We Belong

It's a little bit of AU Tim and Julie love, with the girl who's giving Alvin and the rest of the chipmunks a run for their money thrown in.

Summary? Read the first chapter, but basically it's a marriage that hadn't worked in a long time, but maybe people are willing to change that.

You know those Pat Benatar lyrics?

"We belong to the light
We belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words
Weve both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace
For worse or for better
We belong, we belong
We belong together"

Dedicated to Kareene, my biggest fan... anyway, you're mentioned. And to Adele, you're also in here.

Oh yeah, I disclaim.

Written by me, Lily. Duh.

Chapter One: The Past Always Finds a Way to Haunt Us

"Julie... listen. There's this girl."

Julie paused but then said, "I've stopped caring who he shared a bed with a long time ago."

There was silence for a long time.

"Jason, it's not Lyla is it?"

So maybe she was a little bit jealous, a little bit. I mean, Lyla was... wasn't her. And Tim was still, legally, her husband. So that gave her a little bit of an excuse, right? So she was a little bit... over... the whole Lyla issue. I mean, what power did Lyla hold over her husband? Her husband.

She hadn't really thought of him like that, hers, in such a long time it was a weird feeling to do it now.

And she wasn't going for her either. She was going for Jason. Not her.

She wasn't about to make that bitch pay for her, she was doing it for a friend. Ugh, why did him having power over her destroy her so? She didn't care who he went off with unless it was Lyla Garrity.

She was on a plane from Vermont within hours. She called into the library and told them she wouldn't be into work for a few days. They accepted, only Kareene whinged a little bit... ("You don't seriously think I'm going to take over your shifts do you?" "Well, isn't that what best friends are for?" "You might have a point there.") but when she told her friends and coworkers she was going to set something right, once and for all, they decided to let her go. Not that she gave them a choice, or more than an hours warning.

The plane was icky. There's a way to describe it... economy.

As soon as she arrived in Dillon, her birthplace, she reminded herself why she left. She left because good is good and bad is bad. And Dillon had been bad for her last year there. When she passed the church, where she'd made her vows, she felt a little bit uneasy.

After all, she'd become pregnant with her only child at eighteen. Her father had of course spazzed and went after Tim's balls with a pitchfork. He hadn't even known yet, he was just informed with her daddy's fists. Her daddy didn't even know they were... a thing. Tim had insisted he marry her, her dad thought that was a crime worse than abortion. His lovely, perfect daughter and that Riggins boy... uh no. She really wished her momma hadn't picked up the telephone and then told the coach all about her little charade.

Her wedding day was probably the worst day of her life other than that other grim... incident. Her miscarriage. It happened on a football field. She couldn't ever go to another one of her daddy's games.

On her wedding day, halfway through her freshman year at college, her daddy asked her, "Whatever happened to Matt Saracen?" she could have slapped him. She didn't really see much more of her parents anymore.

"I called Julie."

Tim was shocked, "Street, what the hell gives you that right?" He was angry, he didn't really want to hear about her anymore. He kind of broke them, he had been the immediate cause of

their breaking up. Him sleeping with Adele, the hot young co-ed who wanted him so bad, and his wife didn't want him at all. All Julie wanted was to be depressed and irritating and...

He wrecked the one relationship he thought he could make work. I mean, them getting married kind of wrecked the relationship. And then there was the miscarriage, her feud with her parents, her going on anti-depressants (which hadn't seemed to work), and then football.

Football wrecked Tim and Julie as much as anything else. She was watching him play his first game of first string football when she lost the baby.

"What gives me that right? You're dating Lyla fucking Garrity!"

Herc, who was just wheeling into the room said, "That bitch? You're dating her?" he laughed, and Tim almost wanted to join him. Because being with Lyla like... an actual couple... was something he never thought would happen. I mean, sure, he had done 'er in junior year, but they were way, way past that. Well, Street was still a little pissed off.

"You said it was ok."

Herc rolled his eyes, and Jason snorted, "Yeah... like ten years ago! We don't need Garrity in our lives anymore."

"There's always Tyra," Herc smiled, looking from Riggins to Jason. Tyra had just moved back to Dillon to take care of her dying mother and Herc was a little more excited then... anybody Tim had ever seen before. "But for me, not you ladies." He wheeled out.

"So any second now, Julie Taylor's gunna march right through this door?"

"Julie Riggins."

Tim froze, uh no he didn't. The reason this hurt so much was because Julie now went by Julie Taylor again. He'd seen her driver's license when he went up to her place for his last visit eight years ago. She moved to fucking Vermont. Who moves to Vermont? I mean, Texas Forever right? Maybe an underlying cause to their relationship falling apart was that he really knew nothing about her. He had no idea she had some sort of obsession with Vermont or whatever.

Ok he was obsessing.

"No, Julie Taylor."

As he said this, he was still contemplating why they hadn't gotten a divorce. I mean, they'd split 'bout nine years ago, they hadn't talked in forever. Now it dawned on him that the reason they hadn't gone through with a divorce was that they both had some hope for the future.