Cape Crossed

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hannah had been conscious for a few minutes, thought she was careful to keep that fact to herself. No matter how the monitors stuck to her skin itches she wouldn't move. There were questions waiting for her on the other side of her closed eyelids that she never wanted to deal with. Not even Jake's hand on hers would convince her.

"Still out?" Queen Cobra sighed, brushing Hannah's red curls out of her face. "Hijack must have hit her with something hard."

Jake's hand tightened for a second, but his voice was relaxed. "Yeah, it looked bad. She'll be alright, won't she?"

"Oh yeah, nothing keeps Hannah down for long," Cobra laughed. "How about you? I'm amazed you got out of there without a scratch."

"Hannah, I mean Silver Shield, she kept anything from getting to me," he muttered.

"If you need anything, just shout, someone will hear you," Cobra said before leaving back through the infirmary double doors. They swing back and forth for a few minutes before closing fully. The steady beeping of Hannah's heart monitor echoed around the tiled room.

"How long are ypu going to pretend to be asleep?" Jake asked.

"Five more minutes?"

Jake laughed and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "Glad to hear you sounding like you."

She slowly opened her eyes to look at him and her breath caught in her throat. Normally, Jake had a fair amount of stubble, but the shaggy look he had now just looked like a mess. The red rims of his eyes wasn't helping anything. "You look like crap."

He rolled his eyes and wiped at them with his sleeve. "Jerk."

"Have you slept?"

"Not well," he admitted. "Been a lot on my mind."

Hannah glanced down at his hand still on hers. "I can imagine."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered.

"Because it was a secret. You know, secret identity and all? I'd expect you to grasp that concept Hijack," Hannah snapped. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Sorry."

"I could have kept a secret."

"It wasn't just about you Jake, or us," she began. A pain began in the back of her head. It spread to her temples and throbbed in time with her pulse. Hannah pulled her hand away to rub her head. "We have protocols in place to keep our operatives safe and keeping our identities a secret is near the top of that list."

"It's not like they would come after me for knowing," Jake said.

Hannah opened her eyes and looked at him sternly. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Am... am I in danger right now?"

"No one is going to touch you," Hannah assured him. "I was already planning on telling you everything and keeping ypu safe if I had to. Just because I'm a little banged up doesn't mean I'm just going to let them at you."

"Sounds like you're just using your super status to get what you want."

Hannah groaned and sat up in bed. "What do you want from me Jake? If I don't tell you I'm a liar, if I do tell you I'm corrupt." The noises from the monitor spiked.

"What I wanted was to not have my girlfriend represent everything I hate," he snapped. "All this time I've told you everything and you've kept this huge secret."

"Everything? Really?" Hannah asked. "So I was supposed to have guessed that my boyfriend was Hijack?"

They both went quiet, breathing heavily as they fought for calm. Jake was the first to reach out again and found her hand waiting for his.

"So what does this mean for us? Are you going to arrest me?" Jake asked.

Hannah shook her head. "I couldn't do that."

"Do you still love me?" He asked some quietly she could have easily pretended she hadn't heard him. But the way he kept his eyes on their hands pushed her to answer.

"Of course I do, I will always love you."

"That's the sort of thing someone says immediately before a breakup... or murder," he said, eyeing her suspiciously. It was enough to make her chuckle.

"I'm not going to murder you, idiot," she told him. "And I don't want to leave you."

"But you're going to, aren't you?"

"I don't think we can be around each other right now."

"Where will you go?" Their grips tightened at the same time. Neither were at all willing to give the other any room to move away.

"I don't know yet. There are a few safe houses we use, I might crash there for a while."

"Do you have to go now?" Jake stood, scooting her over on the bed to lay down next to her. The wires tickled him as he wrapped his arms around her.

"No, I don't have to leave yet."

"Will you come back?"

The question hung in the air like a coin spinning across a table. Eventually it would crash and fall to one side. The finality of it would leave no room for arguing or changing minds. But as long as it stayed spinning, neither side obscuring the other, things would remain as they were. As long as it stayed spinning.