A/N: Warning: Dialogue heavy. Taken from another Adele song, I thought the two narratives slotted together okay. A second and final part for this little faded Devie piece.

There will be more uploaded to Kiss the Girl and the Grimoire soon!

(Updated 2020 to clear timelines etc etc!)

There was something plaguing Doug. He didn't know where his conscience had sprouted from. He had to admit since Evie came back to the house two years ago she had occasionally popped into his head. A thought, usually triggered by seeing something on the news, one of the royals holding a gala or event.

His wife had turned off the news when Evie and her Four Hearts Foundation had expanded their programme to bring over children, and there were also work programmes for the older inhabitants. Seeing the blue-haired princess sent a spike of jealousy through his wife that Doug had wisely said nothing about.

But that was then, and this is now. For a few weeks she had sat firmly in his mind. If he had been more sentimental he'd have known that it was the anniversary of kicking Evie out of the house, and that this date had always a certain something. Four years ago he had kicked Evie out, three years ago he had ripped up the herb border, two years ago Evie had removed the talisman from the cupboard, last year he did a bunk for a week and booked himself into a retreat away from everything.

This time he couldn't stop obsessing over Evie. His mind and conscience suddenly providing him with his behaviour on a loop, and for the first time in four years, he acknowledged his guilt.

He had deleted the message over, and over again, and he stared down at the woman slumbering next to him and swallowed hard. Putting his phone back down on the table, he settled himself back in bed and closed his eyes again, ignoring the deep blue swirls of colour in his eyes he tried desperately hard to sleep.

It was another week until he found himself staring at his phone again. Knowing his wife was showering upstairs, Doug had rewritten the message again. Staring at the number not saved in his phone but written on a business card in his wallet, he felt the anxiety build and his heart started to hammer. He couldn't bear it.

A text message was the coward's way.

He would ring her tomorrow.

He didn't ring her tomorrow. He called her the day after, when his beautiful wife was frittering away his money on clothes she didn't need, and he was lingering in the men's section pretending to care about the latest jacket.

"Hello." His voice was quiet.

"Hello?"

"Hi, it's me."

"So I can hear. I don't forget a voice. Not one like yours."

"You do great designs these days Evie."

"I've always done great designs." The waspish voice seemed to crackle with the energy that Doug remembered.

"Yes, you have."

"Is there a reason you're calling?"

"Well we were out shopping for clothes and I can see you're dominating the market."

"Look Doug, I'm not going to lie. I don't care who the 'we' is, but you haven't found my number to talk to me about my clothes. You and I aren't exactly on friendly terms." He heard her sharp exhale and instantly, he could picture her blowing blue hair away from her eyes.

"Well Evie, I needed to speak to you."

"Why?" She was getting impatient.

"I just, I don't know why I needed to but I did."

"Doug, you and I are not friends." She was more than crackling now, he could hear short temper fraying.

"It hurts to hear that." He tried to say, and regretted his words.

"It hurt to be thrown out of my house and to be cheated on." Evie sighed again, her voice was cold and Doug felt the ache bloom in his chest. "Doug I'm busy, unless there's a life or death emergency I really have to go."

"Oh you must be busy with work, I forgot it's a weekday."

"I'm on maternity leave, I've got an 18 month running amok with her knickers on her head and I cannot bend over to pick her up these days."

"Oh. You have children. I didn't know."

"No? That's not my problem." Evie was huffing. "Isabella Hook you put that down right now. Doug I have to go." The line cut off and Doug felt his stomach plummet. Evie must have married Harry Hook, a reformed Isle inhabitant, just like her. He didn't know much about Harry Hook, only that he was a good businessman by all accounts and whenever Doug had seen anything about him, it was usually about the charity work he did alongside the King.

This feeling hurt, was this jealousy? The spike and flare of anger, the thought of Evie wrapped around someone that was not him. He had no right to feel this but he did, it surged in his veins briefly, leaving a sickness in its wake. It was at that point his wife emerged from the changing room. The stunning red dress would have set his heart pounding and blood running south years ago, but now he felt too sick to notice.

