#my fic: divorced jalice

[goldeneyedgirl]

@sonyawixI am so so sorry about your earring. If it's a pair or you have a photo, I know there are people on etsy who can recreate one for you!

However, let me see what I can do...

divorced jalice.

He braces himself on the deck railing as he stares out into the night. He looks haunted, honestly, and she almost feels bad for him. 

“That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out,” she begins gently, and he just shakes his head. 

“How long?” His voice is hoarse and for a moment she wonders if he’s fighting back tears. “How long has this been going on?”

“Six and a half years.” She moves closer slowly, like he’s a wild animal, too easily spooked. “My doctor is great, I’m doing well. I just wanted Carlisle’s opinion on if I needed to bump up an appointment, it isn’t a big deal.”

He still hasn’t looked at her. 

“When did you find out?” He’s so tense, she’s surprised he hasn’t hit something yet. 

“Six and a half years ago,” she replies. Don’t get specific, Jasper, you’ll just upset yourself. Please.

“Before or… after?”

That’s when he looks at her, and the raw pain in his eyes cuts her. She wants to lie to him, offer him some comfort, but she can’t and she won’t. She’s been protecting him from the full picture for so long, has let him live with the easy reality that she gave up on him and on them because he was an addict and a cheater.

She moves closer to him. “Why does that matter?”

He shakes his head. “Because the fact that you were… you were that fucking sick and I didn’t notice? That you had to walk away from everything… god, I know Rose and Bella cut you out. I know they blamed you for months until Rose worked out that I was having an affair, and then we couldn’t fucking find you. You could have been dead and I wouldn’t have known…”

“You were still my next of kin, you would have been told,” she offers lamely, and he just stares at her again. 

“You had no one, Alice. You didn’t even have your own home,” he says through gritted teeth. “When did you know?”

“Before the divorce was finalised.” The words she says are firm, determined and they both know that she’s dancing around the truth, and he feels so sick. 

“It was why you left, wasn’t it?”

She closes her eyes to steel herself for what she says next. “I… I knew that nothing was going to change between us until you knew you had a problem. Maria hurt my ego, but the drugs Jas… They changed you. And I could manage that better when I was healthy but when I found out that it was serious, I realised that I needed to … to put on my own life vest first. How ugly do you think it would have gotten if I had stayed? My recovery was long, Jasper. It would have been a disaster. I made the best choice I could with what I had.”

He nods once but he looks so miserable, she wants to hold him.

“Why didn’t you tell everyone the truth? About everything?” He finally asks. “You know Esme and Carlisle would have taken care of you, and Bella, and…”

“Because they were your family and you needed them. My family came through for me when I needed them to.”

“With money. Health insurance. Have you actually seen them in person?” His voice is laced with anger and she feels tired. She didn’t want this conversation to happen like this. She had it planned out, had it prepared in nice, easy pieces so that it didn’t have to hurt like this. 

The best laid plans. 

“No, Mom and I email each other. I think she sent flowers once? Maybe she just talked about it. But I didn’t want to see them, Jasper. If healthcare in this country wasn’t so awful, I wouldn’t have spoken to them at all.”

“So you were alone.”

“Jasper, I honestly wasn’t well enough to care or notice for most of it. You’re making this a much bigger deal than it is.” That’s when she reaches out to touch his arm, but he pulls away. 

“I need to go,” he says suddenly, straightening. He still isn’t looking at her. “I just… need to go.”

“No.” She’s shaking her head and turning back to go inside, for the whole Cullen family to look at her with pity and curiosity in their eyes. “I’ll go. You stay here with your family, and you call Peter, okay? I’ll call an Uber and we’ll talk in a couple of days. I don’t want to be the reason you break your sobriety, okay?”

--

deaf mary-alice.

Seeing Jasper again is like... it's like the world is back in colour. It's a cliche, thinking like that, but she can't help it - she missed him so bad it was like someone had taken off a limb. She just kind of... adapted. It was easier knowing that he was safe and he was healing; she could watch her and see him getting better, and she convinced herself that it was selfish to want anything more than his safety and happiness. That it was enough to keep her going.

How many times had Maria and the other older soldiers reminded her that no one had any use for a defective vampire? That she would make any coven vulnerable and they'd turn her away, and that she was safer with Maria?

(The last night was supposed to be special but it all went wrong. They only got a little while to sit and talk before it was over. She regretted that. She wanted to send him off with the memory of her touch, with her kiss. That he would remember that he was treasured. Instead... well, sometimes the future changes and she just has to live with that.)

She lives in a quiet world with everyone gone. Maria still talks to her, but mostly she's expected to lip-read and that's all orders and stuff. No one wants a conversation, so she just stops bothering. Maria lets her keep the Major's quarters and his books. At lot of them are hard to understand, and slow to read, but she tries. She draws a lot, when there's chalk and paper. She fights and trains and hunts. It's a small life, a quiet life, but it's hers. The future doesn't show her ever having anything more, so she just appreciates what she has.

What she had.

It's been decades by the time that Peter and Charlotte just... show up. She's never been so pleased to see them before, talking to Maria like they didn't flee in terror. She cannot help herself, the way she half-tackles them, hugging them so tightly. They look wonderful and Peter laughs at her, fumbles through what he remembers of her language, and Charlotte seems a little sad at her excitement.

(Charlotte's wearing a top that has little flowers on it, it's clean, and she smells so nice. Even shoes! And fancy little pins for her hair!)

She's not paying attention to Maria's conversation with Peter until Maria taps her shoulder and signs the words.

You can go North with Peter and Charlotte, Mary-Alice. You've done well.

It's the biggest compliment that Maria has ever given her and the words take a moment to settle her brain. North? 

Charlotte smiles at her and tells her, she can go and see the Major. 

And that was terrifying. North to see the Major. 

She'd nearly asked to stay with Maria. 

What if... what if the Major didn't want her? What if he'd forgotten her?

What if he had a mate? She hadn't checked on him in a while - sometimes it was hard - and maybe the Cullens had found him some pretty girl who could talk and hear and sing.

Her stomach had been in knots and it had taken every ounce of her bravery to agree to go North. Something new, something different.

(She couldn't bring herself to Look because she was terrified about what she would find.)

And then she got there, arrived at him home, and he remembered her. 

He remembered her and he was happy to see her. He had missed her, he still cared. 

(He still knew their words, still smelt the same, and held her so tight like he was making sure she couldn't get away. It was like the world had flipped the right way up.)

She presses herself so close to him, holds him so tight, only lets go to speak. “Maria sent me, said I could come be with you now. You went north and I was lonely. No one spoke to me like you.”

She doesn't even care about the Cullens watching them, watching her tell him she missed him and loved him, watching his hands fall into the old words. 

(The Cullens are... nice. She remembers them from her early visions, and what she knows of them, they are no threat. She can lipread some of what they say; she can see their eyes follow how she holds onto Jasper, how eagerly she speaks with him. But they smile and welcome her into the house, into the home, and maybe something is finally going right for her. Maybe the world just got a little bit bigger).

--

anathema.

We sat together on the couch, talking about superficial topics at first - he went by Jasper Hale, not Cullen, as part of their cover story of adopted and fostered children. He had drawn the short straw, and had to attend Forks as a sophomore this year - luckily, the school year was more than half over. He was originally from Texas, but the Cullens’ most recent residence was Alaska. 

