Chapter 2

Carly sat on her couch rocking back and fourth hugging her knees with a bitter look on her face, "Why god, why did I say that?" she mumbled for the millionth time that evening. She eyed her cell phone that started to buzz beside her, "What the hell? Who would send a text at this early?" Flipping the cellphone open she sighed as she scanned the message.

[ Carly, I need to talk to you. Could you call me as soon as you get this message? – Aki ]

Sparing a glance at the time at the corner of the screen she dialed up Aki's number and called her as a yawn escaped her, 'Carly? I didn't think you'd be awake right now.' Carly closed her eyes and stretched her legs, "I'm having a hard time sleeping. Jack pulled a stunt on me and I said something I shouldn't have and now I'm stuck here biting myself."

'Did you say a bad thing or a good thing?' She heard Aki ask warily.

"A bad thing." She exclaimed suddenly, venting out her frustration, "I was sucked into his pitiful actions and blurted out that I'd wait for him and give him a second chance!"

'Wait, that's a bad thing? And seriously, Jack acting pitiful? Please explain.'

Carly raised her hand to her ponytail and pulled out the elastic that held it up, and shook it free as a sigh escaped her lips, "Jack was here for no more than fifteen minutes. Within that period of time he helped me cook and that somehow that led to me embracing me and then he went on about how he made the same mistake as he did in the past when he had left Satellite AND THEN – here's the worst part, he said that he regretted leaving me and because I am too-sweet-of-a-person I gave him a word of advice and then said he'd have to try hard to earn my trust and heart back!" she groaned as she slapped her forehead, "I'm supposed to be trying to move on, not ask him to try and win me back! ARG! WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

'Well at least you didn't make your relationship worse.' Aki replied bitterly. Carly's eyes widen in surprise, "Wait what? So you went to see Yusei?"

'More like he came to me, thanks to you.' Aki remarked dryly before adding, 'And because I wasn't mentally prepared I screwed things up when he asked me some questions and thing got awkward and now ugh, things were left on a bad note when he decided to go.'

"Wait so you're telling me he came and left on his own? Are you for real?"

'Well this explains why she texted me.' The reporter thought as she stood up to grab herself a glass of water.

'I'm the one to blame though.' Aki replied, 'I could tell he came prepared knowing I probably wouldn't know where to start. That's a Team 5Ds strategist for you… Now it's my turn to come up with a way to somehow make it up to him.'

There was a moment of silence between them as Carly filled her glass with water and let out a huff, "Why does it feel like you're having the same problem Jack is having and I'm having the same problem as Yusei's having?"

'Do not compare me with Jack, at least I tried to keep in contact and I don't act like a jerk.' Aki protested sounding offended.

"Did you really?" Carly said warily before adding, "If you kept in contact with him as well as you did with me, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be having this problem in the first place. Secondly, there's no way you can act like a 'jerk'. Jerks are for boys, in this case you may have acted like a bitch."

'Excuse me?' she snapped, Carly rolled her eyes as she gulped down the water, "I didn't say you were a bitch, I said you may have acted like one."

The young woman heard Aki sigh in the background, 'I'm sorry, the lack of sleep got me there.'

"I don't think it has anything to do with that. You're just emotionally unstable, I can tell." The reporter yawned for the second time, "This is ridiculous, both of us need to get some sleep so we can deal with our problems properly."

Aki yawned, 'Mhm, feel free to call me back later after you wake up, I'm going to knock myself out now.'

"Good luck with the aftermath." Carly joked before hanging up only to see that Aki beaten her to it. Placing her glass down, Aki returned to her room and tossed herself into bed in hopes to get some sleep.

Carly woke up the next morning with puffy bloodshot eyes and buried her head back under the pillows again. Lucky for her today was one of her days off, one of those days she would use to catch up on her reports that she was falling behind in or go out the mall to check out the latest upgrades for camera lens. After staying put for another thirty minutes, the young woman finally dragged herself out of bed to open the curtains. She couldn't help but sigh in dismay after seeing the sky was dark and grey and to top things off, it was pouring rain out.

Running her fingers through her hair she made her way out of her bedroom and approached her coffee machine flicking the switch on for it before opening the cabinet for a box of cereal was about to close it shut again when she something caught her eyes opening the cabinet to see a note stuck to the inside of the cabinet door and peeled it off and scanned it.

