie stood rooted to the spot. When she eventually regained her senses, she sputtered, "You.... you...!", but she hadn't even taken one step to follow Mitch when an arm suddenly blocked her path. Livid, she raised a hand to fend off her "attacker", but Dariela intercepted her easily and took hold of her wrist.
"Nuh-uh," the soldier said, "We're not doing this again."
"Let go of me!" Jamie demanded, but Dariela didn't budge.
"Only if you don't try to hit me again."
Jamie was about to nod when the other woman added, "And don't try to follow him." She gestured with her free hand in the direction Mitch had taken. "He needs to cool off - and so do you."
"How dare you...?" Jamie started but cut herself off when Dariela released her arm and stepped back, holding up her hands in a placating gesture.
"In case you hadn't realized, I could hear you yelling even in my cabin on the other side of the plane. Hell, I think even Trotter in the cockpit has been able to listen to your argument. Which was pretty one-sided, if you ask me."
Blushing furiously, Jamie tried to regain some of her dignity. She replied hotly, "But I'm not asking you. So let me pass."
Dariela didn't move. "I know you're not interested in my opinion, but you..." - she pointed a finger at Jamie - "are being a selfish idiot. And he..." - she pointed downstairs - "...is the insecure idiot who loves you."
No other argument could have stopped Jamie dead in her tracks. "He loves me?" she scoffed disdainfully. "He and Allison...!"
"I know what they did," Dariela interrupted. "Your words were clear enough - and so were his. I realize I haven't known you guys for long, yet it's obvious Mitch cares about you deeply. Your miscommunication - or rather lack of communication at all - has caused some serious damage here, lady. So if...when you go after him, you better be prepared for some awful truths you don't wanna hear."
No other member of their close-knit group could have gotten away with talking to Jamie like Dariela did. But her unique perspective allowed her to speak freely, no matter how harsh she had to be.
Recognizing some truth in the other woman's words, Jamie finally paused in her fury and took a deep breath.
"Fine," she grumbled and sank down into the seat Mitch had just vacated. "In two minutes I'm gonna go down there and talk to him, whether he wants it or not. I'm done with all this avoidance crap."
"Uh-huh," was Dariela's doubtful reply before she left for her cabin.
Finally alone again, Jamie put her head between her hands and massaged her pounding temples. Her restless night had been plagued by snatched images she'd glimpsed in Mitch's room last night. Jackson's violent disappearance and Abe's devastating confession had only added to her nightmares.
Jackson's transmitter he had implanted into himself wasn't working. Mitch had theorized that he was either too far underground for it to work - which was unlikely given the terrain they were in - or that he had sabotaged it in order to keep anyone from finding him.
Jamie's colorful imagination had supplied her with pictures of Jackson digging deep into his own flesh, fishing around for the tiny metallic object in his arm, all night long. Just thinking about it made her gag again, so she stopped that train of thought and got up, pacing the small space in constant circles.
How dare Dariela judge her and Mitch? And how dare the cheating bastard...? But no, that wasn't fair, she suddenly realized. They had never been an item, had never defined if there even was a them. But he'd had to have known how Jamie felt, right? After that moment in the hospital in Zambia? And their kiss on the plane? Their desperate embrace in Caraquet? He had been the only reason that had kept her going in the Canadian wilderness. Then how could he...? Again, she didn't finish the thought. It hurt too much.
Enraged once more, Jamie finally stormed down the stairs in search of Mitch. The coward had to be hiding in his lab somewhere.
He stood with his back to Jamie, hunched over some sample or other under his microscope. His glasses sat atop his mop of hair, out of his way but within easy reach. The scene looked so familiar and yet so strange on this big flying plane they were currently inhabiting.
Jamie would never bring herself to call it home, not after everything that had happened here and what it represented: unhappiness, betrayal, death. Yet for now she had no choice but to let it take her wherever the team went.
Mitch didn't turn around, but he stiffened imperceptibly, still looking into the viewer of the microscope. His voice when he spoke was unexpected. "What do you want?" he asked, his tone harsh and broken.
Startled, Jamie stopped a few steps behind him. "I..." She faltered and tried again. "I think we need to talk."
"Oh yeah?" His sarcasm could have cut through steel.
Mitch finally turned around to face her, and Jamie gasped. He looked as if he'd aged ten years in the past five minutes. His features were even more drawn than before, his eyes red-rimmed and wounded. He hadn't bothered to put on his glasses, wasn't hiding behind the reflective lenses which was only one more painful reminder that Jamie was the only one allowed to see him and his real, hurting self - or so she'd thought until last night, at least.
The man was a walking contradiction, and it was driving her mad.
Mitch didn't give her a chance to speak. Finally settling his glasses back onto his nose, he took a breath, his anger flaring up again at the sight of her.