“That night in the field when you fainted,” Jasper began. “You mentioned something… you have some kind of gift?”

I nodded. “I sometimes get knowledge of things that might happen,” I said, twisting to face him on the couch, crossing my legs. “I might wake up with the absolute certainty that a client is going to smash a vase, or that Charlie Swan is going to have a flat tire. It very, very rarely happens when I’m awake.”

“But it did the other night?” Jasper looked so serious. “It caused a seizure.”

I looked at my lap. “When decisions change rapidly, my mind just shuts down,” I explained. “I kind of just… shut down. It’s happened before, but that was kind of an extreme episode. I’m fine.”

He watches me with this look on his face that I cannot decipher; almost affectionate. He reaches out to gently take my hand. 

“As long as you’re okay.” 

—

The Cullens come over to speak with Freddie on Friday night, and I am buzzing -  I can’t stop moving and fussing and asking questions, and Dulcie is going to strangle me when I am too nervous to eat dinner. 

I break two plates washing the dishes, and Freddie is quick to redeploy me to drying up before we run out of flatware.

“You’ll stay up here for the meeting, Alice,” he informs me with a sternness that is alien to me, when he catches me watching the clock. 

“What?” I promptly drop a mug, and Dulcie plucks the dishcloth out of my hands. “But…”

“No buts. This discussion does not involve you,” he says. “Go and study, make sure that you make a convincing high school student.” He’s sour tonight, grim, and I am reminded of the days after Jeanie’s death. 

I am desperate to see Jasper again, but I don’t want to push my uncle too far. I don’t want this to hurt him more than it already is. 

“Can I call Cynthia?” I ask, as I pause to get myself a soda out of the fridge - more habitual than anything else. 

“Tomorrow,” Dulcie says kindly, and nods for me to leave.

My room seems small and stale now that I am virtually trapped in it for the evening. I have the little drawing Jasper did of me on the scrap of paper taped to my mirror, and the flowers he brought me that have wilted. Nothing Freddie would notice as out of place. Dulcie tells me my bedroom reminds her of a thrift store - so many little treasures cluttering up the surfaces. It’s a good way to hide things in plain sight. 

I could watch a movie in the living room, but that holds less appeal than my room. Instead, I pick up the books Dulcie bought me, left stacked neatly on my desk. They don’t hold my interest for more than a casual flip through - I was never taught Spanish or Algebra, and I have little patience for History, or for Chemistry, especially when I handle chemicals every day of my life. I should be working my way through the reading list Sue brought over, but it’s dull work and almost enough to convince me not to bother with high school at all. 

But Jasper…

I am making my way bravely through Romeo and Juliet when Dulcie brings me in a slice of cake, her hand running through my curls gently. “He worries so much about you,” she said kindly. “He’s just nervous.”

I nod, taking a bite of the cake before I reply. “I know, it’s just… different. I know with my whole heart that Jasper would burn this town to the ground before he hurt me. I am never more safe than I am when I’m with him.”

—

Dulcie is officially my partner in crime; the door isn’t latched, so there’s no sound as I creep out of the apartment and down to the landing. 

I crouch on the landing of the stairs; with the lights off, Freddie and Jeanie couldn’t spot me but the Cullens do and Carlisle winks at me. I probably look like a child, with my hair in curly pigtails and in a giant pink sweater. 

“Alice is a child,” Freddie insisted, looking older than I had ever seen him. “She might not look like it but…”

“How old is Alice?” Carlisle asked gently, and Freddie looked at the ground. 

“You need to tell them the truth, Fred,” Dulcie said gently. “If nothing else, they can protect her when we can’t.”

“Protect her from what?” Edward asks, and I want to echo that question. 

Freddie takes a shuddering breath. “Her mother… Alice’s father was a vampire that stalked and raped her mother. Lilian did not survive the birth, and Alice was… not a normal child.”

“That’s impossible.” The blonde, Rosalie, snaps but Carlisle holds his hand up. 

“Please, Mr Brandon, continue.”

“She grew so fast - by her first birthday, she looked like a perfectly healthy three year old. We brought her here to Forks because Jeanne had a family home out near Noah Bay. When she was born, she was… she was aware of us. Does that make sense? She reached for her mother, but Lillian was dead by then. 

“She didn’t eat for weeks because she … she wanted blood. That was our line in the sand, we couldn’t do that for her. I have no idea how Jeanne managed to get her to take milk and human food, but we got past it. Jeanne always wondered if Alice was so small because we accidentally stunted her growth.”

My hands were shaking.

No one had ever told me any of this before. 

[denalilily]

🤍 About Me 🤍

hi I'm Lily and welcome to my blog!! I joined last summer and am lovin it. tumblr is literally my job. like, seriously. I post every single day. I mostly reblog twilight posts and all my original content is about twilight. I mainly create memes and gifsets, but I also write fanfiction (check out ao3 below). my favorite characters are the denali sisters and my otp is kate & garrett so most of my content is about them! other stuff you might find on my blog include: funny posts, political posts, poems, sports, positivity & mental health support, art, lgbt stuff, games and more. this blog does not have too many posts. I love the community on tumblr and always happy to make new friends/mutuals, so if you dig my vibe feel free to message me! and if you're a twilight fan.....

I run a discord server for twilight blogs to come together and chat, so if you're interested in getting to know your mutuals, making new friends and discussing twilight stuff message me for the link!

my fav characters: Kate, Garrett, Tanya, Alice, Riley, Carlisle, Charlie, Bree, Leah, Demetri, Mike, Jessica, J Jenks, the blond kid who plays Spiderman

my fav ships: Kate/Garrett, Tanya/Bella, Alice/Demetri

🫀 My Creations 🫀

not exhaustive 🙂

Hasta la Vista, Baby (WIP fic)

Hasta la Vista promotional concept gifset

The Hunter

Baseball scene with Gangnam Style

Jalice divorce moodboard

Carlesme divorce moodboard

Twilight ships VDay edit

Twilight social media AU

Kate and Garrett gifset (Hamilton edit)

Volturi confrontation gifset (les mis edit)

Black Widow video edit of the Denali sisters

Garrett's quotes

Kate's quotes

Twilight characters + funny text messages meme

Denali sisters succubus inspired gifset

Video meme of the Cullens and Denalis

🤍 Garrett's phone gallery 🤍

🤍 Kate's phone gallery 🤍

Garrett's speech meme

Garrett and vegerarianism meme

Twilight character meme

Breaking Dawn Christmas celebration drabble

a Breaking Dawn AU crackfic

Twilight characters incorrect quotes generator memes:

Part 1

Part 2

The first anonymous Tanya Denali ask because it deserves a spot on my pinned post

[flowerslut]

Hello friend! I just read the entirety of Edge of it All for the third(???) time. I loved the new chapter, especially as we got to see some supportive Jasper and Bella content, which I feel like we so rarely get. I think the story is incredibly unique, and I love that you’ve managed to tackle something so original without divorcing the characters from their personalities or the story. I don’t want to sound like I’m rushing you, but can I ask when the next chapter might be uploaded? I’m very excited for your future work :)

you are so sweet and don't worry about apologizing! when it comes to my active WIPs I don't mind people popping in here and there to check up on their status! it's when people march in and start demanding chapters of old fics that I haven't touched in 5-10 years, or bitching about dropped WIPs, that I get irritated. you are both in the clear and very appreciated my dear darling!

