An alternate universe where Jonas didn't leave the community, and made a life there. Enjoy!
Jonas grew up very handsome.
No one told him this, the community had no perception of the things that made a face beautiful. But Jonas knew. He could see when he looked in the mirror that his features would have been considered attractive, before.
It wasn't something he was vain about, but he couldn't deny the pleasure that the arrangement of his features gave him when he saw them.
Jonas was twenty-eight. He kept careful track of his age, even as, gradually, all his peers forgot. He even picked a birthday. He'd been walking along the river on the February fourteenth when he'd been sixteen, and remembering February fourteenths of the past, when love was seen as good, desirable, and it seemed to him to be as good a day as any for a birthday. So on February fourteenth, he tried to do something nice for himself. And, in keeping with the tradition of Valentine's Day, he would try to do something nice for his wife.
Fiona wasn't his wife the way that he remembered wives – but he knew he loved her in the way men used to feel about their wives, and so that was how he thought about her.
He had learned, when he was twenty-two, that Fiona intended to apply for a spouse. That day, Jonas returned to his dwelling as usual, at the annex, for by that time he was acting as the Receiver full time. But that night, he couldn't sleep for thinking about Fiona being married to someone else. He knew it was irrational – that Fiona would never be his wife the way he imagined.
Eventually, he had been so desperate to share his feelings that he woke the Giver and explained to him his problem. The Giver had refused to say much. "I understand your predicament, Jonas," he had said, "But you must know that your match to Fiona, if you are matched to her, will be difficult. You will never be able to share what we do here with her. But you must make your own decision."
Jonas knew he wanted to be Fiona's spouse, whichever way that meant. So he applied for a spouse, too, and was miraculously matched to Fiona.
There was so much he wanted for his relationship with Fiona. Jonas and Fiona had no courtship, where Jonas rowed a boat across a peaceful lake and was, perhaps, rewarded with a kiss. No wedding, where Fiona wore a white dress and Jonas selected Asher to stand by him and hand him a gold ring which he put on Fiona's finger. But as much as he wanted those things, he took pleasure in their union.
He wanted other things, too. He remembered kissing. He had memories of kissing until his lips were swollen and he was out of breath. He had memories of taking it beyond kissing. He wanted to kiss Fiona. Sometimes he did, when she was asleep. He would press his lips to hers, lightly, so as not to disturb her, a feathery kiss in the dark.
And once, when they were twenty-four, and it was his birthday, February 14, a day that had once been dedicated to the imprecise, wonderful thing called love. They'd been walking by the river, the sun glinting off her beautiful red hair, and they were talking about the children they might one day have, and he felt his metaphorical heart swell with the love he felt for her, and he just had to kiss her.
He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers with only slightly more pressure than he used when he kissed her in her sleep. He pulled away after just a moment and apologized to Fiona, saying that he meant to turn to look at something and his aim was off. Fiona accepted his apology with a giggle and they continued walking.
The Giver was very careful in introducing Jonas to romantic love. Jonas gathered on his own that the pills were suppressing some kind of feeling . . . the feeling he felt when he looked at Fiona. The feeling he felt in his dreams, the thing they called "the stirrings."
The first day, when Jonas was fifteen, the Giver looked long at Jonas before saying, "I think you're old enough. Lie down, I have a new kind of memory for you."
The first one was just a peck on the lips. By then Jonas had seen kissing in the memories, but it had always been on the cheek, or the forehead. The idea of lips pressing together, at first, had seemed at bit odd, a bit silly.
But as he thought about it, and Fiona replaced the nameless girl in the memory, the idea seemed more and more appealing.
Very slowly, over the course of almost three years, the Giver gave Jonas memories of people in romantic situations, culminating eventually, with sex.
Jonas and Fiona's children were not a product of sex. They had no biological relation to either of them, but Jonas loved his children very dearly, just the same. The older was a girl named Josephine, whom he called Josie, who was almost four and was happy and delightful. The younger was only a year old, and he was called John. He remembered clearly the first time he saw his son. He had been standing on the stage, in front of the whole community, with Fiona at one side, and Josie, holding his hand, at the other. His son was in the arms of his own sister, Lily, who was a nurturer and a full adult.
"New child 7," the announcer said. "John."
Lily smiled at him, and handed Jonas the boy. He was one of the older ones, and was already well past his infancy. Fiona lifted Josie up, and they all leaned over the baby, who smiled up at them.
It was then that Jonas noticed for the first time that John had the same light eyes as him.
He thought about what this would mean for his son's future quite a lot. It weighed heavily on him that there was no one he could tell.
He missed The Giver. It had only been a year ago when the Giver gave Jonas the last memory, a child playing the piano at a recital while its proud parents watched from the audience. Jonas left the Giver and that very night the Giver died in his sleep, as if he had just been waiting until his job was done.
Jonas was very glad the Giver had died a natural death, rather than being released. He liked to imagine that the Giver was now in some kind of heaven, like the one painted on the ceilings of churches in his memories. But he also missed him very much. Besides being his friend and guide, he had been the only person Jonas could truly share his life with. He often wanted to discus with the Giver his worries about his son's future.
There was nothing he wished to do less than give his son the memories of pain and sorrow that he struggled with daily. And yet, sometimes he was selfishly glad that, in twelve years he might have someone who he could share his life with again, and this time, someone right within his family unit.
He also thought sometimes that he would be glad if John could truly understand the world. It wasn't all pain and suffering, after all. There was also the colors, and memories of happiness, pride, satisfaction, and love. What if John could understand the love Jonas felt for him, and return it?
But was Jonas happy he had been selected? Did colors and happy memories and love make up for the pain and sorrow in the memories and the isolation they brought him in his life?
Jonas didn't know.