Disclaimer: as chapter one, so please do not keep making me write it out. This is for fun and not for profit! If I wanted to own any of this, trust me it would ONLY be Jack Gallagher. Lol!

WARNING: SOME MILD SWEARING - SO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

All reviews, and constructive criticism, gratefully received – but no flaming please; and I will try to update regularly.

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

To recent Guest - THANK YOU for the lovely reviews; I was about to leave it, thinking I'd been writing recently more for my own amusement than anything else. Now you've inspired me to give it the ending I'd originally intended (a few chapters away yet). Here's a question for you though; my daughter loves this story and said it work well, with relevant details changed of course, as a book in it's own right...what do *you* think?

Summary: So, everyone's there for the party – the time for revelations is approaching... JGxOFC

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PIECES OF THE HEART

Chapter Thirty

Lexie was really not sure about the dress; it wasn't the colour or anything, it was just the fact it was a dress - end of. She didn't normally wear them; especially something this...floaty. In retrospect she didn't know what had possessed her to buy the damn thing; probably Becca saying she looked great – who knew she was as much a sucker for vanity as the next woman? She sighed and tugged at it some more, at least it wasn't pink; God, she loathed that colour – the only thing that could make it worse was if it had been pink and somehow fluffy too; the thought alone made her want to vomit.

Jack saw her shudder and smiled "thinking that at least it's not pink and fluffy?"

She glanced at him through the mirror "right, so you're telepathic now?"

He chuckled "nope, but it's clear that you aren't sure about the dress and the shudder meant you were thinking about how much worse it could be; for you that would be pink and fluffy."

"Pink and fluffy would be horrific, not just 'worse' buster."

He slipped his arms round her waist as he came up behind her "you look great; it's black, it floats away from your body, it's knee length so shows off your great legs, and only clings in all the right places – it's not pink, fluffy, or shiny. If we had more time I'd be delighted to show you how much I like you in it, by helping you out of it." He smirked at the dark blush that immediately ghosted her cheeks; he lowered his head and kissed the spot where her neck joined her shoulder making relax slightly into him. He smiled against her skin as they locked gazes in the mirror "it's only lacking in skulls to really show it's actually your kind of thing."

She chuckled herself now and moved a little away from him to get a better look at the offending garment "wrong; I don't do floaty, honest. But you are right about the skulls though." She tipped her head to one side "now that would look cool."

Molly entered the room "what would?"

"This dress being covered in skulls." Lexie saw her daughter staring "what?" Then her face fell at her daughter's stunned expression "does it look that bad; should I change? I mean I have a really nice black suit in there somewhere..." she nodded towards her half of Jack's wardrobe.

"No, mum; God, no – you look..." Molly cast about for the right word "awesome; really awesome."

Jack squeezed Lexie as her eyes brightened suspiciously, "yeah, totally" he murmured into her ear. He spun her round causing the tears to spill, but he wiped them away with his thumbs "now, finish getting ready and we can get this show on the road."

Lexie grinned at him and kissed him quickly "if I fall over in these heels I am personally going to do a tap dance on your back."

Jack rolled his eyes "yeah, yeah; promises, promises. In the famous words of Kylie, "I should be so lucky."

"You are a strange and weird man Jack Gallagher" Lexie noted as she hopped about trying to fit the slimline heeled shoes onto feet that were more used to trainers or hiking boots.

0-0-0-0

They arrived at the party in good time; Veronica was already there...rubbing the small of her back. Lexie made a mental note to keep her pal close just in case her waters broke. However, the thought of James Stroud slipping and falling into the amniotic fluid of a woman going into labour right there at the party did make her chuckle. She decided that she had a pretty warped sense of humour but that people like James brought out the evil in her, so technically it wasn't her fault.

She also noted that Rylan was obviously still 'in transit' judging by the fact that Veronica was alone...except for at least three slices of pie. Zack came over "your friend is close to exploding – she's eaten three pieces of blackcurrant pie on top of that lot already. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if she actually gave birth to a selection of apple, mincemeat and of course the ubiquitous blueberry pies instead of a baby." He then noticed what she was wearing "wow, you look...different."

She glared at him "if I could actually balance on one foot in these stupid heels, I'd kick you..."

"No, I meant it nicely – honest. I meant different in a good way; really."

Before she could say anything in reply a huge man entered with a small boy who Jack recognised as James. "Hey couz!" the giant boomed across the room at Lexie, striding over to envelope her in a bear hug.

"Byron, you made it!" A delighted Lexie was swallowed up once more by the titan before them. Jack looked up...and up...that was Byron; surely not the Byron? He turned to Zack "is that the Byron whose nose she broke?"

Lexie's brother grinned "oh yeah the one and only; my little sister was a sight to behold when we were kids. Mum would get her dolled up in pretty little dresses, with cute little ribbons in her super long pigtails, black little mary janes and bright white knee high socks to go visiting...only to be subsequently confronted later the same day with said kid sister trying to garrot Byron, or one of our other cousins with her own pigtail, ribbon or even her bare hands because they'd dared to tease her about her hair, glasses or something else.

She'd have blood on her nose where she'd been fighting, her hair askew and mud everywhere else. Sufficed to say Byron's wasn't the only familial nose to get crunched by her bony little knuckles over the years."