I find that most fics either don't have jasper and bella interact outside of Necessary Alice Interactions or they cross over into evil squicky territory and go full jasper/bella which I.... no thanks. (I've been in 2008 twilight fandom where that ship was more common than jalice and I don't wish to return to it.) but I think they'd get along! not in a 'wow, we're great friends' way but in a 'we have similar temperaments and can coexist fairly easily' way and I like to explore that whenever they interact in my fics!!

also thank you! any time someone tells me they feel as if I've gotten a character's portrayal adequately or I've nailed some otherwise hard-to-pin characterization I feel like I've won some type of silly award. like, where's my 'Wrote Human Jasper Right' medal? this message feels like that very award so thank u very kindly 🥰🥰🥰

[goldeneyedgirl]

💬 for divorced Jalice!

"Do you want to get dinner tomorrow? There's a new bar near the library," he began, trying to fill the silence as Alice pulled on a sweatshirt and leggings. "Catch a movie afterwards?"

"I can't." She tosses him his jeans as she picks up a pill bottle off her nightstand. "I'm being admitted tomorrow."

He freezes, the grip on his pants tightening. "The hospital?"

"Mmmhmm." She looks up at him and lets out a soft huff of air. "Don't look at me like that, it's nothing big deal. I'll be back home in a few days."

His mouth is dry and there is a sense of rising dread as he watches her pop some pills and press some buttons on the side of her monitor.

"Can I do anything?" The silence between them is heavy and loaded with a hundred things they've never discussed and he wants to beg her to let him help. To let him in.

"No. I've got it all under control," she says. "Get dressed, I'll walk you out."

[goldeneyedgirl]

I’ve been seriously enjoying your fix as contributions this year! Seriously love anything you write - you have a talent ❤️

That being said, Shadow to Light and Divorced Jalice have a special place in my heart. Do you think you’ll have any updates for either of these this season? 🫣

Also, super excited about baby-verse and dad-sper lol. I love seeing everyone’s take on Jalice attempting to keep a tiny soul alive 😫😂

Awww, thank you Anon!

Sadly, I couldn't include either of those this year; STL13 is happening and should be up soon - one of the future chapters is 75% done, so I'm having to go back to work on the pacing and lay the groundwork before I release it into the wild.

Most of the work for Divorced Jalice is kind of building it into a single timeline, and much of the work so far is in connecting scenes or lines of dialogue or just dot points, which isn't satisfying to read. I need to do a proper outline for it so that there's a road map, rather than just writing random scenes, honestly.

And the pro-baby-verse people are making me laugh because I literally posted that as a silly. I do worry that if/when I post the full story people will be disappointed about how very plot-driven it is, rather than all family fluff.

Thank you for the message Anon, I promise to get everyone some new STL soon!

[goldeneyedgirl]

Can I have more divorced Jalice pretty pleaseeeee? I’m a slut for some hurt/comfort 😍. Are you planning on releasing chapters any time soon?

I think I can manage something, anon! I'm honestly surprised at how much love Divorced Jalice gets because i know that AH fics are an acquired taste.

I literally have no idea when this will be released. I need to write down a proper outline as a first step, I think. Right now, it's just a bunch of scenes and a vague map in my head.

The first holiday without Alice is strange. It’s like everyone is waiting for her to arrive the entirety of Thanksgiving and he wants to be furious with every single one of them except he can’t.

Because he’s waiting for her to walk back into the room as well.

No one mentions her until dinner when Emmett looks over from his plate. “Where’s that fruit salad we always have?” he asked, visibly disappointed.

“There’s fruit for dessert,” Esme had told him, frowning.

“No, the weird fruit and avocado salad?” Emmett was inspecting the spread. “With the grapefruit?”

“Oh, Alice’s…” Esme freezes, and they all avoid looking at him, and the food in his mouth turns to ash. “I’ll make it for Christmas, Emmett.”

Alice made it every year, and it always looked like nothing because she had to add half the ingredients just before it was served. Alice was never much of a cook, but that was one of the few things she made confidently.

He’d had another glass of wine, and briefly wondered what she was doing this Thanksgiving. They had a meeting with their lawyers in a few days, to hash out the details of the divorce. He’d been pissed when he had found out she’d sold her car, and wasn’t letting his car or bike go. But most of the emails his lawyer had sent him were pretty basic requests - she hadn’t mentioned the apartment or his car, just their savings and retirement.

He hadn’t spoken to her in person since the night she’d moved out. Hell, she’d called him in February and politely said that under the circumstances, it was best if they proceeded with a divorce. He hadn’t reached out, and she’d given him space, so he’d made his choice. He had agreed, and she’d told him she’d pass on her lawyer’s information.

Which was texted to him a few days later.

—

“Listen, deadshit, I need Alice’s number,” Rosalie snapped. “I have to send flowers to my best friend because I ghosted her for over a year because you failed to mention you were fucking your co-worker.”

“You have her number,” Jasper said sourly.

“Her new number - her old one is disconnected,” Rosalie said. “And her address. I should just skip flowers and send her shoes and booze, shouldn’t I? I haven’t spoken to her since she told me she was leaving, I might as well give her my house.”

“I only have her old number,” Jasper said. “Let me look up the paperwork okay?”

Pulling out his divorce papers, Jasper paged through them and frowned. The contact details included were care-of her lawyer’s firm. Phone number too.

Grabbing his own phone off the coffee table, he called her phone and with a rising sense of nausea, got a disconnection message. His text message got an error. Reaching for his tablet, he began to search for her social media accounts.

Nothing. No users. They weren’t private, they flat-out didn’t exist.

She was gone from her work website. From her professional network.

The panic was building. It was Alice. He’d known her since they were fourteen, the idea she could just not exist anymore was disorientating.

Rose, I don’t have her contact details.

He feels like being sick. Alice Whitlock-Hale is gone. Alice Brandon doesn’t appear to exist. Maybe she’s gone ultra-private, but even that is too much. She could have died and he’d never know.

Rose called back, and she sounded calmer. “You don’t have anything?” she asked, still not happy but not aggressive anymore.

“All of her contact details are care of her lawyer,” he said, his voice sounding tight. “And she’s deleted all her social media. I can’t find her.”

Silence.

“She obviously wanted a fresh start,” Rosalie said sadly.

“She’s been deleted from her work website, she loved that job.” He’s panicking now.

“Jasper! You don’t know what’s been happening - maybe she got an offer in Paris or started her own label or something,” Rose was back to being irritated. “Alice has the right to remove herself from our lives; she divorced you. I sure as hell didn’t want to talk to her, and I don’t think Bella or Esme spoke to her after she moved out either. We thought she was dumping you, we wanted to support you.

“Your ex has obviously moved on. You can’t blame her at all for not wanting anything to do with us anymore. You need to let her go.”

[goldeneyedgirl]

Okay, so, you have written so much goodness already, I feel a little nosy to ask you for more, but.

[insert a promt]

I have some, if you feel like writing one of these, I would be grateful, if not, its ok, you spoiled me already with everything you have posted within those few days.

