[for dale]

It had been a year. Jack was keenly aware of the date as it approached and if anything, he'd been even more outgoing, more cheerful, and more flirtatious. Until Saturday morning. Saturday he became quiet, almost sullen, and he told House he was going for a walk. His walk took him onto the smaller mountain, away from everyone. He just needed to be alone.

A year ago was when everything changed.

He sat in silence all day, just thinking, and when he returned to the hut, he sat on the porch with Padfoot's head on his knee, quietly petting him. He didn't sleep, although he'd told Greg he'd be to bed soon. Instead, he stayed up until the sun brightened the eastern sky and then he got up and started to walk. He needed to do something for himself. He needed to try.

He made it to the path where he'd encountered Faramir, but as he approached the caves his steps grew heavier, slower. If he hadn't followed...if he hadn't been so willing to be in the man's bed...if he hadn't...

If he had fought harder, if he had kept his wits, if he had only...

If he looked, he could still see the faintly lighter skin around his wrists where the burn scars didn't tan quite as dark. If he thought, he could still taste the rum and the smoke and the filthy rag in his mouth. If he thought, if he could just stop thinking, he'd gone a year without really thinking about it at all.

He was at the mouth of the cave when he turned around and his steps became lighter, faster, until he was running and running and he didn't stop until he was on a familiar porch of a familiar hut. A place that had been safe for so long after...A place where, when he woke screaming, it was Dale beside him and no one else.

It had been a year. A year to the day, and with the sun barely over the horizon, Jack rasied a trmbling hand and knocked.