"You want to talk about last night?" he suddenly snapped, getting into her face. "Fine! I made a mistake, okay? But after everything that had happened? After seeing Max again, remembering all those times he would come home drunk, dragging in a new woman and later on discarding her, constantly dismissing me as unimportant and stupid, and finally taking my girlfriend for himself...? For once I decided to be the selfish bastard everyone thinks me to be and took advantage of Allison's advances I've been enduring for weeks now."
Seeing her shocked expression but ignoring the tears starting to well up in her eyes as well as his own, he ranted on: "You must have thought me pretty stupid, stringing me along while planning to get rid of me at the opportune moment. Ever since you came back, you've been pretty clear in your distaste for me. Every time I tried to talk to you, you either cut me off or basically told me to go to hell. Do I know what you had to do in order to survive out there, what you've seen and experienced? No, of course not, because you wouldn't tell me!"
He was shouting now, wild gestures accompanying his mad stream of frantic words. "Whenever I asked you to let me in, when I tried to be the man you had made me into by reminding me that it was okay to feel, to care, you shut me out."
Jamie stepped back as if slapped, Mitch's tirade a perversion of his stumbling but heartfelt confession in the hospital lab in Zambia so many weeks ago.
"I...I didn't mean to...," she said, but he wasn't hearing her, the often taciturn scientist replaced by this new Mitch she didn't know at all.
"I tried to be understanding, to give you time, to look out for you. I even defended you against Allison who wanted you off the team. I can't do it anymore." He took a deep breath. "Did you know I almost got eaten by wolves when we went to the coordinates in Canada to pick you up the first time and you weren't there? Abe and a soldier had to drag me back to the helicopter because I wouldn't leave. I mourned you when I thought you had died in that plane crash. I drank myself into a stupor every day and picked fights with the other patrons just so I didn't have to feel for as long as I could. I even left the team and only came back when they promised to send a crew to get you - one after the other, as many soldiers as it would take.
"I can't do it anymore!" he suddenly repeated, his voice breaking. He rubbed his burning eyes under his glasses and abruptly turned away from Jamie. "So go and do what you think you need to do. I've got a world - and Jackson's life - to save."
His cold, hurtful dismissal shocked her to the core and made her realize how little she'd thought about him and the others, about how it must have been for them when they thought her dead or lost. Jamie had been through hell, yes, but her team members - her friends - had as well.
Especially Mitch who had just begun to function as a human, emotional being again. He must have been devastated. And instead of reassuring him that she was back and safe and would be okay, she'd snapped at everyone, distrusted her friends, and turned to the only person she thought could understand her pain - and who had betrayed them all in the end.
Shaking and ashamed of herself, Jamie finally found her voice when Mitch reached the door leading into the storage room at the back of his lab: "Did you really refuse to leave when you'd found the leopard and I was gone?"
Slowly, he turned back towards her and nodded, his expression frozen somewhere between fury and agony. "I did."
"And you left the team because of me?"
"Yes."
She couldn't help herself. "You went to a bar? Every day while I was gone?"
"Yes."
"But why?" It came out a half-sob, half-wail, all her previous anger forgotten, the emotional turmoil of the past twenty-four hours and all those awful weeks before finally catching up with her.
"Because I love you."
His answer was simple and wonderful and scary. It made her feel dirty and unworthy of his love.
It was said with perfect clarity and such a feeling of defeat that Jamie had no answer.
And for the first time since her return and private breakdown in the shower, she let it all go and collapsed, right in front of poor, confused, hurting Mitch. The Mitch who had once told her he preferred it when people and their pain weren't around and who was so bad at expressing his feelings that it had taken this much despair and anger for him to finally get it all out into the open in one mad rush. The stubborn, unpredictable Mitch who suddenly caught her when she pitched forward and fell to her knees in the middle of his lab, sobbing her heart out.
"I'm sorry," was all she could whimper between painful shivers wracking her body. "Mitch, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."
Now that Jamie had finally allowed herself to feel anything other than anger and self-righteous contempt, she couldn't stop the heartache shaking her apart. "I’m sorry!" she half-shouted into his shirt, clinging to him in desperation, trying to bury herself in his comfortable warmth she had feared and wanted for so long.
"Shh," he murmured, holding her. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry, too."
"No, it's not!" she cried. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" she lamented.
Jamie didn't know how many times she repeated that simple, awful phrase. When she finally came back to herself, her head was cushioned on Mitch's chest, his arms protectively wrapped around her. He sat leaning back against the lower part of a lab bench, his legs stretched out in front of him.
When he noticed her stirring, he loosened his grip but didn't let go of her, just allowed her some breathing room and himself the space to look into her face. "Hey," he said mildly, a worried frown marring his tired face.
"Hey," she replied, her voice like shattered glass. She felt terrible. Inside and out.
She sat up abruptly, almost cracking the top of her head into Mitch's chin while breaking his hold. Only his quick reflexes saved them both.
