Title: Reflection

Pairing: Zoe/Sarah

Rating/Warnings: T/Mentions of death

Summary: She's never been to a funeral before. Not a proper one, not when the person they're burying is someone she knew, and cared about and she knows that today isn't going to change that - oneshot - Zoe/Sarah

Reflection

She's never been to a funeral before. Not a proper one, not when the person they're burying is someone she knew, and cared about and she knows that today isn't going to change that. She's in here, locked up for something she would never do – she'd never have hurt her, never in a million years – whilst outside, everyone else gets to say goodbye. Zoe doesn't get to say goodbye, and yet she knows that Sarah would have wanted her to be there the most out of everyone, except from probably her family.

She's been trying to forget out it, about everything that happened, because it just throws up far too many questions she couldn't answer before, let alone now. But she can't forget about it today, not on the day they bury Sarah.

Trapped in here, in this tiny little cell, she's had too much time on her hands and after everything, she can't stop replaying the past. Her head is stuck repeating all the things she doesn't want to remember – like the first time she met Sarah, all those years ago now, when they were young and naive and neither of them had suffered heartbreak. She's forced to remember the last time too, that fateful jump, the final time she saw her best friend apart from the bloodied and battered corpse on the ground and she doesn't want to remember that, either.

She can't help but remember that night, too, in the B and B, even though it's a memory she desperately doesn't want to revisit. It just confuses her because every time she things about that night, about Sarah and what happened, she wishes she could hold her like that all over again. But she's not a lesbian. She doesn't like women.

But she likes Sarah. Liked. Past tense.

She groans and slams her head softly onto the metal table in her cell, unable to make sense over what happened. Sarah was her friend, her best mate – when did things change? Was it always there but they didn't realise it, or was only a drunken one night thing never to be repeated again? Zoe's always hoped that it was the latter because she had no clue how to deal with it if it was anything more.

She didn't want a relationship with Sarah and she didn't want one with her. They were just confused, experimenting. Weren't they?

So why, if that's all it was, is Zoe sitting in her prison cell, her heart broken into a million pieces? Is this normal for a grieving friend or is it something more? No! It can't be anything more. Sarah was her friend. That's it.

Or that's what she thought. Time passes and things change.

Now, all this time later, she can no longer lie to herself. Not when Sarah's dead. There's no point anymore, is there? Her best friend is being buried today and it's the day that Zoe realises that she has to stop changing the past to suit the future she wants to have.

The night they spent together, despite how drunk they were, remains one of the happiest moments of Zoe's life. But afterwards, neither of them could accept it, because they were far too aware of the consequences that their actions could have. They were scared and confused and they just thought they'd made a mistake - a stupid, stupid mistake.

But sitting here now, with the perspective she now has, Zoe knows it was more than that. Sarah realised it first and it has taken Zoe till now to see it for herself. The real mistake they made was never talking about it – not properly. If they had, maybe they'd have had a chance; maybe they'd have given them a chance. But they didn't and look at what's happened.

Sarah's dead and Zoe's in prison for her murder.

She can remember the night everyone found out. She tried to work out how Kris found out for months afterwards, and then she realised that it was obvious. He must have overheard their conversation about everything – the only real one they really had. The one were Sarah had asked her to kiss her to see if it had been a mistake. The conversation were both of them realised that they both wanted it and had run away - scared, terrified of what it meant.

She never meant for anyone to get hurt, Sarah least of all and yet she's the person that she hurt the most. It breaks her heart to remember her face full of sadness and heartbreak and Zoe wonders, sitting all alone, what could have happened if they hadn't been so scared. Would they be happy right now? She has a feeling that maybe, they would.

Because, as much as she hates it, Zoe loved her. Not as a friend. Not like a sister.

She loved her more than anything in the world but now she's dead and it's too late.