Happily Ever After - Part One

by Rossi

"You are invited to help Fatimah Saliba and Adrian Stewart celebrate their wedding. Sydney Botanic Gardens, 2pm, 23rd April, 2000."

Allison knew the gilt-edged words by heart. True, there weren't that many - underneath her pink-and-fuzzy-seeming exterior, Fatimah was deeply practical and hadn't wanted to pay for extra adjectives - but something in the drama of the thought appealed. The invitation had been stuck up on her bedroom mirror for almost a month now, and she read it at least twice a day whilst brushing her hair morning and night, so the words were as embossed on her mind as they were on the card.

Too bad it hadn't helped her decide whether to go or not.

To the observer, like her mother, for example, it seemed pretty obvious. Fatimah was her friend, it was only right that Allison be at her wedding. And a trip to Sydney wasn't to be sneezed at either. Add in the fact her other friends from the city would undoubtedly be there... why, there was no decision at all, really. Which was why Allison's mother couldn't understand why her daughter got evasive every time the matter was raised, although she thought it might have something to do with Allison's oft-voiced opposition to the marriage: being the same age, Allison thought Fatimah was too young for such a permanent step. However, Kate Ferguson was unaware of certain Issues between her daughter and one of those friends from the city, which threw a completely different light on things.

'Probably just as well,' Allison reflected, running her brush through the blond tangles; the invitation was looking at her in a more accusing way than it had done even yesterday. Time was running out, and she knew it. Just as well her mother didn't know what had happened between herself and Raphe... _Fish_. Must think of him as Fish, old buddy, old pal. Good old _safe_ Fish, not Raphe, not the name she'd gasped out as he'd trailed kisses down her neck and along her collarbone... No, it was really _not_ a good idea to think of anything involving that night - not the B&S ball, not the drinking and the walk afterward, and _certainly_ not anything that happened in the back of the ute. Or the morning after. _Definitely_ not the morning after.

Allison winced. Trying to not think about something invariably summoned it, like trying not to think about the elephant, and Fatimah's wedding invitation served to jog her memory every time she looked at it. Because Fish would be there, and the last time she'd seen him, he'd looked at her as if she had just pulled his heart out of his chest and stomped it into the dust. Which was, in a way, pretty much what she _had_ done. And she wasn't so sure she could stand to see that look again. Or worse: what if he hated her now? What if she looked into those blue-green eyes and saw nothing but contempt? They hadn't spoken, hadn't communicated at all for almost three months, and she had no idea what was going on with him, apart from oblique references made by Karen and James in unanswered emails. He was her best friend and she'd treated him like shit. If he hated her now, she deserved it.

Only, she didn't think she could handle it if he did.

So she'd been fobbing off her mother with some gumph about not approving of Fatimah getting married so young - which was kind of true, she didn't, but not enough to not be there. She wanted to be there, if only so she could get in one last nudge about perhaps waiting a few years. She'd been dithering for weeks now, trying to decide what she was actually going to do. The others would be unhappy if she didn't show, despite the strange distance that had cropped up between them lately. They weren't fools, and Allison was fairly sure they'd have noticed something was up between her and Fish, if only because he'd come back so early, and still in his tux from the Ball. So they probably knew what a bitch she'd been. Another reason to hide.

"You're a coward," she told her reflection. "You should just go and get it over with."

"Too bloody right. Both parts."

Allison yelped and dropped her hairbrush with a clatter. "Hey! This is private space, remember?"

"Not if you leave your door open, it isn't, idiot. You're lucky it wasn't Mum walking past. And yeah, you _are_ a bloody coward." David crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at her as he stood in her doorway. Or loomed - he'd apparently added another six inches to his height overnight, it seemed to Allison. For a moment she wanted to argue back, but then her shoulders slumped as she acknowledged defeat.

"You're right, I should go. Fatimah will be gutted if I don't. It's just... complicated."

"Only because you're making it complicated."

"Yeah, right, you saw Fish after I..." Allison trailed off, unable to complete the memory.

"After you broke him? Yeah, I did. But it's still simple; you see him, you apologise for being a psychobitch, and then buy him as much beer as it takes for him to forgive you." David shrugged. "See? Simple."

