The Navigator

22. Gemma's Constellation

Author's Note: FINALLY!!!

Song Credit: Body, SYML, also stolen from 

This Chapter contains some mature language and sexual themes. This story is rated mature so discretion is advised.

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Jax carried the last box into the small apartment, as Addy had already started to unpack the only dozen or so that she had. She had several garbage bags of clothes as well, but Brooke had taken off with them when she left with Gemma. Originally Addy had asked Jax to take the little girl to get some lunch while the ladies hauled the boxes up the stairs, but Brooke had put that idea down very quickly. Saying it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard and that if anyone was carrying boxes up the flight of steps it was the man who only this morning had taken great delight in teasing her with his physique. She would feed the baby and take her for a nap at her Aunty's house, and that was that.

Jax had seen that for what it was, a not so very subtle manipulation to get the once couple alone. Force them into each other's space where the once physicality of their relationship might act as a catalyst for the conversation the soulsister thought was necessary. Jax didn't disagree with her, he just didn't want to cloud the exposure of his heart with the harsh reality of Addy's new situation. He wanted her to see him without looking through the glasses of a fresh break up, but mostly he didn't want her to think he was pressing an advantage. She didn't need another man profiting off her emotional vulnerability, there had been enough of that to last a lifetime.

As he watched her move through the familiar space, that was indeed still full of her old furniture, an oddity that would need to be explored at some point but not now, he thought he saw what Brooke did. None of the uneasiness he would have expected, no indecisiveness or apprehension. She seemed peaceful, delighted, like the world had come back into color after living so long in black and white. Maybe right now wasn't the right time, but he felt it was coming, and coming soon. She wasn't weak, had never been weak, just repressed. Pushed down into a box that didn't really fit her or all the compassion and fiestyness that made up so much of her personality.

He dropped the box on the small kitchen counter where Addy was working and took a moment to absorb the space. Breathe in all the memories the 600 or so square feet held for him, each inch of it holding some kind of significance. Every surface a shrine that was used for the worship only a body on body could perform. The intimacy of such closeness defining so much of himself and even more of her. It was impossible to be here without longing for that beat for beat rhythm. The way she met his momentum with her own and each exquisite gratification was shared in one way or another. Never bowing out or standing down they had met each other again and again with either fierceness or sweetness, completely in sync with the others' demands.

It was here as well in this very bed, that he would hold her to his chest, his fingers making lazy circles on her skin as the stories of their lives passed between them. Those long hours of conversation where he discovered her fears and deduced her self-doubts. Learned about her mother, and the scars that betrayal had left her with. Her constant fear of not being enough determining more of her choices then he thought even she was aware of. It was here where she ferreted out his orphaned status, deducing that he also never had any healthy examples of family. Or even a gross approximation of one at all until he met Billy and Dade. Their similar lifelines connecting them until ultimately being the slash on the palm that cut him away, his inability to stay in one place firmly fastened to his personal history.

He could only hope that these secrets exchanged would make forgiveness on her part easier. That she would understand his reticence to build a life with her before and believe him when he made attempts to convince her things had changed. He had changed, a shift in perspective so strong that while he still felt the pull of the stars he no longer feared the anchor. Jax was more then he was when they last said goodbye, the time away from her had been an all encompassing pain. A self loathing of his own cowardice had begun to build in him, regardless of how badly he had tried to suppress it. Becoming a distraction, a pressure that had no release valve, and impossible to sustain. He was sure he would have self-destructed long before his journey had been completed if the 'something' hadn't sent him back. Back home.