A/N: written for foibles_fables' prompt on livejournal's ga_angst_battle community - Mark, snowball.
When you were a kid, you sometimes made snowballs by yourself. There was no one to have a snowball fight with (although that one time you got the neighbor's pet Chihuahua on the ass almost made up for it), but the snow out in your parents' backyard was too good to resist.
Later there was Derek, of course, and other kids from school. Later still, there was Addison, expensive black faux-fur hatted and suede-gloved, not wanting to make snowballs but doing it anyway and grudgingly having fun.
But underneath it all, there was the memory of standing out in your parents' yard, futile after the third hurling of packed snow against some inanimate tree or fencepost (disappointingly, ChiChi learned to avoid you) and so lonely it felt as though you'd swallowed the cold air right down into your soul.
It's still there, depressingly appropriate after thirty-four years as you stride out into your backyard and take up a fistful of snow. (The yard is more Alaska right now than Montana, but either works for the feeling of isolation that's creeping over you.) It's like nothing has changed. From an angry, hurt six-year-old to a forty-year-old surgeon who kids himself he buried all of that years ago, it's still just you and a handful of crystalline H2O.
Your bare hands are starting to ache from the cold lump of near-ice they're grasping and you transfer the snowball to your right hand, stowing your left in your pocket, and tighten your grip, building up to a curveball. The whispered ghost of a commentary follows your pitch (your first baseball games were attempted by yourself too, and the commentator's voice made its way from the TV you watched too much of to your head and never quite left when you have anything remotely like a ball in your hand). It's a pretty nice pitch – lots of topspin, good drop. You've still got it, you guess.
Snowball dispatched, imaginary strike delivered, you stuff your exposed hand into your right pocket and, as it thaws out, stand looking out over the expanse of pale gray sky and white ground.
You breathe in, the air sharp and clean inside your throat and lungs; breathe out a visible stream of warmth. It's good here. This house you bought with the huge backyard. It's good.
It's good, but it could be better. You just never seemed to get the hang of how that works and this life you've finally made for yourself is customized to fit your limitations. You were well trained in isolation; the art of not-loving kept you sane when it mattered. Now loving always seems to mean forgetting you exist, and trying to remember ends up hurting someone. It's a Catch-22 you're better off dealing with alone.
Except sometimes (and today is one of those days), you wish you had someone; someone who, just for the hell of it, would play in the snow with you; someone who, afterwards, would go back inside your house with you and love you enough that you couldn't find an excuse to push her away.