Always

To Jack's amazement, he managed to find a window, after scaling the walls in the dark for what must've been a few hours, but he had nothing to use to smash it, other than his own fist, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Jack ended up with a shard of glass in his hand, and multiple other cuts, particularly around his knuckles.

After eventually breaking the window, he pulled himself up, well done Jack- just shove more broken glass into your various limbs. But he was out. And it was dark, and his phone was not in his pocket.

He walked continously towards what he thought was s street light until the sun started to rise, and it turned out there was not a streetlight, just this thing called the moon. But he discovered he was near a city centre, and from there, he had decided, he would fly to Baltimore, and stay with Alex's family once again. He'd not tell them about Alex going missing... no... they'd worry too much. He'd think of an idea soon enough.

When he reached the city centre, he realized that he was in Ohio, conveniently, on the way to Baltimore. With his arms covered in dried blood, and in general being pretty fucking dirty, he got a few weird stares, but decided that following the signs towards the hospital would be a good idea, given that he was seriously starting to go dizzy from the amount of blood he'd surely lost from the glass wedged into his hand..

"Oh my God, sir what happened?!" a nurse came rushing towards me, the hospital wasn't particularly busy, and honestly, Jack was starting to question why he seemed to be spending the majority of his time in a hospital. Maybe he was a secret masochist.. Who knows.

"I had to break my car window, I locked the keys inside." Jack lied smoothly. "Didn't go too well." He reflected. He was then lead off to a room where he was given morphine to dull the pain, and his arm was totally numbed, in order for the doctor to remove the glass. He had to have three stitches more or less in the centre of his palm, and he got his knuckles taped, and finally one big bandage around the whole hand-wrist area. He was allowed out approximately three hours after he'd originally walked through the doors, and he asked them to order him a taxi.

Alex was having trouble sleeping, and he thought about a lot of things. He thought about Jack, and how much he missed him. He thought about relationships, and how he'd had to hide from the one he wanted to last forever. He thought about Andy and Alan, who were clearly a little more than friends, it was clear in the way they clung to one another in their deep slumber. Alex assumed that was probably one of the life choices they had referred to earlier, that neither of their parents approved of, and that saddened Alex, because they were really nice guys, and liking one gender as opposed to another doesn't make you any less of a decent person.

Jack's taxi pulled up outside the Gaskarth Fuentes household, and Jack realized that he did not have the sort of cash on him to pay the driver, so he knocked on the door, praying someone was in, and Tom answered the door.

"Hey Tom, is your mum in?"

"Nope. But dad is. I'll get him." and Tom ran off back inside to get Vincent, and Jack motioned to the cab driver that he'd only be one moment.

"Jack! What a surprise to see you here! Is everything alright?"

"Uhm yeah, everything's fine, but I kinda need to stay here a while, and also can I borrow some money for this cab, I've lost my wallet, but I'll pay you back once I can get to a cash point. Please?" Jack pleaded, he hadn't really considered the possible outcome that they might refuse his request, but fortunately they didn't, Vincent gave him a worried look, but headed over to the taxi, pulling out his wallet as he walked.

A few nights later, Vic and Mike were out at a sleepover, and Alex's mum and stepdad had a movie night planned, but despite all the available rooms, Jack slept in with Tom in his room, wishing that he was as young as Tom was, without half the stress he was under now. He didn't sleep though, just lay there, listening to Tom's regular breaths, and thinking how there was something about him, that reminded him so much of Alex.

At what must've been 5am the next morning, Jack heard it. He heard the door being broken down, and fuck, he knew who it was. There was a scream, and a 'WHERE'S YOUR FAGGOT SON?', and a lack of time to answer, before a gunshot shook the whole house.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY WIFE??!!" Vincent yelled, so it must've been Alex's mum who's body was penetrated by the shot.

"Shit shit shit. Tom we have to get out of here. Wake up, don't say a fucking thing." Tom didn't fully wake up, which is probably a good thing, because no doubt the kid would've started crying. They were one floor up, and looking out the window Jack really didn't think they'd make it, but he could hear footsteps and he just had to try to get them out alive, so he did it, he jumped, Tom in his arms- it was fortunate that Tom had not quite had his growth spurt yet. The moment they jumped, another gunshot went off. That must've been Vincent.They hit the ground with a thud, and fuck it hurt, but Jack figured it could have been worse, for example, if he had landed on pretty much any other body part than his ass, he'd definitely need to go to hospital, but he did land on his ass, and so while it hurt, nothing was broken. He crawled into the shadow of the house, dragging Tom with him, pulling him into his chest.

"What's the point in running? You'll just never know if we've killed your lover or not. Can you live with that uncertainty??" Oli called out from Tom's bedroom window, but nevertheless Oli, Josh and the two gunmen (murderers) headed downstairs and then out the front door, as if everything was totally normal. Jack could have sworn he heard Oli whistling. Mentalist.

"Jack? What's happening?" Tom looked to Jack with a worried expression, biting his lip already. Jack didnt know what to say. He knew what it was like to lose parents, and he didn't want to be the one to bring that upon Tom.

"..Come on. We need to get going. Text Vic and Mike, say Jack says to meet us at.. I don't know.. the youth hostel downtown, as soon as possible."