Capt. Homer Jackson

There's always something grizzly happening in Whitechapel, and the string of bodies turning up dead with needle marks like rashes across their arms and legs is only the latest strange investigation to cross the paths of Reid, Drake and Jackson. The reported disturbances at a couple of known drug dens add weight to their initial theory that there is some new narcotic on the streets of London, but searching the dens and the deceased has brought them little joy.

All they know is that it must be powerful, whatever it is, and incredibly addictive. Why else would so many people be falling under its spell if it were so lethal?

Matthew tries his best not to get too involved. He's clean, again, but his resolve has never been the strongest. He can keep away, for Bennet's sake and his own, but he doesn't know how long he'll be able to resist the call if he spends all his time delving through opium dens and investigating discarded needles and pipes. It's why he's not there when Bennet and Reid finally find the supplier, the old warehouse full of the raw opium. Only hears about it when his bloody-nosed lover and their boss appear with a whole chest of the stuff.

Now he is no stranger to opium, but he has never seen it in such a form as they are finding in Chinese quarter of the city. He fights the temptation that has been waved in front of his face by turning his full attention to recreating this new high, cooking the raw ingredient and testing his result on some rats caught in the shop's cellar. But whilst they react, move slower, seem less agitated, it is impossible to really understand this drug through observation alone. He cannot explain why it is become so popular amongst the people.

There is only one way to truly know what it is they are dealing with. But he must not, for Bennet and for himself.

Slowly, life returns to normal.

Treves visits, regularly at first, then less so, helping Matthew to rehabilitate his leg to a level where he can walk without help once more, though he still relies heavily on the use of a cane. Bennet's memories continue to return, in steady dribs and drabs, and Edmund invites them both to return to their work before too long. Matthew's stomach turns at the thought of going back on the trains again, even the underground ones, and blames his leg for why he favours a carriage.

He's taking laudanum again, coca too, but that he keeps quiet. There's no need to worry Bennet with that, not yet anyway, not when everything is still so fragile.

They've been back at Leman Street just over a week when Matthew and Bennet return home to a frantically cooking Mrs Ramsay.

"There was a message, from your Inspector Reid," she informs them both as she moves around the kitchen. "He will be dining with us this evening."

Matthew stayed in the London for a full two weeks before Treves had no choice but to send him home. With any other patient, he would have been gone a week ago, or more, but Treves had been concerned about the amount of sedation his patient continued to require. The leg would heal, as it had before, but the Captain's mind seemed broken beyond his repair.

He had even suggested the asylum to the housekeeper, when she showed up to finally take him home, but she had assured him she would be able to look after the Doctor. It was clear that neither she, nor Captain Jackson, had fond associations with the city's madhouse. With assurances that the woman would be able to call on help if she needed it, Treves had reluctantly let them go.

For his part, Matthew suffered the journey home in silence, allowing Mrs Ramsay to remove him from the London in the wheelchair he had refused so vehemently last time his leg had been broken. He'd fought Bennet to let him walk out with some sense of pride, but now... the fight just made him think of his lost lover, and he had lost far worse than his pride.

In the carriage home, Mrs Ramsay had tried to talk about Drake, but Matthew refused to join in. She wanted to talk about a memorial for him, an alternative to a body to give a funeral too. But Matthew had just shaken his head, repeated over and over that Bennet was not dead, only missing. That he required cold, hard proof before he accepted that his lover was truly gone from him.

Reid had been waiting for them at the house, to carry him up the stairs to bed. He had balked then, both at the indignity and the realisation that he was going to have to lie still in the room that was so infused with his Benny. The last night he had lain in that room, he and Bennet had made love until they had been unable to stay awake a moment longer, relaxed in the knowledge that the morning would bring them a holiday.

He had kicked and screamed like an infant as Reid had carried him up the stairs, but it did little more than slow the Inspector a little. He was taken into that room regardless of the swearing and shouting, put to bed by Mrs Ramsay and left once more in the dark and the silence.

**

For weeks, Matthew lies there, saying nothing, eating nothing, drinking the bare minimum. When somebody came to sit with him, be it Mrs Ramsay or Edmund or another bobby from the force, he says the same thing again and again. That Bennet isn't dead, that people need to be out there looking for him. But they only offer their apologies and leave him alone, once more.

In the end, he starts to believe it himself. His Benny would have come home by now after all, no matter how far he had been thrown, how injured he had been. Even if he was incapable of moving, he would have found a way to get a message to him. The evidence was mounting that Bennet Drake was dead, and if that was the case...