[Drop by the usual café at 9:00am; I'm guessing you'll be up by then – Jack]

She scowled and crumpled the letter angrily, "How the hell did he get inside- oh for the love of god! Who would have thought he would still have a copy of the key!" she grumbled as she checked the time again to see that it was 8:48 before gazing out the window and plopped down onto the couch crossing her arms, "He comes barging into my home when I'm sound asleep, he assumes I am just going to-," she was quickly interrupted by her house phone and stared at it hesitantly before picking it up, "Hello, Carly here."

"Are you coming or what?" the sound of Jack's arrogant voice made her grimaced and walked over to the window to inspect the wet street below and snapped in annoyance, "What on earth gave you the right to come barging into my home while I was asleep!" Pivoting her foot she returned to the kitchen to retrieve her coffee and poured it into a mug and took a sip as he replied, "I wanted to surprise you."

"Surprise me, my ass. Are you for real? Don't bother sticking around I'm not coming." She responded angrily as she poured the cereal into a bowl, quickly followed up by some milk.

"Fine then, I'll come over." Carly almost dropped the container before gasping, "What part of 'NO' do you not get?"

"Well I get that you don't want go out in this weather." Carly placed down the milk and covered her face with her hands before resorting, "Do not come over." The line went dead and she restrained herself from chucking the phone at the floor in fury she rushed to her room and quickly got dressed, pulling hair back hastily to get it out of her face and grabbed a chair and placed it under the entrance's handle.

There was no way she was going to see him. She will run away if she has to. Pulling her coat off the rack she slipped into her boots and grabbed her bag, there was only one way to outrun Jack and that was to take an alternative root. She hurried to the window where she saw Jack standing in front of the building before heading inside. As if that the cue, Carly opened her window and climbed onto the fire escape before closing it behind her. With that she carefully climbed down and pressed her body against the building as she pulled her hood over her head and peeked around the corner. The reporter didn't see him, but she knew better from her experiences during risky assignments that it's always better to take an alternative route despite the follower wasn't in view. She turned around and ran the opposite way and down the streets of Neo Domino.

"Carly? What are you doing here?" her co-worker Jane asked surprised to see her drenched hugging her bag protectively, "Isn't it your day off?" Carly slipped out of her coat and hung it on a rack near the furnace, "I felt like working on one of my assignments here." She answered as she pulled out her laptop and turned it on, "There's a pest at the apartment that's causing a ruckus." She added knowing her colleague was going to ask.

"Well actually, I was going to call you down anyways to ask a favor." She looked over her laptop surprised, "You were?" Jane nodded in response, "Yeah, I need a partner for my assignment." The reporter closed her laptop and studied the files that were spread out on the woman's desk across her before eyeing her, "What kind of assignment is this exactly?"

Jane bit her lips, "Well there's been rumors flying around the agency about one of the people working in the City Council." She paused, "The target is Financial Tax Accountant Jun Breadwick, there's a word about him being responsible for embezzling the city's taxes." Carly gawked, "That's a major scoop!" The woman across her cracked a smile but quickly replaced it with a frown, "Originally I was supposed to do this investigation with Nelson but…" she made a sympathetic face, "You heard about his allergic reaction." Carly winced, "Yeah the word goes around. I hope he'll get better soon."

Nodding Jane folded her hands and fumbled with her thumbs, "That's where you come in, I was hoping you can be my partner," she looked up and waved her hands, "Not as a man, no, no, but you're strong and you have good experience for this kind of assignment." Carly leaned back into her seat and folded her hands together as well and pressed them against her lips thoughtfully before asking, "Is there no one other man available?" Jane shook her head, "I tried asking the chief, but he said that everyone has their hands full, he mentioned you since you are currently in charged of the exclusive interview at the moment." Carly couldn't help but inwardly shudder to herself when she mentioned the interview. Taking a deep breath Carly stood up and held her hand out, "Okay, I'll do it. When's the party?" Jane laughed nervously, "It's tonight."

Much to the young woman's surprised, Carly grinned in response, "Excellent." She forced her laptop to turn off by holding the power switch before putting it back into her bag, "Now I hope you got some cash on you, you're going to need it."

Jane looked at her, puzzled, "Why?"

"Trust me. You'll see."

The two women stood outside of the city hall where a gathering was being held for celebrities, top business folks and political parties. Carly studied the area as she took a sip of the champagne that was being handed around. Her eyes trailed to the nervous journalist who was anxious about their 'mission'.

"Car- Jennifer are you that confident they won't recognize us?" Jane mumbled quietly as she sat down on the bench behind him. Carly swished her glass thoughtfully as she returned her gaze to the guests walking around the grand hall talking to one another.

