Author's note - For the purposes of this fic, Nina has left Teri very much alive at the end of S1 (because otherwise, she and Jack can't have the conversation I've been itching for them to have), but please note that just because I've kept her from being killed doesn't mean I'm being nice to her. Special thanks are offered to the prats at Paypal, without whom I wouldn't be pissed off enough tonight to be this cruel to my favourite characters...

The lights in the front room were off, but he could see her shape, silhouetted there against the moonlit window. She didn't move a muscle as he walked into the room. She was sitting there in the chair they'd been given as an engagement present, back rigidly straight, knees hugged up to tightly her chest, eyes staring blankly ahead.

"Baby?" he kept he voice low and gentle. "Teri?"

She ignored him.

He pulled up another chair, just in front and to one side of her. Lowering himself slowly down into it, he reached across for one of her hands. He didn't even try to loosen the deathgrip it had on the top of her arm - just stroked it softly, soothingly instead.

"Teri, honey? Talk to me? Please?" It was her story to tell. He knew that. But she had to realise he was there for her - that he knew, better than she realised, what she was going through.

Her body stayed totally still, but her eyes flickered slightly, and he could see the focus come back into them. Huge big grey eyes - he could see their colour clearly, even in the dim light of the room. They met his - just for an instant - then flickered back down again. The silence stretched out.

He tried again. "We need to talk about this, honey," he kept the harsh rasp of his voice as smooth as he possibly could. This wasn't about his grief, his anger, his guilt at what had happened to her and Kim. He knew that. That would come later, when he was alone. This was about her. His fingers kept up their rhythmic stroking on the back of her hand. "We can't get through it unless we talk about it."

Her forehead creased, and her lips opened. He could see her struggle to find the words - struggle and fail. She shook her head wearily.

He reached down inside himself. Found the strength of his love and commitment to her, and let it shine out through his eyes. "You can tell me, sweetie. Whatever it is - whatever happened - you can tell me and I'm going to keep on loving you. It's not going to change anything, I promise."

Evidently, it was the promise that did it.

"Don't say that, Jack - don't promise that! You can't possibly promise that." Her voice was hoarse, as though she hadn't used it in a long, long time. There was a depth of misery in her tone he'd prayed he'd never have to hear in the voice of a woman he loved. But it was the emptiness behind that misery that really hit him. Because it told him - more clearly than words - that his guess was right.

"Something happened to you, didn't it - when Gaines had you prisoner? Something you think I couldn't understand..." There was no judgement in his voice. He wouldn't allow there to be.

Her whole body jerked, and he ached inside for her. Behind the aching, though, he could feel faint scratchings of memories he'd walled up years ago, scrabbling to get out. He slammed his mental barriers back into place. It wasn't about him.

"Please, Jack. Don't push this. You can't understand. You just can't." Her words were little more than broken whispers, pleading with him to leave it alone.

God, was he going to have to be the first to use the R-word? Gentle. He had to be gentle. "Sweetheart, do you really think I couldn't understand you were raped?" And god, just saying it ripped through the barriers inside and he was back there again and he could feel himself being pushed to his knees in the rain and throb of his cheekbone where they'd opened it and the fucking gun barrel pressed hard and cold against his temple and the harsh laughter as they joked about who got to facefuck the pretty American next and he viciously shoved it all back down again in the dark where it belonged because damnit, she deserved him to stay *whole* while she was talking to him.

"No..." she shook her head - kept shaking it, over and over and over again, as though denying it would somehow make it not have happened. "It wasn't rape." Oh god, the depth of loathing in her voice.

He reached out for her, unable to stop himself, needing to comfort her any way he could. "Oh, honey, it's OK - shhhhh, shhh, it's OK. It's not your fault."

She wrenched away from him and her eyes blazed with sudden fury. "No, Jack, you don't understand. It wasn't rape, OK? It wasn't rape!" Her voice was hot and angry with a rage that was directed far more at herself than at him, but he still had to fight to keep from flinching. "He was going to hurt our beautiful baby girl, and I walked up to him and smiled and told him I wouldn't fight him. I told him he could do whatever he wanted, and I went with him, and I let him use me." Her delicate lips curled into a sneer of self-hatred. "He didn't have to rape me, Jack. I whored my body to him, and nothing will change that."

"Good." The word was out, hard and uncompromising before he could censor it. He couldn't help it. If it hadn't come with beatings and with violence and pain for her, then how could that be anything but good? She stared at him aghast, but he refused to apologise. And maybe she needed to hear it.

"What, do you think I'd prefer it if he'd taken you by force?" He could feel the frustration - with her, with himself, with the whole goddamned world for putting them into this situation - trying to break through his carefully constructed walls of calm understanding. "You think I need you to be injured to know you weren't a willing participant? God, Teri, I know you wouldn't have done it if there'd been any other choice. And you survived, baby. You survived and you kept Kim safe and I'm willing to bet that's where you got the phone you called me from too. I'm so proud of you, so very, very proud."

She gasped once - met his eyes, and the broken disbelief that he could understand - that he could love her despite what she'd had to do - slowly drained from her eyes, leaving only the grief. She uttered a choked sob that was halfway between a moan and a hiccup - and the fight left her completely as she collapsed against him and finally, finally the tears came. And somehow, with her release, his own memories began to slowly subside, at least for the meantime.

His arms came around her and he held her tight against his body - stroking her hair, her shoulders, her face - any part of her he could reach - over and over again as the wracking sobs convulsed her. "Shhhhh, baby, shhhh. It's OK." His hands stroked softly, slowly, in time with his words. "I love you, baby. I'm proud of you. You're my brave, resourceful, beautiful wife. My brave, brave Teri. It's OK, baby. Shhhhhhh..."

He let her cry herself to sleep against him, and sat there unmoving, holding her until the sun came up.

End

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