Author's Note: I do not own Red Eye in any way, shape or form (including the hotness that is Cillian Murphy, wah). Ever since I saw the movie for the first time, I knew I had to write a fanfiction based off it, mainly focusing around the intriguing relationship between Jackson and Lisa; or, more accurately, the lack thereof despite the suffocating amount of pheromones being exchanged throughout the whole movie. However, one-shots never worked very well for me, especially when I have a pack of ravenous plot-bunnies that live under my bed, who thought it would be funny to attack me the other night, so this real flesh and blood of this story came at me all at once; all I have to do now is give it a personality and bring it to life.

On that note, this is a shameless 'ship fic, and therefore, you can expect some Jackson/Lisa action later on. However, this isn't a fluff fic, but mostly my attempt to try to build a believable relationship between the two, incorporated with a hopefully working plot.

Also, I'm still looking for a beta for this fic, because I know my grammar can be nothing short of atrocious, or the horrid demon of repetition that likes to hang out over my shoulder. So, if anyone's interested in being a beta for me, please let me know! I would forever grateful!

On that note, I hope this fic makes it to the end, and I also hope that everyone enjoys it! Much love!

House of Cards

A Red Eye Fanfiction

Written by Omega Devin

-

Prologue

Every Known Reason

-

How can we stand there and deny it,

After all we have been through?

How can we stand there and deny it,

And make a fool out of you?

Collapsing like houses of cards

And landing on splinters and glass…

Zeromancer, "House of Cards"

-

She knew she should have hated him. Logically, she had every right to hate him. Even now, nearly two months after red eye flight 1019, Lisa Reisert would find herself lying in her bed in the early hours of the morning, trying to discern every reason why she was clearly justified to hate him – to hate Jackson Rippner – over and over again.

It seemed perfectly reasonable to hate someone who held her hostage on a plane. It should have been easy for her to hate someone who threatened to kill her father if she refused to take place in his plot of terrorism. She had every God-given right to hate the man who chased her through her father's house, hell-bent on slitting her throat.

But, heaven help her, all the excuses in the world couldn't spark enough animosity for her to feel the burning hatred for Jackson Rippner like she should have.

Maybe that was what kept her wake, hour after hour, night after night, in the two months following that faithful flight. Not thoughts on why she should hate Jackson Rippner, but rather the reasons why she didn't hate him. Was it because of his eyes? Those pools of frozen crystal that held her captivated in the check-in line and terrorized her in that small, cramped airplane bathroom? Or had it been the faded memory of the man who invited her to the airport's Tex-Mex restaurant, the one who had smiled at her when she realized that she would be sitting next to him during the flight to Miami?

Lies, Lisa told herself as she kept her eyes forward on the long stretch of crowded freeway before her. It had all been lies, just an elaborate web of lies to snare me and use me in his plot of death and destruction. And I fell right into his trap, charmed by his false pretenses.

Some would have argued that it was love at first sight. Lisa snorted dryly, flipping on her turn signal as her car coasted down the exit off I-95, down to the 14th Street intersection below the freeway. Lisa had never believed in the notion of love at first sight. It was just a ridiculous idea that only gawky teenaged girls and desperate middle-aged women believed in. Oh sure, she could not deny that there had been some attraction when she first laid eyes her eyes on him. She had found herself ensnared by those incredible eyes, his irresistible charm, and it only ended up getting her into a world of trouble. That image of a kind, caring man has been shattered, smashed like crystal on a hard, cold floor the moment he revealed that he was holding her father's life ransom in exchange for that one damned call. But, still, the ghost of the man lingered on, those eyes a haunting memory of the first man she had trusted since her traumatic rape in the parking lot more than two years ago.

If Lisa could not make herself hate him for any other reason, she should have at least hated him for that. She had been hurt and betrayed after conjuring the courage to forget her scars and join him at the bar in the airport in Dallas, not wanting to give up what might have been, hoping that maybe her luck was finally taking a turn for the better. Their meeting had seemed to be fated, and that the seemingly perfect gentleman was too good to be true.

Turned out, he had been.

Of course. Should she have possibly expected anything more?

Lisa drove into the parking complex of Cedar Medical Center, pulling into an isolated stall and shutting off the engine. Before getting out of the car, though, she took a deep breath, resting her forehead against the steering wheel and exhaling slowly. Why am I here? What can I possibly accomplish by coming here? The question had been playing on her mind since she made the decision to make this little escapade. No one else knew she was here. Her father would have done everything in his power to keep her from going, regardless that she was a grown woman and was able to make these kind of grown-up decisions, and Cynthia simply would have never understood.

