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She interrupted him before he could ask about getting his clothes and put off the talk. "It was only two days," he pointed out, no longer stroking her legs but with his hand resting on them. The other arm was propped atop the couch as he turned to Chel. "I wasn't even there the whole time, they let us come back in between. What, were you that thirsty for my c**k?" he asked with a dry grin.

In spite of his amused scoff in response, he leaned into the kiss a little more than he should have, and he felt a sliver of disappointment when she pulled her legs away; maybe Chel wasn't the thirsty one.

"You honestly think I'm as bad as your stupid cousin at this? Well ******** you too," he said, trying to balance it out. "I care about the state of my coffee machine."

Jack frowned. "You mean the date thing?" he asked. After a pause, he said, "Okay. I have a few ideas." Better to take the helm and steer the conversation rather than avoid it at this point. "Get a shirt too, don't be lazy."

Another pause. "Do you need help with that?"

He had went back to Sonic in the meantime, having left it on while they talked on accident. This time he turned it off without bothering to save once she returned, took his clothes with a thank you, and dressed himself without any extra bother. The expectant silence was what made him wary, not being watched; Chel wasn't patient and quiet unless she thought it was important to be, and him dressing was hardly a momentous occasion.

Not dates. At least he had his coffee to drink through this.

Leaving the towel hanging on the bathroom door, Jack picked the mug up, blew on it and settled back down on the couch. His hair was still damp, but it seemed a secondary detail at the moment. "So."

Owain had been learning. His prods were more subtle now, less direct. A memory here, a wordless thought there in the background of his mind. Give her this chance, let her speak.

He almost cracked a joke about taking advice from people like Finn and Abbi, but he didn't. Instead, he took a sip of his coffee and asked, "What makes you say that?" without a bite to his words. Jack was a scientist, of course he liked having evidence. It also bought him time to consider his real answer.

Seconds ticked by in silence. Jack was simultaneously glad she was focused elsewhere and annoyed by it, which seemed really to generally describe how he felt about her at any given time: content and yet somehow also irritated. He fed off friction of all kinds, and maybe that was what he liked about this the most—the constant excuse to be contrary if he felt like it, the fact that it differed from his attempts at relationships before.

He didn't know what Chel wanted him to say, if anything. She hadn't asked how he felt about it, so he had nothing to respond to except her own rambling. But Jack had his own reservations about the idea she presented, and they were starting to chafe uncomfortably.

"Skin crawling sounds about right," he said casually enough. "Especially in this line of work."

He could have said it was a shitty idea, but that wouldn't mean anything. Emotions were hard enough to understand and wear appropriately around people normally, let alone in this situation; he understood intimately they were by nature irrational at times. He could have said it was only inevitable, he was that amazing, but the impulse to attempt more pale jokes was gone. This was sensitive territory, and for once he was treating it as such. He knew it because he had tread around various paths before and was still haunted by the wrong turns.

He drank more coffee like it was booze that might help loosen him up. Then Jack leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Chel, look at me," he found himself saying.

His posture made him look ready to speak, but no words came out at first. He took to gazing at Chel instead, thriving off the awkwardness they were both emanating and the way her halfway grin was fading but knowing it wasn't putting him any closer to an answer. Jack still felt strangely hollow inside with his clone excitement gone, and that made what was already difficult to put into words even harder.

"She's still here, you know. Lina." They were the words that reached him first, so he went with it. "Every time I see her, I still remember what it used to be like, and sometimes it mixes with...s**t, and it doesn't let me go when I'm not careful. Sometimes—Christ—" he was self aware of how self-conscious he felt talking about it even in passing, "I think about the others too. And you know, the few times you've brought up Nevada, I always have this one thought: at least she's dead and gone. At least you...have a chance to move on, as cold as it sounds." He hands threaded around the cup he was hunched over.

"I—" He faltered, searched for words without taking his eyes off Chel, straying at best to her ear or the scar at her lip but eventually returning. "—need to know what you want to do about this. What the more is. Because my track record has consistently showed me I don't know how to do more correctly without it blowing up in my face. To be honest, I don't know if I was built to handle more." Chel had her own shitty record he was sure, but she had earned the right to him admitting his aloud. To talking.