Always, Alison

Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't claim to.

Rating: Somewhere between PG13 and R -- perhaps some language, adult content, adult situations

Summary: Alison decides to put an end to Livvie's reign of lies.

Author's note: Livvie hasn't gotten pregnant by either Rafe or the Avatar.

Chapter Two

Later…

Livvie stared at the calendar in front of her, groaned and then began to pace before it. Her window of opportunity was closing on her. Ovulation. The perfect day to get pregnant. All things that had never once been important to her but were so desperately now. She had to get pregnant. She had to keep Rafe.

It wasn't enough that she had so easily taken Rafe from Alison, but she wanted to make the girl hurt. And make no mistake she would. Alison had swept into her life offering her "friendship" but all she did was take away the things and people that mattered most to her. First her father and then Jack.

Okay, so Alison hadn't exactly taken her father from her, but if she hadn't been communing with black magic and witchcraft her father would have never disappeared in the first place. Then everyone abandoned her to protect poor, pathetically helpless Alison. Lucy, Jack, Jamal -- everyone. The only person who had sided with her was Rafe.

What a wonderful twist of luck she had stumbled across when she found Rafe in the woods. Just lying there, no memory of anything. Most importantly no memory of Alison.

Livvie looked toward the calendar she had pinned up in her bathroom in the hotel room once more. Damn it, she needed to get pregnant. What had seemed like a brilliant idea at the time was slowly turning into the biggest mistake she could have ever made. She knew, from what Alison had told her, that Rafe was a very honorable man. So if he knew she was pregnant there would be no way he'd ever leave her.

Another groan left Livvie as she realized she wouldn't be in this mess if Alison had only died in the hospital from that aneurysm like she was supposed to. Because then Rafe would have never found Alison and Livvie would have never been forced to tell him she was pregnant. Damn Alison. She was still trying to take things that belonged to her. Now Alison was trying to take back Rafe.

But Rafe was hers now fair and square. Rafe was given to her because of all the things Alison had taken from her. It was God's way of saying, "Here you go, Livvie. Alison has taken so much from you, it is your turn to take something from her." She would do anything to keep him.

And she will.

"Think, Livvie, think," she told her reflection in the mirror. "You need to get pregnant and fast. Rafe has become distracted with Alison and her big blue 'love me Rafe' eyes. Doesn't she know that Rafe is married to ME now and he is MY husband? Of course she knows, she just doesn't care. She'll just take and take from me until I'm left with nothing. Well, this time, Alison, you won't be taking this from me. That's right. Rafe thinks I'm pregnant and he'll stand beside me no matter what you do."

A frown pulled at her lips while her brow drew together. "Only problem, Livvie, is you aren't pregnant. I need to get that way soon. If Rafe can't get me pregnant, I could always find someone else, right? There are enough willing men out there to do the job." The thought of finding some random man had Livvie shivering with disgust. "It has to be someone I don't know. Jack would be an easy target, but he'd just tell Alison and of course she'd run to Rafe crying that I cheated." Her mind fell to another Ramsey brother who was once interested in her. "Chris might help me out. But I might be better off with some stranger."

Then something hit her that had her smiling widely. "A stranger is perfect. And I know just where to find … him."

Meanwhile…

The smell of burning candles permeated the air, but it was the sense of peace and calm that had one paying no attention to them. Rafe sat perched upon a pew, his eyes facing the altar before him, his hands steepled together and his chin tucked into the crook between his forefingers and thumbs.

He was at a loss. It was nothing new, considering the state of his memory. But now it all seemed so different. Since waking and finding Livvie, Rafe had been able to calm the fear inside of him. It wasn't a fear of having no memory; well that was part of it. It was just something, a voice you could say, inside of him that had him questioning everything. Especially his life with Livvie.

It was as though that little voice struggled to believe anything that Livvie said to him from the beginning. Not that he thought she had a reason to lie to him, because he didn't think she did. He just didn't feel any attachment to anything she said.

It was crazy. He had amnesia, which is why he didn't feel anything for her or feel drawn to all the stories she told him. Not that they weren't beautiful words, because they were. He just didn't feel alive when she spoke to him about their past.

Then he had met Alison.

Rafe's eyelids slipped closed as the visions of seeing Alison lying in her hospital bed filled his mind. Something strange had happened when he saw her. Not strange in the sense that it was awkward or weird, but he felt all at once at peace, much like he did in a church. The fear of the unknown hadn't haunting him, he suddenly wasn't so desperate to recapture his lost memories, because it was as though he had discovered what he had been searching the blackness of his mind for. He knew finding her would bring an end to his search.

