Chapter 3

Murals and Melt Downs

Willow

Seattle Grace Mercy West was the same as always.

Except for one thing. Why did some of the surgical interns look like inmates?

'A dry cap for you,' Willow chirped, handing off Mark's order, 'and black coffee with an extra shot for you. And iced chocolate for me. What's with the orange?'

'So many new interns that the scrubs are on back order.' Derek gave as he took a sip. 'How's the mural going?'

'Waiting for the first layer of primer to dry right now.' she nodded, pushing her glasses up with the back of a paint-stained hand. 'So, who do we like and who do we want to chuck into the Bay?'

She felt a bit like a vulture, surveying the mildly panicked sea of cobalt and pumpkin beneath them, waiting to pick apart a fallen intern left unattended. The orange interns were a little too AHHHH for Willow to truly find funny, most of them from Mercy West and therefore, unsure of how things went at Seattle Grace. And the drama that seemed to follow all of them.

'None of them.' Mark drawled and she smacked him with a backwards hand. 'I'm serious. Until they can show us something of interest, I don't like any of them.'

'And yet,' Willow mused, 'you've adopted Jackson Avery as your little ENT-ling. Congrats, it's a boy.'

'I hate you.' He looked down at her, blue eyes amused as Derek snorted into his coffee lid.

'You're not the only one. So, I got tea.'

'From Forks?'

'Yep.' She nodded and the two followed her as her alarm went to check the progression of the primer, 'So you know Jasper's adopted brother, Edward?'

'The one that left Bella back in September?' Mark nodded as Derek checked.

'Yeah, him. So he came back like a few months ago and surprise, surprise the two got back together in a heartbeat, you know, as most high school relationships do.'

'Please don't tell me they're getting married.' Willow looked Mark in the eye and took a deliberate sip of her drink. His head fell back in a groan. 'Why? Why must they do that?'

Derek let his coffee hover before he asked, 'She pregnant?'

'Unless she's the Virgin Mary reincarnate, I don't think so.'

'How long have they been together?' Mark asked as he slid into a stool behind the Paeds flight desk and rolled after her as Willow pulled the sheets back. The old waiting area had been cornered off and given a blank white area for her to work in. She had put another layer of primer down as soon as she got in, so Willow was waiting for that to dry before she truly started the outline of the whole piece.

She squinted, tapping a bit of the wall that got the least amount of contact with the fan she had set up. It was a little tacky but by the time she got around to that, it may be dried. 'Uh, like if you take away the time they were broken up. Six months.'

'Who're we talking shit about?' Dr Robbins rolled in on her Heelies.

'My partner's adopted brother and his fiancé. They just graduated.'

'Aw, where?' Arizona had been a recent introduction to Willow since it was her department, but Richard had had nothing bad to say about the Chief of Paediatrics.

'High school.'

'Aw…no.' Calliope Torres cringed. 'I mean if they think they're right for each other, great. But isn't the girlfriend the one that nearly got flattened by that van come March?'

'Yup.' Willow nodded, dragging over a bench to get to the top of the bricks first. Seagulls, clouds, and a few trees first. 'But when you have a gossipy town like Forks, to say that people are watching her waistline is a slight misunderstanding.'

'Oh, how I don't miss that.' Callie drawled. 'How's the leg by the way? I keep meaning to ask.'

'She clicks a little and is a right bitch in the winter and snow but serviceable.'

'You still use your knee socks and stuff?'

'Mhmm.' Willow nodded, cocking her head at the slightly fat-looking seagull, and redrew his stomach, better. 'I got a crutch and cane if I need them too.'

'Wait, Torres did your leg?' Mark asked and Callie snorted.

'No.' she took a sip of his cappuccino and Willow cocked an eyebrow because Mark didn't protest. The man was possessive over his food and drink, and then she remembered. They had had a situationship before Callie had come out and gotten together with Arizona. 'I diagnosed it and took the plaster off. I wasn't a surgical intern just yet.' Those dark eyes turned back to her, 'So, Cullen's back then?'

'Since just before summer started, yeah. The So Cal job was just for a set period of time.' Willow dropped off the bench and stepped back, squinting up at the top of the Space Needle. 'That look straight to you?'

