A/N: So I was watching the episode Gingerbread today and Jim Taggart's last line inspired this little number. Be warned it's much more serious than my last couple of offerings. Hope you like :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Fairytales
"Michael, life isn't always a fairytale"
Jim Taggart's words had come back to haunt him. He had been right, life wasn't always a fairytale but sometimes it came so close it was scary.
The first time he'd heard those words she had been there to support him; placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as they walked away from Taggart, who had been almost enjoying his heartbreak.
Looking back on it now he wondered whether Taggart had known all along that this was the way things would turn out. That he would eventually get over it and learn to appreciate the woman who had always been there for him, right from the moment she walked into his life.
Perhaps appreciate was the wrong word, he'd always appreciated her. Appreciated the way she could make him smile, even when he didn't want to; her dry sense of humour that could even crack a smile from Taggart himself; her determination and compassion. But mostly he had appreciated her willingness to stick up for him, no matter how much of an idiot he may have been. She always gave him advice but still let him make his own decisions and she never said 'I told you so,' even when she had good reason.
It had taken him a long time to realise just what she meant to him, that he loved her. But she had been patient; he'd had no idea that she'd been waiting so long for him to make a move.
But she had waited and then she had been his.
She'd been his everything: his best friend, his wife, his lover, the mother of his children; been his whole world.
And now she was gone.
In real life fairytales don't last forever and his had been no different. But that didn't make her loss any easier to bear.
Blinking back his tears he read the inscription one last time:
In loving memory of Jackie Jardine
Beloved wife and mother
Cherished friend
"If love could save, thou wouldst not have died"
"Thank you for the memories, Jackie," he whispered, "I love you," he added before turning and slowly walking away.