I’ll likely never writes this but here’s the accompanying piece to the jack-wakes-up-with-amnesia-thinking-he’s-married-bitty: bitty wakes up with amnesia from a car accident with a wedding band on his finger, and jack’s by his side in his hospital room. for a fleeting moment bitty’s heart jumps in his chest because he did it. it seems unfathomable but he married his crush. he asks jack about it and jack looks back at him, eyes wide. “uh, we aren’t married, bud.”
a few minutes later bitty’s real husband shows up in the room, panicked and doting and everything, and jack quietly slips away. but unlike with jack, bitty is getting bad vibes from the guy, but he tells himself it’s because he doesn’t know him. and the guy obviously cares for him. so instead bitty waits in his room in hopes of his memory to come back, or maybe receiving a visit from his friends that will be able to shed some light on what he doesn’t remember. but he doesn’t. no one visits him, apart from jack at the beginning, and he wants to cry. and his husband is sitting there showing him pictures of their wedding, where bitty can see jack and lardo and shitty and rans and holster, and he wants to cry.
his husband gives him his old phone, crashed from the accident, telling him it’s unsalvageable and gives him a new one. but one day when he’s finally left alone, bitty goes to the store and is able to retrieve his old data, and puts it in the new phone. and he sees that his last message to lardo was months ago, even though it’s unclear what they were fighting about. shitty texting him a bit after that, checking on him and inviting him to an evening, but bitty didn’t even answer. he doesn’t recognize himself.
tentatively, he reaches out to lardo and shitty. they already know about the accident, since jack told them. and he starts going out with them again, and it’s clear that it’s making his husband jealous. and bitty tries to be there for him too because he married him and he doesn’t want to be unfair but it’s hard and he just doesn’t feel it with that guy.
it gets pretty clear that literally every single one of his friends hate the dude. he asks jack, at some point. “well, I don’t like him but that’s a given.” (okay, so jack is aware that there’s… something between them. maybe something happened, but bitty doesn’t remember.) lardo tells him, when he asks her point blank. “bits. that guy’s an asshole, okay?” and of course bitty would rather believe his friends than the guy he doesn’t know, but at the same time, he wants to trust his past-self, because he can’t imagine himself making that sort of bad decision. he still makes an effort to salvage his marriage, because maybe the guys are being a bit dramatic? maybe they don’t know his husband well enough?
but the guy keeps getting more and more snide, more and more jealous, and at some point bitty catches himself compromising with him. it’s like he’s waking up from a dream and he shouts back, “no, I’m going out tonight, I’m seeing them.” - “I don’t like it when you shout at me like that. and they’re not your friends, remember? you’re not that person, anymore.” and it hits bitty so hard: “well I don’t want to be that person. that person sounds frankly awful!”
what on earth distanced him from his friends? jack he can understand, because his husband knows about him and his useless crush, it’s normal he put some space there. but after the accident, he’s been growing closer and closer to jack. him telling he has feelings for him at his camera was five seconds ago. or so it feels like. and he feels awful about it and won’t do anything, but truly, that night where they argue about bitty’s friends is the last straw, and once his husband leaves for work, bitty leaves his ring behind and goes to find jack.
at first, it’s a shoulder to cry on. he’s so remorseful and every little detail is adding up, along with the few memories he’s regaining, so full of emotional abuse and manipulation. and bitty is a bit distraught and clings to jack harder than anytime before. and it’s easy to go from there to a kiss, and what a kiss it is, except that jack gently pushes him back. “bits. you’re married.” - “I’m leaving him.” - “are you… sure? not that I don’t agree with- but you-” “jack, I don’t remember loving him. I remember loving you.” and that’s the truth. he tried so hard but he couldn’t find an ounce of love for his husband, not even in those few memories he regained. and so jack kisses him back, hard, and things naturally progress to the bedroom. and bitty’s amazed, because it’s just so easy with jack. jack is kind and patient and gentle and funny and all those things he feels like his husband never was.
they lie in each other’s arms after that, not wanting to part for a single second, until bitty falls half-asleep. and that’s when he remembers. the fight in the car. his husband screaming back at him, behind the wheel, before the car swerved. and bitty was never told that they were in the accident together. which means-
in the morning, he receives a flurry of texts from his panicked husband, after having seen the ring. husband wants him to come back home so they can talk. and so bitty leaves jack, not to – unlike what jack believes will be the final result – go back to his husband, but to confront him about the new information. he promises he’ll be back.
