"No."

Jack backed away from Donovan, her shoulders shuddering with emotion. He couldn't leave. Not after everything they'd done, everything they'd given up, everyone who'd been lost. Even his words made her stomach revolt. She pressed a hand to her abdomen and swallowed back bile.

"Jack," Donovan said, taking a weary step towards her with an outstretched hand.

"No!" Jack cried, loud enough to draw the attention of Dr. Benjamin, Hannah, and Julius. "No, don't touch me. Don't...don't. Just don't."

"I don't want to leave, Jack," Donovan said, and she saw tears welling in his bottomless eyes. "You know that."

"But you're going to anyways?" Jack demanded, her eyes mirroring his. "You're going to leave after everything we've done for you and pretend like none of this ever happened?"
She wasn't sure whether she was talking about the feud with the Slates or about the growing feelings between the two of them. Either way, he couldn't leave. She would hog tie him and lock him in her outhouse if that's what it took to keep him in Irvington.

"Don't you dare," a voice interrupted them and they turned to find Hannah staring at them by Titus's body, her hair in a halo around her pale, spectral face. She glared at both of them. "Don't you dare pretend none of this happened," she seethed between her gritted teeth, her hands in tight fists while tears welled in her eyes. "Don't let his...his sacrifice go unavenged."

Neither Jack or Donovan knew what to say and Hannah turned away before Jack could summon any words. "See?" Jack hissed at Donovan. "Even Hannah knows that there has to be a purpose behind all of this."

"Jack, it's not that simple, and you know it," Donovan said. He took another faltering step towards her and then collapsed to the ground, his legs giving way.

For a moment, Jack forgot their argument and rushed to his side, kneeling in the dirt next to him. She swept the dark hair from his eyes and cradled his cheek for a moment as her eyes scoured his body for the source of the wound. A rip in his pants just above his right knee revealed congealed, clotted blood from a long knife wound.

"Kitchi, what happened?" Jack asked, examining the wound.

He winced at her probing fingers, leaning his head back and drawing his eyebrows together. "Clyde Slate was...was trying to convince me to sign over the deed. His methods were particularly vicious."
All of Jack's ire and guilt faded at the palpable need before her; no amount of anger or grief could keep her from caring for him. "I'll get some bandages," Jack said.

She clambered to her feet, her body weak from the drained adrenaline and loss of the day. Dr. Benjamin's bag lay forgotten beside Titus's body as he and Hannah gave Titus's body the last rites, cleaning the blood from his clothing and closing his eyelids with their thumbs. They then lifted up the body and started to carry it towards the automobile. Jack said nothing. What could she possibly say to alleviate their pain? Nothing. So she grasped a few bandages from Dr. Benjamin's bag, a needle and thread, and a handful of Aspirin, rushing back to Donovan's side.

He laid back in the trampled grass on his elbows and Jack took in the exhaustion in his features. He had been beaten, abused, and tortured and Jack had ignored him in her desire for revenge. For a brief moment, she understood why he wanted to give up. Was justice really worth all of this pain and death? Jack thought of the Great War raging in Europe and realized that this question went beyond the feud with the Slates. Were the deaths of thousands of soldiers too weighty a price for justice and freedom? She wanted to believe they were, but staring that loss in the face conjured doubt. Just focus, Jack.

She knelt next to Donovan and slowly rolled up his pant leg, ignoring his grimaces. "Careful, Jack," Donovan protested between gritted teeth.

"Just be quiet and laid back," Jack growled, her ministrations lacking the tender care her friends often showed in the hospital.

When Jack reached the incision in his leg, she eased the pant leg back and studied the wound. Rather than a firm cut, the knife wound was ragged and torn and had left sundered flesh that Jack wasn't sure would ever heal.

"Jack? What are you going to do?" Donovan asked. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Here, swallow these and then bite down on this," Jack said, pressing one of the rolled bandages into his mouth with a handful of the Aspirin. "I'm going to sew up your wound."

Donovan protested but was silenced by the roll of bandages. Jack threaded a needle with thread and examined the wound, ignoring Donovan's moans of pain. Jack was no seamstress and had to buy or beg for most of her clothing, but she'd sewed up one of her goat's torn legs from the wire fence a few years ago, and she figured this would be no different. Dr. Benjamin was busy caring for his grieving sister and returning Titus's body, and Jack was sure she could suture the wound as effectively if not as neatly.

Jack straightened his knee and found the farthest end of the bloodied cut, clearing away the clotted blood with one of the bandages. She then inserted the needle and began to sew the wound shut. Donovan cried out, clamping his teeth on the bandage, and his entire body arched. Jack dropped the needle at his movement and was forced to sit on the lower half of his leg to keep him from moving.

"Hold still!" she hissed, biting the needle with her teeth as she continued the stitches.

Donovan's eyes danced at her and rolled back when she dug the needle into his flesh again. She continued down the long wound. The stitches were rough and crooked, but they held the wound closed. Jack wrapped a bandage around the wound and finally released his leg. She didn't care to check her handiwork; it would be good enough until the doctor had time to look at it again.

