Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Life With Derek.

Done

"So you're just going to walk away?" I say softly to his retreating back. I feel the hitch in my throat at the words even though deep down I know it's the right thing. But then again I was and sometimes am still, denial, personified. That one thing that everyone has. The falling of most men and women. Even when we know it, it's plain in our faces, our vision. The writings on the wall but I can't admit, even to myself that it's over.

There's a pause in his steps so I keep speaking, thinking maybe for once I'm getting through to him. "You always do this Derek. Can't you just once . . ." I pause, need and pain plainly heard in my voice, ". . . can't you just once stay for me . . . just love me?" A tear falls from my eye and burns a solitary line down my face. Angry and upset I brush it off quickly before he can see it. I am not going to let him see me cry again. My heart is wrenching in two and I'm powerless to stop it.

His footsteps halt at this. He gently rests down his suitcase and turns and looks at me. I glimpse at his face, at my husband of fifteen years and memories begin to flood through my brain. All the times that we had, the good and the bad.

I remember the first day I met him, on my eighteenth birthday. He was so handsome staring at me across the room. I remember our first kiss, our first dance, the first time I knew, without a doubt that I loved him, the moment that I knew he was the one that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We used to be the perfect couple . . . used to be. And for a moment I feel hope.

Then my mind flashes to all the bad times we had. They had encompassed the good. Our first fight, over . . . oh, what was it? What ice cream I didn't get him. I should have known then that there was something wrong, no man throws a tantrum over ice cream. Then when he started drinking all the time, temper flaring over everything, I didn't even have to do anything wrong. Oh, it did enough of that before but now it was just ten times worse. I remember the first time he hit me and I told everyone that I fell, still defending him to the finish. How stupid am I? And I remember the moment when I first looked in his eyes and saw, not the man that I married but some . . . stranger who despised me as much as I despised him.

I frantically search for a sign of the man, any sign, something familiar in him. A facial expression. A softening of his eye, a slight lift of the right side of his mouth. My smirk. It's all gone. There's nothing left. When I finally see that, then that hope I had dies, and goes right back to hell where it belongs.

He's not my Derek anymore and hasn't been in a long time. As much as I want him to be the man I need him to be. He just isn't. This person who's taken over him, this alien resident is all . . . . I choke on the thought . . . is all that's left now. The tears are falling in earnest now.

I continue to stare at his face, it seems to open, but then the shutter comes down over his eyes and he's the stranger again. I sigh and recall again the question I asked him. Could he just this once just love me? When his answer comes I realize I'm not even shocked anymore.

"Who could love you, Case? I know I don't. I don't know how I ever thought I did." With those parting words he bends over, picks up his suitcase and leaves. Never to be seen again.

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Note: Ok guys, yeah that was a bit depressing, but that was the mood I was in. Sooooo yeah, plz let me know what you think, your thoughts will be appreciated.