'Yeah.' Mark and Derek called behind her before all four pagers went off. Willow got two back-of-the-head kisses and waves from Callie and Arizona before the coffees were binned and they had to rush off to the ambulance bay, promises to rehash the drama later after they'd all finished.

She watched them leave before slipping her headphones in, letting her music play for the background noise as she worked. It wasn't that Willow wasn't excited for the big event, she was, she loved weddings – she loved the cake and dressing up was always fun. There were just some reasons for Bella getting married first to Edward before being Changed, which made Willow feel icky. Edward had known, time and time again, that Bella didn't see marriage the way he did, and yet, and yet, the only way that he could be the one to bite her was for them to do it after they got married. The wedding wasn't their fault, that had Alice all over it, literally the Seer already had Bella's dress – a gorgeous Edwardian-inspired creation of lace, silk, organza and what looked like a bazillion tiny buttons – a week after the Battle.

Alice hadn't truly realised how well-versed Willow had become in dealing with intense wedding people until she kept piping up when the Seer locked onto a subject and started to force her ideas onto Bella. The frustration on Alice's face as Willow lay nearly horizontal against Jasper's chest as she read Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters as he read The Book Thief with an absent hand in the hem of her shirt was as clear as glass.

But the thing, Willow mused as she traced a Goofy-shaped cloud in the corner of the sky was that by having Bella become more involved in her wedding choices, it got her more excited and actually start offering up ideas and it wasn't an embarrassing flush to her cheeks anymore. The two had even spent a night going over ideas for where Bella wanted to have the ceremony – at the house. Willow had offered several places but depending on the weather, Bella had gone for either the living room, wanting to create happier memories than the last time they had had a celebration in there, with her descending the stairs or out the back.

Willow secretly hoped the weather would be nice because the idea of making up the back garden, with the two framed with an archway and trees, ugh, had her flowing with ideas. It was easy for Willow to come up with ideas, with Bella and Edward having come up with a simple, soft colour palette of an almost frosted sage green, mauve lavender, a soft, shell white and for contrast, a mocha brown, to tie in with the natural theme they had going.

To say that Willow had nearly ended up throwing Emmett out a window when he had been teasing her about how 'the whites were all the same shade' was an understatement though. There may have been grooves in her chair at the table at the Cullen house. Just little ones in the arms.

When she was done with the mural, she would be headed back to finish the archway for the back, just in case, as well as top soiling several uneven parts of the back garden and potentially see about putting pavers in at increments, to let some moss grow, and to see if that would help with the massive fucking divots that happen when Emmett got chucked around like a ragdoll.

She had a lot to do.

It was soothing, Willow mused, as she dipped her brush into Archipelago – a green-tinged deep blue - as she painted the shadows of the waves of Elliot Bay in. Over the past few days, she had gotten the base tones down, the flats added as well and now she was working on the mid-tones, having had plans to be done by the end of the week, mid-next week if need be. The colour she was using would thread into the forest to her right whilst also cutting through the grey-scaled blues she had been using as the starter for the water and sky.

She was covered in paint, her coveralls splattered with various shades, hands scattered in it as each brush ended with some around the handle. And yet, doing this? Just letting herself fall into the rhythm of putting paint on the wall, after everything that had happened, was what she needed.

Awareness slid over her and Willow tipped her head up to smile at Jasper as he stepped into her little pod. Her usual little entourage all had patients or surgeries to do and see, even with underlings. 'Woah…'

'I think I've forgotten what clean air smells like.'

Jasper puffed a laugh and dropped a kiss on her crown, the brown hair slightly frizzy and trying to escape the braids she had put them in that morning. 'It looks good. How long does the paint take to dry?'

Willow squinted, tipping back against him as she stared up at the wall, the windows open to increase airflow. 'An hour or so, depending on how many layers. How are things back at the house?'

He twisted a chair around and straddled it as she continued with a narrower brush. 'Pavers came in for the aisle just as I left. Emmett followed your orders to a tee and dug out an inch of the dirt around where you marked. They're probably in now actually.'

'And the quick spreaders?'

'Esme has them in the garage, so they don't drown in the rain. Alice says they'll be 'perfect for you to put in when you get back. Mary phoned,' she looked at him, eyebrow going up, 'said that the buds came in. Said they should be ready by the week of the wedding and to come in any time to make the bouquets up. I think she misses you working there.'