Donovan spat the bandage roll from his mouth, releasing a string of expletives that made Jack laugh--a choked, dying laugh. As soon as it escaped her mouth, instant guilt nauseated her. She shouldn't laugh--she shouldn't even smile after all that had happened.

"What in tarnation, Jack? I'm never letting you near me with a needle again." Donovan sat up and plucked the needle from Jack's hand, pocketing it. He shook his head, eyes glazed. "That was horrendous."

"Well, it needed to be done." Jack rose to her knees and leaned towards Donovan, her fingers brushing across the bruised eye, bloody gash on one cheek, to his split lip, slightly swollen. "I'm not sure there's much I can do for the rest of you."

Donovan caught her hand, his skin unnaturally hot. "My inside or outside?" he asked.

Jack's eyes faltered from his. "Both, maybe."

Donovan sat up further so he and Jack were facing each other, her hand still caught in his. "I'm sorry, Jack," he said, his voice raspy. "I never should have brought you into any of this. I'm so sorry." He let out a croaking laugh, craning his neck back to stare up at the sky, growing darker as evening waned. "Maybe they're all right about me--I'm trouble, just another no-good Indian."

"If you're trying to get me to feel bad for you, it's not going to work, Kitchi Donovan," Jack said, snatching her hand from his. "You know full well that you're good--too good for this world, maybe, and certainly too good for me."

"That's a lie."

"Only if you leave me behind in an attempt at being noble and self-sacrificing." Jack screwed up her nose and caught his eyes. "You can't leave. I forbid it."

"Oh, Jack," Donovan said with a soft laugh, running his hand down her shoulder to the crook of her waist. Jack wanted to push him away, to shove him in the chest to keep his hand from burning through to her flesh, but she couldn't. "If you were any less tenacious, I wouldn't love you so much."

"If you love me," Jack asked, leaning into his grasp, "then why are you leaving?"
Donovan's arm encircled her waist and pulled her closer until she was leaning into his chest, his heart thrumming against her hands. His breath was hot and dizzying against her neck and cheeks and lip. "I don't want to, Jack."

"Then don't." Jack's lips whispered against his and she wondered in a daze if this would be enough, if the promise of their future and their declarations of love would be enough to keep him here.

Donovan sighed and pulled away from her, his fingers leaving a searing trail of ravaged flesh behind them. He pulled himself to his feet and Jack felt her face heat. "I'm going to leave the signed deed with Oliver and then I'm going back to take care of Soka. You'll forget about me, Jack, and this will only be hazy memory."

Jack scrambled to her feet. "Have you lost your mind? I'll never forget you, and if you leave, I swear I'll hate you until the day I die."

Her words sounded juvenile in her own ears, but rage rose in Jack's chest. Unquenchable and fueled by guilt and desperation.

"Then tell me, Jack," Donovan returned, his own voice hurt and aching. "Tell me another solution. Tell me a way that I can stay with you without anyone else getting hurt."

Jack sputtered for a moment, but her tormented mind could conjure no answer. She didn't know. She had no more ideas; Titus had been their last hope.

"There isn't another way, Jack."

"But this isn't just your choice, Donovan," she said, taking a slow step towards him. "I thought you and I were--I thought we were together. Our choices, our future. You can't just decide what you want for both of us."

Donovan's athletic shoulders sagged. "I have to."

"You care more about protecting me than you do about being with me, Donovan," Jack said, crossing her quaking arms over her chest. "I'm not some flower to be kept in a greenhouse and pampered until I bloom. I'm a woman, and I don't want your protection. I want your love."

"I'm not arguing about this any more, Jack." Donovan said, brushing past her at a dejected limp. Julius waited for them at a distance, carrying both his and Jack's guns. He stopped and turned back to look at her, his dark hair in a bloodied matte that shadowed his bronze face. "Just know, Jack, this isn't for lack of love. I swear I'd fight off all the Central Powers for you, Jack Harrison."

His words only made Jack want to vomit. After everything--from the moment they met while Jack was stranded in the tree to Donovan revealing the truth and introducing her to Soka to Titus's horrific death and the massacre scene before them--his words only depeened the hole gaping in Jack's chest. He loved her, yet he was leaving. The paradox puzzled and destroyed Jack at once. None of it made sense. Either he didn't truly love her or he wouldn't leave. She couldn't face anything else.

Donovan turned away again once, his eyes flickering from Jack to the ground. "If you leave," Jack growled, her voice aching with desperation. "If you leave, there's nothing to stop Max Slate from killing me to make sure no one hears about what happened today."

The words made Donovan stop in his track and his shoulders stiffened. Jack's stomach rolled again and guilt seeped from her soul. She was manipulating him, using his worry for her to keep him here in Irvington. If he thought she were in danger, would he stay? Perhaps he would, just long enough for her to come up with some solution to this mess that would keep Donovan in Irvington.

Donovan turned around, the pain in his eyes transformed into anger. "Jack, don't play with me. Don't make me risk your life in my desire to save it."

Jack clamped a hand on her stomach as nausea broiled. Donovan saw through her manipulation but was powerless to fight it. He studied her for a long moment and then walked away, following Julius back to the Bookers' house. Jack watched him go for a long time until they were specks in the distance blurred by the tears in her eyes and she wondered if this was the end.