Disclaimer: The characters and world of X-Men Evolution do not belong to me. This story has not been written for monetary gain, merely for entertainment and cathartic release.

A/N: This is something I just felt the need to write. It doesn't hold with what I want the characters to do, ever. If I had my way there would be no such thing as Romy angst. However, the characters don't always listen to me, and sometimes they will do what they want. Nothing in life ever turns out quite the way we want it to, and I think the X-Men know this as well as I do. No names are mentioned in the story, but I wrote it thinking of Rogue and Remy. Apply it to whoever you like. And while I hope that everyone out there can sympathize, I sincerely hope that none of you have ever experienced this for yourselves.

Figments

It hurt.

That was the long and short of it. Anything else was just pretty words that tried to make it more than it should be, and somehow made it less. It wasn't the worst thing to happen in the history of the world, and many people had suffered worse tragedies in their lives. It wasn't even the worst thing to happen in her life.

But it hurt.

It was, she sometimes thought, very much like a death. Yes, it was the death of a loved one. Perhaps even worse than losing someone was finding out that they never existed in the first place. At least in the former case there could be memories, ghosts of good times to remember and grasp fondly when the ache came. Bodies might go away, but the memories remained.

This, though, was so much worse. The memories remained, but they were tainted with the realization that none of it was real. There had been so many lies, and how could she tell anymore what had been truth and what had been pieces of the gruesome fairy tale she had been so desperate to build with him?

So many bits of memory that she had looked back on and smiled about. What had been the rest of those pieces, the parts that she couldn't remember? They had so many wonderful conversations over the phone, little reminders of how they loved each other. Where had he been when she called? Could he have been with her? When he had held her in his arms, and told her that being in her embrace was like coming home again… had he been thinking of someone else? How long had he waited before taking another woman to his bed? Had he even let the sheets cool? Her entire being swelled when he said that he lover her; she had known that he was sincere. He couldn't have lied convincingly enough to fool her about that. Could he?

She could no longer trust her own judgment, and that was an unexpected blow. Certainly the pain of betrayal was significant, but she hadn't predicted the pain of losing her self-confidence. Realistically, she knew that she had made a mistake, and that she had been right about people far more often than wrong. But, if he could do this to her, when she had been so sure of him, then how could she trust anyone else? How could she trust herself?

He was engaged now, she had heard. Engaged to the very woman that he had sworn would never some between them, that he had sworn was only a friend. The woman that she had tried to make her friend, as well. A week before he had ended it, he had asked her what kind of ring she would like. And now he was engaged to someone else.

Strangely, that hurt less. What he did now concerned her very little. He was not the man she had loved. The man she had loved was dead, and worse than dead. The man she loved had been a dream, a figment of her imagination. He wasn't real, and she would never know if any part of what they had had been real.

She had told him once that he was everything that was good in her.

Nothing that was good in her was real.

And it wasn't the end of the world.

But it hurt.

A/N: Again, I want to point out that I am a huge Romy shipper, and I hope that I never again write anything that involves heartbreak. However, I needed to write this, and for some reason, I needed to post it as well. I might take it down eventually, but it had to be done.