"I didn't think there was enough beer in the world for him to forgive me." Allison meant it to be flippant, but her voice trembled on the last two words. David glared.

"Don't be stupid. You're mates, or have you forgotten that? Mates forgive mates, provided there's enough grovelling. And you owe it to him."

"But..."

"No buts. Just fucking do it already and stop being such a drama queen. You're worse than an episode of Neighbours." David turned to go. "Come on, we've got to muster that top paddock today and it's not getting any earlier."

"Slavedriver." Allison quickly gathered her hair up in a ponytail and wrapped a hair tie around it before following her younger brother down the hall. "And I'll decide what to do in my own time, okay? Stop hassling."

"Fine, fine, you're in control, blah, blah. Just do it before these mates of yours get sick of you and tell you to forget it."

"As if they would." She brushed past him and into the kitchen. "Just drop it, you're getting on my nerves."

"Now then, you two, enough of that. It's too early for bickering," their mother admonished as she set two mugs of tea on the kitchen table. From behind the ever-present newspaper their father grunted in agreement.

"You know I want that top paddock cleared?" he said by way of greeting.

"Yeah, Dad," David replied around a mouthful of toast. "On our way out after brekkie."

"What's this, Mum?" Allison asked, picking up an envelope propped against the Vegemite jar. It was addressed to herself in writing she knew.

"Your dad picked up the mail and it was there. It's from Karen, isn't it?" Kate sat down and looked inquisitively at her daughter. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"Um, sure." Actually Allison didn't _want_ to open it; something about what David had said about her friends getting sick of her dithering had struck home. Maybe this was it. She sighed to herself and ran her finger along the inside of the flap, ripping it open. From inside she pulled a folded-over piece of paper, and two sets of tickets. One for a train to Melbourne, the other a plane to Sydney. Both return and in her name.

"Fucking hell..." she murmured out loud, earning herself a glare and a swat across the head from her mother. "Sorry." Rubbing her head absently, she turned her attention to the letter:

"Hey Allie!

'Got tired of waiting around for you to actually let us know what was up with you, so we made an executive decision. You're there. And if you aren't, you'd better have a damn good excuse, because the tickets weren't cheap. This is important, mate, and you have to be there. We _need_ you there.

'Love and death threats,

'Karen and James."

"So, what does she say?" Allison's mother asked, eyes bright with curiosity. Folding the letter back into the envelope, Allison hid the frown that was trying to creep across her face.

"Um, just that they decided to have a kind of 'all go together' thing, so they got me a seat on the same flight." That seemed to satisfy Kate, but Allison was far from happy with the situation. It was an undeniable fait accompli - perfectly executed, neat, simple, forcing her hand. And utterly unlike Karen the Diplomat, always so concerned with making sure people had a choice. And she'd already noted the absence of Fish's name.

Something wasn't right.

"So, guess you've got a decision made then," David remarked, a smirk playing around his lips. She ignored him.

Something definitely wasn't right.

***

"Everything's fine," James said.

"Sure, and you always look like you're about to pass out when you fly," Allison retorted. "Jim, you grab the seat arms any harder and you'll snap them off."

"All right, I have a little problem with flying."

"And that is?"

"I hate it with a burning passion. Just knock me out before this thing starts moving?"

"Not a chance. My power's pyrokinetics, not mind control mumbo jumbo, and I'd have to hit you and I don't want to chip my nail polish - I got this done specially for the wedding, see?" She waved a pink-tipped hand in front of the cyberpath's panicked eyes. "The things I do for you guys."

"Yeah, like you were actually going to make a decision about this thing before the end of the century," scoffed James. She glared at him and he eased away as far as he could in an economy-class seat. "Well, it's true! If we hadn't sent you those tickets..."

"All right, I get it. Call me an idiot and be done with it, okay?" Allison looked away, through the small window and across the tarmac of the airport runway.

"Just what was your deal anyway? I know you don't like the idea of Fatimah getting married, but if anyone had an excuse to boycott the wedding, it was me." James blushed slightly pink, adding needed colour to his overly-pale face. "You know, unrequited love and all."

"So things aren't working with Cynthia? I thought you two were going well?" Allison asked, hiding her flinch at the words 'unrequited love'. They struck too close to home, reminding her of Fish's anguished face that morning several months ago.

