A/N: So, I know I said somewhere this was only going to be 20 chapters or so, but after looking at the story over in its entirety, I decided a lot of it wasn't necessary and wound up scrapping most of it, deciding a shorter story was more important to tell the story of Fralice (Frank & Alice) and Alice's friendship. I hope you enjoy it!

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CHAPTER 14

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LUPIN nervously twisted his yellow gold wedding band he proudly wore on his left ring finger and swallowed back a lump in his throat as he watched Alice's head lay back in the pillow in a sense of defeat lined upon her face, though she wasn't at all aware of it. Tonks was waiting for him just outside, respectful of his privacy and giving him his space.

His first urge as Frank's mother, for the sixth time in the last week, led him towards their ward in St. Mungo's, when he realized Alice was in this horrible place, was to touch her.

To touch her to know that Alice was still alive, that what had happened to her was, in fact, real, and to take her and Frank away to somewhere better than this, give what comfortable life he could, and pray he could find a skilled Healer who could reverse the damage Crouch had done.

It had been several years now since her attack, but it ached and hurt as though it had just happened yesterday.

There was a permanent horrible barrier erected between his two friends whenever he visited faithfully three times a week without fail on his part, sitting in the middle of either of their beds, hoping, praying to Merlin and his mother, Hope, Merlin bless her soul forever, that they would wake from this.

Merlin, he just wanted them back. As he looked over wearily at their beds, poor, sweet Alice looked almost dead.

And he would know, he'd seen a lot of dead people lately in the war against Voldemort.

Mad-Eye, not to mention a few others. If it weren't for the small rise and fall of her body, he would not have been able to tell the difference. The breath going in and out of Frank and Alice's bodies were the only sign his two best friends were still alive. Lupin bit his lip.

He took a deep breath and tried to evaluate why he still came. His heart pounded against his ribcage and he, once again, was left alone to fully hate the situation he and his friends found themselves again. What Crouch had taken from him, there was a strong possibility that he'd never get back.

Lupin's gaze found its way towards Alice. She looked like Death. Her skin was entirely too pale, absent of any color, causing the light smattering of brown freckles along her nose to stand out against her skin. A choked sob worked his way up to his throat.

This wasn't supposed to happen to his Alice or Frank. Why had Crouch done this? And why, in Merlin's name, was Lupin denied the chance to watch the Dementors perform the Kiss on Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s wretched body?

It was an act said to be nearly unbearable to witness, but he had wanted it. And Dumbledore, when Lupin had sent him an owl, had firmly told his former DADA Professor to stay away, that Albus did not want Remus to see something like that, what he had done to Alice and Frank notwithstanding.

A half-choked sob bubbled its way past his lips and a stray tear slid down his cheek.

Alice's spirit and her very presence in his life were like the sun itself. Without it, without her life, his own was nothing more than a cold, dark shadow. Without Frank and Alice, everything seemed bleak and colorless.

Even Sirius agreed.

"I—I'm…so…sorry…" Remus didn't know how he was even able to form the words, much less speak a coherent thought in his mind. With the amount of pain that wracked his body at seeing his beloved friends like this, it shouldn't even be possible for him to speak at all.

And yet, he knew he had to say something to Alice and Frank. Even if the Longbottoms could no longer hear him or respond. He needed to tell her, to tell them both how he felt.

Do you remember that night on the rooftop, Remus? Lupin froze, slowly gazing to the whisperer seated in the opposite chair alongside Frank's bedside, holding his hand.

Lupin blinked as he swore he saw Alice smile at him. He knew and swore by Merlin Himself, that his mind was playing a sport of his vision. He was trapped in his own illusions and was living in a metaphor that only he had the ability to access.

His face remained in apathy, and his creative artistry at imagining Alice sitting across from him made Alice smile.

Why on Merlin's green earth he continued to allow his best friend to ghost him like this, as she did every time he visited, he didn't know. In fact, he could almost see Alice smirk, reading the expression on her lips which says that she pitied him for mourning her in her current condition.

He knew there had been things left unsaid between the two of them, emotions that remained chained and pent up for years. Words left imprisoned, against his better judgment.

Did you love me, Remus? Did you ever…? Be honest…

"Yes. You know I did, Al." He pursed his lips to swallow, lowering his voice and whispering in his moment of madness. "I still do, and always will. I don't remember that night on the rooftop much, but what I do remember, is you, Alice. Always."

