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Theirs was the classic love story. Childhood friends who became high school sweethearts who no one was surprised when they got married three weeks after graduation. A lot of people had some cautionary words to say, especially Rose's mum, but there was no dissuading the happy couple and one white dress, two rings, and seventeen sappy toasts later: John and Rose Smith set off for their Barcelona honeymoon and then on to Paris to settle in at a miniscule flat near John's university.
At first, it was all fun and games. Setting up their own dishes and furniture (such as they were or were not), exploring a new city and learning the different culture, the freedom to shag against every surface - they lived and loved and danced to Glen Miller in the evenings. It was romantic to sleep on a mattress on the floor and sit on orange crates and who cared if the place was overrun with ants or the neighbors rocked out to Bon Jovi at two in the morning? Certainly not them.
It didn't take too many weeks of stretching the funds from Rose's job at a local market (they'd decided she'd go back to school once John was well on his way to his medical degree) to cover the rent and the food and the dozen or so bills for them to realize that this life was far from the fairytale life they had envisioned. Rose was used to doing with a little less than John was, but both of them had always had enough pocket change to go see a film or go out for a drink or to indulge in the little extras in life. Plus John's work load was increasing as he gradually realized his classes were a little tougher than he had expected them to be.
The arguments started small: whose turn it was to take out the trash, how the toothpaste ought to be squeezed out of the tube, which way the toilet paper went, what brand of soap or cereal to buy. The differences between London and Paris that had seemed so interesting and adorable at first only added to their general annoyances and John was less than thrilled when he discovered that Rose was learning the language better than he was. He wasn't good at sitting down and talking things out and so he began to rely on sex to end an argument, a kiss or a touch saying what he wasn't willing to.
Gradually their fights grew worse as they dragged unresolved issues from the past into the present, preying on the other's insecurities and shortcomings. Sex became less of something they connected over and more of a weapon, both of them taking turns demanding that they have it or demanding that they not. John started staying at the Library on campus to study claiming the pounding beat from the neighbor's was making it impossible to learn which bones were connected to which other ones and Rose would deliberately take the longest possible route to and from work.
By Christmas their fairytale life had fallen apart. They didn't have enough money to fly back to England and Christmas break was a depressing affair with John drinking while staring at his textbooks on campus and Rose drinking while staring at the four walls of their flat. Neither of them had any idea how to fix what had gone so very wrong and so they put it off, drifting further and further away from one another. John was more apt to spend the whole night at the Library and catch a cat nap between classes than to come home and the rare nights they did spend in the same bed there was an almost physical wall between them of unsaid words and shouted accusations and general anger.
Rose wasn't brave enough to call home and tell her mum what was going on and so she tried to keep her head down and figure it out on her own. She had no illusions about whom she had married. John had always been much lusted after by all the girls and quite a few of the guys and she had no doubt that the same thing held true here in Paris. As she thought over what John had told her back when he was still telling her things, she remembered the name Reinette had come up quite a few times and the more nights that John didn't come home, the more Rose began to suspect the worst.
For his part, John was at a complete loss as to what to do about the wedge between them and so he threw himself into his studies with a passion, taking on extra classes and signing up for extracurricular activities. Despite his current cold bed, he loved Rose from the bottom of his heart and cheating on her never crossed his mind, however, the attraction from his fellow classmates was not unwelcome and he enjoyed the fawning the girls (and a few of the guys) did over him. It was nice to get some attention from somewhere.
Things continued on in this vein for some time. The cold winter wind blowing through the Parisian streets had nothing on the atmosphere inside John and Rose's flat. The rift between them grew wider as they filled in the missing gaps of time with speculations on their partner's activities, none of it flattering. Neither of them wanted to walk away (nor did they have the money to be able to do so), but it was beginning to seem like the only option.
One night in late April found John in the Library per usual. He had spent the night trying to study his anatomy textbook, but he had been going non-stop for almost forty-eight hours and it was beginning to catch up with him. He could hardly keep his eyes focused and serratus was beginning to look a lot like sartorius. What he really wanted to do was to curl up somewhere (even the wooden study carrels were beginning to look comfortable), but he had been avoiding sleep for a reason.
Still, it was four am and he didn't have to be at class for another three hours and he could not force his eyes to stay open - caffeine had stopped having an effect weeks ago. Without permission his eyes drifted shut and he slipped into sleep. He dreamed of Rose, of course, of her smell, touch, feel, and taste, of the way she moved against him, of the way she held his hand, of the way she sounded when she laughed, when she breathed, when she came apart around him.
He jerked awake when the clatter of books hit an adjoining table, disoriented and confused at first and then scarcely able to breathe when he remembered that it was a dream and that he hadn't touched Rose in almost three months. The sound of a voice broke through his pain and he glanced up to find Reinette Poisson sitting at the adjoining carrel and staring at him expectantly. From a purely scientific standpoint, Reinette was physically attractive, academically interesting, and socially connected - John had enjoyed their many conversations the previous fall, but there was something predatory in the way she was currently looking at him that he didn't like.
