A/N: This chapter is a sequel for chapter 4 on I'll be home for Christmas. Actually, it was supposed to be part of that story, but there's a topic I'm very passionate about, so I decided that it was a better idea to take if off and write on a lighter context. I just want to warn that, altough I may have used Jo's words to express my opinion, I don't necessarily agree with everything they said.

As I said on the last chapter, I had an ideia for a story about Claire and Natalie and I started to write it. I still haven't decided if I will publish it now or write everything first, so I want to know what do you guys think.

Please, reviews can't give me time to write faster or better, but can make me very happy :)

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
(Lucky - Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat)

December, 25. 2014.

Jo wake up to the sound of Sofia running in the corridor - all of those years having to protect herself made her a light sleeper. She shook her head to take the hair off of her face and looked at the clock on her nightstand. Eight o'clock. Unless something happened at the hospital, both her and Alex still had three hours to sleep or just stay in bed. Then she looked at him, who was still sleeping soundly. He was lying on his side, facing her, with his right arm under her neck and his left hand holding hers, their fingers intertwined and... A ring. A beautiful platinum band paved with tiny white diamonds and a black rough diamond in the center. Perfect.

As her eyes lay on the ring, Jo was overwhelmed by the memories of the previous night. She was sure she would never forget that night. Thinking about that brought to her lips a smile that she didn't even notice. Also, she didn't notice that Alex breath had changed by her side and now his once closed eyes were open and fixed at her.

"Do you like it?" Jo startled at his soft voice by her ear.

She giggled, feeling like a teenager. "Hmm hmm." She murmured as she turned to face him and pecked his lips.

With their faces only a couple of inches apart, they just stared at each other for a while, until she changed her position again, facing the ceiling and trying to put all of her thoughts in order before they started the day. She felt Alex's fingers touching her shoulder as he kept staring at her.

She looked at the ring once more. Never in her life she thought she would just wake up one day and be engaged. Of course, when she was younger, she thought she could want to get married someday, but everything seemed so distant. Now, it was real. Suddenly, Jo felt her heart racing and her breath got heavier for a while.

Alex noticed. "Jo... Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded, with a smile. "It's just... We're getting married." It was a simple statement. A truth that she needed to say out loud to help it to sink in. But as she said that, she felt Alex's muscles tightened under her head.

"Yes, we are. Unless... Are you changing your mind?" He asked, carefully.

Jo turned her head to face him. "No!" She answered quickly. "I thought I'd want to, I thought I'd feel weird, but it feels right. I'm not changing my mind, Alex."

He smiled at her reassurance and Jo felt her heart warming. After months of her resisting to turn a page, now they were at the same place and they were both happy about that decision.

"So..." She started again. "What do we have to do? Just get a marriage license and run to the courthouse? Or do you want a wedding?"

"Nah," he replied. "I mean, if you want, it's fine by me, but I'm also fine with the courthouse."

She thought for a moment before replying. "I think we could have a small gathering with our friends after." Silently, she hoped that by the time that reunion happened, Grey and her would have learned to be friendly to each other. How would she react when they told her? Jo shook this thought off her head before it became a snowball and turned back to pay attention on Alex's response.

"Okay. I can put Robbins in charge of that, she's gonna love it." They both chuckled at how true was that conclusion.

Another moment of silence came over them, when Alex moved his hand and started playing with Jo's hair. It was a comfortable silence.

Still enjoying their quiet intimacy, a thought came to Jo's mind, something that had been around for a while, but she hadn't felt that she should verbalize before. "Alex, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, sure," he replied immediately.

"Why it didn't work? Your first marriage, I mean." She asked, cautiously observing his reaction. Jo had heard enough at the hospital to know that this was a sensitive subject, but it didn't hurt to try, she hoped.

Jo waited patiently while Alex averted his eyes and sighed. Then, he looked at her again and shrugged. "I wasn't good enough for her."

She was surprised. Coming from any other person, that line would make her laugh, but knowing Alex, he probably believed that. "Really?" That was all she managed to say.

"Basically, yes. I said something stupid that might or might not have caused her being fired, I'll never know for sure, she put that in the pile of everything bad I've done before and left. She came back eventually, but that was a war a could never win, so I gave up and told her to go. That's it." He explained without showing much emotion and Jo regretted asking, assuming that he was just trying to get that over with. On the other hand, she still had so much she wanted to know.

Jo replayed his words in her mind a few times until a bell rang. "I said something stupid that caused you to get fired."

Alex chuckled. "Yeah, that was pretty much the same thing."

"But you didn't left me. You were mad, but we worked things out." Jo felt silly saying that out loud. She couldn't explain why, but that conclusion made her feel safe, as if the fact that they had easily survived to something that had been a deal breaker for someone else could guarantee that they would survive anything.

"I understood you didn't do that on purpose, it's in the past. I trust you, it's different." Alex explained.

A smiled crossed Jo's lips and she leaned forward to give him a quick kiss. "I hope so."

"Anything else you want to know, before we can drop this subject forever?" He asked, bringing her close.

Yes, she wanted to know everything and she knew she should take that opportunity, but she decided to stick to what she might need to know. She looked straight into his eyes. "Did you love her?"

Alex sighed and tightened his grip around her. "Do I really need to answer that?"

"Well, you don't, but you offered to, so I'd appreciate if you did," Jo replied, keeping her tone light.

Alex kissed her again. "I love you, isn't that enough?"

Jo fought hard to resist that smirk. "Yes, it is, indeed," she said, sweetly. "I'm just, I don't know, trying to understand, not making any comparisons or anything. I mean, it's not like she's here and I have to fight her for you - which I totally would, just for the record. I just don't get why someone would marry a person that they don't love and they aren't willing to fight for things to work with."

Alex listened silently, his intense gaze all over her. "Fine. I did love her, but we only got married because I thought she was going to die, it was her dream, or whatever. Now I see that was a big mistake, we weren't ready to take that step and I don't know if we would ever really be."

Not that Jo had never heard about that, she had, gossip was like a virus in that hospital, but it was different to hear from him. She felt that that was an important step for their relationship, since he wasn't the kind of person that tells everything or asks many questions.

On the other hand, Jo also felt a bit of anger. It was kind of selfish to marry someone just because you think you're dying and then just walk away when you get better. She tried to bite her tongue, but she couldn't. "It looks like she wasn't good enough for you."

As soon as the sentence was out of her mouth, Jo regretted saying that. It sounded arrogant. Was she good enough? Alex didn't seem to be bothered by that particularity, tough.

"To be fair, she meant well, she tried to fix me, but I guess I wasn't ready to be fixed yet. A lot has changed between she left and you met me, you didn't know me then." Alex said, finding something very interesting on his own hands to avoid looking at her.

Jo thought. She'd heard a lot of people at the hospital talking about how much Alex had changed over the years, but that always bothered her. "That's true. But I know you now. And I don't believe someone can change that much. You can grow up, you can learn not to make the same mistakes, but you can't change who you are," she continued as Alex listened attentively. "And I know that, because I've tried to change a lot of times before I learned that I couldn't. And if someone is gonna love me, they'll have to love all of me."

She saw Alex's face blushing before he kissed the top of her head and buried his face on her hair. "I think I can do that."

Jo smiled, her heart warm, although she knew that was her clue to change the subject. She didn't care, though. She didn't need anything else.

"You know what?" She said. "I'm glad that this girl and all the other ones that you may have loved didn't think you were enough. Their loss, my luck."