Her silence reigned, and like always, she disappeared. Lupin held himself back and willed his mind to stop this delirium. But still, his lips spoke the continuation of his heart.

"It was right that we left that rooftop, Al. But what wasn't right when you left me. You know that I love you, Alice…."

He was startled out of his musings and jolted when the sound of a light pair of knuckles rapping on the doorway interrupted his thoughts, and he turned around with a furtive, guilty look on his face, though his hardened features relaxed, and his shoulders slumped forward when it was only Dora.

Her lips were pursed into a thin light, pale gray eyes wrought with worry overseeing her husband in such a state.

Tonks closed off the gap of space between the two of them and, upon sensing Lupin so close to tears, catching sight of the glistening, unshed moisture in his eyes, did not hesitate to engulf him in a hug, allowing his head to rest against the flat of her stomach.

"Shh, it is all right, Remus. I know you. You have to let yourself feel it. Cry, scream if you have to, but let it out. Don't keep these emotions bottled up, sweetheart," Tonks whispered soothingly, stroking her fingers through his thick tuft hair in the way that Dora knew Remus liked, that always managed to calm him. "Is there any change?" she questioned hopefully as she rested her chin on top of Remus's hair, glancing towards Alice and Frank before swiveling her gaze back to Lupin.

"I…" Remus began, feeling rather unsure and hesitant, cringing, squeezing his eyes shut as he heard the faltering crack and dip of his voice. "No," he whispered in a hoarse voice.

He reluctantly broke apart from his wife's gentle embrace, feeling just a bit bold, not minding if Dora saw, as she harbored no ill will towards the feelings he held for Alice, leaned over Alice's bed, and pressed his lips to her forehead.

It was soft, and his cracked lips barely touched her skin, but it was still a kiss. Merlin's Beard, if Alice were awake and cognizant, she would tease him mercilessly about it, so would Frank, that it was something else entirely or some other excuse. Something or nothing at all.

But, to Lupin, for his best friend, it was a true kiss, and as much of himself as he could give. And it was genuine, real, and true. It came from the bottom of his heart, and she, alongside Dora, was the only person in his entire life ever worth giving it to at all.

"Alice. Please…come back to me, Al. Come back…" he whispered his words, hoping that somehow, she could hear him. He emanated a tense, shaking breath through his nose, and had been about to turn around on his heels to leave with Tonks to head back to their relatively small cottage in Wales when a tiny, soft voice broke him out of his inner despair.

"Remus?"

To me… come back to me, Al…. Alice was able to pick out his voice drowning in a blur. It was cold. It felt as though tendrils of ice were swelling in her veins, freezing her insides.

Her heart, that damned stubborn throbbed muscle of corded veins in her chest, felt like a frozen-over ice glacier.

A horrible abstract of colors, most grey, clouded her vision, haunting and dreary. She felt a stiff groan caress her throat. Come back…to me… Was that… was that Rem's voice?

Alice paused, wondering if she'd misheard. But no. There it was again. Yes, yes, it was.

That was definitely his voice, yes. She heard Lupin's broken tones, his ragged voice that always ignited a surge of affection in her veins for the young werewolf, and it was this that caused her chest to heave and Alice opened her lips to suck in air like a newborn baby. She coughed and inhaled until life swam back into her lungs.

The memories of begging Crouch to stop, fighting for her life, might eventually fade from her consciousness, but they would never truly entirely be gone. They might drift back into the murky darkness of her subconsciousness from time to time, but those memoirs would always be there, waiting to remind Alice of the horrors she had overcome.

It was a young woman that Alice did not know who noticed Alice stirring again, sometime in the afternoon.

The young witch with the short chin-length vibrant bubblegum pink hair was the first to notice Alice wriggle beneath the sheets, coughing and spluttering heavily as she did. Alice's sleep had been deep, but not exactly peaceful, no.

Images flashed before her in her mind, more like fragmented thoughts than actual dreams. Some were memorable and benign—her wedding to Frank, Potions Class with Remus, and Sirius, that time Lupin had accidentally indulged in too much Fire Whiskey at their wedding after Frank's mum had challenged him to a drinking contest.

But most had passed by Alice too quickly to comprehend them, leaving nothing but a strangely dark, unsettling presence in their wake?

