A/N: Ok, I'm really hoping this is strung together a bit better!

Dressed to the nines, JJ and Will were a picture perfect pair as they made their way along the red carpet, followed by Aly and her new beau, Colton Underwood, with Madison and Simone bringing up the rear. The four girls were excited to be together again, but they were missing Laurie nonetheless; due to other commitments, Laurie hadn't been able to attend.

JJ felt untouchable in a figure hugging royal blue one shouldered dress. Her long blonde hair was pulled up into a sleek ponytail, hanging long and straight down her back. Will was by her side, wearing a tux that JJ privately couldn't wait to tear off of him later.

Madison was also wearing blue, however her dress was navy, with a plunging neckline that gave the illusion of cleavage. Aly looked elegant as ever in an off shouldered orange dress that hugged her athletic frame in all the right places and fell right to the floor, while Simone had chosen to make a statement in a beautiful gold ensemble that contrasted beautifully against her dark skin.

"You look so stunning," Will murmured in JJ's ear, getting a little laugh out of her as they turned towards yet more cameras and reporters.

"Not so bad yourself, big guy," JJ replied, patting his chest as she looked up at him with an adoring smile. Cameras clicked all around them, a candid moment caught perfectly forever.

"JJ! JJ, over here!" came the yell of a photographer. She turned, smiling as the cameras flashed all around her. At her side, Will was quietly impressed with how well she handled herself in the limelight, and he couldn't help but swell with pride as he trailed along the carpet with her.

Eventually, they made their way into the venue, with the four girls having had photos together along the way as well. Ahead of them was a night like no other, with some of the most famous celebrities from the world over. And all of them were excited to experience it.

No more than three or four drinks. That had been the promise she'd made herself when they left the awards ceremony and headed to the after party.

But as the night wore on, the smile she had worn on the red carpet became faker and faker, and the excitement of being at a real Hollywood event began to be overwhelmed by the black cloud she'd been carrying for months. And no matter how much they danced, how much she tried to lose herself in the music, it seemed to billow out until it became like a blackout storm… and she hated it. She hated that now, almost six months later, the grief still had such a hold on her life. All she wanted was to feel normal… human… happy. So when the realization had hit her that dancing and music weren't going to drown away the pain that she'd been fighting for months to keep buried, she had thrown her own promise to herself out the window.

She was surrounded by people, but none of their faces seemed to be in focus. Her vision swam, her steps unsteady, but for the first time in what felt like forever, she at least felt somewhat happy. She'd lost the others in the sea of people dancing at the party, but she wasn't worried. She would find them later. Either way, she didn't care. She was having fun. She felt like she was flying. Maybe, just maybe, she would wake up tomorrow and feel free again.

She was barely aware of what was happening around her, but she couldn't help but giggle as someone took her hand and led her over to a sitting area where a bunch of people were lounging. Music throbbed through every fiber of her body, making it impossible to hear anything anyone was saying. She stumbled down onto the couch, squeezing in between two people and relaxing back as someone pressed a drink into her hand.

A short while later, she truly felt like her entire body had ascended away from the face of the earth as she stumbled back into the crowds of people filling out the party. She was soaring, her mind nothing but an excited, happy cloud of bliss, and all she wanted to do was lose herself somewhere on a dance floor.

"Aly?" Will said in confusion as Aly came racing up to where he was standing with Colton, her eyes wide with pure fear. "What's wrong, is everything ok?"

"No," Aly replied, and Will was shocked to hear the unmistakable sound of tears in his friend's voice. "JJ… she's not ok, Will, she's had so much to drink and she won't talk to me… I'm scared she's going to hurt herself, you need to come and get her, we need to get her out of here"

Will felt his heart drop into his stomach. Setting his drink down on the table, he fell into step beside Aly as she anxiously led him through the crowd. Colton followed a few paces behind, unsure if he was supposed to stay put or not.

"I saw her over here, she was… she was with a bunch of people, and I…," Aly trailed off, stopping in her tracks, her eyes darting from face to face. Then she turned, her eyes welling up with tears. "Will, I… I'm not even sure if I saw it right, but… god, I could kill her"

"What? What happened?"

"I… I swear I saw her taking something," Aly said shakily. "I could be wrong… either way, I think we need to get her back to the hotel"

Will nodded, his heart racing as they pushed their way through another group of people before coming to the end of the main part of the building. Ahead of them were a few seating areas, and a few rooms branching off the end.

