It was never really my intention to tempt fate. Honestly. But it's just that sometimes I do rash things when I feel cornered.

Heh. Wait, wait. Let me start over.

Of course, I meant to tempt fate. I just thought it would only be me who would be risking anything.

I had spent two days trying to explain to Jack about this idea I had about setting things right between us. How it seemed to me that if I could get a handle on my past, then I could figure out how to be someone who deserved him in my present.

Does that make no sense, Diary? Can you hear me sighing across the space of these words?

It was something Maximus said to me in an IM after I revealed these transgressions against the group of men I was involved with and against Pat. Max and I had this long, wonderfully esoteric talk. During the course of that, we talked about what happens if we make a wrong decision that seems to affect our fate in ways we could never have foretold.

Maximus: You think that your life is in your hands and your decisions make it so. I believe that my life is like a leaf blowing in an autumn gale and the place it falls depends upon the whim of the wind. All I can do is live with what I have, within my limited moral scope.

Ann: Doesn't that seem bleak to you?

Maximus: Bleak? It is the way of my world. But there was a comfort in it. We cannot blame ourselves for everything that goes wrong.

Ann: You're an awful lot like Jack in that regard.

Maximus: You want to know what happens if we make a wrong decision? Things change forever, but the change may bring with it an outcome that we mere mortals never envisaged. Thus wrong may become right.

Making the wrong become right. God. The things that made me think about. There is so much I would do differently. The wisdom that comes with years of distance, eh, Diary? Aren't we all the same way?

Not Jack, though.

I love him so. I just don't always get him.

He had been on this new campaign ever since ... well, since he could feel me trying to draw away. I was trying to protect him from me but I was always too devastated at the thought of facing life without Jack's love. It just seemed to make Jack more determined.

What's happened to me?

"Perhaps, my little dear, perhaps you would not have sought this man Pat out if ... well, I shall say it plainly. All women seek a certain, shall I say, assurance from a man whom they love that there is a mutual goal between them," Jack told me, his face getting this sweet look.

I felt so gushy with him just then. I didn't have a real clue as to what he meant but he was just so damned earnest. And he was so different from any man I ever knew. He'd turned from the cold fury of a few days ago over what I'd done in having an affair with the Pat of this world ... and he'd begun dropping these hints that he wanted to set things right with me.

Amends. I was making amends. Jack hadn't made it easy on me at first. Why should he? Unhappy and uncertain what this affair meant between us, Jack had brooded. Is it strange that somehow I found it comforting that he'd take it so hard? I was miserable, trying not to intrude on the time he needed to figure out how to forgive me. But somehow I never doubted that we would find a way to work it out. I was just not going to give up. Diary, can you believe this is me with that kind of faith?

Should it surprise anyone to know that Jack and I would find a most unusual way?

So here he was ... resolutely trying to tell me something serious when all I really wanted to do was make amends in the last way I could think of ... it was always in the physical between us that seemed to be most effective.

"Mutual goals, beloved?" I whispered to him and snuggled in atop his lap. My mouth was on his neck and my hands were under his shirt. "My only goal is to love you. No one but you, Jack. A new promise."

"Ah. Yes," his voice getting all husky as he shifted with me and I slowly kneaded whatever skin I could touch. "That is just the thing, amorata. Indeed."

I giggled against him as I felt his response under me. Then shifted until I could rock against his unmistakable hardness. "And this, Jack? Does this earn me a new goal?"

He took in this deep breath and then blew it out between his lips. Cleared his throat and then gave me a not-totally-heartfelt "now, now, my dear, let us just concentrate on the matter at hand."

And I'm thinking: great idea. Oh, yeah. Well, I guess you know what I was trying to get in my hand, eh, Diary?

Jack finally grabbed both my hands and held them firm in his. "We were speaking of mutual goals, Ann. Let us continue with that discussion."

In his eyes ... a strong light. In his voice ... no argument brooked.

Damn. He always made me wetter with his Captain Aubrey imperial sternness. 

"What I am saying, amorata, is that it has become obvious to me that you desire from me the same kind of commitment the other women have demanded from their Number Ones. It has not failed my notice that though you may appear to want independence, you are after all a woman. And as such, you want the man who loves you to step to the fore and do his duty by you."

Even in a sex-haze, these were words that snapped me to attention. I blinked twice and pulled a hand from his to place it firmly over his mouth. "Jack Aubrey, don't even ..."

