A/N: wooh! I finally updated one of my stories! Just to let you all know, I am still active just not...as much, I guess? Just life and work in general at the minute that' distracting me. I'll try and update the rest as soon as I'm able.
This spinoff was requested by Parmenios; a spinoff based after the events of 'The Dark Army'. WARNING: this story DOES contain spoilers so if you haven't read the novel yet and don't want to know some of what happens, I strongly advise not to read this one.
In response to Someone You Know's review: I already did a part 3 for Tom and Alice. That one was in chapter 13, if that helps.
As for this request, I'm not sure if this is what you wanted, Parmenios...

I creaked open the door to Tom's room, poking my head through the gap – only to shake my head in disbelief. He wasn't there either! Really, I must have checked every room in the house by now – even, admittedly, in Alice's room – and he wasn't even there. Alice was nowhere to be found either for that matter. Strange…
Never mind that, Tom and I had to get on with my theory lesson! I couldn't do that if he wasn't here.

Anyway, I knew my manners; I knew it was rude to walk into someone else's room uninvited. So what possessed me to do just that, I'll never know. But I pushed the door open wider and stalked into the master bedroom, the door slowly closing with a long agonising creak behind me.
I can honestly say I didn't have a clue what was wrong with me that morning but I gathered that since I was already inside my master's room, I might as well make the most of my time. I didn't know what I was hoping for, but I found myself drawn to the double bed. I knew what I was looking for: signs. I don't know why; I'd just be making myself vulnerable to disappointment and heartache. My heart would ach because I wasn't that special someone to Tom – his childhood best friend, Alice Deane was. I'd be vulnerable to the disappointment of how my master, the only man I believed I could allow myself to feel something for, allow myself to take that risk with him, had failed to see me as such: the way he saw Alice. He was hers, not mine, but I knew that already.
So why did I have to upset myself more?

This same question boiled and bubbled at the back of my mind but it was too late. I was already inspecting one side of the double bed, my fingers ghosting over the bedsheets and pillow as if they were scraping against a rough surface, like a jagged old cobbled road in a street. Then, I walked round to the other side of the bed, reaching out to touch that pillow and the other side of the bedsheets. Just as I'd suspected: both sides of the bed had been slept in and I knew that, the few times I'd visited Tom's room to either tell him or ask him something regarding spook's business, he always kept to the one side of the bed. Apparently, the one time we had seemed to connect, he'd told me it was because his master used to sleep on the other side and it just didn't feel right.
Judging by how recent it felt, both sides had been slept in the night before. Tom and Alice had been sleeping together all this time!
I could feel my cheeks burn with shame, the pit of my stomach bubbling beyond boiling point at the feeling of unrequited love as my heart sank into it. If this was what betrayal felt like, I didn't want any part of it – I wasn't even actually betrayed!

Something was already tickling the back of my throat, my breaths trembling, so why I continued to let my instincts control my body, that morning, I will never know the answer to that either.
My head slowly turned and I found myself drawn to the desk pushed up against the wall opposite the one behind the bed.

All of a sudden, I found myself walking in small baby-like steps towards the desk. At first, I wondered what on Earth could be so interesting that the desk had caught my attention. Not for long!
When I stood behind the chair, I realised why I'd been drawn to the desk. Perched on top of the smooth wood was a plain leather bound book…Tom Ward's diary!
I really shouldn't have – again, it's bad manners – but it seemed that my body wasn't agreeing with my head that morning. I soon discovered that I'd pulled the chair out, away from the desk and was now sitting on it. I'd then pulled the chair back in.
However, as I watched my hands lift the diary from the desk, a voice came through to me as I watched my fingers flick through the pages. The internal voice I recognised to be Tom's warned me, "You're only going to upset yourself more."
Unfortunately, my fingers seemed to be finding a certain entry for me so I had no choice but to ignore the voice's warning. No matter whose it was.

Gradually, the pages stopped turning and I found a date that I realised was from when we travelled to the castle of Prince Stanislaw. My eyes widened at what was sealed in ink on the pages…

She sat on the window seat next to me and then reached across and held my hand.
For a moment we sat in silence and then she gave my hand a squeeze. "Do you remember how we held hands that night on the way to Staumin?"
I smiled again. "I dreamed about it the other night. In fact, I keep having dreams about you!"
"Are they nice dreams?"
I nodded and squeezed her hand back.
The moment I did that Alice came to her feet.
My heart sank. I thought I'd offended her in some way and she was about to leave, but instead she sat on my knee and put her arms around my neck. Then she kissed me very slowly…it went on for a long time.

