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It was incorrect because there was only so much that could be fit into a summary. He broke things down into individual pieces but on his terms, into bites he could understand. But even all of this was hard to swallow. He had to make fun. He had to make it about him. That was how he dealt with everything, because if it was centered on him then nothing else had to matter.

He ran a hand through his hair. The problem was that people were starting to matter again. Ian and Shiloh's impending nuptials were only the beginning.

"What do you want me to do about it, Chel?" His bedside manner was still as shitty as the day he first came to the infirmary, but he didn't know how else to approach this except by being honest. "I like you and I have fun when you're there--Christ, do you know how hard that is for me, to relax even a little? And it's not like I didn't consider it after a while. But Hanna asked first."

It wasn't even real, and he didn't even know if she liked him that much; Jesus, he hadn't even had the time to call her over and discuss what would happen. For all he knew, it would last for two weeks until the forced social outings stopped. Then he'd be left with nothing again. He didn't even know why he had accepted her offer in the first place.

(He did know: because sometimes he did feel lonely.)

"She asked first," he repeated with an unreadable expression, "and I should respect that."

Sometimes he hated how easily she took the blame.

He heaved another sigh through his nose and glanced at the monitor. Had he imagined the spike? God, he hoped he did. There was enough s**t on his plate lately without adding more, all manner of problems and unresolved tension that screamed at him: fix it.

He stood, took the cup of water, and sat on her bed, barely brushing her leg.

"You're not crazy," Jack said after a moment, offering the cup. "You're a number of things, but not crazy. Whatever happened wasn't natural."

"If you really feel that way, I'll have to alert someone."

He was going to anyway, it was his duty. The hallucinations excuse could only last so long.

"I can try and make it so that I'm part of the observation team," he offered.

"...It did happen." If Jack Hawthorn could be even a little soft, then that was what it was. "Regardless of what I say, it did. My word isn't law every time, you know. Even I can't bend time and space."

He put the cup back down on the tray.

"I..." He hit another rough spot and made a face. It wasn't so much like digging through layers and layers of soil and grime so much as it was sticking his hands in the water and trying to bring it up through open fingers: they were there, they always had been, sometimes as a slow current and sometimes as a chaotic rapid, but he never seemed able to completely keep even a part of it in his hands, in his control. He made another face and then scoffed at himself for finding something as simple as talking so hard. But little by little, he composed his thought.

"I won't regret it if you promise not to give up like that again."

He took her wrist before her hand completely slipped away, not especially tight because he could still feel the indentations of the restraints but enough that it was held. There was something about contact, Jack noted, that seemed to magnify and emphasize and solidify that words alone couldn't. Maybe coming from him, it'd just hurt Chel more--but he'd rather she be hurting and alive than just dead.

It had been easy to confront Ian about his attempted suicide. At that time he was just angry, and that was a comfortable emotion for him. He still was at Chel, but it was slowly being replaced by a much harder mix of emotions to deal with he had to hide behind his usual veil of arrogance.

"Yeah, I do. It's the one where you doubt that I can help you fix it." There was a hint of wry admonishment there, feigned offense that his capabilities might or might not have come into question.

"No." There was no point in coddling her as far as that went. His division wasn't known for its softness, and Jack thought it was obvious they had passed some point of no return. Maybe they'd done it more than once at this point.

He let her hand slip out until he was holding the tops of her fingers. "But I can make sure you come out safe."

Her fingers were squeezed as his tone turned sterner. "You have to meet me halfway here. I told you when you called me in the desert: you have to give a s**t about yourself, Chelsea Craft. I'll even take a dried up piece of dogshit."

More of her rant had slowly begun to sink in.

Jack gave a small, rough sigh, the kind he always made right before he explained something that he thought was obvious to everyone, as he had before pointing Chel towards a beneficial relationship with her Halloween friends and as he had before he told Ian that he and Shiloh were made for each other. The action was so unconscious and natural that in spite of the mood of the conversation, he almost smiles a little; the scenario was familiar by now.

"Plenty of reasons," he replied with a tiny scoff. "For one, you have to redeem your cousin. Axten couldn't even break twenty shadowlings in five rounds for our bet; I had to buy him drinks--with his money--to let him forget the shame. For another, I still haven't seen the other Lord of the Rings movies, or The Hobbit, or, s**t, I'll even watch Mean Girls with you if it's so good--but I need someone who doesn't mind explaining the stupid s**t like elf witches and Sean Bean always dying and who also doesn't mind that I talk excessively through it all and hate things arbitrarily. You also have decent cooking skills, but that's just my opinion."

And they knew how much weight his opinion held.

"Mostly, though," he felt the squeeze and repeated the action (you can do better than that), "you need to live because there's no point in dying." The words felt limp, but he didn't know how else to put it. Not without more careful examination of whatever was going on in his head, not without more time.