Nine Crimes

[Olivia Skye]

He looked at her.
He looked at her, and Olivia’s lip started to quiver as soon as those steel blue eyes met hers.
“No,” Jack said, softly, a mile away from his previous weak tone that offered no comfort, no warmth. This time his gruff voice was soft as silk as he studied her eyes carefully.. “You are anything but a fool, Olivia. I’m the fool. I’m the dámn fool here in this whole stupid thing.”
Another tear fell from her eye, at that. It wasn’t an explanation, it wasn’t what she wanted. But what he was saying…
It didn’t make her feel better, but it did make her heart ache in another way that she hadn’t imagined.
God, Jack.
Automatically, she dropped her gaze and bit down firmly on her lower lip to stop it from trembling.
“I was under a spell. Literally- a spell. I never loved Sophie Mathieu. My feelings were an inducement… of hypnosis.”
What?!
Hypnosis? Was this… was this a joke, or… or what?
Sophie didn't have the power of hypnosis. Olivia had spent the past year living in the same dorm as her, and she knew for a fact that she did not take classes in hyponosis, but she was in classes for three other gifts. So if Jack meant that literally... it didn't make sense.
Maybe he was being poetic, metaphorical. But if Olivia knew one thing about Jack... he didn't really do poetry and metaphors. He'd always struggled to get any form of feeling out of his mouth, preferring to use simple statements - and always, always, actions rather than words.
Olivia knew this. After all, he'd spent a long while showing her things, before saying them. And that was something she loved about him.
So... he wasn't... he wasn't being poetic. And something in his tone screamed to her that he wasn't joking - no, he couldn't be joking. For all his flaws, Jack was never cruel.
But that didn't make sense. God, as much as Olivia would love to believe that everything that had happened was a result of hypnosis rather than Jack falling out of love with her, that it was nothing to do with either of them but the result of a spell, it just didn't make sense. And to use the word spell...
And it wasn't as though she had the power of seduction, or anything like that, she was just... guys found her attractive. That was just it, surely?
So...
It just didn't make sense.
“Hyp… hypnosis?” she repeated, slowly, raising her eyes again to meet his again – this time, leaving her green eyes to stare into his, eyes that she hadn’t met since before that battle. “I … I don’t understand. What do you mean, hypnosis?”

[Jack Trove]

Ah, oh, right, yeah. He guessed that wasn't as... self-explanitory as it had sounded in his head. After all, Sophie Mathieu had only taken three Power classes- as far as everyone had been aware, including Jack, she'd only had three powers, which was a fairly common phenonenom at Orchid anyway. How had any of them really been to know that she'd had another fourth power, the whole time, lying dormant...?
"Sophie... this is hard to explain," he frowned, shifting his weight from his left foot to his right. "I didn't understand myself at first- because you see, when Sophie... when she died... I heard the gunshot, and that was it."
He paused, wavering on the decision of whether or not to say the sentence he had next prepared, based on how insensitively it could come across. But Jack wasn't famed for his sensitivity- Olivia of all people knew that first-hand- and Jack's gut feeling was that if he tried too hard to make the truth sound better... he'd make it all the worse. His best bet was just plain old honesty.
Besides. Olivia deserved honesty.
"I felt nothing."
No pain. No hurt. No anger. No shock. No love. No loss.
"The moment she fell... dead, Olivia, I felt... it was like she'd never even existed. All of my feelings for her elapsed and all of the time we'd spent together just felt... false. Like someone else's memory. I didn't understand it at all. I thought.. y'know, it was shock or something and the grief would kick in later. But it didn't. I felt nothing and still don't. And another thing... I never will."
Suddenly aware of just how much of a scumbag he must sound, Jack dropped her gaze immediately, unwilling to face the horror he knew must be there. He didn't want her to look at him like that with those beautiful green eyes- the eyes that had looked at him with warmth and lust and love. It was hard enough to see them shining with tears. It was hard enough to see them dark with pain and anger.
But a small, selfish part of Jack couldn't take... it couldn't take her disgust.
"Hoodham explained it to me," Jack continued hollowly, focusing on her soft pink lips which were now indented slightly where her teeth had dug into them.
How many times had he kissed those lips, anyway? A thousand? Ten thousand?
"He said... Sophie Mathieu had a... a dormant power, that only... argh, it surfaced as a... manifestation of her subconscious' darkest and deepest desires. Hoodham thinks the reason... you remember how when Sophie came into a room, all the boys would just turn and look at her? Even Lee did- Lee, who with memory or without, was head over heels down five flights of stairs for Madeleine. All of those guys- and I'm one of them- were being effected by her dormant power... of hypnosis. Hoodham said... the powers had these effects because... in her heart of hearts, Sophie Mathieu wanted to be loved better than everybody else in the world."