You can always go back. Turn around, go back, never look back. No one's making you do this, you hold no obligations.

But she did have an obligation. Her job had driven that frame of mind into her, cementing it into her conscious and locking it into place with iron deadbolts. People pleaser, twenty four-seven, regardless of how rude, how infuriating…

Even if that person was Jackson Rippner.

The hospital lobby was quiet and virtually empty except for a few blurry-eyed visitors and a couple of doctors speaking over a clipboard in hushed voices. The whole area had a heavy, oppressed feeling to it, as though an invisible weight were baring down on her from all sides, further emphasized by the harsh florescent lights and the bleak white walls. The predominate smell of alcohol and the overwhelming sterile stench made Lisa's stomach turn over. She hated hospitals.

Turn back, turn back, turn back now before you make a horrible mistake, turn back before it's too late…

"Excuse me." Lisa said quietly to the receptionist at the front desk, feeling as though her voice would shatter the delicate status quo of the hospital lobby. The receptionist, a middle-aged woman with frazzled blonde hair and inch-long, red lacquered press-on nails, looked up at the younger woman with a bored expression. Lisa cleared her throat before continuing. "I-I'm here to see someone."

The receptionist sighed, picking up a clipboard laying at her elbow. "Who you visiting?"

Lisa cleared her throat again. "Jackson Rippner."

The receptionist glanced back up at Lisa with a cynical look, one heavily penciled eyebrow arched. "And your name?"

"Reisert. Lisa Reisert."

The look of recognition came as no surprise to Lisa. With as much press that she received the weeks following the attempted and failed Keefe assassination, Lisa had become something of a local celebrity until media turned its attention elsewhere. Standing before the face of terrorism and coming out triumphant in the end, the newscasters had said, or some othe r patriotic nonsense along those lines. It would only be a matter of time before some station to make a made-for-TV movie about her ordeal, although she was certain that if that were the case, the story would not be anything like what really happened. No one other than her father or her co-worker Cynthia knew what really took place before the terror on the red eye flight was ever underway, when she was duped by an elaborate act, a pair of blinding blue eyes and a gentle, seemingly genuine smile…

The receptionist regarded Lisa for a moment longer, staring hard at her through horn-rimmed glasses before handing the clipboard and a pen to Lisa through the reception window. "Honey, I don't know whether to call you brave or insane."

"Yeah. Me either." Lisa completed the paperwork quickly, and handed the clipboard back to the woman behind the desk.

"Room 314, take the first immediate right off the elevator. You can't miss it. There's a security guard at the door…in case you might need him."

"Thank you." Lisa nodded before heading down the empty corridor, towards the stainless steel hospital elevators. Along the way, she passed the hospital gift shop, where an arrangement of flowers and other get-well gifts caught her attention. After a moment's contemplation, Lisa entered the small shop and purchased a small bouquet of a half-dozen white carnations. It was a pitiful excuse for a get-well gift. When Lisa was sixteen she had her appendix removed, and the mild surgery kept her in the hospital for several days. During that time, she had received a staggering amount of get-well presents, including silly cards, cute little teddy bears with big glass eyes and gorgeous arrangements of brilliantly colored flowers. The carnations she had with her now seemed like a careless after-thought, like buy a meaningless gift in a Hallmark store when you forgot to get something for a friend's birthday. Besides, how would Jackson react upon seeing them? Would he think she was mocking him? Or would he see them as some pitiful peace offering?

More importantly, how would he regard her when she showed up in his room? There would be a certain amount of animosity, that she could count on. The last time she had seen him was when he lay in the entryway of her father's home, bleeding from the various wounds she inflicted on him as he looked up at her with eyes that clearly begged, How could this have happened? And she had pitied him then. She didn't gloat over her victory, that she was still standing while he lay broken on the tile, but she didn't hate him for the pain and terror that he had inflicted on her. But she was certain that he didn't feel the same. She had rightfully earned his hatred. Because of her, he had failed his job, been stabbed in the neck with a novelty Frankenstein pen and in the leg with a spike-heeled pump, and shot both by her and her father. It was amazing that neither of them had killed him. Now he was in the hospital, healing from said wounds, facing trial upon his release and, more than likely, a very, very long jail sentence if he was convicted. She deserved his hatred.

And yet, here I am, in the elevator, heading up to Jackson's room, baring flowers. What am I even supposed to say? How would it even affect her to see him, weakened and bound to the bed? It had been hard enough to look at him before the ambulance took him away, when their eyes locked for that last time in that one moment of eternity, leaving Lisa wondering ever since what could have been if they had met each other in another time, another place, when there was no job to come between them.