He cannot think of anything else for the next few days, incapable of doing anything but crying as the grief finally hits him full force. Mrs Ramsay seems to think this a good thing, for some ridiculous reason, her own mood seemingly starting to improve as Matthew's darkens. For the first time since coming home, she actually starts to leave the house without finding a carer for him, leaving him utterly alone.

Matthew doesn't do anything at first, lying still as he is left alone, but in his mind a plan is forming. By the time Mrs Ramsay leaves him alone for the fourth time, he is prepared.

He leaves a simple note on his pillow:

I miss him too much. I'm sorry.

and leaves behind all the money he has on his person, bar a few coins. Getting out of bed is harder, his body weak and his hands clumsy around the crutches left at his bedside. But he struggles, knowing that the pain is almost at an end now. Soon, he will be with Benny again, and that gives him the strength to dress and make his way from the house.

He flags down a hansom from the pavement, paying his remaining coins to take him down to the river. And then, when he is finally alone on the riverside, he closes his eyes and lets his body fall forwards.

Whatever comes next, he knows his Benny will be waiting for him.

It's been a long while, since Matthew last did surgery on a patient who still drew breath, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't glad to be working back amongst the living. He will be forever grateful to Inspector Reid, for the job and for introducing him to his Benny, but despite his initial reluctance he has to admit that he enjoys his new job. He enjoys truly being a doctor again, rather than a police sergeant with medical knowledge.

After his initial reluctance, he's also come to accept that there are worse people to work alongside. Treves had been arrogant and rude, but they'd learnt to get along together. Once Matthew had accepted that his smoking and drinking had to be done outside the operating theatre, they had started to learn from each other, and dare he say it, they might even be starting to consider each other friends.

He's showing off, now, leading his first operation since his move to the London. It's a simple enough procedure, a clean foot operation, but Matthew has his own style of doing such things which Treves wants to marvel at. In his element, Matthew shows off, grinning and laughing, body close to Treves' own as he lets the other doctor look at his handiwork.

He does not realise that the theatre has an audience.

Why Jackson had ever thought that Susan would just let him walk out of her life, he didn't know. He should have realised from the outset, when she'd clawed chunks out of Bennet just for fetching his things from his old rooms. But she'd quietened, after that, and he'd thought that he'd gotten away with it. That he'd escaped.

But it wasn't to be. Perhaps she'd been waiting, hoping that he'd come back to her of his own free will, but if so her patience was up.

It had started a month ago, with nails sharp as talons grabbing him by the wrist on his way home from Leman Street. Jackson always tried to keep to the main roads, after his run in with the Vigilance Men, but for once he was leaving early and even the back streets were still crowded. Nobody looked twice when he was hauled against the wall by Susan; such a finely dressed woman couldn't mean any harm, surely?

Susan - or, should he say, Caitlin - had made herself quite clear from day one. She was still married to a man named Matthew Judge, whether Jackson want to admit it or not. No, she didn't want a divorce; she would not be humiliated so. She would not go crawling back home to her father, admitting that the handsome Captain who had stolen her heart had left her for another man, and was now shacked up with a sergeant. She would not allow it, and her husband would do as she wished if he didn't want his beloved Ben to find out just who he really was, and what he'd done. She'd left him with bruises around his skinny wrist, and even darker welts across his heart.

His decision was an impossible one. Returning to Susan turned his blood cold as ice in his veins, every ache from every fight vividly remembered. She had no love for him, nor him for her, and no matter what Susan said their marriage was not something that could be fixed. But the alternative seemed just as bad; to admit to Drake that everything he was was a lie; that he had fled from the Pinkertons, abducting a woman of a notable family into the bargain, gone to ground in London and changed his name to keep himself and his wife safe. Drake would never look at him the same way ever again. Their relationship would be as broken as his marriage.

With every day that passed, Susan's threats becoming worse and worse, time running out before she swore she'd tell Bennet every last thing about their past, Jackson grew more tormented. He stayed out of his house as much as he could, or went to bed early, keeping himself apart from Drake for fear that his lover would see the truth just by looking at him. His hands began to shake and tremble as he worked, every shadow around every corner making him jump.

The laudanum was the first vice to return to him, and shortly after that the cocaine. His relationship with Drake was already doomed; what did it matter if he broke another promise? At least this way, he thought as he swallowed down a bottle of laudanum, he could face Susan with some small shred of courage. It was the last thought he had before the drug's peaceful oblivion descended on him, sprawled in his living room armchair with the empty bottle rolling out of his hand and onto the floor at his feet.

