Draco left the hospital after filling out some paperwork. He had sent brief letters to Jade's parents to inform them about her death. He walked home, not being able to concentrate or worry about how he was getting home. He walked around aimlessly, being yelled at when drivers nearly ran him down. He didn't mind, his whole world had died, and there was no need for him to live. He thought about the times he had ignored her and tried to avoid her during most of his married life. Now Draco wished that he'd listened to every word she had said and cherished it. He didn't remember any of the words she told him, not even the times when she told him she loved him. He had over looked that as well. The only words that stuck to him were the very last ones she had said before her fatal accident. He never remembered the good memories they had, the good moments in their marriage but only the bad ones.
She was absolutely right about him, he regretted to hurt her. He regretted taking her for granted. She died with a broken heart and without the happiness she had wanted from him ages ago. So this was his punishment now, to live on a life without her. This was his punishment for the way he had treated her because she deserved so much more and so much better. Draco was never going to forgive himself, even after his own death. He'll always hate what he had done to the only person that ever gave a damn about because she was the one that he killed.
Draco reached his home and opened the door. Everything was the same as she had left it. Everything was as if she was still in there, her scent, her warmth and her presence. The rose petals were still lying on the ground, the candles were still burning and the fire was still on. The broken pictures and frames were on the ground and Draco walked over to it to pick it up. He saw how happy they were. She smiled so brightly, it was the happiest day of her life and his. Draco wished that she never married him in the first place; he never deserved her faith and love for him. He wasn't worth to die at all.
There was a knock on the door and Draco turned to it wondering who in their right mind would be there in 4 in the morning. He walked over and opened the door to see Jade's crystal angel in front of the doorway. He looked around if it was a joke being placed on him and bent down to pick it up. She loved this angel obsessively and he had wanted to throw it away. He never knew why she loved the cheap thing in the first place and thought back to how she called him 'shallow'. He understood why she had said that. Things only mattered to him on a materialistic level and things mattered to her about the essence of the gift. She told him that the angel was given to her by a man who thought of his own daughter when he saw Jade. She was deeply fond of her own father and missed him after all those years of living without him.
A pang of guilt hit Draco as he thought about how much Jade loved and missed her parents. She never got to see them in 5 years and never will because of him. Draco closed the door behind him and locked it, still looking at the angel. He placed it on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, covering his face with his hands. He thought about Jade for a while and wondered how her family was going to react to the news of her death. Would they care less or come straightaway? They didn't care about him and he didn't mind but how were they going to receive her death? He closed his eyes tightly, feeling the unbearable weight of guilt and sorrow press down into his heart. He shuddered from his tears and shook his head as he thought about her.
"It's been a long night hasn't it?" a voice asked in front of him.
Draco snapped his head up and looked a beautiful and serene blonde woman looking peacefully at him with large blue eyes. He jumped up and pointed a wand at her.
"How did you get in here?" he asked harshly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. She looked at him, unfazed that he was pointing the wand at her.
"Jade brought me here. You didn't like me very much when she first introduced me to you." she said as Draco stared at her furiously as if this were some cruel joke playing on him.
"What the fu-"
"Oh I don't like that language. Please put your wand down, it won't do you any good." She said smiling warmly.
"I'll give you a chance to get out of my house before I stun you and send you to Azkaban to get your soul sucked out of you." he hissed. She shook her head lightly, her silky blonde hair swishing back and forth.
"I'm the one who wants to give back souls and here you are talking about taking mine away." She said sighing.
"I guess this is going to be harder than I thought." She said sliding off the table and standing on her two feet.
"Stupefy!" Draco shouted. The spell zoomed right through her body and hit the bricks of the fireplace. Draco was absolutely dumbfounded. He pointed his wand at her and she stood in the same place as he threw hexes and curses, all of them flew through her and hit the wall behind her.
"What the hell are you?" Draco demanded infuriated and perplexed by what was going on.
"Please calm down Draco Malfoy. Please have a seat and let me explain myself." She said gesturing towards the sofa in front of her.
"How the bloody hell did you know my name and-"
"I promise to tell you if you take a seat Draco. This is about Jade…I know you would want to hear about this." She said gently.
Draco froze hearing Jade's name. Who was this woman that claimed to carry information about Jade? He had never seen her in his life and wondered what she was and what she had to do with Jade. He went ahead and sat down, glaring menacingly at the blonde woman who sat on the coffee table in front of him.
"My name is Rosa…and I'm here to help you Draco." She said, her blue eyes sparkling. "Your wife was an ordinary woman with an extraordinary soul that loved you more than you could have understood." She told him.
"If you're here to rub it in my face, no thank you. I lost her, I have no one else to blame but myself, I know and I don't need you to tell me anything." Draco said going to leave but she spoke.
"Since when was the last time you told her you loved her?" she asked thoughtfully. "And that doesn't include the time when she had been leaving. When was the last time you told her you loved her on an ordinary day?" she asked.
Draco looked at her grimly. He honestly didn't know when he told her he loved her simply because he did. He was embarrassed to answer that question because he didn't know.
"That's none of your bloody business." Draco muttered.
"Ah, I see that there's a lot of other things you don't know about yourself either Draco. You are undeniably selfish and insensitive to everything you have-"
"I am not!" Draco roared.
"You asked to give up her child. How could someone ask a woman to give up their own child? She went ahead and did it anyways to get you back but would you have done the same thing for her? Would you have made the sacrifices she's made for you?" she asked.
"I'd give up anything for her. She knew that." Draco said weakly, feeling himself start to break down again.
The angel looked sympathetically at him. She too felt that he was honest but she had to correct him.