"Uh, M—Mrs. Longbottom? REMUS!" This new witch with the bright pink hair was leaning over Alice as her eyes flickered open and shut again, barely perceptive. "Y—you need to get in here, they're both awake!" she hollered.

Alice was beginning to wake up now, but her weakened body had been drugged with copious amounts of Sleeping and Calming Draughts to help her sleep and remain calm.

She lay there for a while in a semi-conscious haze, teetering on the brink of her nightmares, dreams of Crouch's face that she would sooner rather forget, and the brilliant blinding white light of what looked like to her a hospital room. It was like being submerged in the dark, murky waters of the Black Lake back at Hogwarts.

Alice swore she could see and hear this woman, and Remus's voice, and Frank's, but the voices around her were distant and distorted, an indistinct ripple in her mind that couldn't fully penetrate the gauze that stretched over Alice's limited perception of this white room.

A truly horrible thought swam towards Alice, fully formed and dangerous. Whatever this is, you're dreaming. You're still back at home, with Crouch, chimed the familiar dark voice inside her mind. Momentarily, it lit the darkness.

Alice had imagined things before, long since lost track of the difference between reality and her own fantasies. Was wherever here was for her just another cruel illusion, a trick?

Alarmed, Alice swam to the surface of her mind, and whoever might be waiting for her there, hoping it was Frank.

The first thing that swam into focus, however, was his face. Her Remus, looming just in front of Alice, alongside that strange but still quite pretty witch with the vibrant pink hair.

He didn't say anything back. His jaw dropped open in shock, and Alice wondered if he was a product of her feverish mind. But Remus's face was a true picture of beauty, Merlin bless his soul. Alice had laughed until she started crying, albeit with a lengthy coughing fit in between.

She didn't know if he was any more real than the last time she had laid eyes on him.

It had been his voice that had brought her back to the surface.

"Remus?" she whispered hoarsely. Alice was crying now, she could bloody feel it. In that first moment after waking, she felt as afraid as the night that Crouch had attacked her and Frank, suddenly convinced this was just another hallucination. If her own mind could play such an evil trick on her, she couldn't go on. "Is…is that…you?" she begged, biting on her lip.

If it wasn't him, then she would give up.

"Alice?" Remus's voice was hoarse and quiet, more reserved than usual, and disbelieving, as though he was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that Alice, and now Frank, was stirring, hazily lifting from the fog of their own minds. "I…." but his voice trailed off as he lifted his hand and slowly allowed it to ghost over the scars on his lined face.

Suddenly, just as Lupin's hand reached the edges of his lips, turned downward in a look of disbelief, his hand stilled, frozen in midair and his light brown eyes widened in shock.

"Alice!" Remus immediately dropped his hand from his face and bolted towards her bedside, dropping into a kneeling crouch by her bedside, latching onto her hand and squeezing it. "Here, do you want to sit up?" he asked, his voice warbling.

Alice nodded, though she lacked the strength in her voice to adequately answer, as out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the young pink-haired witch move to the other side of the ward and stood aside as a few Healers entered the room and immediately began fussing over her and Frank.

She noticed how nervous the pink-haired witch looked, biting down on her bottom lip, wringing her hands together.

But Alice was given no further time to study the new arrival in her and Frank's room as Lupin's voice temporarily commanded her attention away from the girl in the door.

"Here," Remus muttered, a note of urgency in his quiet voice that felt like sweet music to her ears. But Merlin, she had missed his voice. Missed him.

He carefully leaned over the bed and held the small of her back with one hand, the other fluffing her pillow as much as he could before gently resting her back against the mattress and pulling up a chair.

His light brown eyes were glistening with unshed moisture that was not exactly tears, and Remus seemed to be searching hers for something that she was not sure what.

Lupin lifted his free hand not currently wrapped around her waist as he moved to join his best friend and rested on the edge of her bed, smoothing the bangs of her short brown hair back away from her forehead, looking at her as though he'd just witnessed an act of Merlin Himself.

"You're awake," he breathed, eyeing his best friend as though he could not quite believe it.

Alice almost frowned at the way Remus was regarding her at the moment, as if she were fragile, made of the most delicate of china, and looking at her like he had never seen anything quite like her before, like…like she was the most beautiful thing in his world. "Oh, thank Merlin. I—I thought…that I'd lost you."

Alice did not bother to stifle the small half-smile that crept its way onto her pale features, though even just twitching the corners of her mouth upward hurt like hell.

