Belle & Jack

I've been aiming this for the Valentine's Day Contest, but I've left it a little late and, fair warning, it's quite long! This is my first foray into this genre... be gentle. You won't fail to notice the shifting points of view, I'm curious to see how folks feel about it. It just kind of happened organically, I hadn't really planned on it or anything and it still feels right to me, I'd love to hear your comments.

Enjoy.

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ONE

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***Belle***

Belle's Irishness had never really mattered to her. In fact, it was never something she even felt about herself, never really a part of her conscious identity. She knew it mattered to her dad, whose grandparents on his own father's side had left Ireland for California in the first decade or two of the twentieth century. She'd even been dragged, as a teenager with far more exciting things in mind, on a family vacation to the small, cold, wet outcrop of western Europe to 'engage with your roots', as her father put it. There was little engagement on her part, truth be told.

So it did feel a little odd to her that, for some reason, a reason she didn't really understand herself, Ireland was where she was escaping to now, was the first and only place that had occurred to her. She knew it wasn't exactly off the beaten track, that it was not somewhere a person of her global fame would be able to easily hide themselves. It just felt right. It felt right when she'd made the decision a week before and told her agent to arrange things, when her life felt like it had been falling apart, and it still felt right now, her first-class seat juddering only slightly as her flight touched down on the tarmac of Dublin's airport.

***Jack***

"Are you fucking joking me? A fucking driver?"

To many people, Jack's body language and tone would have been instantly intimidating. He wasn't double-take big or anything, but he was pretty built. His nine years in the military and a predilection towards both sporting prowess as well as success ensured he was the kind of person anyone would want on their side if things got ugly.

Many people were not his uncle Charlie though and Jack felt his anger cool at the older man's smile of wisdom.

"There'd be security in it too. And what the fuck else are you going to be doing with yourself Jack? Come on now, it won't be long and it'll be cash money straight into your pocket. I hear she's a bit of a looker as well. There's worse things you could be doing than babysitting some rich yank you know, a fella like you just out of the army. Going to go and stand at the door of some night club are you?"

Jack's head dropped as he listened to his uncle. It wasn't that he regretted his decision to leave the military, he knew the time was right. He just wished he'd had some kind of plan for what to do next. His mind had been scratching around for weeks now, feeling that whatever it was, whatever was to be the next phase of his life was always just out of reach. And he knew that driving some celebrity around for a couple of weeks for his uncle's VIP travel agency was exactly the kind of thing he could accidentally find himself just falling into, that if he took the job he'd need to be careful he didn't end up still doing it five years from now.

"How much?" he said, softening with the knowledge that his bank balance was down to double digits.

"Two hundred a day, swear to god. The girl that made the booking must be desperate, agreed to the price I quoted straight away, didn't haggle a bit. The handiest money you'll ever make Jack."

***Belle***

She'd cut her auburn hair short into a sort of rough bob, a couple of days before she left. She'd felt silly doing it, like it was some kind of lame attempt at a disguise. But there'd been another feeling to it, one that actually felt equally silly to her although she longed to embrace it. A feeling of change, of renewal. Brian had always loved her hair, long and lustrous, always touching it, even smelling it. The thought of his hands wrapped around it, using it to pull her back to him while he railed her relentlessly from behind came unbidden and caused her stomach to lurch and she willed herself to return her thoughts to that feeling of change. Brian was the past now. There was no turning back.

The border guard made her take off her baseball cap and sunglasses when she handed over her passport and, as she always did, she felt uneasy. With two Oscar nominations under her belt at just 24 she knew she was pretty much instantly recognizable the world over and she dreaded these enclosed encounters. It wouldn't be the first time a border guard asked for her autograph. Aside from anything else, it just seemed so unprofessional. This one gave her no hint of recognition though and Belle actually smiled at him as he handed back her documents and wished her a pleasant stay.

She made straight for the exit. The small carry-on suitcase trundling behind her contained everything she'd brought with her. She took out her phone to check the message from her agent for the name she was supposed to look out for in the terminal.