"I just saw her over here," Aly said in disbelief. "She can't have gone that far"

"You looking for your friend? In the blue dress?" a guy standing nearby asked as he took in their bewildered expressions. Aly nodded. The guy gestured towards the door closest to them, and without hesitating, they made a beeline for it, Colton just behind them.

When they burst into the room with Will shouldering through the lock, Will wanted to vomit.

Because there was his fiancé, locked at the lips with some other guy as they lay sprawled across a sofa, her dress bunched up unceremoniously around her waist, almost high enough to see her bra, but certainly high enough to see the guy's hand inside her underwear, clearly moving inside her.

Seething with anger, Will wanted to murder the guy for touching JJ. But when he looked up, he realized he was so messed up that he had zero idea what he was doing. So instead, Will lunged forward, grabbing the guy and ripping him away from JJ. He pushed him away, sending him crashing backwards, before turning back to where Aly was now kneeling beside JJ while Colton tried to keep back the crowd that was now growing at the door.

"...have to go, c'mon JJ we have to leave," Aly was saying through shocked tears. She took her best friend's hands and pulled her upright. JJ halfheartedly tried to pull her dress down and the engagement ring Will had given her glimmered in the light, sending a shooting pain through his chest. Aly helped her make herself decent and Will shepherded both of them towards the door he had just broken down. He glowered at the crowd of people gathered there and they all sheepishly turned away.

They were almost to the front door when everything began to click in JJ's mind. "No… no, I don't want to go," she said, fighting her way out of Aly's grip. Her voice was slurred but her eyes were completely unfocused as she turned around and tried to head back into the party. Will immediately stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

"We're going back to the hotel, you've had enough for the night," he said firmly, putting an arm out to stop her from getting away.

"No! You're not the boss of me!" she spat angrily, ducking under his arm. Aly grabbed her hand, tugging her back.

"Please Jayje, let's just head back to the hotel, okay? You're not thinking clearly and you're going to do something you'll regret," she pleaded. Will scoffed at the thought of her somehow fucking this up worse than she already had.

JJ turned, narrowing her eyes at him. "What is your problem?"

Rage welled up in his chest. "My problem? My problem is that you've done some real stupid shit tonight, and yet you don't seem to have a care in the world for who you hurt in the process!"

"JJ, don't do this. Let's go back to the hotel," Aly cut in softly.

Staggering to one side, JJ shook her head at Aly. "No, I wanna hang out and dance with my new friends."

Will caught her wrists in his hands. "JJ, I don't want to drag you out of here like a toddler, but I will." He had always been very conscious of the fact that he was twice her size, and this was the first time he had ever felt it appropriate to use it against her. He slowly began to pull her towards the exit, not wanting to hurt her. She struggled against him.

"I want to stay!" she argued like a petulant child. Suddenly, it seemed like every person in the room had their phones out and were taking pictures. Aly came behind JJ, bringing her mouth close to her ear and whispered something Will couldn't hear. He watched as JJ's face became more relaxed and stopped fighting him so much. He had no idea what Aly had said to her, but he was grateful because it was working.

Once they were down on the street, however, she began to kick up again. "Let's hit another party!"

"No we're going home," he told her through gritted teeth, hailing down the first taxi he saw. As expected, she refused to get inside so, throwing out the last of his already thin patience, Will scooped her up bridal style and forcibly put her in the backseat.

"What the actual fuck were you thinking, JJ? You barely even drink, but tonight you decide to what, down a bottle of vodka? And mix it with drugs? Are you trying to die?" Will yelled nearly an hour later as they faced off in the hotel room. Aly was sitting wearily on the end of the bed, her chin propped miserably on her hand as she watched them shout. She had sent Colton back to their room, knowing she was going to need to attempt some sort of mediation between the two.

"I'm fine!" JJ shrieked. "You're just freaking out because you're realizing that you don't have control over me."

"I'm freaking out because you took drugs!"

JJ heavily rolled her eyes. "Like you didn't do X at that party in high school."

He tore his hands through his hair. "Yeah, and do you remember how goddamn pissed off you were at me, you fucking hypocrite!"

"Will…" Aly tried to chime in.

"No!" Will snapped, casting a furious hand towards Aly before pointing at his fiancé. "You were so upset, you could barely stand it. But suddenly you're at a party and think 'why the fuck not! I've never even smoked pot but sure lets snort shit up my nose.' This was real fucking dumb JJ!"

"You're fucking dumb! I totally had it under control."

