Willow knocked on Jared's apartment door a little while later, more nervous than she ever remembered being. She took a deep breath and smiled widely at him when he opened the door. Seeing her, he glanced behind himself and then stepped out of the apartment, closing the door. The smell of a meal obviously being cooked wafted out behind him and Willow looked at him questioningly.

"Hi, Wills," he said quietly, giving her a look she couldn't quite make anything of.

"Am I... interrupting?" she asked, immediately feeling much less confident than she had just a moment before.

"No," he said simply, smiling nervously. Suddenly, the door opened behind him, almost knocking him down because of how hard he'd been leaning on it. A woman that Willow immediately recognized as his ex-wife Elaine stood behind him, looking at her like she didn't belong there.

"Jared? What's going on?" Elaine asked, and Jared glanced at her, shaking his head.

"Go inside," he told her, and she was about to say something else before he shot her another look. She shrugged, shutting the door. Jared leaned on it again, directing his attention back at Willow.

"Are you two... having dinner?" she asked him, not sure of what else to say. He immediately shook his head.

"No, Wills, listen... it's not what you think. She..." he trailed off as tears filled Willow's eyes.

"No, it's fine. I... I've got to go," she told him, and he reached for her. She shook his hand off of her shoulder easily and took off back down the hallway toward the elevator.

"Willow!" she heard him calling her name, but couldn't bring herself to turn around.

As soon as she was in her car in the parking garage, she dialed Jensen's number.

•••••

Jensen 🐿

"he's having dinner with elaine."

"jared."

"i was just there, jensen. i assure you, he's having a pretty romantic-looking dinner with his ex-wife."

"yeah."

"okay. you're a good faux big brother, you know?"

"bye, jen."

Willow's phone rang beside her for probably the tenth time in the short time she and Jensen had been sitting in the diner and Jensen raised an eyebrow at her. She looked away from him, taking a big drink of her chocolate milkshake.

"You really should talk to him," Jensen told her, and she rolled her eyes at him.

"Look, I know you guys have been friends for way longer than either of you have known me, and I know that to a certain point you'll defend his honor no matter what, but I really just don't feel like talking to him right now. It took such fucking balls for me to go over there and prepare myself to say what I was going to say, and then he opens the door and the woman that made him absolutely miserable for however many years and treated him like a piece of actual garbage is there and apparently he's cooking for her?" Willow ranted, acutely aware of the fact that her voice was shifting into kind of a shriek. Jensen glanced around them and then reached across the table to put his hand on her arm.

"Listen to me. I don't know why he's having dinner with Elaine, okay? Last I knew, they weren't even talking, and it's not my business but as far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't be talking. Everything you just said is 100% right about her, but I'm sure there's a reason. Jared is absolutely infatuated with you, Willow. He's not going back to Elaine over you. I'm telling you that for sure. I've never seen him so into someone as he is with you. Call him back," Jensen told her, glancing down at her phone as another text message rolled in.

"I'll think about it. Later," she whispered, turning the phone off and sliding it into her jacket pocket. Jensen nodded, sitting back to eat the burger he'd ordered.

sorry it's been a few days since i've updated this. i feel like i've been saying this constantly lately (because it's been true constantly lately tbh) but i just haven't really felt good and have been having a lot of dizzy spells the past few days and it's hard to sit down and write when the room is spinning. but today i'm feeling okay and going to try as hard as i can to get this and my other story (life lessons with dom sherwood!) prewritten a little so i won't have to skip anymore days in the near future if possible.

ALSO, i didn't want to use genevieve as jared's ex-wife because i love her too much so her name is elaine and i don't really have a faceclaim for her yet because the mention of her was so brief, but if she ends up appearing again i'll figure one out!