Author's Note: So it's been a while. A long, long while. And hopefully, the next thing won't be so long in coming. But who knows? My ability to distract myself is really rather astounding. (Wow, I'm rusty at author's notes. How pathetic is that?) Someone hand me a brownie. (I think it's the feeling that the audience here has probably changed in the last...nine months? Wow, I could've had a baby.) Except...no. So, yeah. Probably not the same...crowd I was used to. To which I was accustomed, excuse me. (Grammar, you whore.) Anyway, here's hoping it doesn't take another nine months for me to wave my little Canadian flag again. And just to warn you, this is...kind of a brain blab. Not a whole lot going on here. But hopefully actual substance will find me soon.

So it's short. Really short. But...something.

Even though I know she - like myself - has kind of...wandered from fic, hugs to WOATCAPIITON, m'love. You keep me sane. And love to Allison; you keep me procrastinating.

And I think I can speak for both myself and WOAT, when I say: Stab.The.Twelvies.

Inertia

She usually slept with her back to him. But sometimes, she would turn in her sleep, and sometimes, he was awake to see it. Now was one of those times.

He listened to the slow, steady breathing, examined the features softened by shadow, felt the urge to brush away the strands of dark hair that had rested against her cheek, and resisted.

Her sleep was peaceful, her face unusually relaxed, but not content. No, she was not contented, and he was once more aware of the space between them. Her left hand rested beside her face, careful to not cross the line they'd drawn between them in invisible chalk. It seemed it would be easy, he thought, to brush it away, to wipe away the dusty drawing, to reach out and hold the woman he called his wife.

A light strip of paler skin encircled her fourth finger. The ring, he knew, that had protected that narrow band from the sun was on her nightstand, the one that matched his. Maybe she would remember to put it back on in the morning. She usually did. So did he.

He watched as the pale light of the slowly approaching morning weakly made its way in, washing her skin with its gentle radiance. She was a beautiful woman. That was something he had never doubted. And somehow, the light made her look younger, reminding him of a time long past. When they were different people in a different situation.

Their friends had been so sure they would be happy; heck, they had been so sure they'd be happy. That what they shared would last.

They were all wrong.

"I can't deal with this right now."

"Well, you're going to have to deal with it sometime! You can't just pretend it didn't happen, that she didn't happen. You can't run away from this."

"I'm not. I would never – could never pretend she didn't exist. Do you think I could? Do you think I can ever forget? That I would want to? But I can't deal with this here, with you. Because every time I look at you, I see her. I see her, and I see everything I lost."

It wasn't like they'd just sat back and let it die. It wasn't like they'd just let it fade, wither until there was nothing left. No. They'd both tried, so hard, desperate to save it, save them.

Too-bright smiles, forced joviality, meaningless chit-chat that expressed nothing of everything they wanted to say, but couldn't. They'd grasped for what was lost, desperate to not lose the last thing they shared.

It was no use.

In the end, there hadn't been any screaming. They were done with the fights, the accusations, the anger. That was over. Instead, they hovered around each other, careful to keep a distance. And in that distance, something died.

He wondered if it was always like this. If once the hurt, and the pain, and the guilt passed, it was like this for everyone. Somehow, he doubted it. The two of them had always been a little different.

How had they gotten here? Silent, co-existing, ghosts in each other's world. When had kisses become routine, caresses half-hearted, when had sex become...just sex?

And then he wondered if he would regret it. If one day, he would regret everything that had happened, everything that had ended. Would he wish that they'd done something differently? Would he wish for what they had?

Only one answer came easily. And that was because he was already wishing for that lost yesterday, for the time when they were happy. Frozen in his bed, unable to bring himself to reach for her, tormented in the stillness…he wanted it to last. He wanted the raw intensity, the pure emotion, to come back into her eyes when he made love to her. Instead he had...this. An echo of the woman he fell in love with.

He wanted to be in love with her again.

"I'm tired of this."

"Of what?"

"This. All of it. I'm tired of waiting for something that won't happen, for us to become something we're not anymore. Whatever went wrong with us can't be fixed, and I'm sick of pretending it can."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying it's over. It's over, okay? Can't you see that?"

He thought of their daughter. The little girl they both dreamed of every night, the child they had lost. Her name went unspoken between them, and he wondered if he had dared to voice it, had he said something, had she let him, if they would still be where they were now. Her disappearance, her mystery that tormented them both, heralded the beginning of their end. He wondered if she blamed him.

So entrapped by his own thoughts, he didn't notice her stirring until her eyes met his. They, as had become their custom, said nothing.

She wondered how long he'd been awake. How long he'd been watching her. If he watched her as often as she watched him. She wondered when she had fallen out of love with him, and he with her. Wondered if she could make herself feel that way again, make him love her that way again. Wondered if she even wanted to try.

They lay in silence, wondering if they could have done something. If this was fated to happen, or if they had just fucked up. If he had only done more and demanded less – if she had only shared more and taken less –

None of it mattered.

There had been a time when love fused them both, blurring the line between them, until they weren't sure where one began and the other ended. A harsh, rough blade divided them again, but this time, they weren't sure they could ever be the same people they were before. They had given too much, taken too much, and that could not be undone.

They lay there, violently, irrevocably, chaotically split, leaving behind the pieces of a broken heart, unable to do anything but stare at each other numbly.

It was over. And they wondered if it would ever stop hurting.

Reviews feed my soul.