***Jack***

Jack was a reasonably well-travelled man, not even counting his couple of tours abroad as a peacekeeper, but he'd never liked airports. He'd always noticed the people holding up signs, waiting to collect arriving passengers. He occasionally thought it would be nice to be the person whose name was on the sign, but he never thought he'd be the one holding it. He wondered for a moment if there was an etiquette to the practice, if the various chauffeurs and tour guides gathered around him operated on the basis of some kind of hierarchy. But he brushed the thought aside and moved to the front of the crowd, a single plain piece of paper in his hand with 'Diamond' written on it, along with the logo of his uncle's company.

He couldn't help feel a little silly. He hoped to god he didn't run into anyone he knew. Fucking Diamond. What's the matter with these people, he mused to himself. Of course, like practically everyone else in the world, he knew very well who Belle Melville was and he understood, notwithstanding his years of training in safety and security, that people like her needed to be careful about things, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that this was going to be a pretty unpleasant couple of weeks.

His mind went back to what his uncle had said. I hear she's a bit of a looker. He couldn't remember actually ever watching any of her movies but he still knew that his uncle was correct and he shook off as unworthy of him the thought that her attractiveness would be some kind of pay-off for having to babysit some cold, haughty Hollywood starlet. And why was she travelling alone anyway? Don't people like her usually have a whole entourage with them?

He'd been actively keeping an eye on the door, sure he would recognize his famous charge, but he didn't even notice her until she was standing right in front of him.

***Belle***

Belle was keeping count of the number of times she thought she'd been recognized between getting off the plane and exiting into the main terminal building. It wasn't something she did often but, in the circumstances, anonymity was even more important to her than usual. Nothing definitive, she thought, but four maybes. She was doing her best both to keep her head down and to search for the man who was supposed to meet her at the same time and was glad he'd positioned himself so close to the door so that she found him almost instantly. And she was glad to see that her agent's message about keeping a low profile had been received and understood. He wasn't wearing one of those gaudy chauffeur's outfits like some of the others, just a plain dark green sweater and jeans.

She smiled a little to herself as she approached him. He was looking right past her, through her even. As if he'd taken note of her coming through and decided she wasn't for him so he kept looking.

"Hey, I'm Diamond," she said, deciding against removing her sunglasses.

"Wha-... fuck! I mean... shit, sorry." Belle's smile widened.

"No problem, would you...?" she said, offering the man the handle of her little suitcase.

"Of course... yes... em... you're very welcome to Ireland Ms, eh, Ms Diamond. I'm Jack, by the way."

"Nice to meet you Jack," Belle replied, before leaning in and whispering, "but you can call me Belle."

"Right you are Belle," he said, equally softly, and Belle thought she noticed his panicked confusion lessen just a little. "If you'll follow me..."

***Jack***

Bollocks. Shit. Fuck. Fuck it anyway. Jack wasn't used to being angry with himself but then he was also used to being good at his job. He knew that working for his uncle was not what he wanted to do with his life in the long run, but he still expected himself to do it well. So a major faux pas straight off the bat was more than a little annoying.

He'd prepared himself for it. He'd met a handful of famous people in his life but the world of celebrity had never really had much appeal for him, never made him excited, so he simply hadn't expected that meeting Belle Melville, even her, would really affect him at all. That's why it was hard to understand why he'd been so flustered. He tried to put it down to the fact that he simply hadn't recognized her, that she'd put him on the wrong foot, but something deeper told him there was more to it than that.

And the fact that his initial impression of her was quite a ways off what he had been expecting only made him feel worse. He'd messed up, but she hadn't been rude or angry and his mind lingered on the memory of her soft, gentle, genuine smile.

He shook the thought from his mind. There was work to be done. Although he'd managed to park exceptionally close to the terminal, he still knew that he had to be on guard for the time it would take them to reach the car. He tried to walk a fraction of a step behind her, scanning ahead of them for any potential threats, even just anyone who seemed to recognize his famous client, without making it look like he was. He wondered if she did the same and felt a pang of sympathy. Having to go through life always on the lookout must be exhausting.