His eyes focused sharp on me and he dragged my hand down so he could talk. "It is quite right, my little dear. Of course you saw this clearly back in your other world where marriage is entirely possible and entirely the goal of any true love between a man and woman. I have been a vile excuse of a man to not have insisted ..."

"Jack. Stop. Please. We've talked about this ... I don't want to fight with you about this again ... We don't either of us ever want to seriously talk about ..."

"Marriage. Just the thing, my dear. We shall find the same measure as the other couples have done within our family and ..."

I hopped straight up off his lap and put my hands over my ears. "No! Jack. Stop. I am not listening to this. We don't want that! We are not the others. I don't want it. This had nothing to do with that. In fact, it had just the opposite to do with it."

"Nonsense, my dear." Rising up, patting me on the cheek and giving me this bright, all encompassing smile. "It had everything to do with it. It is why you have decided that it is only I to whom you will give romantic love now. You wish for something concrete between us to seal this."

I started pacing around in front of him all the while he just stood there, hands behind his back. Just regarding me with a sense of ... I would say calm, but that's not right. Almost like he was waiting out a temper tantrum I was throwing rather than really listening to me.

"Don't. Please, Jack. If you understood ... But I can't ... Just can't. I don't want to hurt you, Jack. Please. Let's drop this and never talk of it again. If you only knew about ... things I've ... you'd know this is the worst thing that you could ever feel about me. I'm not like the other women. I want freedom. I want independence. I will only make your life miserable. I will only destroy us if it's too safe, too ... possessive. I don't want to be tied down." Rambling on until finally in mid-ramble, I didn't know what else to do but to sigh and wrap my arms around his waist. "Please, Jack. I beg you."

Diary, have I mentioned before ... why yes, I do know I have. Jack and I had a rather ... um ... vocal disagreement on this issue of him coming clear out of the blue with this notion that what we had was in any way, shape or form like a marriage.

I knew it was just this influence of the others. You know how sometimes one tends to see everyone else in your group doing something or chasing for something and somehow you feel like you should want it, too? This was how it was for Jack, I think. Or thought. Or maybe still think. I don't know. But I do know one thing for sure -- before I ever returned, we talked about what the others were doing in this regard. And how I didn't want us to go in that direction. And Jack agreed with me. Most ardently, I might add.

Damn, it's the one thing I thought we'd been most clear on. That we maintained and grew our relationship as we defined, not as others did. That it was going to be a free and supportive sharing of all the gifts of this world's set up. I wouldn't have come back with him otherwise.

It has never felt like a marriage to me; it is the antithesis of marriage to me.

In that is where its power emanates, in my opinion.

It is a singular relationship we have with the other, Jack and I. Maintaining a personal independence while sustaining our united independence from the others in the Game ... free to explore and experience other relationships in the Game as we each see fit.

But if it was ever something that we felt was a marriage or anything approaching it? I would never have been able to play this Game. Call me blind or stubborn or subversive to the natural order -- I have been called worse. Much worse, in fact. But that's another story. I think.

There has never been a single relationship Jack has shared with a woman in our group that I didn't fail to find enchanting. I love him but more than that, he is a joy to find as a partner in this Game. There is something exciting to me to see the other women feel the impact of Jack's charms and strengths, and to witness the effect of their tender mercies on him.

I have never worried that the affections or love Jack gives to others in this Game ever subtracts from what he feels for me. Perhaps it is his forthrightness and his inability to really hide his emotions, but Jack has always made me secure in what we have. My only struggle with what we have remains understanding how I can deserve the love and devotion he gives me.

Well, let me admit ... I mean, right then and there we were struggling with other issues ... well, hell's bells, maybe it relates. This ... the affair ... so fresh, still raw for us both. I think we were both just trying to figure out how to rebuild the trust he'd felt in me.

To think that his reaction would be to assume that he'd somehow failed me? Would you even believe that, Diary? This reaction of his must have stemmed from that ... that gentlemanly way he has of shouldering responsibility for me, even when he shouldn't.

And in this time? God, we were so fragile with each other that we didn't even really bicker. He heard what I said and I saw hurt in his eyes ... and we both just seemed so uncertain with each other.

"I've been thinking about something, Jack," I whispered to him, changing the subject and doing it on purpose. "I've been doing a lot of thinking about the portal. About using it to try to undo this damage I did to Pat in my other world. Perhaps it would put things to rest for me, you know? Like I'd be in peace? If I could go back ... Would you help me?"

His eyes flashed to mine and I saw color rising in his face. "I will not allow you to leave this world," he pronounced. "I will not lose you. Not now. And not over this."

