Andrea gets his brother & things together to bring to Debbie's place, and Jackie manages to convince Debbie that she's okay by herself & send her off to her own place. She gets Debbie's phone number, and Andrea promises to come by tomorrow for her workout, which she's skipped for two days in a row now. It seems so stupid to keep to such a schedule when your world has come apart, but it's those little things that help tie it back together again. And then Jackie is finally alone, and the loneliness is hideous & painful. Everything Jackie feels can only be expressed one way, through music, the screams, groans & wails of pain she been holding inside since last night have their proper place in rock songs, and Jackie spends several days holed up in her studio, songs coming out of her in a furious rush. Her only contact is with her daughter & Andrea, who comes over every day for their workout & to play with his niece. Nico is obediently staying in the background, waiting for some word from Jackie. Jackie still doesn't know what to say, if she saw him, she thinks she'd just explode at him in rage, tear him apart. She's nowhere near ready for rational decision making.

One morning, Andrea hands her a folded piece of paper, "It's from Nico," he says with apologetic hesitance, "I won't pass letters from him if you prefer not...but he really wanted me to give this to you..." The paper is soft & worn, and Jackie knows as soon as she touches it what it is, not a letter...when she opens she reads the music, notes he's written & worked on, erased & rewritten, erasure marks & coffee stains everywhere. Jackie reads the music & it's just like in the movies, when the letter writer does a voice over while the recipient reads on camera...she hears Nico's guitar, not just any guitar, but Nico's, she sees his hands even, his beautiful hands, she's watched them play so often, she can see what they look like playing every note as she reads them. The songs Jackie has been writing are dark, fast and angry, and coming at a furious pace: Nico works differently, she knows, this is his one song he's been poring over these past days, a mournful ballad that tells her of his regret & his love, without any lyrics at all, he never writes lyrics. That's Jackie's job. Nico's tune stays in her head all day, through her workout, and she even hums it while feeding Trill. When she goes down to the studio to work on her own songs, it's Nico's song still going through her head. So she sits down with his music, plays the tune in her head without trying to drive it out & think of something else.

The lyrics come quickly once she sits down to think about them. Her own songs have been about her anger, her feelings of betrayal, but at night when she can't sleep in her empty bed, it's not rage that keeps her awake, just loneliness, just the emptiness of not having Nico there with her. She's stopped even trying to sleep at night, and spends the dark hours staring out at the Pacific.

This place used to be her place, somewhere along the way it became their place. Now that he's not in it, the place still isn't just hers...it's like his ghosts lingers, there's no place she can go that doesn't trigger a memory of being very very happy here with him. The lyrics she writes for Nico's tune carry no anger or bitterness at all, just that emptiness & the longing to be filled. Matt calls then, and asks if the jam is still on tomorrow. Of course he knows nothing about what is going on here, and pretty much expects the scheduled jam to be as scheduled. Jackie tells him they've been working on new songs & that the jam is definitely on, and then hangs up wondering why. Well, she didn't want to tell Matt what's going on, she's still not dealing with it herself & isn't ready to start telling people who didn't already know. And she is really keen to work up the new songs with her band. As much as they've been a personal catharsis of every painful emotion she's felt in the past few days, she knows in her musician's heart that as private as it is, she's going to work it up with her band & put it out there for public consumption. It's what she does....but 'with her band' includes Nico. Even as she's writing songs about how much she'd like to grind him into the sand beneath her boots, it's him she's hearing playing the guitar, she can't imagine playing them with anyone else. Jackie drags the phone into her studio & queues up the tracks she's been working on, just her doing some pretty sloppy guitar work while she sings her heart & guts right out onto the floor. Her songs are numerous but far from being at the level of polish Nico is reaching with his one tune. She sets the phone up near the speaker, and with her throat gone dry she dials Debbie number & asks to talk to Nico. "Jackie," he says her name with a breathless whisper, and she almost wishes she hadn't called. "I've been writing songs," she says quickly, cutting off any further speech from him, "Do you want to hear?" she asks & doesn't wait for his answer. She hits play & puts the mouthpiece by the speaker, & sits through three scorching songs that scream her fury at him. After the third song drops into silence, Jackie stops the tape & put the phone to her ear, wondering if he actually sat through it, or if he hung up. The line is quiet, but she can hear him breathing. "Well?" she asks quietly, wondering what she expects him to say anyway. He doesn't say anything, he replies with his guitar, which must have been on his lap when he was handed the phone. She can barely hear it, he isn't plugged in & the strings slap flatly against the wood, but he's playing her songs back to her & even unplugged he's a far better guitarist than she'll ever be. She set up the basic rhythm of the song, he's giving it a soul. "Can't you plug in?" she asks, needing to really hear it. "No, they don't let me plug in after 7," Nico answers, his voice very small. "God, that sucks!" Jackie's gut reaction comes unsupressed. Of all the horrible things she fantasized about doing to him in the past few hours, she wouldn't dream of putting any musician in that kind of hell. "Do you want to jam, Nico?" she asks before she can stop herself...she wants to play with him so bad she aches with the longing, but she dreads facing him. She'd like to kill him, but she doesn't think she could resist him, either. "I'll be right there," Nico answers quickly. "Wait, Nico," Jackie stops him from hanging up & rushing over, "Yeah?" he asks, his voice tightening with nervousness. "Nico, we're just going to play. I don't want to talk, okay?" Nico agrees, and tells her again he'll be right there. Debbie lives in Hermosa Beach: Nico will be here in less than an hour, Jackie calculates as she hangs up, shaking.

When Nico shows up, Jackie turns straight towards the studio, meaning to keep this all business. "Is it okay if I see Trill?" he asks, his voice so crushed, Jackie's heart rips in her chest, "Yes, of course," she answers, not turning toward him, continuing into the studio while he heads upstairs. Alone for the moment she tries to pull herself together before he comes down. He makes it easier for her by not looking up at her when he does come in, he just quietly sets up, tunes his guitar & asks what she wants to start with. Feeling a little self-conscious at the moment, Jackie chooses the least violent of the songs that have come out of her since...that day. The last time she saw him, until today...They've made a deal not to talk about it, but that is all Jackie's songs are about. She screams it at him, and his only comments throughout are musical. They work up the song as though it were about anything else but themselves. Her confidence bolstered, Jackie moves on to the more vicious songs, where her rage comes out shrieking, blinding, dark. Nicolas doesn't flinch back from any of it, his guitar matches her voice in fury, he takes her anger & feeds it through his instrument. In their short time together in the band, they'd developed an easy working relationship, turning their work over to each other, always open to the other's input, with real appreciation for each other's talents, and a desire to play to each other's strengths. As long as she doesn't have to actually look at him, it seems to still be working.

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