A/N: Happy Australia day everyone! Yeah, I'm an Australia nut and am currently watching the Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman classic Australia. Anyway, I decided to open this chapter with the letters from Jasper and Alice. I thought it would provide some repriefrom a love "lost" between Edward and Bella. I was going to rewrite this chapter for the 2nd time, but decided not to as the new draft wasnt long enough and right now I can barely get my school work done as it is. I hope you enjoy this version. Please R&R

December 1942

Dear Alice,

How was the wedding? Get you planning for ours? Everything is fine here. The days are long. It seems like we're rushing toward a goal that keeps moving backward. How is Bella? She's always been fragile Alice, always needed me to pick her up, but I thought that with Edward she'd be safe. And now he's gone and joined the same useless cause I have. The rest of the world is fighting Alice, and what have we done? I'm sorry; I know you don't like to hear me talk about the war. Its not that I want to be in danger, but inaction is killing me. I would rather be at home. With you. When I get back we'll be married, and I won't leave you again. I swear it. It's not worth it Alice, it never was.

Jasper

---

Dear Jasper,

They won't even let me see her! James Clark Senior has forbidden me from even coming near the property. He said he'll call the police if I try. I would Jasper- believe me I would risk a lot more than jail to make sure she's okay, but Mom and Dad know me too well. They won't let me even go near the house without supervision. I don't know why exactly he's done it, but Dad thinks its because they don't want me to influence her, make her leave her idiot husband. I know what this must be doing to you Jasper, but please stay safe. I don't know what I would do without you. I see Bella without Edward, and that could be me, if you don't stay safe that could be me. You know what the worst part about all of this is? I can't even tell her that I'm marrying you. I guess we'll tell her together when you come home.

All my love,

Alice.

BPOV

Apparently being a Clark had its rules, especially being a Clark by marriage. I was expected to look perfect to the outside world. Act like everyone was waiting to take my picture. Sometimes It seemed that way. In the month since James and I had been married, the new Mrs. Clark had been plastered in the papers at least once a week. As if this new found interest in me wasn't surprising enough, the public seemed to like me. Whatever that was worth.

It was honestly useless for strangers to like me if my own husband couldn't stand to be in a room with me for more than five minutes. To them I was an alien species, a polite, meek socialite. Victoria was furious, and it was on one particularly angry afternoon that she brought the rules to my attention. I was not to be seen in the company of other men (as though that would be a problem, particularly in my current state).I was to dress as though I were a movie star. Never be seen going to homes of an unsuitable nature (and by this she seemed to mean any house that was not an exorbitant amount of money). And above all, I must always look as though I loved my husband. That shouldn't have been the hardest one, but it was.

And so my life took on a new form. I didn't see my family anymore, but that didn't have much of an effect as they had all but abandoned me anyway. My mother's jealousy at my marriage had taken her over completely, leaving me to think that perhaps what I had always assumed was love for Jasper and me, was actually obsession. Maybe she had been so distraught with her life that she had grasped on to anything for stability. Her children became an outlet for her to put all of her emotions into. Certainly, my father wouldn't have listened to them. What choice did she have? None. I could see that now.

So in the absence of the love I was left with a void. It seemed fitting with everything else in my life. This change was not as hard to swallow though, as the sudden disappearance of the Cullens. I knew that it wasn't their doing. James Clark Senior wanted absolutely nothing to tempt me back into my old life. He saw to it that when Alice came to the door she was promptly sent away, that when Esme called the house she was incorrectly informed that I was out enjoying the tasks of a married woman. What those tasks were exactly I had yet to figure out.

Still, my cunning "sister" found ways to communicate. I would wake to find a letter at the foot of my bed, filling me in on the comings and goings of her household. Of course I could never respond, and she seemed to understand. Still, a new letter would appear, always making me smile. She even told me about her mystery suitor, how he wrote to her often and was just about as excited about their upcoming wedding as she was (no one could be more excited about any wedding than Alice, let alone her own). I wished I could ask again who he was, but I didn't dare write.

