He thinks he should have known it wouldn't last. He and Melissa had happened so fast -but maybe, intentionally fast. He remembers his state of mind after that final fight with Jo; he wanted to prove he didn't need her, much less want her. So he'd walked out, took his truck, and drove. He stayed at one of the many crappy motels in the area, drowned his sorrows, and resigned himself to the fact that he needed a change; as it was, his life clearly wasn't working. Within two weeks, he had the divorce papers drawn up. A month after that, he'd met Melissa… and a change she was. A blessed, beautiful change that Bill couldn't let go of. Looking back, he knows why she caught his eye. She was strong and smart -he at least had enough sense to realize those qualities were mandatory in a partner- but more importantly, so, so different from Jo. Melissa was an open book who communicated well and wanted a normal life. She wore her heart on her sleeve and hated passive aggressiveness. She was simple, and being with her was easy.
Their first fight was over something so stupid he doesn't even remember what it was about. When his voice had started to raise a few decibels, she'd lowered hers and actively calmed him down; they resolved the issue within minutes. His first fight -and subsequent fights- with Jo had all been massive blowouts in which she'd eventually storm away, leaving him fuming. She'd always come home and never apologize, which meant usually he would. Which, looking back, Bill supposes they were both at equal fault for their spats -something he came to realize from Melissa. Because for as headstrong as Jo is, he knows he can be equally so. That was always part of the problem: neither wanted to admit defeat or surrender.
Which is why it wasn't a surprise when he'd found her and her team and she hadn't signed the damn papers. Then again, when he'd given them to her in December, he'd half expected her to sign them immediately as a way of telling him she'd be fine without him, that she didn't care about him enough to fight for their marriage -and Lord knew they fought over everything else except to stay together. But she loves him, always did, and he can see that now. It makes him feel like a pompous ass, because he was truly miserable to be with in the end. The grant money was running out, and they hadn't made any recent progress in their research. Jo was nervous; that much was obvious, and even then, he was never that oblivious to her feelings. She'd even gone as far to admit she was nervous. That alone should've been his first clue that he should've taken a deep breath and been the supportive husband she rarely let him be. But no, he had to go and say some truly awful things about her research plans, her work, and even herself as a person. He isn't proud of it, and on days like today when she's smiling and laughing with him, he hates himself for what he did. In his mind, she'd been hurting him with the way she pushed him away -and he doesn't think her intention was ever to hurt him, which makes him feel doubly guilty- so in a moment in which she was letting him in, letting herself be vulnerable, he'd gone in for the kill.
He'd immediately regretted his tirade as soon as he was done; all the nights that she'd woken up in a panic from a nightmare had flashed through his mind. In the dark of night, he'd always longed to comfort her and if he couldn't ease her pain, then at least be there with her until it subsided. But she'd always tell him she was fine and to go back to sleep. During the early months of their relationship, he would try to coax her into telling him what her mind tormented her with, even though he had a pretty good idea. She'd shake her head, tell him she didn't remember. It was a big fat lie -and she can't lie for shit- but he never called her out on it. But as the months drew on, she still never told him, and eventually he gave up asking. He would pretend to have fallen back asleep when he'd feel her curl into a ball facing away from him, and cry silently. Even when things got really bad between them, the nights when her dreams were so horrible they drove her to tears, his heart never stopped breaking for her. Maybe that should've been his first clue that he, too, loved her and always would.
He remembers the night she told him about what happened to her dad. They'd been dating for five months and he wanted to propose. Problem was, every time he brought up meeting her parents (she'd met his, after all) she'd come up with some excuse not to. Naturally, Bill was upset. He wanted to do things the right way and ask her father for permission to marry her. Jo didn't know this. Like most things, she was oblivious to his plans. So finally he pushed and pushed because he didn't want to wait any longer. Instead of a romantic candlelit dinner and a carefully planned declaration of love, he blurt out how he'd really like to marry her, he's had the ring for a month, but can't ask her dad till he meets him, so could she please arrange for that because he was getting mightily impatient. Per usual, his words were laced with sarcasm, but he truly did mean each and every one of them.
She'd gone quiet, misty eyed in a way he hadn't expected, and looked absolutely dumbfounded that he was thinking of marriage. They'd both been so caught up in the passion, in the work, but she'd always been short sighted, focusing on the present while he liked to plan. He'd known she and her mom weren't on the best of terms but surely they could all handle a few hours together for the wedding. He remembers the hopeful, boyish grin he'd flashed at her, prodding her to say something. And so she stuttered and sputtered, floundering to come up with an appropriate response. He'd gotten nervous, because while they certainly demonstrated their love for each other on a nightly basis, a proposal was never a sure thing.