'Yeah, why?'

He grinned at her, easy and slow, tipping the chair towards her, 'Seemed pretty excited with her offer to let you have the space in the shop.'

Willow laughed as she pushed her glasses up. 'Maybe.'

'How many paint cans you got?'

She glanced around. Over in the corner, against one of the cream walls, there was the stack of cans she needed to finish everything. 'Several. Base colours were the bottom cans, then it goes up through size that way. There's a black there too.'

'Lining?'

'I thought about getting a paint pen,' Willow tipped her head, softening the thick line of Archipelago in a criss-cross motion with her brush, 'but with what I have to outline, it would be a waste to use them, and I don't like using Sharpies with work unless it's my last option.'

'Doesn't it make the paint come off?'

'Yup. Especially with little ones putting fuck knows on the walls,' she used the back of her hand to push her glasses up again, 'it's just easier to use a water base.'

Jasper tipped his head deliberately towards the entrance of her little bubble and when Willow concentrated, she could hear footsteps coming.

'Hey, Willow?'

'Mmm?' she twisted, her back popping a little, to find Lexie there, the brunette with her white coat on, fixing her bouncing ponytail and righting her fringe. Must have just come out from surgery. 'Oh, hey Lex, what's up?'

'One, how long have you been sitting like that?'

'Rude…' Willow threw to her with a grin, but took Jasper's hand to help herself up, taking a second to let her bad leg wake up, the sound of her joint cracking like a firework, 'but a little while. Hey, you remember Jasper?'

'We met at the funeral.' Lexie nodded, ponytail bobbing. 'Hi, again.'

'Hi.' Jasper smiled with no teeth. It tended to set normal people's fight or flight responses off.

'And two?'

'Mark got called into a debriding and skin-graph case last minute but was wondering if you were hungry?'

Willow bit back the urge to tut amused. Mark Sloan gave off supposed playboy vibes, but the man was more than a little bit of a mother hen with certain people. Willow included, 'And he sent you?'

'Oh, I was already about to go on my break. I was going to help George study for his exam.'

'Nah, I'm good.' Willow shook her head. 'Go and enjoy your break, I gotta let this layer dry.'

'So how 'bout,' Jasper raised an eyebrow up at her, 'you go rinse the wet layer off your hands and then we go for a walk?'

'Yeah,' Willow looked around her, at the scattering of painting detritus and realised she'd only been going from her pod, either the bathroom, cafeteria or to Mark's spare room since she had been down in the city. Going for a walk about sounded nice. 'that sounds like a plan.'

'You sure?' Lexie looked between them and Willow marched forwards, spun the surgical intern and gently nudged her in the direction of the cafeteria. 'Alright, alright, I'm going. Pushy.'

'Hi, I grew up with Mark Sloan as an influence so, take that and do what you will. Mush, Dr Grey. Fuck knows how busy it gets here.'

'Nice seeing you again, Jasper.' Lexie waved, before pointing to her, 'I'll let Chief know you're taking a break.'

'Ta.'

'You too, Dr Grey.' Jasper nodded and the two watched as Lexie sped off to food. 'She reminds me of you.'

Willow stood there blinking owlishly, and it must have been the paint fumes because it took a second for her brain to register things. 'Why?'

'More so you when we met, and you were so shy sometimes. Like a bunny.'

'Very funny.' She drawled, 'Can you cover the paint and stuff up, so they don't get destroyed whilst I rinse off?'

'I got it.' He kissed her head, and they forked off.

They sat by the water in the mustang, the wind a little too sharp to sit on the benches, Willow with fish and chips, a bottle of Coke by her foot, and Jasper just people-watching, radio on softly in gentle harmony with the beginning splutters of rain. 'I forget sometimes,' Willow mused, wiping greasy fingers off as she opened her drink, taking in the foot traffic dressed for the wet regardless of the time of year, 'how pretty this place can be.'

Jasper hummed in the back of his throat, an arm slung over the back of the bench seat, eyes trained on the water, the ferries moseying up and down the horizon. 'I get what you mean. Though,' he looked to her, cheek nearly coming to rest on his green flannel-covered shoulder, 'it wasn't like the city gave you much to be amazed at, recently.'