James had barely spoken to me since our disastrous wedding night, and I didn't want to fuel his temper by communicating with someone he and his family tried to keep me away from at all times. They were right to. Just one sided conversations with Alice were almost enough to send me to her house again. But no, I had made my decision. I said the sentence so much it seemed to be my new mantra.

"Mrs. Clark?" that was new. The voice outside my door had the carefully meek and pleasant tone I had come to associate with housekeepers. I looked at myself in the mirror one last time. Apparently, Victoria had gone shopping for her new sister-in-law, and her style was even more ostentatious than what Alice had once tried to push on me. I groaned and moved to answer the door.

"Mrs. Clark you have a visitor"

Visitor? I didn't know anyone. I could only assume that whoever had come to the house was a friend of James', come back from a long vacation in some glorious location only to discover that an earth shattering union had taken place in their absence. Coming to see the figment in person, in other words.

"Where is Mr. Clark?" I asked it without really caring, just for something to say to the woman.

The woman hesitated, smoothing her graying hair from her forehead, "Still asleep madam"

I sighed. It seemed a millennium since our wedding night, but James was still brooding. I had humiliated him I suppose, as ridiculous as that label seemed. If anything I had humiliated myself. I was the one whose new talent seemed to be projectile vomit. In any case, he had taken to sleeping in the room at the end of the hall, with every one of his nightly indiscretions.

"There's a woman in his room isn't there?" I said it blandly, I was beyond caring what James did, in fact, I had never really cared to begin with.

The woman smiled nervously, "Yes Mrs. Clark"

"Bella" I corrected, "and you are?" she seemed taken aback by the fact that I had so very little concern for my husbands extra curricular activities, but she was relieved that the burden of dwelling on the issue had been taken away from her.

"Evelyn" she smiled warmly at me and we walked down the hall together in companionable silence, Evelyn trying to pretend that she didn't hear my husband and his "friend" as we passed his room. Of course even if she was a step away from deaf she would have heard them, the girl and her ridiculous squeal, his overt comments about her anatomy.

"Has Mr. Clark always been like this?" I asked airily, waving a hand at the closed door. I was trying to establish some sort of background on my husband in whatever way I could, and the only way to do that seemed to be through the observations of others, as he had no interest in sharing with me.

"Oh yes ma- Bella. When he was younger I did my best to stop it, but with his father as a model it was difficult to have any effect" she frowned and shook her head at the floor. An image came to my head of a young boy watching the parade of women his father brought home, of having to watch as his mother sobbed, witness his father's indifference. I felt bad for the boy, for the man he had become. But of course these were only imaginings. I had heard talk that James' mother hadn't been the least bit in love with his father, and had had her own affairs to prove it. What a world we lived in, with loveless unions and throw away "friends" It was disgusting, but after all what I was doing wasn't much better was it? Married to one while desperately in love with another. It was almost worse than having an affair, after all, that was just sex.

We had made it to the door and she dismissed herself without another word as I pulled it open.

Outside stood James Clark Senior, looking as imposing as ever, even in the informal setting. He let himself in without asking and then turned to me abruptly, "I have business with my son" and then as if in an afterthought he added, "how are you?"

"I'm fine" I said simply, because on the surface it was true. James hadn't hurt me, he had barely even spoken to me. What I didn't say was that the dread grew inside me at every hour I sat in this grand prison.

"Where is that son of mine?" Mr. Clark's gruff, no nonsense voice brought me back from my reverie.

"Asleep" I busied myself with the pillows on the couch in hopes that he wouldn't see past my lie. It didn't work.

"Asleep with whom?" he asked bluntly. I blushed. This was not a conversation I wanted to be having with my father-in-law, or anyone for that matter.

"Someone gorgeous I assume," I said in an attempt to lighten the mood. But James Clark Senior had an agenda, to reform his son, and his mood wouldn't be lightened so easily. His continued relationship with his son depended on James' compliance with his father's will, and from what little I understood of my husband, he was not one who was often told what to do.