[Olivia Skye]

“I felt nothing.”
She’d felt a lot of things for Jack over the past while – lust, love, admiration, irritation, disgust, worry – but in that one split second after those words, she felt something that she’d never felt for him before.
Hatred.
It only lasted a nanosecond, because for all his faults, Jack couldn’t… he couldn’t mean it. She knew him, after all. How many times had she read his steel blue eyes like an open book? He wasn’t exactly a master at concealing what he was thinking. She knew that he couldn’t mean something like that, so she had to think about it in the context that followed.
It sounded like something you’d read in a teenage novel. A dormant power, hypnosis, wanting to be loved more than anyone else…
In a way, that was what everyone wanted. To be loved by someone, more than anyone else in the world. But Sophie wanted to be loved by everyone more than anyone else, was that what he was saying? And, more specifically, to have Jack love her more than anyone else. More than Olivia.
Olivia didn’t want to believe it, she really, really didn’t, but…it made sense, didn’t it? Jack was right, she’d even affected Lee, and they all knew how Lee felt about Madeleine. Olivia had seen how quickly he’d gone under, she’d been shocked at seeing him kiss her after Madeleine. And it was the same for every other boy in Orchid Hill, wasn’t it?
No.
No, Olivia, this is ridiculous. You can’t really believe this, can you? Hypnosis? It’s every cheating boy’s dream, isn’t it? Magic did it. The perfect excuse.
… but Jack wasn’t every cheating boy.
It fit. It did. It couldn’t… but it did.
And maybe, just a little bit, maybe Olivia did want to believe it was true.
“You’re not lying.”
If he would look at her, really look at her, she could tell if it was the truth. He just needed to meet her eyes, but his were carefully trained on her lower face as her tear-glazed green ones stared at them intently.
Look at me.
“Jack, swear it.” Her voice was hollow, scratchy, whispered. “Swear to me, promise me that that’s the truth.”
It made sense. It shouldn’t, but it did.
She’d believe him if he promised.

[Jack Trove]

Hope flared at the back of his mind- but it wasn't hope as hope was supposed to be felt. Hope was supposed to be full of goodness; a pure, white feeling of possibility. That was the feeling Jack had been waiting for. It's the one he'd... eugh, excuse the phrasing, but it was hope he'd been hoping for.
But this...
It was white, still, and... burning... but it seared his throat and shot fire through his insides, scalding him and causing him to shudder. Hope wasn't supposed to hurt- but this hope did.
And he couldn't... figure out... why.
He could feel her eyes seeking his; roaming his gaze desperately. This was Jack's chance.
Olivia, God bless her, was giving him one final, undeserved chance.
"Olivia," he looked up, and met her eyes. "I swear it. I... I promise you, Olivia, it's the truth."
I won't lie to you.
I'll never lie to you.
Jack was sick of lies, anyway.
The one thing Jack hated more than anything else in the world was this: men who cheated.
Thanks to Sophie, Jack had cheated.
Thanks to Sophie, Jack was no better than Mal.
Thanks to her... he was no better than his owm goddam father, the man he'd tried to distance himself from all his life.
Alongside the cheaters were the liars.
Now, Jack wasn't a good man. He'd never been good. He'd also never been bad. He'd been Jack, and that's the best he could really be. But if the Jack he'd been was now guilty of one of the two crimes... Jack wouldn't fall prey to the second.
"I swear it, Olivia," he repeated, slightly louder.
His hands moved suddenly- it was instinctive, he guessed. Habitual. He'd grown so used to having her close, being able to casually touch her hand or kiss her... It had been the easiest, nicest, nicest thing in the world. And he'd always found habits hard to kick. So his hands moved, as though to take hers in his and clasp them, kiss them, and say...
His hands stopped mere centimeters from hers.
"I'm sorry."
He drew them back.
Her hands were no longer his to take.
Somehow, he knew this. And it was this knowledge that kept him back and kept him in his place.