I smiled into his eyes; my hands on his chest felt his heart racing. "No, beloved. I am not leaving you. I just thought that maybe I should go back, face Pat and tell him the truth myself. I think he deserves it. I'm thinking that maybe that's why all this bad stuff's been happening. He's the one who was really damaged in all this and it was wrong of me to be blind to that."

"How like you, amorata," he finally told me. His eyes searched mine. "That you would want to ease another person's hurt."

"I don't know, Jack. This doesn't feel very noble. I mean, he's hurting because I did something bad to him. No, this is selfish -- it's as much to put my mind at ease as anything else."

"And how may I be of service to you in accomplishing this task, my dear? I stand ready to assist, never fear."

A kiss. Jack's kiss. Oh, damn, but this one was free and light. A gift to me.

"I'm going to go through my portal. I'm going to need you to be here to make sure I can get home. Not to worry, though. I have it figured out. But you'll be my failsafe. That way, nothing can go wrong because you can tell Isobel if I don't come back in a few hours and she can send you back to help me return. Shouldn't be necessary, but it will make me feel a bit more secure."

His hands played in my hair and he pulled me in against him for a light hug. "Perhaps I should accompany you, my dear."

"I'll be fine. I know just when to go back. The perfect time for me to have this conversation with him." Lord but I didn't need Jack to witness the way I'd felt about this other man. Not now. Not when he was still raw from the reality of finding out that I was capable of withholding so much from him. If he only knew. If you only knew, Diary.

"And when it is over? Do you believe you will be at peace again, amorata?"

"Yes, I do. I think whatever's happening in this world, that it's tied to that."

"Then let us lose not a moment," he said in that sweet and decisive voice.

In front of my computer, I braced for the return trip through the portal. I looked at Jack one last time, kneeling there beside me. And I wished I could have had a 'do over' in this world. If I had, I would have started over from the beginning with him and never have stumbled.

But wasn't it in the stumbling that I gained my experiences?

I had this flash of insight about experience and about how past mistakes make us who we are. An instant thought of Caleb flittered in my brain. The bastard. The lying, cheating, manipulative, conniving, evil, exploitive bastard. Because of him, one night changed so much for me. It was his fault but I was the one who did it. And then I flashed on another night. Months earlier. A phone call in that night destroyed my shell of a life.

Jack's hand on my face made me come back to reality.

"You had such a look of pain, amorata. I had never realized before that ..."

"Oh, Jack. I actually ... I know it will be hard to tell Pat the truth, but I was actually thinking of ..." He knew next to nothing about this part of my life. My marriage and its aftermath. He never pressed me on it. I loved that about him but sometimes lately I began to wonder if it wouldn't have been better for us both if he had insisted on knowing about this.

Because so much of who I am in terms of the ability to trust and the ability to love is tied inexorably to those experiences.

"I wish you could see how much I love you. I treasure what we have so much," I whispered.

He leaned in toward me. One hand behind my neck, dragging me into a kiss ...

I saw it happening in slow motion and yet couldn't react in time. As Jack moved into me, his other hand brushed the keyboard ... he was touching me at the same time he was accidentally pressing in the 'return' key ...

"No! Jack!" I got this jolt ... and my last thought of my other world had been of a phone call in the night. It's why we ended up back in my world on the wrong night. I had wanted to go to the night when Pat asked me ... but instead, we went back much further ...

Through the portal. Together instead of me alone. We both knew instantly what had happened. There is no mistaking a trip through the portal. The way it makes that rushing feeling and the disorientation at the end.

I blinked back to awareness and felt fear clutch my heart.

The phone was ringing.

Our old phone.

My old life.

For long moments, we just looked around the room. So familiar to me. So foreign to Jack. 

The phone kept ringing and I was determined not to pick it up but then I got scared because what if I didn't answer it and it changed my timeline while I was here? What then?

Even knowing what the voice on the other end would tell me, I still picked it up. And I heard it again. News that wasn't news so much as it was a thunderbolt of destruction. My mouth uttered the reply I'd heard play in my head over and over. I felt that numbness I remembered. Set the receiver back into the handle.

Looked at my fingers and waited for them to shake. When they did, Jack buried them inside his grip.

"Oh, God." I felt a light go out again.

"Where are we, Ann?"

"In Hell."

I knew to the minute how much time I had before Cal returned. I used it to tell Jack about parts of me I'd never thought I'd share.

"I can't live this again," I told Jack. "We have to go back before he comes."