"A safe assumption" My father-in-law said quietly, "though you shouldn't take it personally. He is very fond of you"

I nodded at his lie. Up until now, James' choice of girlfriends had been beautiful socialites with movie star prospects, provocative women who giggled at his every move. I listened to the audible laughter from upstairs and knew unequivocally that I was right. To be James' type I would need to foster an interest for ballet and parties, drinking, and most of all, him.

"If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go talk to my son"

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JAMES' POV

"What was your name again?" I tried to think back to last night, but the girls name was lost among many beautiful women who had caught my attention. This one was a blonde. She was pale as powder with a freckle above her lip that was more than inviting, as well as freckles in other places that were like markers for drunk men like myself.

She giggled. God, she did that a lot. It was an irritating sound really, high pitched and obnoxious, "Lillian of course"

Of course, the senator's daughter. I recognized her from over publicized family portraits. The senator was a severe man who was always harping on about morality, ironic really, now that I had defiled his precious angel. She buried her head in my chest, her unpracticed lips sloppily covering my skin. I sighed and pushed her back down onto the pillows. I really needed to be careful who I picked up.

Just for something to do I ran my finger from her forehead down. She nipped like a dog when I had made it to her lips. She was such a virgin. Well, not anymore. In any case, the action that would by a more practiced lesion have been seductive came out clumsy and completely unenticing. I stopped my trail down her body and turned away.

The door burst open and the girl squealed in surprise, grabbing at my arm as though I would protect her. I snorted. I was no knight in shining armor, and the man at the door was my father. Lillian ducked her head under the covers at the sight of him, and I took that as my opportunity to leave.

"Father, what a pleasant surprise" my tone was infuriating him, and I couldn't help but smirk as his anger reached the point of near explosion.

"What do you think you're doing?" He snarled

"Improving senatorial relations, or was I ruining them? Only time will tell"

"You are married now, you cannot have a parade of women in the same house as your wife!"

Again I found myself snorting. His hypocrisy was rich, "right. What was it you used to do? Pay them off so that they would meet you in some hotel?"

"If you ruin this after all I've been through to secure it James, then you will get nothing from me. This luxury you've gotten used to? It will be gone. Do you imagine you'll have a host of beautiful women lining up for you then?"

"I've certainly got a better chance than you" for a minute the old man looked like he might actually hit me. Instead he turned away and stalked off down the stairs without another word. I listened to him bid goodbye to Bella, and then the door shut.

"What was all that about?" The blonde asked me. She was wearing my shirt and a bemused expression that I doubted ever left her face. If nothing else she was pretty, and I captured her lips and held them to my own.

"nothing" I said as we broke apart, "its not a problem"

---

EPOV

Had she been brainwashed, or had I really not known her at all? The letters from Alice concerning Bella had been disconcerting enough, but then to see the articles that had been written….I wouldn't have believed them just a few months ago. The Bella that I had shared a life with would never have gone out to expensive parties. She was more comfortable in her mom's old dress than a gown. And she certainly wouldn't have wanted to be the center of attention. Alice had said that she hadn't even spoken to her since the wedding.

Had I imagined her? Had I imposed so much of who I thought she should be that I had lost who she really was? I missed her desperately, but it didn't take much to figure out that I was missing a ghost. The knowledge should have stopped my love for her, but it didn't. my heart ached at the new image of her as a socialite icon, flitting from party to party with her dimwitted husband. I fought to keep the image of my Bella in my head, but it had all but disappeared.

I guess it was never really mine to keep. Like dreams, memories are biased, and like dreams you must eventually surrender and give your memories up.

Mercifully though, the image that came to me that night was of Bella, my Bella, lying beside me, her lips pressed to my neck. I could almost feel her hair beneath my chin, her breath against my skin. It was the clearest picture I had had since leaving her, and even if it was now a lie, I was glad for it. It was the last clear picture I would have for a long time, the only truth despite its falsehood.