"You might now, but you wouldn't have even thought about it before. Imagine putting yourself in her position when you ask her to leave her family simply because they didn't like you. For her, you could have endured the pain of a few insults and grudges from her family member but you didn't. Imagine putting yourself in her position when there's a future growing inside of you. Your child, an heir to your family. Imagine how she must have felt like when you told her to choose between her child and yourself. Do you realize now, how much she loves you to choose you?"
"And to leave her by herself to recover left her dead long before she had to. I know you still love her but your love is misplaced. You seem to sometimes place your own comforts before hers but she's lived with that because her love for you has always been consistent. However, tonight you've done something that she couldn't forgive and that was sharing you with another woman. She can lose her family, her friends, her child but she can't lose you." Rosa said to Draco who ran his hands through his hair, feeling his eyes water and his head pound from the amount of tension and stress he was enduring tonight.
"I wish I could change that. I wish I could make her happy again. If there was anything I could do to just have her in my arms again and tell her I love her and that I'd do anything for her…I would. She's been beside me after all I put her through. I never had a chance to say goodbye or tell her how much I loved and appreciated her for that." Draco said looking at Rosa, tormented with regret.
Rosa pointed to something behind him. Draco followed her hand to behind him to see all the repaired picture frames on the wall, unbroken and restored.
"What if…what if I told you that you had a second chance?" Rosa asked.
Draco turned back to Rosa and saw that his living room was spotless. No rose petals, no fresh flowers, no candles, no champagne; just his living room on an ordinary day. Seeing the puzzled look on his face, Rosa continued.
"And that second chance gave you seven days." Rosa explained.
"Seven days?" Draco asked seeing her nod.
"Seven days before she dies. Exactly a week from tonight you will have another chance to live the life you truly wanted with her. You get another chance to let her know that you've always loved her and you've always appreciated her. Another chance to let her believe that this marriage was never a failure. Prove to her that the words she said earlier tonight were wrong and that she would never regret you. Make her realize that your love is the love that everyone should share between one another…are you following?" Rosa asked softly.
Draco stared at her, awestruck. Seven days to prove himself but… "But Jade-"
"You can't change destiny Draco. It was meant for Jade to die this very day at the very time of her death. It was meant for that car to hit her as she was crossing the road and it can't be changed. Don't try to avoid it Draco or else those seven days will mean absolutely nothing. She'll die on this very day." Rosa confirmed.
"But that makes no sense! If she dies, what's the point in anything? How am I going to be with her, knowing that she'll die at the exact date and time?" he asked feeling outraged and cheated.
"The point is to prove yourself to her and to let her be happy before she leaves. This isn't for you to keep her; it's for her because she deserves to know that the man she loved, loved her back. Don't you think she at least deserves that much?" she asked him. Draco looked away from her.
"She deserves a lot more." Draco said.
"Then it's settled. You have seven days to complete your task before the day of her death. Starting from tomorrow morning, you'll wake up exactly a week from today. Everything will be as it was on Monday morning. Make the best of it…and the best of yourself to her." Rosa said softly.
Draco walked away feeling as if he was being made fun of. His wife died today and someone that he had never seen or met that emerged from a crystal structure was telling him that he was going to have seven days to make everything right again before she died. He shook his head and turned back to Rosa to see that she wasn't there anymore. In her place was the same crystalline angel that Jade had brought home.
Draco watched the angel for a long time before he declared he was absolutely crazy.
"Where did you go? Rosa?" Draco asked, feeling like an idiot. Nothing answered him and he shook his head.
"I'm fucking losing my mind." He said turning away. He walked off into the bedroom and lied down on the bed, looking at Jade's framed picture on the table next to his bed. Taking it from the stand, he looked her over. She had been so happy her whole life and made the most of herself to keep herself and others around her happy. She was a genuine and honest person and had so much good in her, how could she have ever fallen for a wretched man like him?
"You died for me." Draco whispered, holding the frame close to him. He closed his eyes feeling that there was absolutely nothing else that was going to make him happy again, no matter how much he was going to try. It was never going to be the same without her.
Draco woke up in the morning feeling incredibly groggy and thick from sleep. He blinked and turned around to Jade's side seeing that she wasn't there by him like she always was. The anguish and terror swept through him and he swallowed back a sob, knowing that whatever happened last night wasn't a dream. She was truly dead. He got up from his bed and walked out of the bedroom, seeing that she wasn't anywhere to be found.
Everything was the same as it had been since last night. The rose petals were still sitting there, starting to shrivel and dry. The burned out candles and the champagne floating in the water when the ice melted from last night. He looked down the hallway, feeling overwhelmed with a colossal damage to his heart. Rosa coming to him and promising him seven days to relive with days had been a dream. The truth of the matter was that Draco Malfoy was a lonely and broken man, just the way he had left his wife all throughout their entire marriage. He leaned against a wall and rubbed his face wishing that he could start over again. Anything he could do to make her happy again.
He heard the lock on his main door opening and someone struggling to get in. He stomped towards the door and threw it open to see who was trying to break in to his home and was entirely dumbstruck at who he saw at the doorway.
She was wearing a small white hat, her nose red from the cold, holding bags of groceries in her arms. Her eyes widened when she saw him and she smiled pleasantly as if she didn't expect him to be home.
"Good morning. Didn't you go to work today?" Jade asked wobbling past him with so much in her arms.
He didn't answer her; he merely stared at her, not being able to believe that she was walking around in front of him alive.
"The whole store is filled with people stocking up for Christmas. You know, I'm so glad I was the last one to get my organic turkey for half off. There was a lady yelling and screaming, making a scene in the gro-" Jade was cut off when Draco swept her in his arms and kissed her hungrily.
That's it for tonight ladies and gentlemen! Please review!