"No, we're good. It's not exactly Hollywood-style romance, but we have fun. She would have come, only she has this major project due, and wouldn't let me help her with it. That and her folks forgot to send her enough money to cover rent _and_ food this month. I was just trying to distract myself from our imminent fiery deaths with a bit of lame humour." The plane shuddered and James gripped the seat arms even tighter. "Maybe if I just talk to the plane...?"

"Don't you dare. Look, it's fine, thousands of people do this trip every day and nothing happens. Qantas is the safety airline - remember 'Rain Man'?"

"You don't study statistics, do you? Probability is against us, you know. There's always a chance for a random anomaly, and every time there isn't one increases the chances. And that movie sucked."

"Agreed. About the movie, any way." Allison cast her mind around for another topic of conversation in a desperate effort to distract her companion from the plane's take-off. The last thing they needed was a panicked cyberpath hooking into the plane's computer system and flooding it with the binary version of 'ohgod ohgod we're all gonna die'. "So, how's things going in the house without me? New girl settling in?"

"Eleanor? Yeah, she's fitting in well. She does have a tendency to shed, but we got around that with her offering to do the vacuuming and it's working out fine. Of course, the past couple of weeks it's just been the two of us, so I've gotten to know her a bit better than Karen and Fish. She's a nice kid."

"'Past couple of weeks'? They've been in Sydney that long?"

"About that." James' eyes skittered away from hers, evasive. "Fatimah needed a lot of help, getting things ready, and the two of them, well, helping's what they do, isn't it? They make quite a team."

"Yeah, I suppose they do," Allison said slowly, pondering this. Fish and Karen, a team? To her surprise, she felt a sharp pain somewhere in her chest at the thought. She was about to ask more, but just them the plane's engines roared into life, the seatbelt sign flashed repeatedly and she had to concentrate on making sure James didn't accidentally highjack the plane.

***

They arrived to find themselves already late. This was due in part to the usual delay above Sydney as planes circled in a high-altitude queue, but also to the time it had taken to get James through the metal detector in Melbourne at check-in. The security people had been on the verge of a full skin search when Allison had suggested acidly that perhaps they ought to run _James_ through the metal detector. Reluctantly the security people had conceded that they were possibly being a little unreasonable and let them through, but only after some murmured instructions to the stewardess who had been summoned to the scene to escort them both to the plane.

The whole hassle had made the plane an hour late, which hadn't made them very popular with the rest of the passengers. There'd been any number of black looks, and a few muttered comments about 'damn muties', and the crew were keeping a very close eye on them. James' fear of flying hadn't helped, and when they reached Sydney airport there had been the extra annoyance of finding a taxi - the stress of the flight and the drinks Allison had eventually been forced to pour into the flight-phobic engineering student had resulted in James losing sufficient control of his mutation to freak even the hardened taxi drivers of Sydney. Of course, the frustration-induced heat haze shimmering around Allison's head probably hadn't helped. Eventually they were picked up by a Pakistani driver with more university degrees than the whole Hope Street household put together. When they finally landed at the hostel, a slightly wild-eyed Karen whisked them through check in and then back out into another taxi, barely pausing to dump luggage.

Allison couldn't help thinking it was all very convenient. Although Karen couldn't possibly have engineered it that way, the delay made it very easy for her to avoid being pinned down for any meaningful discussion, which was what Allison wanted to do more than anything. As it was, her best friend instead prattled about plans for the next day's wedding, life in the house sans Allison, the effect of the new conservative government on human-mutant politics, the weather for the past week... everything, in fact, except for the two remaining absent housemates, and one in particular.

"How's Fish?" Allison asked at last, driven to bluntness. Karen looked startled, as if expecting a different question entirely, and then shrugged.

"Good. He's good." There was a strange note in her voice, and Allison squirmed slightly in her seat between her two friends. "He's meeting us down at the restaurant, with Adrian and Fatimah," Karen added. "We figured it would be a good idea, before the insanity of tomorrow, if we had dinner together, just us."

James nodded. "Yeah, it'll give us a chance to talk."