It was that thought, and the fact that it still played in the front of her mind that frightened her more than anything else.

Jackson tried to kill me, tried to kill my father… I should hate him… Why am I still here?

Lisa stepped out onto the third floor, taking an immediate right down a corridor that was surprisingly empty, just as the rest of the hospital had been, regardless of what the receptionist had told her. She held her breath as she approached the room that Jackson was supposed to be recovering in, step by weighted step, her heart thumping behind her ribs like a trapped bird throwing itself against the bars of its cage. Maybe the guard was inside the room? That would make their encounter either easier or much more difficult. Pausing outside of room 314, Lisa took a deep breath, lifted one hand and rapped on the closed door lightly with her knuckles.

No answer came from within.

She tried again, a little louder than before. Once more, she was met with silent. Still holding her breath, Lisa gripped the door handle and pushed the door open slowly. What she saw beyond caught her completely by surprise.

The room behind the door was completely empty. The walls were bare, the bed neatly made, the curtains drawn back to let in the Miami sun flood the vacant room. There was certainly no man recovering of his injuries here, no security guard to make sure that he stayed put. It looked as though the room had been unoccupied for a very, very long time.

Panic rose in Lisa's chest, causing her to choke and grip the flowers in her hand so hard that they wilted. Calm down, Lisa, calm down. Her rational mind tried to convince her, calling to her through a haze a fear. Perhaps she merely had the wrong room? She could have sworn she heard the nurse say suite 314 – she double-checked the numbers on the door only to re-confirm what she already knew – but Jackson Rippner wasn't here, that was for damn sure.

Lisa backed away from the room, her fear threatening to consume her. The back of her neck prickled, and she could swear that Jackson was behind her, ready to pounce…

"May I help you with something, miss?"

Lisa jumped and gave a startled yelp at the sudden voice behind her, and when she turned, she saw that it (thankfully) was not Jackson who had come up from behind, but rather an elderly doctor with graying hair and a stethoscope around his neck, looking at her with the most curious expression.

"The man…" Lisa stammered, attempting to catch her breath. "The man who was staying here…Jackson Rippner…where is he?"

The doctor peered over his shoulder, then gave a defeated sigh. "Oh yes… Our talented Mr. Rippner. It appears that while the guards were switching shifts this morning, he decided to check himself out. The devil only knows how he was able to get away, but only thing for sure is that he's gone. The police already know, of course, but we're trying to keep it a secret from most of the staff here for the time being. Don't want to start a panic. I'm terribly sorry you had to find out this way. What was your connection with him exactly, Miss?"

Lisa glanced back towards the empty room, then shook her head, her curls drifting lazily across her face. "Nothing." She finished for him. "There's no need to apologize. Thank you, doctor." Lisa turned and made her way back towards the elevator before the doctor had a chance to call out after her and ask her for her name. She did not want this to become any more complicated than it already was.

So Jackson managed to escape. Lisa thought glumly to herself as she leaned against one of the cold elevator walls, staring down at her shoes. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. She should have never put it past Jackson to lay passively in a hospital bed while he body slowly rebuilt itself, waiting for the hand of justice to inevitably strike him down. No, he was by far too crafty for that.

But…how was she supposed to feel? Did she feel afraid? Well, that was a given. She knew she should have been terrified. Jackson was on the loose – weak, but on the loose – and she did not have a doubt that revenge was the first thing on his mind. Yet, why wasn't she shaking? Why wasn't she curled into a ball on the floor of the elevator, crying and bawling over her fate?

Because she had survived.

Jackson might have been out for her blood, but Lisa could not conjure the fear that she knew that she should have been rightfully feeling at that moment, knowing that he was loose and on the prowl. Sure, she could not deny that she was anxious; only a fool wouldn't be. But she wasn't afraid. She wasn't afraid of Jackson. She had beaten him one, and she was damn sure that she could do it again.

She was, after all, a survivor.

Still…

The image of Jackson's room continued to haunt her. The doctor said that he had left only that morning, and yet the room was so…cold. Impersonal. There had been no flowers, no get-well cards, and certainly no cute teddy bears. Then again, she could not possibly imagine who would have sent him any to begin with. Still, she could not help but to feel it was a little heartbreaking, being left weak and alone and vulnerable in such an uncaring, horribly sterile environment with no one even bothering to come in to make sure you were alive and well…

The elevator dinged, letting her off on the hospital's ground floor. Lisa looked down at the carnations in her hand. Then, with a disgusted sneer, threw them into the trash.

-

They crush your heart,

But spare your feet

Like judging people you've yet to meet

Well, time is running fast

Upon your reflection…

Trust me now…