It was the way he'd put in those three dots at the end, something about the six words at the end of the diary entry seemed rushed. I couldn't help but think something more elaborate than that had happened between them that night. Knowing Tom, he'd written what had happened, he'd just hidden it in case.
Well, I was instinctively curious and quickly found my hands examining the contents of the diary itself carefully. Just as I lifted up the diary so the edges of the pages were facing the top surface of the desk, something slipped out of the back: several pages. I looked where they'd fallen from so I knew where to put them back once I'd finished reading through them.
Now knowing where to slip the pages back in, I placed the diary back on the desk and pushed it aside so I was completely focused on the several pages in my hands in front of me.

If I was being honest with myself, I didn't know what I was hoping for. Why else were there separate pages stuffed into the back of my master's diary? I honestly didn't know what I was hoping for as my eyes scanned the words confirmed in solid black ink on the pages…

My hands slowly lowered the pages until I, unconsciously, slammed the pages onto the wooden surface. I was livid with rage and it only made it worse as I began to process…
Those noises I'd heard that night when I shared a tent with those two on our way back to Chipenden…that's what they must've been doing! Who's to say they hadn't been doing that at any other time I'd been hearing those…sounds?

Once my chest stopped heaving with fury and I managed to calm myself down a little, I started to think more sensibly and calmly. Why did I ever get my hopes up? What was I expecting to happen when Alice came back into Tom's life? They were childhood friends after all and, even though I knew I didn't know half of what happened to them back then, I knew that, at some point, Alice had been his romantic interest. Clearly, he'd been hers too.
A wave of sadness washed over me in one great big, crushing, enveloping wave. Why did I ever, irrationally, believe I stood half a chance with him? I was such a fool!

Just in time, as more bitter thoughts started to slither their way into my mind, I heard the front door downstairs open with a creek and voices broke the silence that had crept into the house during their absence like smoke; I recognised the two voices almost instantly.
Tom and Alice had returned!

Heart hammering, hands shaking with anticipation and the need to get out of the room before Tom realised I'd been in there, I shot up from the chair, stuffed the pages back into the diary where I'd found them and positioned the diary exactly how I'd found it on the desk. Then, I exited the room as fast as my legs could carry me downstairs.

Once I was nearing the bottom, Tom noticed me first and smiled.
I smiled back, trying to soothe the ache in my heart caused by the painful reminder of what I'd just read.
"Morning, Jenny," Tom greeted. He seemed even more happy than usual – strangely.
"Morning," I answered lamely. Realising how unconvincing that sounded, I added, "…So, where did you two go?"
"Nowhere important," Alice answered before Tom could even open his mouth to speak, meeting my gaze with that…look.
It was then that I saw it: that look in his green-eyed gaze whenever my master looked at the earth witch standing in the hallway. I could never quite explain it but it was a look that I dearly wished Tom would gaze at me with. A look that just simply cannot be described with words.
"I'm just going to check on something. I won't be a minute," Tom proclaimed.
"All right," Alice replied, smiling sweetly.
She never smiled like that – not even when looking at her lover. These two were seriously acting strange that morning.
After dropping a kiss on her forehead, my master left us alone in the hallway as he headed back out the door.

For the first minute or so, Alice and I both stood there in awkward silence, neither knowing what to say to the other. For once, it wasn't me to break the silence.
Finally, Alice asked, "What did you do while we were out, Jenny?"
As I met her eyes, I found this really odd…look that she'd never given me before – not as far as I was aware, anyway. It was somewhere between the lines of hostility, which she'd always looked at me with, as if I were some sort of threat (believe me, after reading those loose pages, I seriously doubted I was that), and suspicion. She looked at me almost as if…that couldn't be right, surely…as if she knew that I'd been snooping in Tom's diary. I knew Tom would disapprove if I told him but it felt like she meant for me to find that diary as a way of…warning me away.
"No-nothing, really. Just wondered where you two had slipped off to."
That was my biggest lie and one that I, deep down, knew wasn't necessary when talking to a witch.