- Variable Stars, the family/friends/whoever side-eyeing Jalice being like “you two are FRIENDS, yeah, sure” // or // anything you would like to post from VS.

- Anathema, Alice comes to the Cullens after the shit show that happened

- Divorced Jalice, anything after Jalice meeting in the park.

Thank you❤️

Listen, I am happy to write and I wouldn't offer if I wasn't happy to do it!

Let's start with Variable Stars

"And what exactly is going on there?" Garrett grinned as Alice and Jasper disappeared into the forest, Jasper keeping close behind Alice. "If looks could kill, I'd be a distant memory."

"They're just best friends," Emmett said solemnly, trying futilely to keep a straight face for a moment before he grinned. "That's what they both keep insisting when they come back from 'wrestling'."

Garrett started to laugh. "Wrestling?"

"No, it's true," Edward sounded just as amused. "He's literally teaching her to fight at night - to make sure she can defend herself."

"Wait, you're serious?" Garrett stopped. "They're actually 'wrestling' and not ...?"

"She's his best friend, and he's her person, and they get really annoyed if you question them," Emmett said, shaking his head. "And the Tiny Terror packs a punch when she's pissed off, let me tell you."

"That boy looks at her like he'd like to devour her," Garrett was shaking his head. "How can she not notice? How can he not know?"

"Oh, that's new. Since you turned up, and Alice knew you, actually," Edward said pointedly, as they got closer towards the herd of elk.

"Fifty bucks they fuck before Christmas," Emmett said boldly.

"Bella has seventy for Thanksgiving. Esme has a twenty on the spring. Something about rebirth and renewal."

Anathema

It took me weeks to work out how to see Jasper again after Freddie decided that the best solution to me finding my soulmate was to keep me locked up in the Funeral Home - I wasn't exactly a social butterfly before the Cullens moved to town, but now I wasn't even allowed to run errands or go see Dulcie at the salon.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the house comes into view; my bike was designed for getting around town, not biking nearly ten miles away to find the elusive Cullen house. Thank god Mrs. Stanley was an unrepentant gossip - and that Freddie had decided today was a good day to drive to Port Angeles for supplies.

Dropping the bike onto the drive, I tripped towards the porch; surely they had heard me and were home? Knocking on the door, I suddenly wondered if I looked okay or if I was a mess from my bike ride.

The door swung open to reveal Mrs. Cullen, the rest of the family peering from the next room over.

"Hi, I'm Alice Brandon. I thought maybe we should talk," I said in a rush, absolutely certain I was turning pink as soon as I spied Jasper frozen on the stairs. Oh, he was beautiful, and my limbs were already twitching to go over and fling my arms around him, like I had wanted to when his brother and father had dragged him off.

Divorced Jalice

Alice didn't relax until she was back inside her apartment, the door locked. It wasn't until she was in the kitchen, taking her pills, that she finally let herself ... react to everything that had transpired.

Jasper. She'd be lying if she said that she hadn't thought of him so many times over the last six years. Hating him, mourning him, missing him, worrying about him. She'd only managed to resist stalking him on social media because she knew she just couldn't face seeing him smiling from wedding photos that weren't hers. So she hadn't. And now...

Why had she agreed to go to dinner with the family? She hadn't seen any of them since the separation, she wasn't recovered enough to be able to hide it for very long - she hadn't missed Jasper's curious glances in her direction over lunch, at the scar peeking out at the neckline of her top. And whilst Jasper hadn't asked - he always was a consummate gentleman when he wasn't fucking his co-worker - Rosalie or Edward wouldn't pause in demanding answers.

Why... why couldn't it just be them? She knew how to protect Jasper, how to make sure he only knew what wouldn't hurt him, but she'd never, ever been good at hiding anything from Rose.

[goldeneyedgirl]

Saw your previous post……LOVED IT

can I also request one where the cullens find out about maria

Anon, I'm sorry, I've blanked on which fic this was for but I'm nearly certain it was for Divorced Jalice. This is a VERY rough first draft of how I imagine the scene going - it definitely happens at a family dinner out, Maria definitely *intentionally* lets the truth slip, and Rosalie is the only one who catches on. But the final version will be polished and a little different than this. But hopefully you enjoy it!

It is, frankly, strange to see her brother with someone who isn’t Alice. That’s the only thought that Rose has when she sees Maria. They look strange together - Maria might be short (like Alice), have black hair (like Alice), but she’s not Alice; she’s Latina, for starters. Her hair is long and glossy, like the hair Alice always wished she had. Where her former sister-in-law had the physique of a ballet dancer, Maria is more of a model. She’s curvy and beautiful and Rose isn’t entirely sure she doesn’t already follow Maria on social media.

It just feels wrong that she’s not Alice.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Maria,” Esme gushes, as they all take a seat. Emmett had commented that it was kind of weird to take Maria to the same restaurant their family always met at, that she was just sliding into the spot Alice had left vacant. But Carlisle and Esme were creatures of habit, and it was Alice’s choice not to be here anymore.

She had been surprised that Jasper was already dating but she understood - she’d sprung the separation on him, moved out days later; Jasper had every damn right to find someone new if Alice was done with him. And he and Maria seemed happy together; she practically hung off him, even sitting down.

She doesn’t know why she’s so uncomfortable with Maria, not at first. She answers every question, makes several jokes, and asks questions of her own. Carlisle likes her and respects her education and aspirations for her own law firm. Esme is keen to discuss Maria’s apartment, in a new building that’s been in all the design magazines.

It’s halfway through the meal when Rosalie reaches for her wine glass with nothing to really say. She’s admitted defeat; there’s nothing about Maria that she can criticize. The whole relationship seems to have moved fast, but different things work for different people. Emmett, Bella, and Maria are dissecting the city’s foodie scene with enthusiasm - Bella is inexplicably passionate about soup dumplings, and tapas apparently, and Emmett is just enthusiastic about food.

“Oh I loved their cocktails,” Maria says, flipping her hair and turning to Jasper. “It’s where you took me after the Bergman deposition back in January - you liked it.”

For a moment, Jasper freezes and she freezes, and she’s not sure why at first. The twin thing, again. And then she meets his eyes, and Maria’s smile suddenly looks like a smirk and she understands completely.

Alice didn’t move out until the summer, and yet, Jasper was apparently taking Maria on dates to - according to Bella - one of the most romantic bars in the city.

She feels cold and hot, and it is only the fact that Carlisle and Esme visit this restaurant several times a month that stops her from making a scene. She remembers January, remembers psyching herself up for another round of IVF, and Alice sending text messages of support, flowers, and explaining Jasper was working late, working too hard, but they were both thinking of her. Remembered the last time she had breakfast with Alice, after yoga - Alice had skipped the class and shown up looking listless and tired, made a couple of comments about being lonely, about Jasper not being around much.

She looks around the table and no one else has picked up on that very intentional slip. They aren’t rushing anything in this relationship - they’ve been together the best part of a year; Maria had very intentionally taken Alice’s place at the table.

And it takes everything in Rosalie’s body to keep eating.

—

“He was fucking her,” is the first thing she says in the car, thin-lipped and coldly furious.