And knowing this was almost as unsettling as it was when he woke up with no memory.

Suddenly Rafe pulled his chin from his hands and stood while scrubbing his palms over his face. Ever since finding Alison all this thoughts always returned to her. He had come here to find some way to quash the feelings bubbling up inside of him. He was a married man, he believed in his vows, and now he was going to become a father. But all he seemed to think about was Alison.

Always Alison.

Was it always going to be this way? Was he always going to see his wife, his child, think of how the weather was beautiful and Alison's face would come to mind? He didn't know her, yet she consumed him. She filled his thoughts, made his heart beat wickedly in his chest. Mostly she made him feel alive.

How could someone he didn't know make him feel this way? No, that was wrong. He did know her, he just couldn't remember knowing her. But every time he fell into her eyes, it was like he reclaimed a piece of himself. Pieces of himself he couldn't remember or understand, but it was slowly making him feel whole again.

A puff of laughter rumbled through his chest as the left corner of his mouth lifted. That was such a strange way to describe looking at her. Falling into her eyes. And it was so easy to become lost within them. Her eyes were this incredible pool of blue that seemed to speak to him from the depths of her soul. When she spoke there was just plain honesty and unbound emotions flowing from them. Though he had become saddle shy taking someone at their word, there was just something about Alison that said she was a truthful person.

This feeling for her had only grown stronger when she explained to him about their past together. What she hadn't told him was why he had left her. Alison had told him he would need to remember that on his own. Why? Was it so awful that he had to recall it on his own because it was too painful for her? No, it couldn't have been if she was still so very much in love with him and the story of their life moved her to happy tears.

Alison seemed to know him. Really know him. In the way that she spoke, the way her eyes would sparkle, the sound of her voice. They were all very simple things, but it moved him. And she spoke to him in ways that didn't require words. Rafe felt drawn to her unlike anyone before in his life. Well, at least it felt that way.

Why was it that he felt this way for Alison and not for Livvie? He had read her journal and enjoyed what was written there. But there was no pull to her version of events as he was to Alison's. Both were very beautiful tales of how each of them fell in love, but it was Alison's story that he wished to remember.

Rafe growled suddenly and moved to stand before a series of unlit candles. He exhaled a breath and gazed towards the ceiling above his head. "Why am I feeling this way? It's not like I can -- I'm married … to a very lovely woman actually. Livvie is beautiful, very much so. But beauty goes more than skin deep, doesn't it?" He asked no one in particular as he shoved a single hand through his blond hair.

"Not that I'm not saying Livvie doesn't have a beautiful soul, I just don't -feel- it. You know? With Alison it's as though I know every inch of her from the tip of her head to the bottom of her soul. She can look at me and it's almost as though I know what she's thinking before she even says it. It's like there is this invisible string that keeps tugging me to Alison, which under different circumstances I probably wouldn't mind."

He tipped his head to the side and humorlessly and helplessly chuckled. "What's wrong with me?" He then lifted his hand towards his temple and thumped it a couple times. "Is my brain not connected to my body? I'm a married man. I believe in every single one of my vows. I want to stay true to them, I do. But why can't I stop thinking I'm making a mistake?"

"Because you are."

Rafe whirled around to find Alison standing at the back of the church. "Al-Alison," he breathed out. "What … what are you-"

"Doing here?" She filled in for him as she began to make her way toward him.

"Something like that." His eyes were locked with hers, his heart pounding so hard in his chest that he felt light headed. This is what he meant by feeling alive when he fell into her eyes.

When she stood before him, Alison smiled gently and announced, "I'm selfish and I feel I have every right to be."

"Selfish?" Rafe asked, his voice filled with disbelief. "Now I don't think-"

Alison held up her hand and pressed the tips of her fore and middle fingers against Rafe's lips to still his mouth. "Don't think. Don't reason. Don't do anything, but listen to what I have to say."

For his answer to her request, Rafe merely nodded his head and enjoyed the feeling of fingers pressed against his mouth. The sensations sparking through at her touch was enough to make him breathless and shiver with unabashed pleasure. Had she always had this effect on him? As he fell a little deeper into her eyes, Rafe had the feeling that she did.

~*~

To Be Continued…