"Whoa!" he explained, startled by her sudden movement and jerking his head back at the last second. "Where are you going?"
His voice was unbelievably calm. If Jamie hadn't heard his desperate outburst before, she wouldn't have believed him capable of it. Mitch Morgan, still the enigma.
"Uhm." It definitely wasn't her most eloquent reply but the most honest one she'd given in weeks. She simply didn't know.
Sitting back on the cold metal deck, she raked a hand through her messy hair and tried again. "I...uh...I should...go," she said lamely, cursing her legs that felt like jelly and the jackhammer happily drilling around in her skull.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, some semblance of the old, playful Mitch peeking through. "I don't think so," he stated, forestalling her protest by producing something from his pocket and holding it out to her.
When she stared at it dumbly, he sighed and opened the bottle of painkillers he'd once "borrowed" from the first aid kit and conveniently forgotten to return. It had been sitting on his work table ever since.
"Here." He held his hand out again. "Take them." When she still hesitated, he added more forcefully, "I'm a doctor, remember?"
Too tired to think of a reply to his half-truth, she accepted two aspirin from him and put one into her mouth, relieved when a bottle of water magically appeared in her other hand a few seconds later. She first swallowed one, then the other pill while Mitch looked on.
Eventually satisfied, he grabbed the bottle from her unresisting hand and placed it next to him on the floor. Then he scooted closer so he could kneel in front of her, uncharacteristic trepidation on his face. His next question was not what she had expected: "Do you trust me?"
It was a loaded query.
Jamie stared at him in shock, not knowing what to say. Did she trust him? Did she trust anybody these days? Was she even capable of surrendering part of her to someone else anymore? Of trusting in someone other than herself to have her back?
Mitch's face fell when no answer was forthcoming, but he shook it off heroically and continued, "I realize that in your eyes I'm a pretty shady character, and I'm sorry. You're right. But I don't think you can walk up these stairs on your own right now, and I refuse to let you sit here on the cold floor for much longer. So will you allow me to help you upstairs and put you to bed?" He winced at how his words could be interpreted and hastily added, "To sleep, I mean. I bet you haven't had a good night's rest ever since that plane crashed into the ocean."
Mitch Morgan, the forgiving cavalier. The man was unbelievable! Jamie had sent him through hell and he still looked out for her - after thoroughly chewing her out, that was.
To be fair, she had started this whole mess, so... She interrupted him before he could dig himself an even bigger hole: "Yes."
Switching gears in the middle of his argument, Mitch grunted in affirmation and held out his hands to her. "Come on then. You need to get back on your feet first, though."
"No," Jamie said, and he shrank back as if burned.
"Make up your mind!" he demanded, his well-hidden anger threatening to bubble to the surface again.
Jamie hurried to clarify. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant no, not yet. And yes, I do trust you."
"You do?"
His deer-in-the-headlights-look was adorable. There finally was hope in his gaze, too.
"Yes," she repeated, and nodded for emphasis - regretting it right away when her head felt as if it was about to explode. Closing her eyes against the pain, she added, "I do. And you're not such a shady character as you think. I've definitely seen worse in the past few weeks."
When silence reigned, she opened her eyes again. Mitch's expression was pained, so she babbled on. "I didn't mean that like it sounded! God, I'm s...."
Mitch interrupted her: "If you say you're sorry one more time, I think I'm going to scream."
She actually chuckled at that. "Fair enough. I think that goes for both of us, though. We've done enough damage to each other as it is. Apologizing endlessly won't make it any better."
He looked at her ruefully. "True. You deserve an apology, though. I behaved like... like..." He searched for the perfect insult - a first, as far as Jamie could tell - and eventually blurted, "Max!"
"Uh-uh," she protested, and finally took his hand. "You didn't. I pushed you away. I gave you no reason to think there was even a chance there could ever be an 'us'. So how about we both shut up now and go to bed and talk about the other stuff later?"
He raised both eyebrows this time, clearly amused.
"Not what I meant!" she added a second later, horrified when her own words registered. Now it was her turn to wince and blush. "I'm really putting my foot in my mouth here, aren't I?" she sighed.
Mitch laughed softly, the sound music to her tired ears. "You're in good company then. Come on," he repeated. He finally hauled her to her feet, silently supporting her on their way to the stairs.
He suddenly stopped when they reached the base and turned to her. "I want you to know, I'm really sorry." He grinned sheepishly at her expression. "Yes, I know, we didn't want to say sorry anymore, but I mean it. And you need to hear it one more time. Allison and I... She knows it will never happen again. Max's appearance... We both thought we needed each other, but we were wrong."
She smiled despite herself. He was trying so hard to reassure her. What a difference to how this day had started!
"I'm glad," she whispered, turning to go on, and heard his heartful echo next to her ear: "Me too."
He took her up the stairs, one step at a time.
The End
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