Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: I seriously can't tell you guys how much I love the reviews, especially when reviewers interact with each other. ...Why does anyone else write in any other way? I mean, sure, if you sell books you make money... but you don't get the neatly laid out page of praise and humor... :)

Anywho, so I've tried this whole story to make Jace a sympathetic character who makes a few mistakes and has the misfortune of falling in love with someone who is meant to be with another... and either I've failed, or you GSR people are just so crazy about any third parties that I was doomed to start. Still, I'm trying once again. :)

Chapter Fifty Four:

Sara was still talking to him.

…And she was so angry with me, all the time. I had thought that it would fade, once we were in Boston… that we could rekindle a friendship that might eventually lead to love. …I didn't have to be the person she loved the most, as long as she did love me and would spend her life with me… I could forgive her loving him, as long as she didn't talk to him.

Which is not to say that it didn't hurt me, knowing that she was in love with another man… I think the irrational nature of my actions—buying flowers and then slamming doors, being kind and coaxing one minute and blindingly angry the next—is a testament to that. But I could live with not being the person she felt the strongest for. I could… She was my wife, and it would be enough if being my wife was her main priority.

I thought, the day I came home and she came up to me, asking me to move furniture because she was done painting, that we would talk… that some bridges could be mended. Hell, I would take her just behaving civilly, right now. I mean, I had years to wear away at her anger… and though Sara had a terrible temper, it was usually short-lived. Eventually, she would have to interact with me, simply to function as my life partner… eventually, we would slip back into the rhythm we'd always had, in married life and before it, and she would learn to be content with me.

I gave up the job, despite the major promotion I'd been about to get—she couldn't know about the promotion, and arguing to stay was not a smart move… working with that company was what had turned her against me in the first place. If she'd never gotten angry, maybe nothing would have happened… Or, at least, I could have realized the man's intentions before she was so swept up in him. But I hadn't realized, she had gotten angry, and so the job must go, because she was more important.

The fact of the matter was that I loved Sara… I had never felt this way about another woman in my entire life. I found every single thing about her sexy and wonderful and inspiring. Just to look at her, even when she was fuming with anger directed solely at me, would make my heart beat harder in my chest. But if I ever fell out of love with her, or fell for someone else… it would not mean the end of the marriage.

…Something Sara didn't know about my parents was that my mother left us for a while, when I was eleven… She eventually came back, and it was something we never talked about, as a rule, but… it had left its mark on me. I had decided, then and there, that love shouldn't dictate everything. I mean, you should marry for love, but once in the marriage, if you loved the person you were married to, that was good… but if you were a good and faithful partner to the person you were married to, that was better.

Especially for the children.

Sara felt the same way I did about a broken home… she just didn't realize that living without one parent for a period of time could be as harmful as constantly living with one who was abusive to the other parent. And if she did understand that, I was certain she would logically make the same choice to stay with me, for our daughter. She would do anything for our daughter—that much had already been demonstrated. But Sara, smart as she was, wasn't logical. She was consumed with her emotions… so she would never choose me over him, if given the choice.

I know she says I'm blackmailing her, but I'm honestly not… I didn't say that I would kidnap our daughter if she left me, I just warned her that I would do whatever it took to prevent her taking our child away to be raised by another man. Was that so extreme a thing to do? She had cheated on me, on our honeymoon, and my only action was to say that if she planned to take my child to call another man 'Daddy,' I would do anything I could to prevent it? I had given her a choice—fight, or compromise. It wasn't blackmail, it was problem-solving. And she made a choice… but she wasn't sticking to her side of the bargain. I couldn't prove it, but Kyleigh and Michelle were helping her talk to him.

If she weren't, she'd probably get lonely… be more willing to accept friendship, simply to have someone to interact with. …We could ease back into a relationship that had worked for us… made us happy, even if she hadn't felt as strongly about me as I always had about her. …I found a note she'd scribbled to herself when I was looking for the cordless phone in her room—it was on her desk, stating the time and address of her ultrasound appointment. It took a lot of finagling to get it off, especially since I was so new at work, but I thought that that at least would show her how much I cared… that I was making an effort, for us.

She just looked irritated that I was there at all. …Which isn't fair. Love me or not, she's my daughter too! …More mine than Dr. Grissom's. …I positively ache when I think of his words, outside the taxi, in Costa Rica… saying that Sara and our baby were his family, not mine. I avoided a scene, and a fight, because despite knowing that he'd thrown the first punch, Sara would never forgive me for raising a hand in violence against him. Another thing that wasn't fair, but there was nothing to be done for it… she was more important to me than defending my pride.

I spent the evening working on a car I'd been working on restoring—an old Camaro… and ode to Sara, in my own way, though I wasn't sure she'd pick up on that. I would rather be inside, curled up watching a movie with her, asking about her new job and telling her about the proposal I'd just written that day about the amount of money we could save using recycled paper in our packaging. I mean, it wasn't really what I'd been hired to do… I was restructuring their entire financial department and changing the way they did things… but the difference was significant enough that I figured my boss wouldn't complain that it wasn't specifically on task.

I wanted Sara to be proud of me… I was trying to be better. I mean, I knew that I should have told her what Mercer and Murdoch had been doing… should have quit. She just started talking about babies and wanting two or three and when I thought about college funds and the fact that they would likely all have their mother's brains and need to go somewhere Ivy League… I didn't want to give up the money, and ninety nine percent of the companies who could pay me an equal salary were doing the same things, just in smaller amounts. I had personally worked my way through a school like that, and there was no way I was giving all my attention to my schoolwork… I was too exhausted. …I wanted something better, for our children.

I mean, I'm a firm believer that you can't be certain of anything… Sure, we were doing well now, but both of us had had parents who were educated, worked hard, and because of life, in one way or another ended up trying to raise their children on next to nothing. I wasn't willing to take for granted that I had twenty-some years to raise the money for their education… I wanted to set it aside now, whenever I could convince Sara to spare it from her various charities.

I couldn't even begrudge her that—she was so consumed with guilt over how successful we'd become, and her generosity was one of the things I loved most about her.

…All of this was a moot point. She was talking to him, and she would never put her anger for me aside if she were talking to him. And we would never find our way back to a comfortable, companionable relationship if she never stopped hating me. I couldn't accuse her of anything else… That approach, spurred on by anger and frustration and no small amount of hurt, was not working. I needed to gain my control back… go back to being the husband who was willing to allow her all the space in the world… the husband who didn't realize that 'I need space' was code for 'I'm going to go fuck an entomologist'… the husband she had loved and been happy with. And then… I would need to find some other way to stop them talking.

I wasn't sure how… but it had to be done. I had a daughter to protect. …I had a marriage to save.