[Olivia Skye]

She almost reached out for his hands as he pulled them back, but in the end, was glad she didn’t. It wouldn’t have been a good idea. It would have hurt.
It would have hurt.
Olivia caught Jack’s gaze again, for a second, before dropping it.
God, oh God, she didn’t understand this, she didn’t, but she believed him. God help her, she did.
“Okay,” Olivia murmured, glancing back down at the ground. “I believe you.”
It didn’t mean she forgave him. God knew, she wasn’t going to be able to do that. It didn’t mean she wasn’t upset, and it definitely didn’t take away the hurt, but…
It was an explanation. That was what she’d wanted.
And as unlikely as the explanation was, it was comforting, in a way. If it really was a spell… it wasn’t something wrong with her. It wasn’t that she wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive, it wasn’t that he didn’t want her. It was all Sophie.
It was all Sophie, and Olivia could have cried with relief.
It wasn’t right that she was relieved, though and she knew it. For Christ’s sake, it was hardly the normal reaction, was it? Finding out that your boyfriend had been under a spell for a year, that he'd been hypnotised, and being relieved.
But then, Olivia knew she was selfish. She’d never claimed to be anything else. But it meant she didn't have to delve too deep.
He'd cheated, but he hadn't meant to. It wasn't... it wasn't that he didn't want her. She could tell that from the movement he made to take her hands that he still cared.
And that meant a lot. It did.
... but it hurt like hell, as well.
Her eyes flicked up towards him again, before she sighed softly, and padded over to sit on the stage where he had been sitting; being careful not to step too near to him, anywhere near where she could be tempted to touch him.
If he wanted to sit with her, he could. But she wasn’t going to instigate it.
So she stayed put on the edge of the stage, hands clutching the ledge tight. “Christ, Jack, how did we get here?”

[Jack Trove]

Since Jack was pretty sure she didn't mean the literal answer ("Well, we walked; you from the Hospital Wing, I guess... me from outside in the hall. As to how we got to Orchid Hill, at the end of P.7. we both got letters...") he was also pretty sure he didn't know the answer she was looking for...
How did they get there?
It was an odd, painful question. One he'd never thought about before. One he wished he never had thought about.
His eyes had watched her move past- avoid him- and settle herself elegantly on the stage. He was sure that elegance hadn't been intentional. Olivia wasn't intentionally elegant. She just naturally was. It was second nature to her. She didn't have to think. It wasn't forced or posed like it was in some girls.
It was just her.
Just Olivia.
And it was magic.
Jack couldn't help it. He followed her; moth drawn to flame and settled himself beside her on the stage. He could not meet her eyes and she did not meet this, but both of them could feel a pull; the bond holding them together.
And they could both feel that bond breaking.
"I don't know," he told her softly, "I just... don't."
Another fragmented piece broke; and floated into the eternal space now growing between them.

[Olivia Skye]