"Yours?"

"No, I was fairly safe because she was too scared of the wrath of mum if she hurt me too much; but others in the family not so much." He shook his head and smiled ruefully "I remember once a particular cousin punching her in the face and her scoffing at it, saying he "hit like a girl" before splitting his lip like a melon. She had a black eye like you wouldn't believe for a week, but proudly told our granddad that he "should see the other kid."

"Quite the scrapper then?"

"Yeah, definitely; see Lexie was always a tomboy – cutesy dresses, pretty little princesses and stuff like that left her stone cold. She'd rather climb trees, fight and dig in the dirt with the rest of us; in her defence she was the only girl amongst a clan of boys for a long time – she was thirteen before the next female child came into the family; beyond hope by then."

"What did your mum think?"

"I reckon she was kind of sad for a while when she realised that Lex was never going to be the 'girly' type of daughter she sort of wanted. But then, as we got older, I think she was really proud of the way Lexie would stand her ground and generally not be browbeaten by the cousins and stuff; course she was though, not by family naturally, but other people.

As you no doubt know, she was bullied unmercifully at school - but she never told mum until years later as she didn't want her to worry. I know it scarred her though; Lexie was much quieter after that. Then there was the nasty boyfriend and she really retreated at that point; always wanting to kind of blend in to the paintwork, hated being noticed for anything - she's not really changed since."

Jack looked at the woman still chatting animatedly to the giant who towered above her; he would've liked to have met that Lexie, the one who wasn't so afraid of living, of love – the one who met the world head on, before life changed her so drastically. But it would only be a meeting, the Lexie that was here now was the one he was in love with and he wouldn't want to change her for anything.

Besides, she was still a fighter; just when cornered, otherwise her first instinct was to run. But the need to defend herself, or people who weren't able to do it for themselves, was still there; wasn't the incident with Carlisle's father a case in point and the way she disliked Belle so much for hating on him? His stepfather too was another example; she saw James for what he was, and would certainly be able to face him off if the occasion rose of that Jack had no doubt.

Byron coming over and pumping his arm enthusiastically broke his train of thought "good to finally meet you Jack!" he boomed, causing the other man to flinch as the decibels flexed his eardrums a little too forcefully for comfort. "Our Lexie's told me so much about you; James too – you're quite the hero apparently!" a deafening roar of laughter washed over him as Lexie merely rolled her eyes; long used to her cousin's huge voice to go with his matching size.

"Byron? Hey, By?!" She called up to him "inside voice, remember? We're not trying to chat with people in Kathmandu, Jack's right in front of you..."

Another roar of laughter met this and he nodded "sure, sure – don't want you breaking my nose again..."

Lexie sighed "seriously? I doubt I could reach it without a ladder these days; but I could certainly do some serious damage to your shins though." She pointed to her shoes "these babies are killing me, so I can only hope they'd do the same to your ankles..."

Jack realised that with people she'd known a long time and loved deeply, there were no barriers, no walls or guards to protect her. This was the genuine Lexie; the real one that so few actually saw. He knew she was becoming the same with him, but it was slow – so slow; but it was happening. He had time, he could wait – hell, he'd wait forever if he had to; she was worth it - he only thought she felt the same about him; despite everything about her obvious way with him and him saying to her repeatedly, she'd never actually told him she loved him. But, tonight would be the real proof of her feelings for him...

0-0-0-0

As the party got going and more people turned up, Lexie found herself greeting people she hadn't even known were invited – Carlisle, minus Deeogee for one rare occasion, with his grandma; David and Tyrone arrived together and laughed about how Tyrone was now David's housemate.

Apparently all the vampire paraphernalia David had had been binned on Tyrone's orders, and the two of them had even been on a brief vacation to Hawaii where they'd met a couple of girls. Whilst David had smothered himself in sunscreen, hid under an enormous parasol during the day and much preferred going out at night, at least it was a start.

Lexie had hugged them both and told them to keep it up; David was still suspicious that she was a vampire but at least he kept it to himself. Jack was working with him, and helping him with his fear of death; but he felt it was unlikely the other man would admit his girlfriend was one of the undead, assuming he even knew. Besides, David knew, as did all the other guests, what this was all really for and so felt tonight was the not the night for voicing his ideas about whether or not Lexie was really a vampire.

Tyrone had admitted to his new best friend that he'd had quite the crush on Lexie when they first met – still did if he was honest. Yet, despite her brushing off his questions about her feelings for Jack (she always seemed to get embarrassed talking about them) they were definitely there for all to see when the two were together. It saddened him in one way because she was out of his reach; but in another it was good to see someone as damaged as him finally being happy – it gave him hope for himself.

However, as Lexie was the way she was – having so many defences up to protect herself – he did wonder how she was going to cope with what Jack had planned for tonight. He did still think the psychiatrist was perhaps not following his own advice to 'go with the flow' that he gave to David; but then again he had to admit that, if it had been him in the doc's shoes, he too would be doing everything he could to hang on to her...

0-0-0-0

Of course Lexie was oblivious to all this; well, not entirely - she was certainly suspicious that this whole event was a lot more than a mere birthday party. But she was also in the dark enough not to be aware of what was being planned...which was probably a good thing; she'd would've headed for the hills otherwise..