"It will be fine." She answered smoothly, "We just have to wait for the climax of the party, that's when we go."

"Why then?" Jane murmured looking up to her, the reporter shrugged, "That's when everyone is distracted." The young woman giggled in response, "I suppose you're right."

Carly made sure that they were able to get in without anyone recognizing them. She contacted one of her friends from university who was a makeup artist and requested her to disguise them. Now Carly was identified as Jennifer who wore a blonde short bob cut wig and a dark lavender cocktail dress. She was pleased to see that she couldn't even recognize herself when she looked at transformation in the mirror.

When she heard Jane gasp Carly looked at her partner with a raised eyebrow, "What is it?" the woman blushed and raised her glass as a gesture pointing to an all-too-familiar blonde entering the party. Carly almost dropped her glass and scowled, Jane on the other hand was squealing to herself, "Oh my gosh, Jack Atlas is here!" As she rose from the bench she quickly spared a glance at Carly, "Can I go and meet him? Please? Please?"

The reporter eyed the blonde King thoughtfully. Perhaps this would be a good chance to see his true colors, especially if he didn't know that she was here. Suddenly a thought occurred to her.

'Wait, what if he followed us here?' She took another sip of her champagne to gain more time to make a decision, 'It would be problematic if he were to blow our cover in here.'

"Ca-Jen?" Jane asked as she quickly corrected herself for the second time. Carly glanced at her and placed the empty glass onto the table besides her, "Fine. Go and meet him. In the mean time I'll go ahead and get started." Jane squealed and hurried off to the meet Jack as Carly slipped through the crowd and disappeared further into the building that was supposed to be closed off.

Carly used the bobby pin that she wore in her hair that was actually a bug designed to crack into the system that locked Jun Breadwick's office and jammed the security system. This was another one of times where she was grateful to get a referral from Yusei to get some handy technologies from his friend Saiga. After she got into this company she made sure to keep in touch with the Jack of Trade to gain equipment that would help her dig further into her investigations.

She quickly slipped into the office and checked to see if the computer was on, fortunately it was, al there was left to do was let the bug do its job of hacking into the hard-drive. As Carly waited for results she studied the office and looked for any extra clues that could be used for evidence. Carefully and but quickly she checked the bookcase and file cabinets only to find nothing out of the ordinary. Returning to the desk her eyes widen as a window popped up revealing several hidden documents. A small smirk appeared on her face, pleased to see her success.

The sound of the door clicking caused Carly to freeze on the spot and check the process of downloading the hidden files. Seeing it completed, she quickly slipped it into her purse and sat on the desk knowing there was no purpose of hiding when, whoever was about to come in, was probably already aware of her presence.

Sure enough it was no other than the man who was responsible for the fraud and his so-called escort.

"Well what do we have here? A fox has been sniffing about." Jun announced gleefully clapping his hands, "A gorgeous one too, don't you agree Haku?" Her eyes narrowed as the bodyguard grunted in response eyeing the dark object in the man's hands. Uncrossing her legs she pushed herself off the desk and studied the two men carefully, "And here we got a hunter and his hound." Jun just smirked in response, "It's unfortunate that a fox can't be tamed."

"Funny, last time I checked Foxes are cunning creatures. Rather than being tamed, they'd just out smart you." She replied watching the man before take a step forward into the dim moonlight that was glaring through the evening clouds. His bodyguard passed him the dark object that was revealed to be a pistol. The man chuckled in response, "It seems our fox is conscious about how the game works."

'Damn it, at times like this now would be a good time for Jane to get some help, but she isn't anywhere to be seen.' Carly inwardly scowled, 'I knew I shouldn't have depended on her.'

Jun took another step closer and caressed her face. Carly was sure to make sure that she didn't pull any stupid moves that could result an immediate or gruesome death.

"Hm, such a pretty face. Maybe I should spare you for a bit before I get rid of you for good." Carly couldn't help but scoffed in response only to have a pistol pointing to her head as the man continued to inspect her face, "Hm, as I thought you look awfully familiar." A cruel smile appeared onto his face as he yanked the wig off her head and let out a roar of laughter, "Ah I knew it. It's the infamous Carly Nagisa, what a shame that I have to get rid of such a pretty face."

The next thing that happened occurred so quickly that all Carly was a saw a blur. Before realized it, she saw Jun unconscious at her feet and a familiar blonde king glaring at her with a look that could kill. Peering over his shoulder she could see the escort unconscious as well. Before she could open her mouth and ask what heck happened and how did he find her Jack had already forcefully grabbed her wrist and dragged her away from the office and out through the backdoor of the building before pinning her to the wall, "What the hell were you thinking?"

