Disclaimer: No owning here.
Alex knew Wes was smart. He had to be, to get the score he did on the bar exam. And to be the lawyer he was, and the detective he is. Still, she didn't know how he could be so dense. Someone could not be that oblivious. They just couldn't.
Things had been strained ever since he became a cop. She didn't know why he wanted that career, why he wanted her to be sitting at home, wondering if he'd be home that night or not.
Two months after he made detective, she met his partner.
Travis was, in a word, bright. He lit up the room when he walked in, with his carefree manner and that smile. The complete opposite of Wes. Wes had always been high strung, always focused and detailed. Serious.
He was even more so that evening. She'd guessed it had something to do with the case he was working on, and when Travis showed up at the door at 8 PM, she figured she was right in her assumption.
He'd introduced himself, "Detective Travis Marks. Sorry to interrupt your evening, but I need to talk to Wes." All smiles, brilliantly white teeth shining under the porch light. It's funny, since the day they met, she had always called her husband by his name, Wesley. There were a few times one of their co-workers called him Wes, in an attempt at familiarity.
Every time, he would reply with a terse, "My name is Wesley."
She had never given it much thought, until that night. After she had let him in, telling him where he could find Wes, he had smiled, breezed pass her and into the living room. She'd followed after him because she was curious. Wes never talked much about his partner. He always said there wasn't much to tell.
Wes had looked up, wine glass paused on its way to his mouth, and Alex couldn't see his face from where she was standing, but there must have been a question there because Travis had replied with a disgruntled, "Couldn't get my head around something."
After that, he had tossed a folder she hadn't realized he was carrying at Wes and plopped himself down on the couch, close enough that their shoulders were touching.
Was it weird to feel like an outsider in your own house? Because that was what she had felt like as soon as Travis had asked for "Wes."
The feeling had only increased when tension she hadn't even been aware of, drained out of Wes at the close contact. Illogically, her chest had felt tight, like it did when the female associates at the firm tried to flirt with Wes. Well, she supposed, not so illogical now, but at the time it was.
They'd been talking back and forth for a few minutes when Travis had grabbed Wes by the neck and near-yelled, "Wes, come on man. Stop bitching for a minute and just look at this." Wes had rolled his eyes, but he'd allow his head to be directed to where Travis wanted. Apparently, it'd been something good, because he'd grabbed Travis's shirt and shook him a little, a look in his eyes Alex had never seen before, and said, "This is…!"
"Yeah baby, you know what this is," Travis had replied, grinning so hard she was surprised it hadn't hurt. Wes'd spend the next 30 seconds tripping over Travis and himself, finally spitting out that they needed to start working on a plan.
It was at that point she had felt the need to reclaim her territory. So, with a tight chest and feeling like she was on quicksand, she'd crossed the room in three long strides and placed her left hand on Wes's shoulder, making sure her wedding ring could be seen. She'd asked, rather stupidly, she remembered, "Honey, is everything alright?"
He'd frowned, and she'd known it was because of the pet name. She'd never called him anything but Wesley before.
Suffice to say, they never got to finish celebrating her winning the big case she'd been working on for the past month. It was also the first night since their marriage that she'd slept alone.
She'd woken up at 3:40 in the morning to find herself alone in bed, so she'd gone downstairs. At the time, she'd told herself it was because she was thirsty. Even then, she'd failed at fooling herself. So she'd tip-toed down the stairs and crept into the living room to find the lamps still on. At first she hadn't seen Wes or Travis, and she'd been about to call for them, when she heard a snore.
They'd fallen asleep on the couch, papers littering the floor, wine still in the glass. Travis had fallen sideways, legs still on the floor, and Wes. He'd never seem like a very tactile person, but she must have been wrong about that. He'd also fallen sideways, but where Travis had fallen on the couch, Wes had fallen on Travis. His face was more or less buried in Travis's stomach and he was cuddling the folder Travis had brought with him.
She'd stumbled back, feeling like she'd been punched in the stomach, and she still didn't know what she'd knocked over, but whatever it was, it'd made Wes say, "Trav..is..shuddu..tryin..a slee.." Travis had only grunted, and snored on.
She'd climbed the stairs, feeling lost. She didn't get any sleep the rest of the night either.
After that, Travis visited more, but never more than twice a month. She started calling Wes by that name, instead of Wesley and it took a month for him not frown when she called him that. After that, she thought he'd gotten used to it, but she noticed that he twitched instead. He still twitched when she called him that, a year after they'd divorced.
It was five months after she met Travis that she realized a few things.
Her personal war against Travis for Wes's attention wasn't going anywhere, that tight feeling in her chest had never left, neither Travis nor Wes noticed what she could clearly see, that she was losing her husband, and resentment for them both had been silently building. After she realized these things, she backed off and observed.
And she could see the future. So clearly. She could see how Travis made Wes relax and loosen up, she could see how he smiled more, and she could see him banter. Wes never banters. At that, the resentment slowly ebbed away. She couldn't really hate them for being better together than they were separated.
She could also see that she was the only one seeing these things, so she really couldn't blame Wes for looking so surprised when she brought up divorce, a few years later.
She knew they still hadn't realized the reason for her and Wes's divorce. She'd hated it at first, their obliviousness, then she'd been bemused that they could miss it, then she'd thought it was cute, but now, while it was still cute, it was getting ridiculous. And annoying.
She couldn't handle coming home to find Wes tending to the lawn every other day, mumbling under his breath about Travis as he pulled out the hose.
More than once she'd had half a mind to talk to Travis about it, but she kind of wanted to see how long it took them to realize.
She might also be making it her mission to be there to call them idiots. (And maybe there was still some vengeful ex left in her, silently hoping they didn't work out.)
*peers around cautiously from under hair*