"Under control?!" Will said in disbelief, trying to resist the urge to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her.

Aly jumped up. "Okay I think you both need to calm down. This isn't helping anything."

"Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe I deserve to have a little fun in my life, Will? I spent years slaving away in a gym, if I want to cut loose, I've earned it!"

He could barely even recognize the girl screaming at him, fighting to look at him from around Aly. This was not the girl he had fallen in love with; it was as if a wild animal had inhabited her body. "Really JJ? Did you earn cheating on me? Is that something you earned?" It felt like his heart was breaking just saying the words out loud. No part of him had thought she would be capable of this.

"Nothing even happened!" she yelled back.

"How would you even know, JJ, you're so fucking wasted right now that I don't think you would know if Big Bird was standing in front of you! You kissed him JJ! You were all over him, Aly saw you! Not to mention that by the time I got there you had locked yourself in a bedroom with him. You were going to fuck that guy!"

"I had it under control!" JJ repeated, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"He was fingering you! He had his fucking hands inside of you! You're my fiance, we… we're supposed to be getting married. You… Jesus Christ." The full impact of everything was beginning to hit him. How the hell had she gotten to this point? Why had she done this?

"So what? Now we're not? I have one night of fun and now you don't want to marry me?"

"JJ, shut up, you're- shit, you're so fucked up," Aly said firmly, tugging JJ back.

"Will you fucking listen to yourself? JJ, I'm not this upset because you drank your weight in booze! I'm this upset because for months, I have tried to get you to deal with whatever was happening in your head, but no, you decide to ignore it until you pull stupid shit like this! You got shitfaced, you took drugs, and you cheated on me! While wearing the engagement ring I gave you!" Will bellowed, his face flushed with anger, his eyes suddenly burning with tears. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Stop yelling at me!" Her voice cracked as she began to cry, her dry anger quickly giving way to sobs.

He could see that she was obviously in a lot of pain, but that didn't stop him from also being upset. "No! You don't get to run from this!"

JJ pulled away from Aly and dashed into the bathroom, throwing the door shut behind her and flipping the lock. He followed in a heartbeat, lifting a fist and pounding on the door. "JJ? JJ open the damn door!"

"No!"

"I've already broken down one door tonight to make sure you didn't completely destroy yourself, I would prefer not to do it again!"

"Go away!" she cried through her sobs. He took a step back to ram it open but Aly stopped him.

"It's a small bathroom, you'll just end up hurting her"

"Well I'm worried that she's going to hurt herself"

"As long as we can hear her crying she's fine," Aly said. Will stepped back, finally taking in Aly's disheveled and exhausted appearance. Her face was coated in the mascara that had run down as she cried, her hair now loose from the style she'd worn it in to the event.

"I can't fucking believe this. After all we've been through, after everything… this is unreal." He turned and threw a punch at the wall, barely noticing the pain that sliced through his knuckles as he did.

"I know. She… something has to be happening, Will. We both know that this isn't her, this isn't what she does."

"This is because of her dad, I'm sure of it," Will spat. "She's been… fuck, she hasn't been herself for months, this isn't her. Jesus, maybe it is! Maybe I don't know her at all." He was in so much pain, to the point where it felt like he could be physically sick. He began to pace back and forth in the hotel room, his body pacing with a frantic energy that he had no way to get rid of.

"Will, you have to calm down."

"Calm down? Aly she could have died! We could be on our way to the hospital right now, and honestly maybe we should be."

"It's going to be okay, just calm down."

But he couldn't. The rage was climbing inside of him, conveniently covering the searing pain that he didn't want to acknowledge, not now, not ever. She had hurt him, she had hurt him more than he even knew was possible. Why wasn't he good enough for her? What had he ever done other than love her through everything life threw their way?

He selfishly wanted her to feel this way. He wanted her heart to ache, to feel the twist in her stomach that was making him want to vomit. He wanted her to hurt, so that she would maybe understand how much she had hurt him.

"Will, I'm going to take her back to my room. Ok? She can stay with me tonight. You both need to calm down. Tomorrow, when she's sober again… then you guys can talk. Right now you're both angry, and you're hurting. It's just going to get worse if you go on like this," Aly said gently.

Numb with anger and disbelief, Will retreated to the main part of the hotel room, collapsing onto the edge of the bed and burying his face in his hands. He listened as Aly coaxed JJ out of the bathroom, before both of them left the room, plunging him into a painful silence.

Hours before, everything had been fine.

What the hell had gone wrong?