***Belle***

"This is us," Jack said.

Belle hadn't been paying much attention to where they were going. One airport was much the same as the next in her experience. She was conscious of Jack walking next to her as they made their way through the terminal and she noted how much less on edge she felt with him there. She'd stopped counting potential recognitions. Good, she thought, that is what I'm paying him for after all.

The trip had been planned with great haste and she'd left all the details to her agent, but she had been made aware that the man hired to drive her around and look after her personal safety was ex-military and she couldn't help the thought that, even though she'd only been able to size him up briefly, he did look like the kind of guy who would be more than capable of protecting her.

The car he was pointing at was a dark grey mid-sized SUV, maybe ten years old, Belle thought.

"Nice car," she observed, smiling still.

"Oh, eh, yeah... well, Charlie said, that is, our understanding was Ms... eh... Belle that you wanted to be sort of under the radar like, while you're here. I thought it would make sense to travel in something more run of the mill, a little bit less conspicuous that what we'd usual have for a client such as yourself but... I can swap it out for..."

She cut him off, without thinking, with a gentle hand on his arm. For a second she regretted the movement, automatic though it had been, but she didn't remove her hand. She was still smiling too and the thought occurred to her that she had been, more or less constantly, since she met this Jack and she realized that she hadn't smiled that much in days. Hadn't really smiled at all in fact. Not since...

"It's fine Jack," she said, shaking the thought away. "I wasn't being sarcastic or anything. It's absolutely perfect, exactly what I was looking for."

"Right... good... I'm glad." Jack returned her smile and Belle wondered if he knew just how much better she was feeling. And even then, in the airport parking lot, she could feel the lingering doubts she had about whether coming here, of all places, was the right thing to do, fading softly away.

***Jack***

She smiled a lot more than he thought she would. In his mind, lots of the images he had of her were of her smiling. Red carpets, interviews, that kind of thing. Images of a celebrity that you couldn't help coming across now and then. But he'd just assumed that was a public persona, a show for the cameras. When he thought about it, he struggled to find a reason why his expectation of someone so famous was aloofness, standoffishness, even arrogance. Nevertheless that was exactly what his expectation had been. So he was a little confounded as they climbed into the car and he allowed himself to consider for the first time that, just maybe, this wouldn't be such a bad gig after all.

"Anything else you need to do here miss," he said, "or should we just get moving? We've a decent drive ahead of us."

She sat in the back, as he'd expected she would, positioning herself on the opposite side of the car to him so he could see her clearly and easily in the rear view mirror.

"I'm good Jack, let's get going," she said, smiling at him in the mirror. "And please, call me Belle."

"Right you are Belle." She was the first Belle he'd ever met and he chastised himself briefly for the pleasure he got from just saying her name. Belle. It was just fun to say.

Their destination was a remote corner of Ireland's south-west coast, not far from the home of Belle's ancestors, or so he understood from Charlie. The requirements for accommodation had been fairly specific but Jack knew his uncle Charlie prided himself on satisfying any demands, as long as the price was right. In this case, small, remote and isolated seemed to be the key concepts.

He'd been dreading this part of the job. Five long hours in the car. What do drivers normally do? Am I supposed to talk to her? Do I put the radio on? He'd half expected the decision to be taken out of his hands anyway, that she'd fall asleep or have her head buried in her phone right away but he noticed quickly that neither of those things were true.

"So how was your flight?" he asked. There had been a couple of minutes of relative silence as he navigated their way out of the airport and on to the highway but he'd asked the question without actually deciding to, which made him uneasy.

***Belle***

His question brought her back to reality. Like she always did, ever since she was a child, her attention was focused out the window, trying to get a sense of a new place. She recognized that just the fact of his asking a question was a little surprising to her. She gotten familiar with being chauffeur-driven as her fame had grown but she'd also gotten used to the people driving her being deferential, often to a fault, never speaking unless spoken to, at least until they'd gotten used to her, gotten to know her a little. It was always something that had made her feel uncomfortable.

"Not bad," she said, still smiling, "long I guess, but not bad. I was able to get a little sleep I think."