“I would hope so,” is Emmett’s response as she starts the car, Bella and Edward looking confused in the backseat.

The rage she feels is enough that she immediately turns off the ignition.

“Rose?” Bella sounds concerned.

“January. He took Maria to that romantic bar in January,” she’s so angry that there are tears in her eyes. She thinks of the phone call and, oh god, the texts she sent Alice when they separated and she had just assumed that Alice was being her flighty self. “Alice moved out in June.”

Bella looks shellshocked and Edward looked grim. Emmett just looks confused.

“That has to be a mistake,” Emmett begins and she loves her husband for that. That the idea of an affair, of her brother cheating on his wife, is impossible.

“He was fucking Maria whilst Alice was at home thinking he was working late!” she yells and slams her hand against the steering wheel.

“Maybe Emmett should drive?” Bella suggests meekly, and she doesn’t respond, just gets out of the car. She doesn’t know why, but she sees them just across the car park, sitting in Jasper’s car talking. Esme and Carlisle have already gone. In a second, she’s across the car park, and she’s not sure who she’s going to murder first - Jasper or Maria.

“Rose?” Jasper’s leaning out of the car, and with the shadows of the streetlights, he looks drawn and sickly, almost grey; thin and with dark circles under his eyes.

“How fucking could you?” she half-yells, and she’s already tearing up with anger and frustration and resentment. “Alice loved you so much.”

And in the harsh light of reality, she cannot believe she ever thought that Alice would leave Jasper for no reason. She had revolved around him, been her best self at his side. There was a shaky cellphone video somewhere of Alice in the bridal suite at her wedding after the ceremony, sobbing into her hands as she messily confessed she was just so happy to finally be married to Jasper. How happy she was to have a family, when her parents had let her down and discarded her so many times.

Jasper shakes his head and Maria purses her lips to cover up the smirk.

“I’m so goddamn ashamed of you right now, how dare you sit there and pretend that you are the victim in this mess. How dare you bring that home-wrecking whore to a family dinner, and let her sit in her seat!” She stamps her foot and she knows she’s making a scene and people are staring, but suddenly Emmett’s there, with his arm around her. “I swear to god Jasper, I…”

“Let’s go, Jasper.” Maria’s voice is sugary and smug, and if she wasn’t in the car, Rosalie would have punched her, strangled her, and made her hurt.

Instead, Jasper just shakes his head and winds up the window.

[goldeneyedgirl]

Not hibernating, just working on stuff behind the scenes.

Lots of writing happening, and just I'm finishing my last project for the uni term. Definitely around, just in the corner writing. <3

So have some more Divorced Jalice for your patience, my loves.

This is what he wanted, and half of it has already gone and he doesn’t even care that much. 

His phone buzzes twice when he’s packing up, sick and sour. A reminder, not a message. 

!! Reminder: Anniversary 💍 

Even his fucking phone betrays him, the ‘memories’ feature flashing up a photo of him and Alice dancing at their wedding, Alice laughing, and him grinning at her like he’s just won everything ever. 

He keeps it together until he gets home, until he throws his laptop bag on the floor and doesn’t even care about the ugly crunching noise. He ends up on the couch with whatever bottles he grabbed on the coffee table, staring blankly at a show in Korean he’s not even watching as his mind flies. 

He pours a drink.

They’d had a beautiful wedding in a private garden, with flowers and a gazebo trimmed in fairy lights. She hadn’t stopped smiling the entire night, and he remembers that sometime late in the night, she’d had a lopsided flower crown in her hair. That’s his clearest memory of their wedding, of Alice with flowers in her hair, on the dance floor waiting for him. The smile on her face that lit her from within. She’d tasted of champagne and chocolate when he snagged a kiss. 

He pours himself another drink.

[goldeneyedgirl]

so, i see your fic divorced jalice will break my heart into a million pieces...not for me to ask for spoilers but is anything good going to happen in this story??? a single thing at least???

Well, whilst I have been accused of writing tragedy porn before, this is not that fic ;) Spoilers under the cut, anon.

No, not good. Better than good. Happy, content, loved. It’s more than she ever hoped for, in those dark days between one failed surgery and the next; when she and her surgeons had to debate the benefits of more surgery versus a full transplant, and she was alone with no one to lean on, no hand to hold.

Looking back, she wants to comfort her past self, let her know that better days are coming, that Jasper will come back to her - and her Jasper, not the man she divorced - and she’ll be okay. That every empty hospital room, every nurse that pitied her lack of flowers, and family and friends clustered around her bedside as she waited for the doctors’ verdict, her chest stitched and stapled and swathed in bandages, is just another step closer to things being wonderful again. That she and Jasper are both better people, better friends, better partners and lovers for everything that happened.

[goldeneyedgirl]

TwiFicMas Day 8: Divorced Jalice

Time for an AH AU that is both angsty as hell and a romance because that's my drug of choice. // Means time-skip/new scene, whilst -- is just a chapter break.

And I know I haven't posted many requests yet - I've been so tired, and finally dragged myself to the clinic today to get diagnosed with 'sick', so I've been sleeping more than writing. They are all on my list, and I should be feeling better in a day or two <3

It takes five surgeries and six years.

It goes by so fast.

The scars are huge and obvious, heavy lines bisecting her chest, and are so hard to cover up. She’s died on the table more than once, and her doctors cannot believe she made it this far. That every single time she went back into the OR, the chance of her waking up - let alone to good news - got smaller and smaller.

But she did it.

It cost her everything though.

Her marriage.

Her friends.

Her job.

She used to hate that she was living off money from her family. That she hated them as much as they hated her, and it was cruel and unfair that this was the only option she had left.

Now she doesn’t care. It just… isn’t important. She’s alive and she’s got somewhere to live. She’s reached a place where she sends them a Christmas card and they send her one, and they still don’t talk. They just pay her bills.

Which is why she’s sitting in the park right now, sketching, instead of at work. The last surgery (her favourite words to say) was only a couple of months ago and her doctor doesn’t want her working yet - she’s too thin, too weak, and the doctor isn’t convinced she’s mentally ready to join the real world again.

The shrink’s number is still in her purse.

She pauses in her drawing to sip her drink, and look out at the people. God, she’ll never not appreciate being able to sit in a park with a ridiculous beverage and draw again. Fresh air. Noise. People.

“Alice?”

And when she looks up, she goes cold.

—

“Shit.”

That’s her response when her doctor explains, in gentle terms, what the tests have shown them.

It’s her heart. It’s broken. Very broken, in fact.

That explains a lot.

There needs to be surgery, immediately. Hopefully that will work; if it doesn’t, they’ll need to consider a transplant (her vision swims). But should it work, it will be the beginning of several surgeries, to piece her back together into something that will allow her to live out her life in peace.

It’s a lot, but the doctor is kind and the nurse helps her fill in the paperwork for her surgery and calls her a cab. She goes straight home to read all the literature they’ve emailed her about her poor heart, about what to expect and recovery and all the little things she can’t wrap her head around.

Jasper comes home from work late, smelling of booze and she feels very insubstantial at the moment, utterly powerless.

