Fix You Up, Prequel to Moment in Time.

[princess.sparkle]

Title: Fix you up

Type of story: prequel, oneshot

Main Characters: Jack/Rach

Genre: Romance

BTTB Rating: T

No cans lying around. Rachel observed as she walked into the door after a tiring shift at the hospital. Most nights she'd come home to find the place strewn with empty cans and bottles. Jack had spoken so often of new starts, of getting the help he so desperately needed and Rachel dared hope that today he finally had. As she put her bag down on the table and went to get a glass of water she saw him sat on the kitchen floor, his back against the counter and his knees hugged close to his chest, like a child seeking some sort of comfort. He hadn't even noticed her.

"Jack", Rachel whispered gently as she kneeled down beside him and laid her hand on his. The warmth of it brought him back from whatever world he'd been passing through.

"Hey, I - I just..." His voice was weak, without purpose or direction.

"Jack, you're cold, have, have you been"

He shook his head and looked at Rachels hand placed lovingly on his own. It had been so long since he'd felt that, felt someone close to him, someone there. Tony had been great, so had everyone else, he'd just been too wasted to know it. "Haven't touched the stuff." And this time it wasn't even a lie.

Rachel was close enough that she could smell his breath and know that he was telling the truth. "Ok lets get you-"

Jack shook his head, "I'm fine, really."

Rachel sat down beside him, Jack could feel the heat from her body as he stared ahead of him. "I can't do this Rach, I can't go on like this." He sighed, still staring straight ahead.

"Then don't Jack." Rachel turned to look at him, her voice sympathetic, yet firm.

"How, how do I go back, back to-" Admitting that Martha was past ment admitting she was no longer present or future. Admitting that she was gone and would never be coming back. Admitting that his life as he knew it was gone forever. That his dreams and hopes for their future no longer alive.

Rachel squeezed his hand as his eyes met hers, she saw a void in them. He was lost, just so, so lost. "You're not alone Jack, I'll help you. Tony, Alf, Lily..."

Alf and Tony had been looking after his daughter, Lily. They'd taken her away, told him he was in no state to look after her. They'd come around one day, Jack was asleep on the floor, surrounded by empty bottles and covered in sick. Lily was alone and crying, the door. That was the day they took her away. he couldn't believe he'd left her to cry her little eyes out. He was her dad, he was supposed to make things better, not leave her while he slept in his own vomit. She deserved better.

The next day Jack had turned up at an AA meeting, completely drunk. They'd tried to help him but he didn't let them. He tried to stop, he truly did but it just hurt. He was beyond help. The pain was there, always there, and drinking, - it just made him forget the pain a little, for a little while. Then he'd remember what he'd lost, and he'd have to drink again, to forget it again for a little while.

"Lily doesn't even know me. I'm her father and she doesn't even know me." Jack's voice began to break.

"Then change it Jack. There are ways to change it." Rachel tried desperately to assure him.

"I just, Martha's gone." As those words left him they pierced his heart. "Lily's gone and Dad, I pushed him away."

"They're still here Jack, Lily and your Dad. They're right here." She thought of Tony, of the man who'd broken her heart. Who proposed to her, promised her the world then told her he just didn't love her. She should have hated him but she didn't. She loved him, atleast a part of her did and always would. She'd cried for days afterwards, felt lost for months. Even now, thinking about what they had, what they could have had, it left her feeling empty. But she'd resolved to move on, to stop feeling anger and sadness. But every once in a while something would take her back and she'd remember. She'd remember the love she'd felt, the hope of a future, the family she'd always wanted. She'd remember his kindness, the way he'd turn her alarm of in the mornings and get up a little earlier himslef to make her breakfast and let her sleep in a little. How he'd wake her gently so that she wouldn't feel like she was being woken from a dream, but into one. She'd remember how she'd sometimes come home and find that he'd run her a bath.

"You're amazing you know that?" Jack looked at Rachel, "Dad broke your heart and I was too wraped up in myself to even notice, but you're still here. You're still here."

"You were heartbroken too." Rachel half smiled.

"Still, I, I'm sorry. You're a good person, you didn't deserve that."

"It's a part of life Jack. Pain. We all have to deal with someday, somehow." rachel whispered, knowing that it didn't make it hurt any less to know that it was mandatory.

Jack let out a little laugh. "You know when I was with Martha, I couldn't imagine ever feeling this way, so alone, so lost. If I'd known before I fell in love with her, that it would mean feeling like this, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I would have loved her just the same. More even."

Rachel smiled at him, it was a smile of acknowledgement, of understanding. She'd fallen in love with a beautiful baby. A baby named Joe. And he'd been taken from her and when he had she felt her heart was being ripped out. But she knew that loving him, even for the shortest time, it was worth the pain she had to feel afterwards.

"I have to move on. I know I do." Jack spoke surely and with conviction. "I want to be a good father. Lily deserves that much." He sighed.

Rachel nodded, "Yeah she does." She agreed.

"I want to stop Rach. I just - I can't." He seemed so defeated, like his time had come and gone. Like there was nothing left to fight for.

"Lily-"

Jack shook his head sadly, "She deserves better than a father who drinks half the day and spends the other half sleeping it off. She's better off with Alf and Dad." Jack conceded, it broke his heart but he knew that he had nothing worth offering a child. Somehow it broke Rachel's heart to see Jack so broken. As she looked into his eyes she thought they were looking for something, something to reach out to, to hold on to. Even if for a little while. She recognised the pain, She'd lost Kim and Joe and Tony. It wasn't the same, she knew, but she recognised the hopelessness, the emptiness. The feeling nothing matters. She thought back to the time she thought she'd lost Kim in a plane crash and she recognised the look in his eyes. She reached out and took Jack's hand in hers.

"You're a father Jack. You're her father."

Jack allowed himself to feel the warmth of Rachel's hand. He'd spent so many days and nights alone, drunk. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel, to feel anything, anything but the constant, numbing pain in his heart. But this was something else, a warmth in his hand that spread to the rest of his body. That illuminated his heart, that fought the pain for a place in his heart. He took his hand up to Rachel's face, her skin melted like butter beneath his fingers. He felt the smoothness of her skin as he stroked her cheek and felt her hand on his. He gently brought his lips to hers and kissed them tenderly.

"Jack." Rachel whispered, her face close to his, she looked in his eyes and saw beyond the pain. She saw a man, a wonderful man. She brought her lips back to his and kissed him softly. They began kissing more passionately and were soon guiding each other off to the bedroom.

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