It must have shown on his face because she pouted and slinked forwards, wrapping her arms around his neck, drawing him out of his thoughts.

He wanted to leave her alone, but having spoken to her old memories started to wrap around his senses and it had been making life harder. So he found himself calling her again in a month's time.

"Hello, Evie Hook speaking?"

"Hello Evie."

"Oh for… this better be damn worth my time..." She growled.

"I wanted to say sorry." His words rushed forwards.

"I am dealing with two children and you think you can call… what."

"I wanted to say sorry. For hurting you."

"You want to say this now. It's been too long." Evie's voice had quietened. Then suddenly there was a shrill cry and whatever words she was about to say stopped. "I need to go. Gracie needs me."

"Evie, please, can we meet?"

"No Doug. That's not a good idea."

"Please Evie."

The line went dead without another word and the hollow ache ballooned in his chest. He rested the phone in his lap and stared at a blank wall. That was how his wife found him, but she had just finished making dinner, and he was mindlessly drawn into the dining room, back into the reality of his life.

Another month went by and this time when he rang, it was Harry that answered the phone.

"Hello Pal."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh. You think you and Evie need to talk. I think you're making her ill. I don't want to see my wife sick because of you." Harry's voice was quiet, too quiet.

"She doesn't know that you've answered." Doug hedged a bet and was disconcerted to hear Harry's low chuckle.

"No she doesn't know I've taken this call. I do know she's sleeping for the first time in two days. She's been expecting your call and you're a week late. I don't know what closure you're trying to foist on her, something to make yourself feel better or worse, I dinnae know."

"I don't know either." Doug swallowed.

"You need to stop calling her. You hurt her, you hurt her when I wasn't even in her life and every time I think I've kissed over every scar, a new one pops up occasionally. Apparently roasting marshmallows does something in her brain." Harry's speech made Doug feel ill, but Harry kept talking and didn't allow Doug to jump in. "Now when I hang up on you I am going to look after my children while my wife naps. When Evie wakes up, I'm going to tell her you rang, and then it is her decision. If she doesn't call you, accept her decision Doug."

"I will." He swallowed hard and listened to the dead line for a moment afterwards.

It was another week before Evie called.

His phone buzzed while he was in the middle of dinner with his wife, but he stood from the table and he ignored his wife's protest as the chair screeched on the hardwood floor, and he hurried out of the door to the garden.

"Hello." Her voice was guarded, but he barely noticed.

"Evie, I didn't think you would call." He hated how breathless he sounded.

"I didn't want to, but Blanche said it would be a good idea to stop you from harassing me."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me Doug, I don't want anything from you. Get this call over with, say your piece."

"I am sorry for everything I did to you Evie. I broke your heart and I never realised the scope of what I did."

"It's in the past Doug, I am much older and wiser woman. It doesn't hurt me anymore to remember what you did." Evie sighed. "You tore me apart, but you remember when I came to see you?"

"I remember."

"The charm I removed from the house freed me from your influence and after that I grieved, but I have healed since then. I am happy Doug. I have two beautiful children, a husband that adores me and a family I would never change." Evie's voice had thickened, as if she was close to tears. "Whatever you need Doug, I can no longer give you. Fate decided we weren't going to be together but that doesn't mean we have Unhappy endings, I know I don't. You have to decide if you're happy Doug. Replace the damn herb border. Goodbye Doug."

"Goodbye Evie." Doug had stayed quiet and after she hung up, he remained at the foot of his garden, absorbed in the silence of the night air. He didn't notice the tears welling up in his eyes until his wife came down to find him.

"Love, the dinner is now cold what are you doing?" Her voice made sobs wrack through his body and he could say nothing.

He wouldn't know that Evie had hung up, stared at her phone for a moment until Mal came over and looped her arm through her best friend's. Mal rested her head on her taller friend's shoulder and sighed.

"Do you want the chocolate or the strawberry trifle?"

"Chocolate. Carlos made it right?"

"Of course. Jay said he'll make dessert next week."

"Then duh, I want chocolate." Evie left her phone on the sideboard, turned back to the dining room and back to her family without another thought for the man that had left her behind.