"Oubliette"
"An oubliette is a place you put people...to forget about them!" --Hoggle, from "Labyrinth"
It's not his fault she's trapped here, even though he was the one to toss her in. He didn't realize what he was doing.
He never does, when it comes to her.
He'll never see her as anything other than the girl next door, the one with flippy hair and a caffeine addiction and a journalistic drive that he doesn't quite understand. Anything more than that just--doesn't register with him.
So she's trapped in this prison she created, knowing it's hopeless, because he's the only one with the ladder and he doesn't even know he has it.
And it's not that she can't convince herself to stop wanting him, because even if she could she wouldn't be able to escape. Because--it's not how *she* feels that keeps the door closed. It's how *he* feels--or doesn't feel, really. She has his friendship, and in some ways that's worse than if he just didn't pay attention to her at all. Being with him, being his friend, is like seeing the light shining through the hole in the ceiling, and knowing the glimmer is all she'll get.
But then--one day there's noise from above, and before she can react someone else tumbles into her space, tossed there by Clark's obliviousness and friendship. And while the exit's still unreachable, maybe it doesn't matter so much anymore.
She doesn't have him; she'll never have him. But she's not alone anymore.
"An oubliette is a place you put people...to forget about them!" --Hoggle, from "Labyrinth"
It's not his fault she's trapped here, even though he was the one to toss her in. He didn't realize what he was doing.
He never does, when it comes to her.
He'll never see her as anything other than the girl next door, the one with flippy hair and a caffeine addiction and a journalistic drive that he doesn't quite understand. Anything more than that just--doesn't register with him.
So she's trapped in this prison she created, knowing it's hopeless, because he's the only one with the ladder and he doesn't even know he has it.
And it's not that she can't convince herself to stop wanting him, because even if she could she wouldn't be able to escape. Because--it's not how *she* feels that keeps the door closed. It's how *he* feels--or doesn't feel, really. She has his friendship, and in some ways that's worse than if he just didn't pay attention to her at all. Being with him, being his friend, is like seeing the light shining through the hole in the ceiling, and knowing the glimmer is all she'll get.
But then--one day there's noise from above, and before she can react someone else tumbles into her space, tossed there by Clark's obliviousness and friendship. And while the exit's still unreachable, maybe it doesn't matter so much anymore.
She doesn't have him; she'll never have him. But she's not alone anymore.