"About what?" Allison asked, instantly suspicious. This didn't sound good at all. It sounded like one of their House conferences, where contentions were aired and disagreements (like who hadn't paid their share of the phone bill) addressed.

"N-nothing particular. Just... stuff," faltered James. "Catching up... you know. You've been gone a while. We missed you."

'Nice recovery,' Allison thought scathingly, and then admonished herself for the thought. She was being unreasonable, getting paranoid, seeing plots and ulterior motives in everything said to her. But, she had to admit, things weren't the same. There was an odd atmosphere in the taxi, something about the way her two former housemates were acting, the meaningful looks they were exchanging...

"Eight-ninety," the taxi driver announced, pulling to a stop outside a row of restaurants and shops. 'Green Curry Thai Restaurant' was scrawled in neon across the front window of the one directly in opposite.

"Fatimah remembered," Allison said, grinning, and Karen smiled, perhaps for the first time since the hostel.

"House tradition," she replied, referring to their group habit of frequenting a particular Thai place in Brunswick for all their special occasions. The last time Allison had been there was the night before she returned to the farm.

"Is it as good as ours?" James asked, sceptically.

"Not quite, but pretty damn close. Guess you'll have to rough it, Blue," Karen replied, chuckling. "Fish and I have tried it out a few times." She smiled again, this time a 'personal joke' kind of secret smile, and Allison felt another of those unreasonable twinges of jealousy.

"I'll just have to suffer through then," James sighed tragically.

"Spoken like a true martyr," Karen riposted. She was about to continue the joking when Allison cut in.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but _I'm_ hungry. Let's go." She grabbed the door handle and yanked it open with a touch more force then strictly necessary and strode inside. Behind her, Karen and James exchanged another look.

Inside, the restaurant was dim, the smell of food making Allison's mouth suddenly water; she'd just said what she had to avoid any more mentions of Fish and Karen, but apparently there had been an element of truth in it.

"Welcome, can I help you?" asked the middle-aged man at the cash register at the front. Judging from his air of nervous eagerness, Allison guessed he was the owner rather than a hired hand.

"Um, yeah, we're here with a group..." Allison halted, realising she didn't know who to ask for.

"The booking's under the name of 'Stewart'," Karen supplied, appearing at Allison's elbow.

"Ah, of course, this way! Your friends, they wait for you!" The little Thai man bustled towards the rear of the restaurant, the three of them following. He missed Karen's questioning look at Allison, and the blonde's impatient returning shrug; James trailed along behind them, frowning slightly. Then they rounded a jutting corner and he had to stop suddenly to avoid smacking into the frozen form of Allison.

"Here we go..." he muttered under his breath.

"Allison! James! You're here at last!" Fatimah beamed up at them from her seat.

"Here, just let me..." Adrian began to get out of his seat to let Fatimah get past him, but she had already fluttered up over the table and into James' hug. The sales rep's handsome face darkened, but any remonstration was halted by the third member of the table laying a hand on his arm and shaking his head.

"It's so good to see you!" Fatimah whispered breathlessly in James' ear. "I was starting to think you wouldn't make it."

"And miss a good Thai meal? Never." James could feel the trembling of the slender body in his arms. "Are you okay?"

"Well enough, in the circumstances," she replied, kissing him on the cheek before releasing her hold and turning to Allison. "Allison, you're here!"

"Told you I wouldn't miss it," Allison replied, but her attention was mostly elsewhere. Hugging the butterfly-girl briefly, she turned to the true object of her scrutiny. "Hey, R... Fish."

"Hey. Good to see you." Allison winced - she couldn't help it. His voice was flat, almost expressionless. He glanced over at James. "Hey, Jim."

James nodded back. "Hey, Fish. You look like shit."

The medical student shrugged. "Fair enough," he replied philosophically. An awkward silence fell over the group, to be broken by Fatimah:

"So, shall we sit down and order?"

***

The evening, having started awkwardly, steadily went downhill. Fatimah was quiet - more so then usual - almost withdrawn, quite unlike the blushing brides of tv and fiction. Allison was too distracted to think much further on it; she was torn between breaking the silence between her and Fish, or letting him make the first move. Because, dammit, she was tired of being the bad guy here. He wasn't cooperating - he ate with an air of worried distraction, like he wasn't really there, his mind miles away. She took the third way out, the coward's way, drinking her way steadily through the bottle of white wine placed in front of her.