"You're lucky," he replied, glancing at her in the rear view mirror, "I can never sleep on planes. Don't know what it is, just can't seem to drift away."

"Me too actually," Belle agreed, "usually anyway. I think I was just really exhausted. Do you travel a lot Jack?"

She only realized she'd asked him the question after she'd said it and immediately recognized that, for the first time since that final confrontation with Brian, she was actually interested in what somebody had to say. She felt like she'd been drifting through existence since then, almost unaware of anyone else, never feeling really present when she was with anybody. Until now. With this driver. Her smile widened as she thought about how amazing it was what a change of scenery can do.

And so they talked, about nothing in particular. Glorified small talk really. Her 'do you travel often' had opened up an area they were both interested in it seemed and they were able to compare experiences and impressions of a number of places they'd both visited.

They'd been driving for maybe thirty minutes when Belle decided to move. They were already beyond the boundaries of Ireland's capital, on their way south according to Jack. Sitting in the back just started to feel weird. He'd wanted to pull over but she wouldn't let him.

"I'll be fine Jack, it'll just take a second," she said, clambering lithely through the gap between the front seats, unable to avoid touching him, before settling herself in the passenger seat. "See," she said, pulling on her seat belt, and they laughed softly together.

***Jack***

Jack had enough self-awareness to realize that he was at ease, his expectations of boredom or worse well and truly confounded. The conversation might not have been particularly high brow, but it was easy and natural.

From travel, they'd moved on to food and then, almost accidentally, to music, although the car's speakers remained silent. As Jack was talking about a gig he'd attended, of a band they both liked, the thought occurred to him that Belle's experience of things like that must be very different to his own, world famous and all as she was. Maybe she'd met the band, maybe they were friends of hers. Celebrities are all friends with each other aren't they?

But something very basic told him not to ask her about it. He couldn't exactly put his finger on why it would be a bad idea for the conversation to turn to Belle's celebrity and what it meant for her life, he just knew it was, knew it with as much conviction as he'd ever known anything. So he stayed well clear of it.

They were well away from Dublin, still chatting amiably, when the atmosphere changed abruptly, though admittedly only briefly.

"So what brings you to Ireland anyway?" Jack said, more or less automatically. The conversation had been flowing so nicely and so easily, it didn't occur to him until after he'd said it that the question might be a little bit too personal.

He couldn't help but be instantly aware that he'd said the wrong thing from Belle's reaction. She'd shifted a little in the passenger seat next to him as they drove and talked so her body was angled in his direction just a little bit. The movement had actually put him even more at ease in that he'd felt it a fairly obvious demonstration, even if an unconscious one, that he wasn't bothering her by talking to her, that she was interested and engaged in the conversation.

So when she adjusted herself again now, his unfortunate question asked, he couldn't help but be aware of it. She faced straight ahead again and although he could only really see her in his peripheral vision, keeping his eyes on the road as much as he could, he could tell her smile had faded more or less for the first time since he'd met her.

"Oh... you know..." she said, absently he thought, "just... needed to get away for a while I guess."

***Belle***

And things had been going so well.

She knew it wasn't his fault, knew it was a simple, ordinary question, a perfectly normal thing to ask. But she instantly felt all the positivity that had built up during their easy and pleasant conversation ebb away as her mind couldn't help but turn to the real answer to his question.

It had happened a few times already, since she'd confronted him, but the image of Brian that came to the front of her mind now was shockingly vivid, so much so that she was a little worried she'd start to shake or even cry. Because, as it always was, it wasn't just an image of Brian, of the man she'd loved for four years, the man she'd imagined herself growing old with. It was an image of Brian in bed with two lithe, blond prostitutes. She couldn't see their faces, didn't know their faces, but since Brian's web of lies had begun to unravel she'd learned he definitely preferred blondes. She was surprised at just how quickly her mind fell so completely down the rabbit hole and almost all other stimuli seemed as if it was coming from very far away quite suddenly. So much so, in fact, that she almost didn't hear Jack when he spoke again.