Poor Jack. His abject desire to protect and save me from this pain was alternating with his absolute desire to seek revenge for me.

"The vile whoreson scrub. This pox-ridden dung heap that masquerades as a man. I shall thrump him within an inch of his life. I shall make him rue the day he ..."

"No, Jack. We have to leave. You can't interfere. It has to go as it did." I was holding onto his arm as he was pacing ... trying to get him to listen to me.

"Why? Why must it proceed unchallenged? Surely, my dear, you can see that if I were to teach this scoundrel a lesson for what he has done to you, then he would know for absolute certainty that a man may not go away unscathed when he has treated a lady with such ... I can assure you, Ann, that this Caleb is a coward. One confrontation with a man such as I would teach him invaluable lessons in proper ..." His hand on my face and I would have hated to be his enemy just then. "I could avenge your ..."

So tired. So in over my head. So defeated. Whispering to him and watching as he tried to really hear me. "No, Jack. We can't change my time. There's no telling what damage it might do. What if it changes everything in the future while I'm here with you? What if we never meet because of something we do? If I'm here in this world with you then it might ... Jesus, Jack. It could spell disaster for you."

I watched reality play across his face. Saw him give in to what had to be. Saw the control it took him. And then saw him realize this was the only way he could really protect me in the end. He reached out for me. "I think perhaps you are choosing the wisest course of action, Ann. But it cannot take away my distaste at being unable to restore your honor."

"I love you for that, Jack. I do." Sniffling at him and hugging into him for comfort. "Besides, what if we changed things and couldn't go back in the portal? I could never live through this again."

In just that moment, I saw the sweep of headlights and heard a familiar car engine as it came up the driveway. Taking Jack's hand, I punched in the address on the keyboard and we were gone back to the other world before Caleb rolled into that house.

There was a part of me, I told Jack later, that feels like I abandoned the 'me' back then. How well I knew the pain she was about to endure. How well I knew what else she would do.

But in that night, all I really cared about was that I was back in the relative safety of a world in which a man like Jack loved me. And cared about me. And made me feel safe despite all my best intentions to never allow myself to feel that way with any man.

For Jack, it was the chance to see a part of me that never saw the light of day. That raw, totally unmistakable child who only wanted to turn over the reins of her life to someone. This time, at least, when I turned over the reins of my life for a little while, it was to a man who wanted only the best for me and wanted to be an instrument to heal me rather than a man who would manipulate my basest fears.

Back in our world, Jack and I made peace that night. How could he not? It was almost unfair to him. How could he possibly remain angry or hurt with me in the face of learning so much about me? Maybe understanding me to a depth I didn't even understand myself.

Perhaps unfairest of all to Jack was that in that night, he had the chance to be the man he always wanted to be for me. My protector.

For a long time, he just held me. Sitting with me in the dark. On the couch and letting me cling to him and letting me just be totally silent. Some instinct in him told him to touch me at some point. I closed my eyes and willed him to be strong for me. Strong enough to take me with him wherever he chose to go. Strong enough so he'd never doubt that he didn't know just where to take me. Strong enough so he'd not to falter in the face of my trust in him.

Strong enough to remember that, no matter what, the physical between us was always the embodiment of the emotional.

He started with my fingers. This light kiss along the ridges and whirls of my fingertips. His mouth felt dry and warm to me. I kept my face buried in the top of his shoulder and just experienced this small, tactile sensation.

Next was the underside of my wrist. One hand was all I let him have of me; my other hand was wrapped around his neck and holding on to him.

A tough whisper in my ear. "I love you. Always."

I nodded into his shoulder and kissed the material of his shirt before my lips.

His fingers nudged my buttons open along the front of my shirt. I touched my lips to his neck's pulse point and felt the strong beat of his life's blood against me.

When he had my shirt open, I thought I'd feel his hand on my breasts but instead, it slipped soft and light against the side of my neck. His hand, so big that it wraps far around my neck ... and yet so delicate with me in such moments that I never feel it as a threat, but as a touch of safety.

"Look at me, amorata." His voice a magnet to me.

I peered up at him and let him bend me sideways so that he was cradling me in his arms. Giving me this soft smile and focusing on me with complete calm.

"It is my desire that you will never feel you should be shamed before me. What I know now ... do not think I take this as anything but proof that you are always the woman I love and admire. Are we clear in that intention, Ann?"

Nodding at him and reaching to stroke over his lips. With just the invitation of my fingers drawing on him there, I brought his lips down to mine. Our eyes stayed open and on each other during the entire kiss.

