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It was five tries before Jack realized his key was not just getting stuck, and that Kayden had changed the locks.

Good for her, he thought, because he was probably one of the last people in the world that anybody should have been giving extra keys to. Not quite the last, because Jack was still pretty sure there were worse men than Proustite out there - if only a few.

He stood back in the hall with the little metal key in his hand. Stared at the fake-gold number plater on her door.

This was an obstacle he hadn't expected. How long had he been gone? Proustite didn't have the faintest idea.

It would have been simple enough to get in through the balcony door. Kayden's apartment was high enough up that he knew she didn't bother to lock it - and even then, if somebody really wanted to get inside, there wasn't much a locked glass door could do to prevent that.

Jack deliberated, chewed on the inside of his cheek, and then left the hall.

Two hours later Jack turned the corner of the hall that led to Kayden's apartment - a brand new XBOX tucked under one arm, whistling 'Do you want to build a snowman?'. He knocked on the door.

Tempting as it had been to go through the balcony, Jack had not felt right about that in the end. He knew that he was no good for Kayden. Was even proud of her for changing the locks on him. Not that that was enough to actually keep him away, once he'd decided to come back.

In Kayden's home, Jack had found a warm bed and a cuddle-buddy - among other things. More important than even that was having a space where this ******** up war and the Negaverse didn't exist. At least - in a manner of speaking. He knew that there was nowhere on earth Metallia couldn't reach him, of course, but it was nice to pretend. Just for a while.

He waited. Wondered if maybe Kayden wasn't home.

Knocked again.

For a split second, he thought she must have moved and it was somebody else opening the door because the last time he'd seen Kayden she'd put on more weight than the waif in front of him carried now. She drank less. Started buying things to make her apartment more of a home.

But then she closed the door on his face, and he realized it was her.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

He pushed the door open, stepped inside, deposited his XBOX on the kitchen island, and started digging in his coat pocket for a pack of cigarettes because he needed a goddamned smoke.

"I thought you were done with this s**t," he drawled, finding his cigarettes, flipping one unlit into his mouth. He clamped it between his lips. Went straight for the liquor cabinet, grabbed the first bottle in sight and started pouring it down the sink.

Jack had a lighter half-way to the cigarette in his mouth when Kayden's hands connected with his shoulders. Kayden was about half his size and body-weight -especially now that he had started to fill out again- and did not actually manage to do anything but surprise him. He scowled in the wake of her shove and dropped the whiskey bottle in the sink.

'You’ve been gone for months. You have no right to tell me anything. So get the hell out of my house. And don’t you dare come back here again.

He had never seen her so pissed before. Supposed on a level that he was deserving of this. Weighed the pros and cons of apologizing, though he felt no real shame or guilt. The truth was that being in the Rift so long had disrupted his ability to keep track of time - sometimes he went days without sleeping.

Jack didn't feel like he owed Kayden anything.

Sure, he'd stayed at her apartment for awhile, but that had always been on mutual terms, and she'd gotten as much -if not more- out of his living there as he had. He had never known a more co-dependent lover.

"Out!"

Jack stared at Kayden long and hard - and then shrugged, eyebrows flickering into his hairline as if to say, okay, no problem. He collected his XBOX off the counter, tucked it under his arm, and left. Did not bother to close the door.

Jack's whole body clenched up when the whiskey bottle went sailing over his head and shattered against the wall. He stopped with his neck turtled into his shoulders.

'Seriously? You were gone and you can’t even say that you missed me…or that you were happy to be home?'

He did not need to look at Kayden to know that she was crying. Her voice was strained - as if her throat was trying to close on itself.

A door opened at the end of the hall at the same moment she sobbed, and a head poked out.

"Nothing to see here, Mrs. Semenov," Jack waved the woman off, turning to usher Kayden back into her apartment with an arm around her waist.

Generally speaking - Jack liked being at the center of attention. It seldom mattered the reason.

But this was something else.

It wasn't that he thought Mrs. Semenov should mind her own business as much as he wanted Kayden's drama all for himself. He returned the XBOX to the kitchen island and fished a (clean) handkerchief out of his jacket's inside pockets.

He offered it to Kayden.

"You're drunk," he said, because he wasn't sure that he had missed her, or that this was home. Couldn't really remember the last time he'd had one.

Something happened to Jack when Kayden tried to blow a hole through his handkerchief. He knew, of course, that she was being gross on purpose. Trying to wreck something that belonged to him just because it belonged to him.

It didn't make sense but his heart fluttered anyway.

Jack sighed.

"You shouldn't miss me, Kay. I'm an a*****e."

He swiped the screen saver off his phone, pressed the number for his favourite nearby pizza parlour.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days - yes, hello, I'd like to order an extra-large pepperoni pizza. Pepsi'd be great. What's the total?"

Occasionally Jack paid for food. He looked Kayden up and down. Worked to keep his expression serious because she was still obviously upset with him.

'Don't bother coming back, Jack. I won't want you.'

"Mmmm," Jack found Kayden's hands around his waist, smoothed his palms over the back of them. His mouth still tasted like the mint toothpaste he'd used before coming to see her. "I noticed you changed the locks."

But he still stood in the middle of her apartment now. In Kayden's arms. And they were waiting on pizza to arrive. It would be at least forty minutes.

Jack glanced at their bedroom door. Wondered what starting from scratch meant, exactly.

"I should have kept in touch," he said, "I'm sorry."