This left Karen, James and surprisingly, Adrian, to carry the conversation. Fatimah's betrothed had never been truly part of the group; it was a phenomenon common to those who found themselves coming up against the bonds formed by several years of sharing a bathroom. And tonight he was as obviously distracted as Fish, worrying about the next day, perhaps, but still he managed to joke with James and talk politics with Karen (carefully, since the two of them had... differing political views), and elicit the occasional smile from the wan Fairy, and even the odd comment from Fish. He was less successful with Allison, the farm girl moving quickly from 'tipsy' to 'surly' without her usual pitstops of 'happy' and 'cuddly' or even the less-pleasant but still amusing 'drunk'. She rebuffed Adrian's conversation starting questions with mono-syllabic replies which skated the edge of rudeness, ignored Karen's hints (and the gentle and then not-so-gentle kicks under the table she resorted to when her meaningful looks failed), and when James tried to lighten the mood with a few lame jokes, merely shrugged and reached for the wine bottle again.

At last Karen had had enough.

"Allison, are you _trying_ to be a bitch, or is it just natural talent?"

The only problem was that Allison had had enough too. She thumped down her glass, knocking it over and spilling the contents over the tablecloth. "I would have thought you already knew the answer to that one, roomie. Considering the way you've been treating me ever since I got here." Her slightly slurred words dripped venom.

James coughed nervously, tried to intervene: "Now c'mon, Allie, there's no need for this..."

"Oh, there's _every_ need, Blue. Time to get this all out in the open. No more secrets, okay? Besides, isn't that why we're here? To talk?" James' face flushed red at the dig. "Only I don't see a whole lot of talking going on. Just a lot of looks and nudges and the feeling that I'm everyone's Bad Guy."

"Allison, what..." Karen managed, before Allison cut her off again.

"Oh don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. You've been giving me the cold shoulder for _months_. And whenever I ask what's wrong, you say it's all hunky-dorey, nothing to worry about."

"We've been giving _you_ the cold shoulder? Allie, you haven't returned calls, you don't answer e-mails... Fuck, it took us sending you the bloody tickets to even get you here! I don't know what your damage is, but don't try and shift it onto us!" Karen's voice rose, drawing the attention of the restaurant's few other patrons, before she realised and got it under control again. "Especially when it's your own damned stubbornness causing the problem."

"Oh it is, is it...?" Under Allison's hands, the tablecloth was starting to brown slightly - she realised she was losing control of her power, and snatched her hands away. Fatimah took advantage of the distraction to try and reason with her in that new breathless voice of hers.

"Allison, I know you don't approve of my getting married so soon..."

"Damn right I don't." Karen's reaction had triggered Allison's sense of guilt, and doubt: perhaps this wasn't what she had thought it was. But the alcohol in her system was engaging her mouth rather than her brain, and she took refuge in attack rather than apology. Fatimah flinched, and the expression on her face only fuelled Allison's self-disgust and doubled the reaction. "I think you're being a sentimental idiot. You're the same age as me, for Christ's sake, why don't you fucking wait for a few more years, do something with your life..."

"Because she can't."

The words were quietly spoken, but they silenced Allison immediately.

"Fatimah _can't_ wait few more years. She doesn't have that long. So she's doing what she wants to do, now, while she's still able." Fish looked up from his plate, his expression unreadable. All Allison knew was that the look in his eyes was pretty damn close to the one she had feared she would see: contempt.

"But..." she managed. "I thought..."

"You thought what? That this was about what happened in February?" Now it was Fish's turn to raise his voice. "Not everything is about you, Allie."

Allison gulped, and looked over at Fatimah, seeing for the first time the paleness of her face, the dullness of the colour of her wings. And weren't those wings themselves looking the tiniest bit ragged?

"I... Oh God, Fatimah, I'm so sorry," she managed, standing clumsily. She swayed slightly on the spot, and then abruptly clapped her hand over her mouth and rushed for the bathroom.

Another silence fell over the table, broken at last by James:

"So, I'm guessing no-one wants dessert?"

[next part]

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