(She hates his job. Hates how much it eats away at him - so many hours, so many cases. He took it so they could have nice things, live a nice life in a nice apartment and she misses their shit-hole student apartment because at least he smiled and laughed and was with her. Now he’s never home, and he drinks way too much, and she knows he’s self-medicating, and she also knows he’s fucking his classmate from law school, the pretty one who joined the firm last year. He doesn’t know she knows. She pretends everything is fine, even when she finds lipstick on his collar, and receipts for dates he never takes her on.)

He nods at her, focused on his phone, and she wonders for a split second, if it would be so bad to cancel the surgery. To simply call it off and let the chips fall where they may. Let her die in her sleep, or collapse in the shower, or end up in an ambulance that turns off the siren halfway to the hospital.

That thought is ugly, and she pushes it away, closes all the reading she’s been doing on her tablet and orders dinner whilst he showers.

She goes to put the laundry away when she hears him on the phone. That low voice, that teasing, suggestive voice that she remembers. Promising to text her later, murmuring words that makes her chest hurt. She puts the laundry in the guest room instead.

She just feels sad.

They’re eating in front of the TV - Thai food she doesn’t even feel like - and he finally looks at her (he looks tired and thin) when he finally asks her about her day.

And the words are on the tip of her tongue. “I saw the doctor today. It’s bad, Jas - my heart. I’m having surgery next Friday. Then we’ll see where we stand.”

Instead, she looks up and smiles at him and the words that come out of her mouth are, “I’m moving out.”

—

She tries to soften the blow, tell him that she knows about Maria, has known for a few months and was waiting for him to tell her or end it or whatever. And that she’s not trying to make trouble, but he has to make a choice and she’s going to give him the space to make that choice. No ultimatums, just space.

(What would her ultimatums be? Dump Maria. Quit the damn firm. Do something he likes. Get some help for all the prescriptions and the drinking. Stop trying to find the next high, the next dopamine hit, and just have a life.)

It’s a really dumb thing to do, now. She’s going to need support, help. And she’s not just giving up her home, she’s giving up her friends. Jasper’s sister married Emmett, whose brother married her oldest friend, Bella. She’s the odd one out. She’s estranged from her family, has been since college - her husband and her friends were her family. She has a few work friends, a few old college friends, but no one who she can ask for help after major surgery. She’s going to have to find an apartment, too, and fast.

(She’s going to have to resign at work, which is a blow. But the magazine is small, they can’t handle having her on leave for up to four months. Better she confide in Carmen that she’s got health problems, needs to take some time off, and hope and pray that Carmen’s willing to rehire her if she lives. She’s already crunched the numbers - she’s got enough in savings to cover her living expenses for the first surgery, and she’s going to have to call her father to get access to the family trust. Her father may hate her, but he’d hate the blow to his reputation - should people find out that he wasn’t looking after her, in her hour of need - more.)

Jasper’s agitated, pacing; he’d hate being caught unaware like this. Before this, they talked things out. There would have been clues, discussions. He would have gone to the doctor with her, held her hand through the testing.

He throws questions at her, like he’s trying to catch her out, like it’s some kind of riddle or trick.

No, counselling seems pointless until he makes his choice.

No, she has no intentions of calling a lawyer any time soon.

No, she doesn’t expect him to pay for this.

No, she never snooped on his phone.

Yes, she’ll be the one to tell his sister and their friends, that this is her idea.

She’ll move out this weekend, and she’ll sleep in the guest room until then.

He shoots her looks of resentment and gets himself another beer, and she goes to bed.

(She decides to rewatch their wedding video on her phone, and cries herself to sleep.)

—

The message she sends to their friends and his family the next morning is simple - she’s moving out, it was her idea, and it’s just a trial separation. She’s never talked about their problems with the others, it seemed disloyal. They were always a team, a united front. They don’t know anything.

His sister calls a split-second later, right before her meeting with Carmen, and Rosalie is furious.

“It’s coming out of nowhere!”

“What aren’t you telling us?”

“Tell me the truth, Alice.”

(She imagines the words she wishes she could say to her sister-in-law; “I’m having heart surgery in just over a week, and I do not have the energy to face my own mortality and deal with ignoring Jasper’s affair, or his addictive behaviours at the same time. I’ve been trying to ignore it for months, and it’s just more than I can deal with right now, okay? I am tired, Rosalie.”)

She doesn’t blame Rose for painting her as the villain. For a very long time, the only person Rosalie had was Jasper, and they are so protective of each other that she needs him to be the victim in all of this. Besides, Rose isn’t stupid. She’s only delayed the reckoning that Jasper will face when it all inevitably comes out and Rosalie puts the pieces together.

Hopefully gets him some help.

The rest of the day isn’t so bad. Carmen is horrified for her, and immediately promises her a job when she’s well again. She doesn’t have the heart to point out if she’s very, very lucky it’ll be months. By then, Carmen will have hired someone new that she can’t bare to get rid of, I’m so sorry Alice. But it’s nice to know she’s that valued.

Her mother responds to the email she sent her father with two lines - “I’m sorry to hear that,” and the account numbers. It’s more than she expected - she only had to imply that he’d look like a terrible person if he didn’t help her, not outright threaten him.

//

It’s just a Tuesday.

He’s meeting Peter and Charlotte for lunch, then he’s got a late meeting. The job at the university library is… a brilliant new start. One of Emmett’s best ideas ever, honestly.

There’s a woman on the bench near the bridge, sitting cross-legged with a sketchbook on her legs, and sipping on a bright green drink. It’s only when she looks up that he realises.

It’s Alice.

His Alice. Alice who moved out and disappeared. He’d seen her once since she’d moved out, at the lawyer’s office to finalise the divorce. She’d been quiet, and she’d slid her rings across the table after she’d signed the paperwork. He’d stared at her, wide-eyed, and she’d offered him a tiny smile.

“They were your mother’s, Jas,” she’d said, and that had been that.

He’d put them in his pocket, and immediately gotten completely shit-faced, and told Rosalie he’d made the biggest mistake of his life signing those papers. That she was the goddamn love of his life and he didn’t know how to exist without her. Rose had given him coffee and told him to sober up; he couldn’t force Alice to stay married to him, and it wasn’t his fault she left.

Except it was, and everyone learnt that two months later when he introduced them to Maria and Maria made a few comments and Rosalie had put it all together at the table, her rage building to something enormous and obvious when she realised.

“I owe Alice the most enormous fucking apology. There isn’t a bunch of flowers big enough that I can send her,” she had spat at him afterwards. “You were having an affair?”

He’d gotten angry (too much to drink, again), and they’d stormed off and not spoken for a week. And then Rose had called, demanding Alice’s new number, because her phone had been shut off. Demanded an address to apologise to her friend.

But he didn’t have any of that information. Even on the divorce paperwork, all her details redirected to her lawyer’s office. And that had made things worse, and he’d snapped at Rosalie because of the rising feeling of dread that Alice could vanish in such a way. That she could just cease to exist in his world so easily.

And now she was here.

He’s walking towards her before he realises, and calls out her name.

She jumps when she hears her name, and looks up and she’s still beautiful, but so thin - she has to be smaller than she was back in high school. She’s positively gaunt.

“Jasper!” she looks surprised and straightens up, and it’s then that he sees the scar peeking out from the top of her dress, running from the very base of her throat downwards. It’s still pink and quite new, and that makes him want to grab her and demand to know what happened to her.