Christmas Eve finds Homer Jackson slumped in his seat in The Bear, a line of empty glasses covering the table top in front of him. All around him, his comrades in arms are in similar states, some already flat out unconscious. At least he knows how to hold his liquor.

At his side, Drake too is still awake. Reid, as well, and Hobbs, across the other side of their table. "Another round," he decides, out loud, making his way unsteadily up onto his feet, the room swaying around him.

The bar isn't far. He thinks he should be able to make it just fine.

The day after Jackson pulled Drake from the boxing rings, neither of them go into the shop. Drake's too hurt to work, but the Captain knows he'd still try unless physically restrained. So that's what he does, keeping his lover as good as a prisoner in their own room. The day after that, he relents and they return to work together.

For a couple of days, all is fine, their arguings forgotten. They travel together both to and from Leman Street, taking advantage of the currently quiet calm of Whitechapel to stroll through the busy main streets, enjoying the market stalls and street acts. Of course, calms tend to come before storms, and after their few days of bliss, crime levels return to normal, and Jackson finds himself working in his dead room into the evening, with Drake headed home long since.

He makes his own way home long after the sun has set. Wanting to be in the warmth and comfort of Bennet's arms as soon as possible, he takes the quickest way home possible, cutting through the back alleys rather than walking the main streets. They're not always the safest of places, but he's well known in most of the local establishments and, as far as he's aware, no one (currently) bears him any grudges.

That's why he's taken so very much by surprise when the gaggle of men appear across his path, effectively blocking his path. At first, he assumes they must be waiting somebody behind him, but when he turns he finds himself quite alone, more men cutting off any hope of escape from behind. In the dim light, he notices a flash of colour on the breasts of his aggressors, and he remembers the boy who'd killed the toyseller, back when he'd first started working with Reid and Drake on a full time basis.

"I don't know what quarrel you good folks have with me," he tries his best to be friendly, hands raised high in submission. He does not see any reason for the Vigilance Men to target him, he's nothing but a good citizen (in public). "Perhaps you could explain."

"It's a sin, what you do," one of the men responds, bulkier than the others, clearly the ringleader. "These streets have sin enough without your sort adding to it."

"My sort?" Jackson drops his hands, defensive, not sure what these men mean but sure that he doesn't like it. "Y'know I'm far from the only Yankee walkin' these streets."

"We ain't talkin' about that," Ringleader spits. "We know what you get up to with that Sergeant. It's ungodly. It don't belong here. Not in London."

Jackson's blood runs cold. He doesn't know how these men know about his relationship with Drake, but he knows that they're serious. And that not only is he in danger, but Drake too. Maybe there's already another mob out after him, if they haven't found him already. Is he already too late?

He's one against ten, at least, and not made for fighting. He has his revolver, but he'd only manage to take down one or two before the others were on him. His only hope is in speed, reflexes. He'd survived many a beating back at Tenter Street thanks to those abilities. Slowly, he moves as if to raise his hands again, looking to submit, before at the last moment kicking his heels into the dirt and running full tilt for a gap between two mob members, hoping to break past and out into the main streets.

His ploy doesn't work, and next thing he knows he's on his back, heavy fists and heavier boots smashing into any and every body part they can find. He knows they mean to kill, and so only one solution now presents itself to him. Curling up as tight as he can manage, he forces himself to fall completely still, relaxing his muscles against the onslaught. It's agony like he's never experienced, but after a moment or two the battering stops. He hears the voices, discussing whether or not he's dead. One steel-capped boot finds his spine with a particularly hefty kick, and he bites hard on his lip to keep silent and limp. It does the trick, and after a few seconds the footsteps and voices start to retreat.

Jackson waits until he's sure they've gone, before slowly uncurling his broken body. Everything screams at him, and he knows a good many bones must be broken. But he cannot think on that now. He has to get to Drake, before the same happens to him. Or worse. Drake wouldn't think to play dead. He'd try and fight back.

He doesn't know how he makes it back home. He doesn't walk, he knows that, must have dragged himself along the ground. But then the door is there, and he manages to knock on it before the darkness takes him.

Jackson loses track of time as he lies on Drake's small bed, the Sergeant safe and warm and alive in his arms, the both of them dozing in and out of sleep. It must be days later, that they're both sufficiently awake at the same time to hold a conversation.

And, as always, Jackson doesn't hang about.

"I need you to do something for me, Bennet. And, no matter what I do, or say, you have to promise me you will do what I tell you now. Even if I change my mind in the future. Can you do that?"