After that, Tom returned and told me that, after lunch, we were going out on spook's business and Alice wasn't going to come with us. Again…strange. No matter the circumstance, Alice always came with us. Sometimes, I felt like she just came to keep an eye on me, to make sure I wouldn't try anything on my master. What sort of woman did she take me for?
Why wasn't she coming with us? I had a feeling that I was soon going to find out.
My instincts proved correct…

True to his word, Tom and I were out on spook's business and Alice didn't come with us. Frankly, I was secretly relieved she wasn't coming. I didn't get as much time alone with my master as I would have liked and things proved awkward and tense whenever Alice joined us. Shockingly, Tom seemed oblivious to the tense atmosphere whenever Alice was around.
She did prove formidable when we found ourselves against a particularly nasty, difficult denizen. But other than that, she merely got on my nerves.

Anyway, on this spook's business, we'd been tasked to deal with another troublesome Kobalos – very much like the one I'd first helped Tom locate and defeat. Along the way, I asked why Alice hadn't come with us – purely out of curiosity.
As a response, Tom just grinned inexplicably down at the ground.

All of a sudden, he brought us to a halt then turned to face me.
"Jenny…there was a reason we left early this morning. Alice was using her powers a couple of days ago and one of her spells fizzled. She then used her powers to detect the problem in her stomach – also hoping she might find the solution to why she was also being sick in the mornings…we went to a well-known doctor down in the village this morning…"
"Did he know what the reason was?" I asked.
Tom nodded.
"He was rather reluctant at first since I'm a spook and Alice is an earth witch. But, in the end, he told us the cause. It turns out that Alice is pregnant," he finally told me, seemingly hardly able to contain his excitement.
My heart sank, like it was sinking into the deepest part of the sea.
Dumbstruck with a torrent of emotions, my eyes widened briefly and I gaped at him, feeling numb all over.
He chuckled lightly. "Well, this is where you're supposed to say: congratulations…"
I couldn't reveal anything that I'd discovered late that morning. I definitely couldn't reveal my feelings either – especially there and then.

Snapping myself out of an overwhelmed daze, I finally congratulated him.
Inside, I suddenly realised how scattered my thoughts were and started, as we continued on our way, to gather my thoughts. After all, this was bound to happen at some point; I should've known and mentally kicked myself for being so naïve and caught up in my own little, unrealistic fantasy…

As we returned, we saw Alice waiting for us just outside the bright green gate.
Adding more to my dismay, also adding a little disgust at the upfront display of affection, the happy couple embraced. It seemed to go on for hours, even though it only lasted for mere seconds.

Eventually, they pulled back slightly.
Alice's hands resting lightly on Tom's arms, she looked over his shoulder and asked me, "So, Jenny, did Tom tell you the good news?"
What 'good news'? I thought bitterly.
But I put such thoughts from my mind. Bitter thoughts were bad for the mind, after all, and I never stood a chance to begin with. Those dreams were already dashed before I even thought them. It was always Alice who held Tom's heart – it was never going to be me.
On the outside, I acted happy for them, although still mentally grumbling. Did they have to put their affections on such display out in the open? Was it necessary?
I'd never been in a relationship so I wouldn't know.
I nodded.

It was only when Alice turned her attention back to Tom, when her hands slithered up his arms to rest on his shoulders, his arms lowering down to her waist to pull her even closer, I noticed the engagement ring on Alice's left finger glittering in the golden autumn light.

Well, what more is there to say? All of that is still a burning memory, fresh in my mind.
Alice is showing now and Tom's getting more protective by the day. It is getting a bit much – one of the only things Alice and I can agree on.
Sometimes, I daresay, I lay in bed and imagine what my life would have been like in Chipenden had Alice not returned. But, unfortunately, the past can only be learnt from – not changed. Maybe I could've been the one to make my master happy, maybe he would've never smiled again.
So, I'm just going to have to grin and bear it, and just be glad that my master can finally be happy.

If this is what it's like to love someone, I'd rather diminish my feelings for him. But I fear they will never go until I find someone. Maybe someday, I will…

A/N: just a reminder. If you have any specific pairings or requests you want me to write about, simply let me know in a review or PM me if you are a member.