"W—well, I didn't plan to stay asleep forever, Rem. N—not when Frank and I have a life to live. Just because…this," she added lamely, gesturing towards her bed, wincing as Remus's already pale face became even more ashen than before at the way she gestured towards her room, "changes my life now doesn't mean that I'm going to let it keep me from living the best life that I can, Rem."

Lupin suddenly furrowed his brows into a frown, stilling his hand that had found purchase in the back of her hair, absentmindedly playing with a few of her strands, his expression flitting between elation that his best friend was awake and coherent, to horrified.

Alice frowned and bit the wall of her cheek, sensing that something was wrong with her friend, and did not like the sudden shift in Remus's countenance at all.

"Rem? I...I remember...everything..." she whispered in a hoarse voice, confused. Her stomach painfully churned and twisted, and Alice swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat as she could taste the bitter acidic lining of her stomach creeping up her esophagus as disgusting bile.

When Remus did not immediately respond, Alice began to grow even more worried.

"Rem, please talk to me," she pleaded, grunting in frustration to free herself from the twisted entanglement of her bedsheets. She scowled, wondering if she had tossed and turned in her sleep. "Please, Rem, just tell me what's wrong! I—I can help you, but you have to let me in. I'm your best friend, remember? Talk to me. I'm with you."

A strong arm suddenly shot out and wrapped underneath Alice's shoulders, lifting her upward from her perch on the bed, urgently but gently, careful to be mindful of her injuries, and pulled her right shoulder into the crook of his. Lupin's hand that was currently clutching onto her own in an iron-like grip let go for only a second, to be replaced with his other hand, his left, where she could see her poor friend shaking. Violently.

Something was definitely bothering him, but…why? Just as Alice felt her lips part open slightly to speak, she let out a tiny squeak as she suddenly found herself abruptly removed from the covers of her hospital bed from the waist up and clutched tightly in Remus's strong embrace, her head resting underneath Lupin's chin.

Alice sat still for a moment, wide-eyed in shock and too stunned to formulate a response. She remained unstirred and stock-still for a moment, completely stunned.

Lupin pulled away silently, but their eyes locked, having a private conversation of their own. Somehow, Alice knew, as long as she was with Remus and he was right by her side during her healing, that she was going to be fine.

And he knew it too. After a moment spent in silence, Lupin made an odd little noise at the back of his throat to get Alice's attention. Slowly, careful to be mindful not to exacerbate the wound on the column of her throat, Alice slowly swiveled her head to look at him, and her gaze once again curiously found its way towards the witch standing nervously in the doorway, still biting down on her lip in a nervous fit, suddenly looking quite apprehensive, as though she were bearing witness to an otherwise private moment.

"There's…someone that I would like you to meet, Alice and Frank, if you're feeling up to receiving visitors today?" he asked, biting the wall of his cheek, and waiting for her to nod.

When she did, her curiosity piqued, Alice heard Lupin emanate a tense exhale of relief through his nose and sighed.

He swiveled slightly at the waist and turned in his chair to regard the pink-haired young witch standing in the doorway. Alice furrowed her brows in puzzlement as she noticed the soft smile that snaked its way onto Remus's face, making the man look years younger than he was, and how affectionate his smile was towards the younger witch that, she thought, looked startlingly like her, except for the hair color.

Alice's gaze flitted curiously from the woman who, after silent encouragement from Remus upon seeing the man nod his head and give her an encouraging smile, took a cautious half-step slowly towards the bed, then another, and another, until she was standing by Remus's side and had rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a rather light but reassuring little squeeze.

The glint of a yellow gold wedding ring caught Alice's gaze on the witch's left ring finger, and Alice's heart soared.

As her curious gaze flitted from the pink-haired young witch to Remus, at the soft smile that had made its way onto Lupin's mouth and the way his light brown eyes lit up in adoration as he tore his gaze away from the witch and back to Alice, Alice knew that Remus, after all this time, had made good on his promise to her. And she knew who this girl was.

Alice's suspicion was immediately confirmed when Remus opened his mouth to speak, and the note of happiness, relief, and pride in the man's voice was unmistakable.

"Alice," he began, a cautious grin forming on his face as his left hand reached up to lay overtop of the pink-haired witch's hand still resting gently over his shoulder, "I'd like you to meet my wife."