They spend hours together like that, working through her songs, all they need is their drummer..."This is some pretty powerful stuff, Jackie," Nico comments as they wrap up the third song. "I've got another, a bunch of others, actually," Jackie says, rambling, exhausted from days without sleep, "Some of them maybe start getting repetitive, but this one, I think maybe we should record...." she trails off hesitantly. Of all the songs she written, ever, it's the rawest & blackest....and it's open & direct in it's condemnation of the man that betrayed her. "Play it, Jackie," Nicolas says. Clearly, he's as exhausted & sleepless as she, he runs his hands tiredly through his hair, then he wraps his fingers around the neck of his guitar, ready to come in once he gets where she's going. Jackie plays the bass line for him, heavy & dark, and Nicolas picks up the tune quickly, and when he's playing the rhythm, she starts to sing. From the first word the song is nothing but raw emotion, her lyrics would sound vague & obscure to anyone who wasn't in her dining room the night Nico was made to confess his affair to her...to Nico himself they can only be all too clear. The song moves through several changes, in the middle a small quiet space, just her bass, some feedback from his guitar, she groans hoarsly into the mike & signals for him to pick it back up. Nico's guitar crashes through the quiet, and she hurls everything she has at him with spitting venom, a storm of invective screamed & groaned in her darkest rasp. Nicolas actually staggers at some of the harsher condemnations, his knees buckle & waver, but he keeps on, keeping up with her, until her song is over. "Was it too much?" Jackie asks quietly, suddenly pitying him, for withstanding such an onslaught. "Jackie, you were right, it's a great song, it needs to be recorded. Just like that, don't pull any punches," Nicolas answers, looking toward the drums, away from her. "That's not what I meant," she sighs. "Are you asking me to talk?" he asks quietly, waits for a reply that doesn't come. Jackie doesn't even know right this moment, what she wants from him. So he continues, "No, it's not too much, Jackie. I deserve all of that. And more...I deserve to have my brother beat the shit out of me..and worse. Believe me, I know exactly how low I am, and I'd rather hear it from you than Andrea." Jackie listens, and still has no reply.

She wanted to avoid this, talking, and she definitely fears it...but at the same time...there are so many things that nag at her, keep her up at night, things that will have to come out if she's going to have any kind of life, "I just want to know why, Nico," she says finally in a hoarse sigh. Nicolas puts down his guitar & comes up dangerously close to her, "Jackie, listen, this is absolutely the most important thing I can say to you about this: there is no 'why' about any of it. She came after me & I was just weak. My life was perfect, I love you now like I loved you before & like I will love you for my whole life. There was no reason for what I did, and the whole time, evey step through I knew it was wrong, I knew it would hurt you & it would cause me to lose you, it was killing me inside, but it just didn't stop me. I gave in to the lowest kind of self-indulgence, because I couldn't stop myself. I know you don't want to hear me tell you I'm sorry, but I am...I wanted to make you happy & I've made you miserable instead. Andrea tells me every day after he comes here, how torn up you are, and it just kills me Jackie, I did that to you. I can't sleep at all, I think about you all the time, how I've hurt you, ruined our happiness, I'd do anything to change it, make it up to you, but it's just not possible..." Jackie cringes to hear about Andrea's daily reports: she had hoped she was holding herself together okay, but her eyes are red from crying all the time, she hasn't slept properly in days & probably looks like complete shit, she thinks with a sigh. And he's right, she didn't want the apology, it doesn't help at all, just hearing the weight of regret in his voice breaks her heart. How can she still love him after what he did to her? Maybe that's her own weakness, Jackie thinks. "I wrote some lyrics for your song," she says quietly, retreating from the directness of discussion. Nico nods, understanding, they're back to the 'no talk' deal. He plays his song, just as she heard it when she read the music he sent her, and she sings the lyrics to him. Days worth of loneliness & despair make her hoarse voice trill & break in odd places, Nicolas is brought to tears, but plays on...this is the one emotion both have shared during this separation, missing each other, unable to sleep alone. When the song is finished, Nicolas looks ate her & touches his heart, "Bellissima," he sighs. Jackie's arms ache to come around him, her head longs to rest against his chest, her soul longs for the peace of being in his arms....

"How can I ever trust you again, Nico?" she asks, her voice breaking as her eyes start to water, leaning on him now for support. "Jacklyn, I've betrayed you & broken every promise I've ever made you: it would be useless for me to promise you anything now. You have no reason to trust me, and every reason to hate me. I can live with that, it's living with myself right now that's causing me problems. I've ruined myself forever for you, for my brother, but I have a daughter...and I'm not going to have her grow up hating me the way my brother hates our father, the way you hate yours. We had something really beautiful, Jackie, and we were truly happy: I betrayed that & I don't deserve to have it back, you do deserve it Jackie, with anyone who can give it to you. I'd spend the rest of my life trying to give it back to you, but I don't dare ask your forgiveness. All I have is our daughter, and whatever happens between you & I, we aren't going to give her cause to hate us," Nicolas says with grim sincerity. Jackie remembers suddenly, one night in their bedroom, early in her pregnancy, Nicolas telling her they were a family now, forever, whether she married him or not, because they have a child. 'Family' never meant anything nice to Jackie before Nico...family was what she was running from...because families always end up like this she thinks, and the tears well up out of her, sobs heaving up against her chest, "I'm just so fucking tired," she cries, "I can't think, I don't know what to do."

Nicolas knows what to do, "Jacklyn, angel," he whispers as he embraces her, "Stop thinking about it for awhile. You don't need to do anything right now, it's the middle of the night. Maybe you should get some sleep..." That just makes her start crying harder, the last thing she wanted was to make him go. She'll stay up all night & continue this jam for days just to keep him here... "I can't sleep," she sobs, her head buried against his chest. Nicolas lifts her up & carries her to their bed, and curls up next to her, arms wrapped around her breasts, face buried in her hair, whispering gentle, soothing nothings until she stops crying & they fall asleep & really sleep, for the first time in days.

NEXT

Director's Commentary: This isn't a part of my process that I usually discuss, but as an audiophile in 'real life' the music I'm playing while I write these stories often help me set up the emotional resonance of my story. Many of my characters have kind of 'leit motifs', lol, songs or even whole CDs I play while writing them. Sometimes, buying a new CD will spur me on to writing for a particular character, just because the songs will remind me of them. Jackie & Nico are the characters for whom I have the most direct musical relationship, for the obvious reason. While I've been writing these later scenes I have been immersing myself in 2 particular CDs that have come out fairly recently. I'm not a song-writer myself, so when I'm trying to describe the songs being written by my characters, I'm actually describing collages of songs that I'm listening to...I'm not trying to make Jackie or Nico the writer's of other people's songs, lol, especially as I really respect the people who have written the songs I've been listening to so much these days...but the songs I'm imagining them writing would have a similar style & emotional resonance. So, for anyone interested in the 'soundtrack' of this section, I'm listening to 'Golden Ocean' by 50 Foot Wave...www.throwingmusic.com (especially the songs Pneuma, Bone China, Petal & Dog Days, if you want to get down to particulars, lol) and to 'Uh Huh Her' by PJ Harvey... www.pjharvey.net (especially Mr. Badmouth, Shame, The Desperate Kingdom of Love, The Darker Days of Me & Him )