No love like hers (Jessie J)

Chapter 54: Reunited.

Rose's POV

Jessie hadn't fully been herself from the moment she had woken up. She kept on mumbling the same words over and over again to me, while not letting go of my hand.

"You did care about me... You did care about me..."

Those were the only words that came from her mouth the first hours she was back with us. The doctor had explained it could be possible that she had gone into some sort of shock as a consequence to the kidnapping. She was possibly dealing with a trauma and it could take a long time before that would ease. But luckily Jessie recovered very quickly and after a few days it was like she had never been in a coma at all. She was smiling her smile again, her face wasn't looking that pale anymore and the colour of her lips had returned. Now that she had been moved to another section of the hospital, Holly was finally allowed to see her too. We both sat at her bedside all day long, me holding on to her hand and Holly trying to cheer her up with her typical jokes. Things went better with each day, but I knew not everything was how it should be. Although the smile had returned to Jessie's face, I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was dealing with demons inside. I didn't want to bring it up, but at a point a few days later I just couldn't take it anymore. That's why on a certain moment, when Holly had left the room to get us something to drink, I finally decided it was time to have a talk.

"Are you okay, Jess?" I asked while doing the usual stroking of the back of her hand with my thumb. I could see the smile on her face fade away once she dropped her gaze.

"Yeah, I'm alright", she said. It had never been more clear that she wasn't being honest. I squeezed her hand a little and laid it back on the covers next to her body.

"You don't have to pretend for me, Jessie", I stated quietly. Sat in silence for a few seconds, I suddenly felt bad for saying that. Maybe I wasn't the right person for her anymore to talk with. Maybe she wanted to move on from me and was it me sitting here all day that formed the problem. Getting attacked by those thoughts, I suddenly regretted bringing it up. How naive was I to think everything would be okay again? Maybe nothing had changed... I wanted to apologise for my words, but when I looked up at her, my eyes catched the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. A silent sniffling came from her side as she covered her face with her hands in an attempt to stop to tears from falling.

"Hey, Jess..." I stoop up and wrapped my arms around her body. Once her face had moved to the crook of my neck, she started full on sobbing. While padding her back, I tried to shush her. I think it lasted for more than five minutes, but eventually she controlled her breathing again and managed to dry her tears.

"I'm so sorry", she mumbled silently. I shook my head and wiped the last tears from her cheeks.

"You're not the one who has to apologise", I answered even more silent. A bit of an awkward silence dropped after that and I desperately tried to find something to break it. To my surprise Jessie was the one who eventually spoke up again. 

"She m-made me believe you never c-cared about me", she stuttered, trying to control the new upcoming tears. I furrowed my eyebrows slightly, then realised she was talking about Emma. Holly and I had been shocked once the whole story got unravelled. We had never thought that girl could be up to something so horrible. I had been pretty worried about Jessie ever since, as the police had told us some terrible things had happened when she was in there. Jessie had been beaten and starved, and her organs had been on the edge of giving up. According to them it had been kind of a miracle that she had found strenght to run all the way through the woods. It was a sad story, but even sadder was that she had been so close to a few houses. She could've reached them, but then Emma had decided to stop her. I couldn't deny I was happy that bitch had died by her own stupid actions. But the fact that she had alsmost taken Jessie with her, gave me the shivers. 

"I've always cared about you, Jess. And I always will." The look in her eyes made my heart break all over again and I had a hard time keeping it together myself. 

"Can you... can you just hold me... please?" I was surprised by the sudden question, but tried not to show that. Instead I lifted up the covers of the bed and waited for Jessie to move a bit to the right. Then I sat down on the bed myself and scooted closer to her. With the covers wrapped around us two, we laid back on her pillow, staring at the ceiling. Wishing I could have a single clue of what was going on in her head right now, she suddenly answered my thoughts.

"I'm thinking about where it went wrong", Jessie mumbled and I could hear her voice crack slightly. I sighed and bit my lip, trying to find the right words to answer something, but she didn't give me the chance.

"Not that I don't know the answer of course... It's all my fault. If I hadn't..."

"Don't do this to yourself, Jess." My voice sounded hoarse when I cut her off. "Just... don't."

Like we were both thinking the same way, our faces turned to each other on the exact same moment. Her green diamonds caught my gaze and only then I realised how much I had missed their vibrant colour. 

"What if we pause the time", Jessie whispered. "What if we pause the time and turn it back to the moment it was just the two of us. Just you and me, no one else on our minds. No papz and management sucking all the energy out of me. No Jessie J taking away the time we should be spending together. Just... us."

Her words made me go fuzzy inside and I wanted to scream of joy because of what she had just said. But then the images of all those magazines started running through my mind again. All those stories from people who needed Jessie to keep going. Wouldn't it be wrong if she'd break with all of that, just for me?

"But what about your Heartbeats?" I heard myself whisper back. I could see she was surprised I knew about the name she had given to her fans. 

"I need you, Jessie. But I'm clearly not the only one who needs you..." I could see her think about that. I could almost hear her brain work on full speed.

"It doesn't have to be permanent..." She eventually said. "I love my Heartbeats... But I love you more, Rose. They can wait for new music... But this... This can't wait..." 

And there it happened. Her hand found my face and mine found her waist. And our lips? After all that time, our lips found each other again. And as they moved in sync, our hearts reunited with the joy of life. And we both knew that this was what we needed. We needed us to stay alive. 

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A.N. : This turned out to be sort of an extra chapter.. Hope you enjoyed it :) So now there are really only 3 chapters left...