“I don’t know. I just… don’t.”
No, no, neither did she.
Olivia sighed, her shoulders slumping as her feet dangled daintily from the high stage, deliberately ignoring the fact that he was sitting right there next to her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body pulsing through the space between hers and his.
It was a heat she’d felt more times than she could count, on her skin, under her skin.
“I didn’t think this would happen like this,” she said suddenly, into the silence that had stretched out between them for a few minutes. “I always thought we’d end in this… huge, heated argument,” she said, with a wry smile. “Ending in flames. It’s funny how things turned out, isn’t it?”
They’d always argued. All fire and flames, raised voices and God only knew how many tantrums. Olivia remembered the millions of times they’d stormed away from each other so clearly – and even better the millions of times they’d kissed and made up afterwards. That was how it used to be. High spirits, and high tempers. She’d even slapped him once, hadn’t she? And he hadn’t deserved it that time, not really. But she’d been hurt, and she wanted to punish him for it.
She didn’t want to punish him for this, even before today’s revelation. She’d lost all of that temper and fire for a while, when the arguments stopped, and they just… well, they stopped caring, didn’t they? That part was just as much her fault as his. She shouldn’t have just sat back and let him drift. She could have kept him from going under hypnosis, all those months ag-
Wait. That started a while ago, hadn’t it? Last… well, last summer, wasn’t it? God, surely he hadn’t been with Sophie all that time? She knew he’d been distant, but that couldn’t have gone on for so long… could it?
Olivia shivered at that, pulling her shoulders up and into her body as her hands gripped so tight on the ledge that her knuckles turned emulsion-white.
“How long?” she asked, quietly. "I mean... with Sophie, how long?"
And of course, as soon as the question left her lips, she bit down on them, but it was too late. Olivia wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer to that. In fact, she was fairly sure that she didn’t. She was fairly sure that it was going to hurt.
And her eyes didn’t leave the parquet wood of the floor, not until Jack answered.

[Jack Trove]

How long...?
His head dropped. How could he tell her that? He'd never thought about it before... traced it back to that day... that random day when Sophie met Jack. It was in a corridor. He remembered that detail above all else. He thought he was happy at the time; he was definitely fascinated by her- in a strange, dreamy way he couldn't recall properly now.
And then... Mal. Sophie met Mal.
He didn't remember the details of that either. What he remembered more clearly after was the crude way Mal had talked about her. And the way Mal had asked about Olivia- "that ginger one", as he'd called her.
"That ginger one"...
How anyone could talk about Olivia that way was beyond Jack. Even if Mal had never met her, or seen her.
And over the summer... there was a distance; dark pubs and confusing thoughts... but warmth grew in Jack's heart when he remembered, at least, he'd always kept Olivia's picture by his bedside...
But.
That made it all the sadder, in a way.
Izzy had called Olivia pretty. That had made him smile. Izzy had wanted hair like Olivia's. He couldn't blame her.
"February," he said finally. "February last year."
Saying it aloud like that... made him feel sick.

[Olivia Skye]

“February, February last year.”
Oh, God.
Grit your teeth and don’t cry; Olivia. Just grit them.
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at Jack anyway, triggered by the shock that shot through her like lightning at those words.
February. She thought it had been the summer… but God, not February. Not that long. That was a year ago. More. If realised that he’d been cheating had hurt, then this… Oh God.
“February?”
What had happened in February to… to trigger that? Why… why February? Sophie had arrived in December, at the Christmas ball… surely they’d have met before that? Did-
Bile started to form in Olivia’s stomach, a gut-wrenching sickness drilling into her thin abdomen as she realised.
February. That day in the forest, before Valentine’s… and Cole. That was why. That was… oh God, this was her fault after all, wasn’t it?
But they’d talked it through, hadn’t they? In here, on Valentine’s Day. She’d been sitting on the stage here, they’d been sitting… and…
“You told me that you loved me in February.”
It had been Valentine’s Day. They’d had that fight after… well, in the forest, and she’d kissed Cole to try and wreak a little revenge. Then they’d argued again, and she’d slapped him. Here, she’d apologised for her crimes, and he’d apologised for his, done their penance, kissed and made up, and said those three words. They had been so optimistic, and full of that hope young lovers have.
Ha, what fools.
So… had it been after that, that they’d met? Or… or before? Was she – and it brought more tears to her eyes to think it – to him what Cole was to her? Some twisted revenge plot? Or, at least, that had to have been the start of it. That couldn’t have lasted over a year.
A year. All that time, Olivia believed that he loved her.
Oh, Jack.
Olivia brought her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes so that he couldn’t catch sight of the wells in her eyes. “Was that... did you meet her after that?”