Author's Note: This is a little one-shot, written for the 100_women prompt table. The prompts used were "hugs" and "kisses". I haven't been putting my 100_women fics here, since most of them are very brief, more drabbles than fics on their own. I liked this one and it's a little longer than most of my others, hence I decided to post it. As a story/context note, this was a follow-up to a drabble I wrote for the prompt "Clean". In "Clean", Sally tells Jack about the fog juice, and how she used it to try and stop his Christmas.

Coming together as they did, after the tumult of Jack's Christmas, one might have thought that Jack and Sally would have discussed at once the circumstances of how exactly Sally wound up in Oogie's dungeon. They teetered on the edge of that very conversation - before the Mayor interrupted with an ill-timed spot-light. Now, weeks later, Jack couldn't say why it had taken them so long to revisit the subject. If he cared to admit it to himself, the reason was mostly due to his own personality. There was a single-mindedness in the way Jack went about his existence. He did nothing half-way. For nearly two months, his entire being was consumed with Christmas. Quite literally knocked down to earth, he spun in a single evening from deepest depression, to triumph, to vengeance. Then, when it seemed like nothing more could happen before sunrise, he fell in love. The hows and whys of what happened at Oogie's struck Jack as important for a few minutes, but then...there was the Mayor. The townsfolk cheered and dried their eyes. Everyone was elated to see their king home, safe and sound. And Sally. Sally. O-my-goodness-gracious-Jack-thought-I-am-in-LOOOVE!

Once he was in love, nothing else mattered. Really, what else could matter right now? Jack thought. He had at least a dozen new songs to sing, not to mention poetry to write, and perhaps even a painting or two to create.

Sally told him about the fog juice. She did so one evening, as they sat in a coffin-shaped bathtub. She was most matter-of-fact about what she'd done, relieved to have it out in the air. Meanwhile, the chilling reality of a thousand alternate outcomes rattled Jack's brain from its bliss.

Jack crawled into bed that night, pondering his love's confession about the fog. Lying in the dark tower room, he at last recalled their abandoned conversation from Oogie's dungeon. Sally lay tucked beside him, curled against his ribs.

"Sally?" Jack whispered. "However did you get captured by Oogie? How did you get down there? You never finished telling me."

He felt her eyelashes tickle his ribs. Yawning, she told him all he'd asked to know. Her small fingers caressed Jack's collar bone as they spoke, sliding into the soft spaces between his bones. When she'd finished, Jack found himself shaken for the second time that night. He turned in her arms, scooting down the bed until their noses almost touched.

"If your plan had worked perfectly, Sally, if it had gone as well as it possibly could have, you would have lost your leg! You might even have lost your hands!"

"I don't think I would have lost my hands." Sally said with a frown. "You haven't seen them on their own, but my hands are very capable. They stood a good chance of getting away."

"Sally, still... Your leg." said Jack. "And without it, the rest of you would have been in great danger. The trio would have found you. They'd have taken you to Oogie. You couldn't have gotten away, even if Santa Claus did."

His voice faded at the last word. He'd watched Sally's face as he talked, expecting, maybe hoping, for the light of cold realization, but there was only a solemn acknowledgment. It was patently clear she knew what she'd risked. She'd chosen to do it anyway. Sensing his unease, Sally leaned up on her elbows.

"Jack." she said. She no longer whispered, but her normal speaking voice was barely louder. "I couldn't just let you be hurt, or lost, in the human world. Even putting aside my feelings for you, Halloween would have been destroyed, not to mention Christmas. How could I have done nothing, Jack?"

Jack touched his skull to her forehead. "I understand, Sally. But you risked..."

"Everything?" she said quickly, finishing his sentence. "I know it, Jack."

"Everything, yes." Jack repeated quietly. The note of defiance in Sally's last sentence would have made him smile, had they not been talking about trials she'd endured righting his mess. "You keep humbling me, Sally." he said, mournful. "Think any harder about all the disaster I caused, and you might decide I'm hardly worth the trouble."

Sally rolled her eyes. Jack pushed on, smoothing a tendril of her hair.

"I'm quite serious! How can one fix such a thing? How can I ever hope to cast such a pall off of myself?"

"You owe me sooo many of these..." Sally said, pressing her mouth to his. "Tons." She kissed him again.

"Ah! I see." Jack laughed. "And things like this too, I'd imagine?" He slipped his long arms around her, pulling Sally to lie on top of him.

"Mmhm." she breathed, surfacing from another kiss. "Maybe things like that could count for a little more than just a kiss...but not too much. It will still take you decades to pay off. Centuries. I certainly can't leave, Jack."

"No. I suppose you can't." said Jack. His signature grin spread across his skull and he exhaled a happy sigh. "Ooh, Sally. Whatever shall I do?"

End