But she doesn’t owe him that. She doesn’t owe him anything. He’ll consider himself lucky if she doesn’t throw her drink in his face.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, standing over her. She’s wearing a black sundress that’s a size too big, and enormous sunglasses. “I mean, it’s been a long time.”

“It has. How are you?”

The question is innocuous. Except it’s been six years, and he’s been sober for more than two, and single for almost five, and she closed down all her social media when she left, so it’s not like she’s been following what’s been happening. He sold the apartment and the stupid car, and quit that terrible job, and …

And she’s sitting here, emaciated and with a fresh scar, and he doesn’t know where she lives or what she’s doing or anything. She was his very best and closest friend, the love of his life, and he knows nothing.

Well.

He knows she’s too damn thin, and that she flirted with an eating disorder back in high school but managed to bring herself back from the brink. She’s definitely thinner now.

He knows how she used to drink her coffee - the biggest and strongest coffee over ice with vanilla cream, a cocktail of caffeine and sugar that she claimed kept her going. Not whatever green shit she’s sipping - she used to mock those trendy drinks.

He knows she’s not as relieved to see him as he is to see her.

“I’m… better,” he says honestly. “Can I sit?”

She nods and moves her bag, and he sits down next to her, careful to keep a polite distance.

//

She’s supposed to meet Jasper at the park, and they’re going to a movie.

She’s surprised to find him playing basketball with Emmett, but waves and takes a seat

Jasper is laughing as he peels off his shirt and she’s glad she’s got her sunglasses on because she’s turning red.

He’s gained muscle since she last saw him shirtless, and it’s a very good look for him.

So are the tattoos that wrap around his torso and down one arm. He’d always talked about getting one, before, but then he’d joined the corporate world and dismissed the idea. She wishes she’d bullied him into it now, because it suits him way too much, and her mind is wandering back to before the divorce, before her heart trouble, before when they were happy, and mentally envisaging him with tattoos, and ugh, she’s in so much trouble now.

(Shit. What a time for her sex drive to return. It hadn’t been an option or an interest for so long, and now she’s here, picturing her ex husband hovering over her with that grin that always meant she was going to have a really good time, her fingers tracing the lines of ink on his torso as he gives her his very best and shit, shit, shit. They’ve had this talk. She’s doesn’t want to go back to that place. She can’t. The only thing that she’s ready and willing to give is her friendship. And no matter how good he looks, and how good she knows he is, it won’t change her mind.

Except…)

[goldeneyedgirl]

before the beginning with divorced jalice

Outstanding. Let's rewind back to their high school years.

The noise wakes him up, and he roles over, still disorientated from sleep as he looks over to the source of the sound. It takes him a moment more to realise what he's seeing, and leans over to snap his lamp on.

"This is new," he rasps, as Alice slides through the window into a heap on the carpet. He expects a teasing joke - Alice is the only one who could sneak into his bedroom wearing lingerie under a trench coat and have it be sexy and not just silly. But she's still a heap on his floor, and that's sending alarm bells off in his head. He still remembers tenth grade, when after months of playing with her food and losing weight, she'd fainted in gym and ended up being going for nearly two months.

Instead, she sits up sniffling, and his brain is finally processing what he's seeing - muddy pajamas underneath her jacket, a backpack waiting outside on the roof - and red, pleading eyes. There's only a little more than a month before they leave for college, so whatever has gone down at the Brandons has to have been ugly for Alice to leave in the middle of the night. On foot, if the mud is any indication.

But it's after midnight, and she's shivering, and sometimes it's just easier to put things off until morning. So he wordlessly pulls a clean t-shirt and socks out of his dresser for her, tossing her muddy clothes into his hamper and folds her securely into the warmth of his bed, and pretends it doesn't worry him how tightly she clings to him, even after she dozes off.

[goldeneyedgirl]

Hey! TwiFicMas Day 8: Divorced Jalice is just soooo good! Do you want to continue writing it?

Hi! Thank you for much for reading it and I'm glad you enjoyed it! I am definitely still working on it casually, as I try to figure out how I want to tell the story - in the snippet I posted Jasper runs into Alice in the park with no context for where she went after they moved out. She just disappeared. And I like that Alice keeps the truth to herself because she really has no reason to confide or trust him just yet. But what if he ran into her in the hospital? How much harder would their relationship be to rebuild if he witnessed her at her lowest point? What effect would seeing someone he loves very much that disappeared from his life - a direct reaction to his own bad choices - so sick and vulnerable?

I definitely need to fix some of the pacing when they first meet again, it's too rushed. But I want it very much to be a story that looks at how to rebuild trust and love and friendship after betrayal and trauma.

Hopefully, I'll have a lot more for Ficmas 2022; only because I have a ton of projects that I want to get resolved this year so I'm not anticipating formally posting on AO3 any time soon. However, I do accept polite demands for snippets of any of my fics at random.

[goldeneyedgirl]

JaliceWeek21 - Day 7: No Dialogue: This Time

Is... is this what organisation feels like? Having a fic ready to post?

Kayla wanted more Divorce Jalice, which I haven’t posted outside of Discord yet, but this is basically a snapshot of their reconciliation. 

he.

I saw you for the first time when we were seventeen and, Alice, I fell in love with you first sight. God, I was a goner who made a complete fool of himself trying to impress you and, despite my very best efforts, somehow you felt the same way.

It takes him the best part of the week to write the letter.

He struggles to find the words he wants to say. It feels a little dangerous, even writing the letter - she made herself clear when she moved in, that she didn’t want to remarry him. That it had taken months of negotiations for Alice to even agree to move in. And then there had been the long debate about her paying her share, even though her freelancing was successful and she was rarely at a loss for work, every trip to the ER left her exhausted for days. She didn’t make a salary, didn’t have any benefits… it just wasn’t reasonable or even expected for her to cover exactly half of the household expenses plus her own - he knew how much she loathed taking money from her family, but had made peace with it when she had no other choice.

And they had been had reached a good place, together. He’d argue it was better now than it had been when they were younger - there was so much laughter, so much conversation, and there was never a night when he didn’t look at her, curled up asleep in his arms, when he didn’t thank every power on earth that he’d been given another chance with Alice.

This… this was something else entirely. This was putting his entire heart in her hands, and risking losing her entirely. He knew Alice, better than he had before, and he knew that if she wasn’t at least a tiny bit open to this, she’d just move out again. Give them both ‘space’.

So, he writes the letter over and over again until it’s as good as it’s going to get. Then he writes it again because he’s smeared the ink.

But finally, it’s done, and he keeps it in his bag - like a ticking bomb. He goes home, they have dinner together and go to bed early to make love and watch the end of a movie. He sleeps with her in his arms, and he tries not to think that if this all goes wrong, this will be it - the very last time. That she’ll be gone again, like a ghost, and he already knows how wrong that will feel.

He leaves her sleeping the next morning, with a kiss to her temple. He walks across the road to the bodega for the good bagels and a bunch of flowers. He leaves them in the kitchen, and props up the letter in front of the vase.

And then he pulls the rings out. The fine, etched wedding ring, and the sapphire engagement ring. The initials and dates are engraved in the inside of both rings, three sets of Whitlock grooms and brides. He’d felt like a failure when he’d taken them back, had broken a link in an unbreakable chain. They were always destined to be passed to one of Rosalie’s children, but freely given, maybe even bequeathed. Never across a conference table, in front of lawyers.