She glared at him, "I was doing just fine! Why did you have to knock them out cold?" The pro duelist eyed eye sharply ignoring the question, "Like hell you were doing just fine! That bastard had a fucking pistol pointing to your head!" he shouted in frustration shaking her, "Why do you keep on putting yourself in such dangerous situations? Didn't you learn the first time?"

"I'm not going to let a death experience stop me from doing my job." Carly snapped as she tried breaking free from his grip, only her statement only made Jack grow more frustrated and pinned her against the wall again, this time more firmly, "I'm not about to lose you again." The woman's eyes narrowed as her temper began to flare.

So this is what's it's all about. He didn't think she was capable of protecting herself. The idea made her scoff venomously and sneered at the angry king with a dangerous glint in her eyes, "Are you kidding with me? After eight years, only now you decide to be concerned about my safety? Are you for real? So considering you never went as far as dragging me out during those missions, let alone following me as you have done so tonight – not once have the issue about my safety occurred to you." He glared at her, "That's not true!" The woman couldn't help but laugh sarcastically in response, "Oh FYI Jack, I am more than capable of protecting myself."

The moment Carly felt Jack loosen his grip, she instantly broke free and gave him a nice wicked punch in the jaw causing him to stagger back, dumbfounded and frozen on the spot. She gently rubbed her sore fist with her hand before adding, "People change Jack, you out of all people should be aware of that, and now I think I am going to kick it up a notch and be blunt: I'm not going to wait for you, I'm moving on, and you should probably do the same." With that she left Jack alone, standing there in the dark.

When Carly returned to her apartment, the first thing she did was press her head against the wall, "What the hell did I just do?"

The sound of her cellphone ringing quickly snapped her out of daze and glanced at the ID, making sure that it wasn't Jack. Seeing it was only Jane she let out a sigh of relief, "Hey Jane."

'Where the hell are you? I thought we were doing this together? There's cops all over the place now!' Carly rolled her eyes as she pulled off her wig and tossed it carelessly to the couch across her, "Well I could ask you the same thing when I was in a pinch. I had someone pointing a gun at me-,"

'Wait what? Holy crap, are you okay?' Once more the woman rolled her eyes and entered her bedroom where she quickly stripped down and changed into her night wear, "Well perhaps if you didn't take so long I wouldn't have been stuck in that situation." Carly spitefully, "So in return, you're going to give me the assignment since I was nearly killed on the spot.

'What, wait? Hang on, I-,' Carly cut her off, "It's your own fault." With that she hang up and turned off her cellphone completely. If that wasn't enough she decided to unplug her house phone as well. She was in no mood to talk with anyone, and for all she cared about, she wanted to get this article done and over with. Last but more importantly, she wanted to completely forget about push aside the scene he had with Jack. She was still astounded by the fact she let her inner emotions get the better of her and for the first time in a long time, stood up for herself and speak her mind. But there was one thing she was scolding herself for, for not thanking Jack when he did in fact save her life. She let out a groan as she sat down at her desk and she turned the laptop on before slipping in the USP. Carly already knew all too well that it was going to be a long night.

A/N: Okay so, maybe this happened too quickly? Carly was frustrated with herself for being sucked into Jack's pitiful act in the last chapter, so I wanted to build up on that frustration and basically have her kind of 'snap' when she realizes the reason behind Jack's actions and questions his loyalty and statement about how he couldn't forget her. Jack, I haven't quite been able to explain what brought him down to this point and why he's so desperate for their relationship. I do plan to give us his side of the story maybe within the next chapter or so, but then again now would probably be a good time since he's in a state of shock.

Then there's that whole investigation-caught in the act moment. Ugh, I've rewritten this scene several times, but nothing seems to work the way I wanted it to. So please bare with that crappy moment. I needed SOMETHNG to lead to Jack's thoughts… Bah I'm tired.

Another thing that might be running through some people's heads is why am I being so aggressive with their relationship? Why am I making it so complicated, making Carly deny her feelings that resides deep within her heart and Jack desperately trying to win her back. The reason is because I've always seen Jack's and Carly's relationship rather complicated. I don't really want to discuss any further because I'm worried I might blurt out some spoilers – so just wait a bit longer!

And finally, sorry for the slow update! ;A; I've had my hands full blogging! Chapter three is almost complete, but I'm not satisfied with it so I'm trying to change it up. ^_^/