And so she'd said yes, followed by the explanation for the riff with her mother:
After her father's death, her mom slowly lost it. First, she had tried to pack six year old Jo up and move clear across the country to New Hampshire in an attempt to make sure she'd never lose Jo the way she'd lost her husband. Jo had protested, but her mother ignored her pleas. Turned out, it didn't matter; she couldn't afford to move 1,700 miles away. So, they'd stayed put, but Mama Thornton spent her days anxious and terrified of when the next storm would hit. To cope, she'd regularly have a drink to help her sleep at night. By the time she was 8, her mother's drinking had become more than the occasional nightcap. By 12, Jo couldn't remember a time when her mother wasn't drunk. It was also around the time she started getting into fights at school. All of her report cards -that her mother never read- stated that she was a brilliant young lady, but if she could just get her temper under control, the sky would be the limit for her. The first time her mother slapped her, she finally told the school what was going on. When given the choice between getting to keep her daughter or her liquor, Mama Thornton handed Jo, the daughter she was once so terrified of losing, over to Meg without a fight. Under her father's sister's care, Jo managed to learn how to resolve her problems without resorting to violence, and graduated fifth in her high school class.
Bill had felt like an ass, of course, because he'd badgered her incessantly about her parents. He remembers how she'd tried to be nonchalant about it, so as to spare him the pain of knowing how much she was hurting. For once, they didn't fight that night. Instead, she continued to talk. She'd asked him not to tell anyone on the team because she believed they would look at her differently. He'd wanted to argue and tell her that no one would, but he chose to simply kiss the top of her head and assure her that he didn't think any less of her. He was quite proud of himself for having said the right thing when she smiled.
Six months after their wedding, they'd gotten a phone call saying her mother had died of liver failure. It was sudden -she'd seemed relatively healthy at the wedding, which she'd actually stayed more or less sober for- and for once in his life, Bill felt completely helpless. His own parents were happily married and in great health. They had her body cremated and flown to their current state of residence so that her ashes could be scattered on the same land that her father's body had never been recovered from.
For a few months, Jo was quieter than usual, and it had worried him. She insisted on visiting Aunt Meg every other weekend, even if it meant missing a storm. At first, Bill took it as a good sign, that she was finally shifting her priorities to her family. But then she started snapping at the team over the smallest of things, and Bill took it upon himself to try to fix it. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was when someone got their head bitten off for a minor transgression.
Their implosion was inevitable. They never took any time off, hell, they'd even worked through their honeymoon, though they enjoyed the work itself. But the arguments shifted from personal to professional, then both at once. He left Jo, he left the team, and tried to make a new life for himself. Perhaps it was selfish of him, but he has mostly forgiven himself for that. After all, he did come back.
In February, he had gotten a report from Dusty about how things were going; the team itself was getting by without him, but they missed him. Jo insisted she was fine, but lashed out more frequently than she usually did. For Bill, he'd thought that was the deal breaker. If she had given any voluntary indication that she loved him more than she loved her damn tornadoes, he would've gone back. But apparently, she didn't. And so he stayed with Melissa, even as doubt started to creep into the back of his mind about their relationship.
It was the little things, like how she always asked him to kill the spiders, or how she was happy to go with the flow, or the way she cried during sad or romantic movies -he tried to be patient, he really did, but he could never understand why she'd insist on watching those movies (that he had no interest in seeing) if all they did was make her sad. She had a hard time understanding his sarcasm, and she took forever to get ready, even for something as simple as going for brunch -God, and the way she called him Billy. He knew he'd wanted a change but, well, it was a lot. There were moments when he found himself wishing Melissa was tougher, wittier… wished she would get mad, challenge him in some way. As the months drew on, the change he so desperately sought started to weigh on him. Still, he'd proposed to her, promised her a life together, and he was hell bent on staying committed to her (he used to ignore the little voice that said it was because Jo could never fully commit to him).
He's just glad that he and Melissa escaped without too much heartbreak. Mostly, though, he's grateful that his early midlife crisis showed him that he can't live without Jo. Having been successful at getting Dorothy to fly, they've fought less, mainly because Jo has stopped being quite so neurotically obsessive. She's content to run the lab (he'd given in to her on that, since she's the one with the Ph.D.) while he analyzes the data, although it really is a group effort of everyone on the team.
They still chase for fun, but their main focus is on the data -and themselves. Holidays and their anniversary are not to be spent chasing. When they're about to argue, they go into separate rooms to write down their thoughts for no more than fifteen minutes then come back together to talk it out civilly. The team doesn't know what to do with the newfound quiet, leading to Dusty blasting his music louder than usual. No one complains, though, because they're all so grateful to have the Hardings back to the way they were before the almost-divorce.
Bill likes to think of themselves as a twister: beautiful, powerful, and destructive all at once. And just as the conditions will always come together to create a perfect storm, he and Jo will always come back to each other to unleash all they have to offer –all of the chaos and uncertainty- onto each other, and onto the world; for after the storm comes a peace and tranquility unlike any other.
Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long.
A/N: hello readers! I seriously appreciate anyone who's taken the time to read this piece –I haven't published anything in exactly a year and a half, as of today, and I've been working on writing this for close to six months. This was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but I'm considering adding additional stand-alone chapters (that could also be loosely related to this first one) because I just love this movie and these characters, and I have so many thoughts about it/them. That being said, any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Song credit: 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles