Disclaimer: I don't own the familiar characters, borrowed them to make them dance. I also do not own the lovely song that is sung by Cher.
A/N: Okay, so this idea came to me AGES ago, and I got around to writing it in the last couple of days. Actually, the last two days... Study does wonders for the muses'... So does reviews hint, hint.
If I could turn back time
If I could find a way
I'd take back those words
That hurt you and you'd stay
She would never forget that moment - the look on his face: disbelief, pain and a slight amount of rage. This man with whom she had spent so much time, who had been hurt so much, who had loved her, and most importantly, she herself had loved. She was still disgusted by what he had accused her of. She was disgusted by the fact that he thought she was capable of doing something like that. She still remembered the look on his face when he fell to the floor.
She remembered what it felt like to watch her husband get shot by a colleague. She remembered the aftermath, the accusations in court and the trial. She had been on the witness stand before, but never with such anger, such accusations, directed towards her. She left the courtroom and could have been found, if anyone had looked, crying in the bathroom after having lost the contents of her stomach in the hungry, ceramic bowl.
I don't know why I did the things I did
I don't know why I said the things I said
Pride's like a knife, it can cut deep inside
Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes
I didn't really mean to hurt you
I didn't wanna see you go
Then there was the Ben, the one who she hadn't loved, but had loved her. The one who had been with her through that awful court case, standing co-accused with adultery as a motive for the murder of her husband.
He had had his heart broken in the past, what between his ex-wife and fiancé. Her mind had raced when they could not find him, and the act he had thought himself capable of had shocked her to the core. She had again spent the aftermath crying, curling into a ball and wishing for the next day to never arrive.
If I could turn back time, if I could find a way
I'd take back those words that hurt you, and you'd stay
If I could reach the stars I'd give them all to you
Then you'd love me, love me like you used to do
Of course, while she was in this state of depressing thoughts, there was Michael. She had spent so many years in love with him, but had so little time with him before he was ripped from her, not unlike those who followed in her affections. However, the circumstances surrounding his removal from herself and her life were extremely different. His death was not unexpected like Brad's. The cancer that had finally taken him had been crueller to her than he himself had been. The tumour on his brain affected his memory of what they had been and how they had ended. He forgot the woman she found naked in his bed, in their bed when her shift had ended earlier than expected. The tumour made it worse, he was unable to remember any reason she might hate him, any reason they might have broken up. She had lived a lie; unable to bring herself to end what little happiness he had in his remaining months, staying with him out of the small amount of love she still retained for him and his peculiar ways. After his funeral, she ran into a colleague's arms for comfort, marrying him six months later.
I know I made you cry, but baby
If I could turn back time
My world was shattered, I was torn apart
Like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart
When you walked out that door I swore that I didn't care
But I lost everything darling then and there
Too strong to tell you I was sorry
Too proud to tell you I was wrong
If Suzie was honest with herself, she knew the distrust and heartbreaks from the men in her life began when she was six. As a small child, she was did what most small children of broken homes did and convinced herself that her parents separation and her mother's subsequent spiral downwards was her fault. Her mother never did anything to discourage her beliefs, some days unable to bring herself to leave her bed and her brothers were too wrapped in their world like boys are, to notice. When, one day, she arrived home, her mother asleep and unable to be woken, she received some of the first affection in her few years from the policewoman who answered her 000 call, and vowed that when she was bigger that she'd do the same thing for another little girl.
It didn't matter if her dad came back, after finding his wife had entered rehab for the alcohol problem that had driven him away from his daughter and three sons. It didn't matter that he came back, and that life became the same as it was before. The damage was done.
I know that I was blind, and darling
If I could turn back time
If I could turn back time, oh baby
I didn't really mean to hurt you
I didn't wanna see you go
I know I made you cry, and ooh
And Jonesy… there was a disaster waiting to happen, when she looked back at it. She should have realised by now that relationships at work and home just don't work out. Sure, he was cute, and there was definitely chemistry. They'd had fun and enjoyed life while it lasted. However, there were too many hurdles in their way to overcome. Their careers, her past and the problems that arose with that, his want and need for a family, her fears of becoming her mother… and his inability to let HER go.
If I could turn back time, if I could find a way
I'd take back those words that hurt you,
If I could reach the stars I'd give them all to you
Then you'd love me, love me like you used to do
She had brought up Tess in an argument after too much work, too little "us time" and way too much anger levelled against the bastard of the week. She had brought up the fact that he stilled loved her, in some small part of his heart. She brought up the tattoo above his heart with his goddaughter's name on it. He stood there, taking it all, not saying a word, which aggravated her even more. She accused him of sleeping with the other blonde when he last visited them on his day off.
She watched, finally silent, as he quietly, too quietly and slowly, and yet way too fast, packed himself a bag out of his share of the dresser's draw, and announce he was going to PJ's. He didn't answer her question about how long he'd be, and that scared her. Never, in all their arguments, had he failed to tell her how long he'd be, or when she'd next see him. Mind you, she'd never accused him of adultery before.
If I could turn back time
Then maybe, baby, maybe you'd stay
If I could reach the stars
I'd give them all to you
If I could Turn Back Time
Maybe if she hadn't said it, he wouldn't have gone running to Tess. Maybe, if she had gone to the gym and taken her anger out on an inanimate object rather than her boyfriend, he might not have left her alone. Maybe, if she hadn't been afraid of becoming her mother, she wouldn't be watching him stand at the altar, and accept Tess as his wife, embracing the readymade family, accepting his goddaughter as his own flesh and blood. Maybe if she hadn't said what she had, she would be the one next to him.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was just kidding herself. She'd never know. Because, with one small misjudgement, she had lost yet another important man in her life and now she would regret it for the rest of her life.
A/N: That's my part of the deal people, now off you go and review and keep me a happy little bunny who will attempt to write out PJ in a way that goes against all my beliefs.