John smiled at her wanly and then returned to his books, a quick glance at his watch showing him he had another thirty minutes before class. He felt more than saw Reinette stand up and walk over to him, tilting one hip against the side of his desk and smiling coyly down at him. She reached out one hand and stroked his fringe off his forehead, seemingly not put out at all when he pulled away sharply, nearly upsetting his chair. Instead she laughed, squeezing his shoulder and saying something about him working too hard and not playing enough. Her fingers danced along his collarbone as she spoke and then she leaned down and whispered in his ear that she knew the perfect way to help him relax before she kissed his neck. He jerked sideways, dislodging her grip and turned to give her a piece of his mind about how he was married when his name was paged over the loudspeaker, requesting his presence at the front desk immediately.
Shoving his books into his bag, John darted towards the front of the building with a parting glare at Reinette. His heart was pounding with anger over Reinette's inappropriate actions and with fear about why they were paging him. He was pretty sure he hadn't forgotten any important thing he had signed up for or a meeting with any of the professors or...he skidded to a halt beside the desk, breathing out his name to the man behind it.
"It's your wife, she's been in an accident." Someone gave a strangled cry and John distantly realized it was him, but the edges of the world were crumpling in on him, preventing him from breathing. He managed to squeak out the word "where" and was informed which hospital, but when he released his grip on the wooden edges of the desk, the room tilted impossibly sideways.
After that it was a blur of activity. Somehow transportation was arranged and someone - he absently thought it was the clerk from the Library - accompanied him to the hospital. He'd been there before, case studies and observations and meetings, but his mind was blazing with a single thought and he couldn't remember where anything was. He was guided through the process of providing proof of his identity and navigating the halls and was finally shown into a quiet waiting room, the words of a nurse ringing in his ears: "She's still in surgery, but she was hurt pretty badly. There's no guarantee..." her words had died off when John had violently shaken his head; they couldn't be talking about his Rose, they just couldn't.
He paced the room, every angry word he had spoken to Rose, every time he had stalked out of their flat, every refusal to stop and listen, every blithe excuse he had offered running through his head on an endless loop. Here he was studying to be a Doctor, to help people and he couldn't even be bothered to be there for Rose. They had said she was walking to work when a car had turned without looking, it's driver had been intoxicated and sped from the scene, leaving Rose there on the side of the road. Passersby had called for help and he wanted to be thankful for them - and he absolutely was - but it should have been him. He should have been with her, he should have been able to prevent the whole thing. His thoughts were jumbled, tumbling one after another in a dizzying flow he could hardly keep up with.
At long last the door opened and the surgeon walked in, opening his mouth to speak and then stopping short, his eyes widening as he took in the sight of the destroyed room giving witness to John's distress. John was impatient, demanding to have answers, but it took the surgeon a moment to collect himself and offer John a tremulous smile. "Your wife is doing fine. She has severe injuries to the left side of her body, but she is out of surgery and breathing on her own." The man opened his mouth to say something else, like a suggestion that John let her rest, but then he glanced over John's shoulder again and stepped aside, motioning towards Rose's room.
The sight of Rose lying there with the left side of her body in bandages made the room spin again and John collapsed into a chair beside her, his head dropping to the bed. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to take deep breaths; she needed him to stay strong. He whispered apologies into her skin, praying to every god he could remember that she would wake up and talk to him and that maybe, just maybe, she would forgive him for not being there, for not having been there.
She didn't wake up until late afternoon and then it was slowly, her right hand tightening in his, her head turning slowly on the pillow, her eyelids fluttering slightly, and then finally, oh finally, opening, her eyes searching the room in confusion. It was the sight of those whiskey-colored eyes finally meeting his that released the floodgates and then he was crying and she was desperately attempting to reach for him, despite everything still trying to offer comfort. He lowered his head to her reach, apologizing between each sob, begging her to forgive him and she tightened her grip around his neck, her voice raspy as she told him she had and she did and she would.
He pressed kisses to the inside of her arm and then remembered himself and grabbed a cup of ice water and held it so she could drink. When she had drank her full, she reached for him again, tugging until he met her lips with his own, carefully so as not to disturb her stitches, but with all the fullness of love he felt. She told him she was sorry also, forestalling his denial by another kiss, and they could make this work, if he wanted? He wanted, he absolutely wanted and he told her so with his lips, but with his words too because that was something he hadn't ever done enough and he was determined things were going to be different now.
By the time Rose had recovered sufficiently enough to travel, it was nearly June and they arrived at Jackie Tyler's flat three days before their first wedding anniversary. Their friends were confused when they said they wanted to have a vow renewal ceremony, objecting that those were usually for ten or fifteen years of marriage, but Rose and John just smiled and insisted. It was a quiet affair on the banks of a creek and as they stood hand in hand and promised once again "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health," there was a weight to their words because they understood that it wasn't a fairytale after all, but it was still absolutely worth it.