A/N: Well, two positive reviews and one tepid one. I guess that's enough to warrant one more chapter, at least. Time once again to take beloved characters from a lighthearted television show and do horrible, horrible things to them.

Disclaimer: As ever, don't own.

Greenwich Village, New York City

11:00 A.M. EDT

"No, Tori. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine – just another argument. She'll come back when she's ready. I'll be okay till then, anyway." He hung up.

It was a total lie. He missed Jade, and he missed his kids, with an intensity that felt like a knife through his heart – and he had no idea whether they would ever return to him.

They had been so overjoyed when Jade first got pregnant – no matter that they were still in their senior year of high school, no matter that neither her parents nor his approved of the relationship, no matter that they had no idea where their next meal would come from. Twins, it turned out. Identical – both boys. And two years later, a girl. Every father secretly has a favorite, he was convinced; and Sarah was his, the adorable apple of his eye. Still Jade refused to get married – old-fashioned, she said, and too constricting – but they were a family.

Then, when things looked their bleakest financially, he landed a starring role in a romantic comedy. They moved to New York; his face was on billboards, atop taxis. It had been worth celebrating.

"Give me the keys, Beck."

"You think I can't drive? You think a couple of beers are enough to make me drunk? I thought you knew me better than that."

"Stop arguing and just give me the damn keys! You can barely stay on your feet!"

"I don't take orders from you."

And ten minutes later, the wrong lane, swerving away from the oncoming car, hitting the streetlight…

Jade had suffered only minor injuries; but if it hadn't been for the air bags, Beck would have been killed. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, that would have been best for everyone. His handsome face, his well-proportioned body – gone. Now he was nothing but asymmetry: the right side fine, the left side a twisted, tangled mess. He could walk, with difficulty, but he had no desire to go out on the streets – not anymore. New York City was a sea of faces, millions and millions of faces, and even the most hurried of them would halt a moment to stare at him – sometimes with pity, sometimes with disgust, sometimes with a sort of horrified fascination. Now he was practically an agoraphobe, rarely setting foot outside the apartment door.

Fortunately, this wasn't a problem as far as work. He wrote a weekly column on car repair for the Post; ironic, since he no longer drove – no longer could drive. Jade was a freelance theater and film critic, though that was merely a placeholder while she tried desperately to get her plays produced. They were actually doing reasonably well now in terms of money – or would have been, had their rent not been murderously high.

And if he hadn't been spending quite so much on liquor…

He stared down the neck of the empty vodka bottle. Maybe if he looked hard enough, he would find a message, thrown into the ocean by someone on a distant shore – a message that would tell him how to be a good boyfriend, how to be a good father, how to overcome the physical and emotional wreck of a man that he had become.

Nothing.

He threw it against the wall and watched the shards fly.

/

Upstate New York

Jade sat on the edge of the motel pool and dangled her bare feet in the water, watching Tyler, Michael and Sarah splashing about with their orange water wings. Clouds were gathering to the north, marring the otherwise beautiful sky. It would surely rain soon.

She couldn't bear to shut her eyes, even to blink. For as soon as they were closed, the scene of a few hours before flashed before her, as clear as day. It had begun so trivially.

"You paid the electric bill, didn't you?"

"What? Yeah, sure, I guess."

"Oh, for Christ's – Beck, it's on your nightstand. How could you miss it there?"

"I put the Jim Beam on top of it, obviously."

"That's not funny."

"Cut me some slack, will you? My column-"

"Was done two days ago. Stop making excuses."

"Fuck you!"

"…I beg your pardon?"

"I'm trying to have a drink in peace."

"At six o'clock in the morning? Even for you, that's pretty sad."

"Just fuck the hell off!"

And then…she still couldn't believe it. He had never raised his fist at her before. And the look in his eyes…

She could stand a lot; her hair-trigger temper had cooled considerably since her high school days. But that – that was too much.

So she had packed up and left. And now here she was, at a sketchy roadside motel at God knows where in the countryside, with nothing but the clothes on her back. A single mother.

No. Not yet. There's still a chance. If he gets sober. It wouldn't be easy, she knew. Drink had been his constant companion ever since his accident. But she also knew that he still loved her, and she him, despite everything; and the old Beck was still inside him somewhere, the charming man who had made her feel at ease, who had convinced her that not everyone in the world was out to get her.

Keeping one eye on her frolicking children, she dialed the apartment.

One ring. Pick it up, Beck.

Two rings. Come on, come on.

Three. I know you're there, dammit! You never leave!

Four; five; six.

She switched the PearPhone off and began to weep.

It isn't fair, she thought. They had always been such a strong couple, so much in love – ever since high school. Of course they had had their arguments and even their splits, but they always came back together, stronger than ever. Now he had given up on life and she was utterly desperate, while their friends enjoyed happy marriages. Vega and André. Cat and Robbie. Hell, Trina – the narcissist, the one who couldn't get a boyfriend in high school if her life depended on it, and who even tried to kill herself at one point – was probably the most content of them all.

Still, Jade couldn't help but wonder why Trina fell silent whenever she was asked about her son.