Never as an act of pity and kindness when he had been buzzing from whatever cocktail of pills and alcohol he’d chased with an espresso before he signed away any legal or emotional connection to Alice.

Fuck, he was still ashamed and guilty. He still hated himself, especially now he knew the entire story.

He stares at the rings in his hand and hopes. That’s all he has left. Hope. And then he tucks them into the envelope.

It’s done. Whatever happens next, it is what it is.

she.

I have struggled with how close I came to losing you forever, and I think I always will. I need you to know that you are, and have always been, the best and most precious thing to me.

It’s a normal morning when she wakes up. Jasper leaves the curtains drawn these days, leaves her to sleep the morning away, if that’s what she needs. There have been a few little set-backs with her health over the last few years, but mostly she’s good.

No, not good. Better than good. Happy, content, loved. It’s more than she ever hoped for, in those dark days between one failed surgery and the next; when she and her surgeons had to debate the benefits of more surgery versus a full transplant, and she was alone with no one to lean on, no hand to hold.

Looking back, she wants to comfort her past self, let her know that better days are coming, that Jasper will come back to her - and her Jasper, not the man she divorced - and she’ll be okay. That every empty hospital room, every nurse that pitied her lack of flowers, and family and friends clustered around her bedside as she waited for the doctors’ verdict, her chest stitched and stapled and swathed in bandages, is just another step closer to things being wonderful again. That she and Jasper are both better people, better friends, better partners and lovers for everything that happened.

She gets out of bed, and heads towards the bathroom - detouring into her bedroom to retrieve clothes. She’s got a half-done piece on her desk, one that needs to be finished and shipped to her client in the next week or so.

After her shower, she locates her phone. The lock-screen is a photo of her and Jasper, the weekend he dragged her to California for some conference. They’re sprawled out on a sun-lounger together, grinning at the camera. It’s her favourite photo of him, of them. She can see his tattoos snaking around his side, his arm, his shoulder, and his neck; his hair is pulled back in a ridiculous ponytail she finds impossibly sexy, and the smile on his face is pure, unadulterated happiness. She’s tucked into his side in the silly (he called them ‘hot’ and ‘adorable’) heart-shaped sunglasses he’d bought her when she forgot hers. She’s got her hands clasped against her chest, her head nestled against his, and she’s smiling too. She remembers being so nervous about wearing a bikini for the first time, with her scars, but he’d convinced her, and they’d had a great day. A few people stared, but that was normal.

That had been the week he’d started wearing his wedding ring again, and when she’d asked, he’d dismissed it by saying he was tired of people hitting on him, even after he told them he wasn’t interested - and at the conference, with alcohol and the beach, it would be more annoying.

She’d let him think she believed that excuse and let it go.

It’s after eleven, and there’s no messages from him. Usually when she gets up, there’s at least three or four - maybe a photo of good coffee art if he stops by his usual place; a link to a restaurant or a movie he thinks they’d enjoy; or maybe an article that will make her laugh. And always a ‘good morning beautiful’ just before lunchtime.

Not today, not yet. Not so much as a dirty emoji message as a joke. There’s one from Rosalie (lunch on Friday), one from a prospective client, and one from Esme (family lunch on Sunday, can she and Jasper bring a dessert).

She frowns as she slips into the kitchen, and her gaze falls on the flowers - a mess of bright yellows and blues and pinks and purples. They’re beautiful and unnecessary and she’s already reaching for her phone again when she sees the letter propped up against it.

And for a second, she thinks her heart stops.

they.

I know you didn’t buy whatever I told you about me wearing my ring again. Because it was never about anyone else. It’s about you and me, and my commitment to you - my promise that as long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here. And that’s why I want you to have these back - because they have always been yours.

He walks home the long way. Home, in that moment, feels like a trap. Until he gets there, slides the key into the lock, he still has a partner, a girlfriend, a quasi-wife who told him so damn clearly that she didn’t want more than what they had.

(He knows it all now. The depth of the hurt, the pain. Pondering if she should have just cancelled the surgery and died quietly in the bed next to him whilst he drank and got high and fucked around behind her back. The days she spent in a hospital bed, alone and forgotten whilst he sat in a hard plastic chair in a church basement and admitted he had a problem. The long nights in the ER, holding her breath that it was just a false alarm, and nothing to worry about. Couples therapy had been as damning as it had been cleansing, and he carries her lost years with him everywhere, reminding him to be better, reminding him of how close it all came to being unfixable. He understands why she shies away from remarrying him when their marriage was always tangled up in so much hurt, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting more, wanting the most she can give.)

She’s in the kitchen, cooking dinner, when he walks in the door. That has to be a good sign. The apartment is warm and cosy, and it feels more like a home than anywhere he’s ever lived. He doesn’t want that to change.

Clutching his peace offering - a raspberry cake from the place a few blocks away - he walks into the kitchen.

She’s always the most beautiful woman in the room, in the world, to him and that’s no different tonight. There are no words for her, flitting around the kitchen like she knows what she’s doing, the curl of her hair against her cheek, the way she bites her lip as she checks something on the stove.

The way she brushes her hair out of her face with a hand that is wearing a fine, etched wedding ring, and a sapphire engagement ring that has their initials and wedding year engraved on the inside, and his heart definitely freezes in his chest and she’s wearing them again and that’s not something he let himself hope for. He prepared himself for the very worst and he’s found the very best and he doesn’t know what to say.

She meets his gaze with that warm smile, the one that is a little secretive and knowing that she only ever offers to him, and he holds out the cake like an offering and as she takes it, her eyes lighting up, he moves around the island to scoop her into his arms and kiss her. She squeals and somehow manages to put the cake down before she throws her arms around his neck, and he can feel her smiling against his lips.

He kisses her like it’s the very last time he’ll ever kiss her, like he’s trying to prove something. And maybe he is. Maybe he’s always going to be making up the past to her, like he can erase the hurt, the pain, the suffering. But they don’t have a time machine, and she’s long since made peace with everything that happened. Addiction is an illness, like everything else, but one that never truly goes away. The same way her heart will always been a little bit broken, he will also have that struggle. Maybe some day it will win again; there will probably be days when he does fall, just as long as there are more days he doesn’t. And that’s okay - she didn’t fall in love with him expecting him to be perfect. And the more she thinks about it, reflects on the apologies and the things he’s told her about everything that happened, she knows he never intended to hurt her.

Jasper’s been the centre of her universe since they were seventeen, since he looked across a classroom at her like he was starstruck and then grinned, that same grin he’s wearing now like he’s won an unwinnable prize. As if she could have resisted him, back then and right now.

That everything she is to him, he is to her.

He pulls back to look her in the eyes, to take her hand wearing the rings and to kiss it. She kisses him again hard and that’s all he needs to hoist her over his shoulder, her squealing and laughing, and it’s the best sound in the world as he turns off the stove and the oven, and sweeps her off towards his room.

Towards their room, both of them giddy, drunk on each other, on the idea that they’re in the same place at the same time, happy, healthy, and whole. Together, forever (this time.)

There is nothing in the world I love or will even love a much as I love you.