She gave him that. Seattle had settled like a feral animal as the days post the unknown fight as no more dead bodies cropped up, no more people went missing and no more leads popped up. Willow didn't know how to feel, honestly. There was guilt there, that she knew what had happened and that so many families never would get those answers, frustration about how long it had taken them all to react to things when it had started, confusion and bewilderment at how easily everyone, including Bella it felt, moved on from everything.

Sometimes, Willow mused, her eyes falling to the choppy, grey seas in front of her, she just felt like she was being left behind. Logically, she knew that that wasn't the case, that the way the Cullens had moved on so fast was because they could work through emotions and thoughts faster than a human can, and Bella hadn't lost anyone to Victoria, so grief hadn't become a constant companion.

Time just felt like it was messing with her, and Willow just wanted to feel normal again.

'Sweetheart.' Jasper's voice warmed her side as awareness played with her subconscious. She blinked back, not having realised where her mind had gone, 'talk to me.'

She slumped against the bench, and spun a soggy chip in her fingers, focusing on those rather than the man beside her for once. 'I got an email from Scott last night, after we hung up,'

'Mmm?'

'Bree's doing better. Aro can feel something in her subconscious but can't get a grip on it apparently but they're working on it. According to Scott, the twins have actually started to be less…possessed with her around.'

'You miss him.'

Willow gave a minute dip of the chin. It had been good and bad after she had seen him after the Battle. Good because she had seen for herself how great he looked, how confident he moved, the ease he didn't have when he was a human. Bad, because all Willow had wanted was a hug from her best friend and with how intertwined Georgie and Paul had become, how independent Lucy had become in New York, Willow sometimes felt like she was being held down by an anchor and her friends, her best friends, were leaving her behind.

That happened, she knew. People moved on with their lives, you didn't always stay friends with the people you grew up with, you met other people, headed down different paths, and had different Fates but Willow had never been good with change or letting people go.

Dr Florence had said it had been a bleed-off from how tremulous her formative years had been, with how much change and moving she had had to withstand and go with as a pre-teen. That it also was an effect on how she developed the ability to read a room, that by learning to do that, how to interact in a tense environment, by trying to keep her room tidy, and clothes neat, and act the same in New Hampshire, stepping out of that routine caused her anxiety to flare.

She missed how things used to be, before the drama of the Birthday Party, the Split, and meeting the Kings. Yes, things were difficult, but Willow had her dad, her friends, and her family close at hand through it.

'A lot has happened.' Willow admitted under the roar of the shore, the building crescendo of rain.

Jasper held her fingers, smoothing the slightly callused and dry inside of her palm. 'You're right. A lot has happened and the lot of us keep forgetting just how much it's affected you.'

It wasn't just their fault, Willow had a voice, she could speak up about these things too, and had gotten better at it, but right now, the thing her mind needed to focus on was making things work for the wedding, to get that out of the way, the mural too, and then she could start unpacking everything mentally.

'I'm sorry.'

Jasper tugged her close, against his frame, letting her tuck her nose into his collarbone again, letting the sharp contrast of his skin against hers act as an anchor point. Willow tipped her head towards his head as Jasper murmured in her ear. 'You're not the one that needs to be sorry, darlin'. You know you're allowed to tell Alice and her file block to go fuck herself, you just feel as though you can't with how much time between the wedding and now, hmm?'

Maybe it was the exhaustion that had built over the past week, the anxiety that just never fucking went away, or the stress that had left her with a sore jaw, tight shoulders, and a short fuse. Or maybe it was the fact that Jasper just knew her at this point in their relationship that had caused tears to burn in her eyes where she had tucked herself nearly into his lap. Jasper, Gods her Jasper, all he did was shift her to sit between his knees and wrapped her close and let the tears fall.

Because sometimes, in order to feel better, you need a good fucking cry.

Okay, okay, yes this chapter is incredibly short compared to my usual but my Muse is just not clicking this week and I'd rather have a filler chapter that still has some point to it than have a long one and have it just be useless waffle. Added to that, is that I have slept like shit the past few days and therefore want to sleep at a reasonable time.

The good news for me, however, is that IRL, I have a job interview with an Adult Job so if we could send good vibes that this goes well, that would be grand.

Anyway, let me know what you all thought and I may have a longer chapter next week to make up for things,

Enjoy x