Tongues meeting, gentle exploration.

He held me and smoothed my hair back as he just seemed content to look at me. I felt almost drowsy with the release of the futility of remaining strong when I had Jack to rely upon in this night. I'd stopped fighting the good fight; he was fighting it for me. I'll fight again in the morning, I told myself.

His hand finally touched my skin. This light squeeze of my abdomen and then his thumb nudged against the underside of my breast.

"I want to be nude with you right now, Jack. I just want to be held and loved and ..."

It was so odd. We love undressing each other. I love discovering his skin. But somehow in this night, it was like I just wanted no artificial barriers between us. It wasn't even like it was about sex. We just stood up, stripped and then he let me sit back in his lap.

In his arms. Straddling his lap. A place I loved being for the way he held me. His hands so easy with me, so familiar, never rushing. Hands on my back. Arms around me.

Comfort.

Even the sex was more about comfort than passion or release.

It started so slow, with this almost hazy feeling of him entering me and me taking him inside me ... just this slight movement, rising up, falling down upon him. I felt every inch of him and I felt totally soft around him. We kept getting lost in our movements ... where we'd move and he'd pump up and I'd feel myself grinding lightly against him and then suddenly ... I'd find myself lost in his eyes and stroking his jaw and murmuring to him ... nonsense stuff and odd promises about nothing that really mattered ... And then we'd remember that we were making love and we'd move again only to get distracted in a kiss so deep and involved that it would take us away from where we were.

But there comes a time, eh, Diary? Always. With Jack, there is a time when the beast will not be kept at bay. There was a comfort in knowing the physicality would not be held back. I like this aspect of Jack and I -- that we get physical with each other even in our softest moments.

We were keeping a not-totally-even pace but then he just seemed to grown intent on me. He muttered a crude comment against my neck. I felt him bend me over away from him and his mouth attacked my breasts. I arched my back and reached between us to rub myself. He stopped to watch and it seemed to fire him to a core blaze. An insatiable rumbling growl and he was shoving magazines and knick-knacks off the coffee table before us and lifting me over into the space he cleared and ...

I knew I'd be bruised. I knew he was beyond that place he normally stays. I knew I needed something like this to happen. 

Coming to terms. Coming to peace between us. Coming to be what I needed.

"I would erase the memory of every other man with whom you have ever ..." grunting it out to me as he gripped the sides of the table and thrust up hard into me. "Tell me, amorata. Tell me now."

"Jack, oh God!" My mouth moved but no more words came out. He shook me slightly and then slammed inside and halted. A whisper of pure carnal wonder. "You know what I want ... Jack! ... I want you. Oh God ... Please ... I love you so."

His arms gathered me to him and he leaned over me ... and it wasn't exactly mindless rutting but it was close.

I lost track of his needs as he brought me blazing into a coming. It took so long for me to even think again and when I did, he was moving so soft and sweet within me, that little side-to-side movement he makes after he's come inside me in a way that takes him to his own edge. It always feels like such an unconscious act on his part, like he's just so enjoying where he is that he wishes he could climb up inside and stay there. But I shivered when I felt his semen trickling from me and sliding down over my bare skin.

His mouth left my breasts and searched up my throat until it found my lips. Soft, time-standing-still kisses. Sweet words in my ear as he sucked in my lobe. Nodding against him and hugging him so hard as his voice caused an aftershock to shiver through me.

It wasn't until the next day that I went back in my portal to the right time period. To see Pat. Another chance that I gave myself to do the right thing. To tell him ... as he was about to talk of marriage and permanence and love to last forever ... to tell him before he was unable to reclaim the words.

To tell him that his belief wasn't ever going to be enough.

To tell him that while I felt loving toward him, that I had met him in a time when another man already had claim to my heart. That I hadn't meant to mislead him, but in that troubled time, he had been a balm to my heart. That I was sorry I used him.

His face. In that one moment, Pat was so unable to cover up the way it hurt to hear that.

In the course of 24 hours, I'd gone back through my portal twice. Both times, I came face to face with pain. My old self and Pat. I left them both behind to deal with their own pain. I hadn't really helped either of them. I'd only helped myself assuage some guilt and lingering curiosity.

In the end, what good had I done them?

Diary, what good is knowing someone's future when you know it holds bad things? God, but I so wish I could have helped them both. They both deserved so very much more from me than I gave them.

In the end, I failed them both.

Why couldn't it have been different?