I wrote this while waiting for someone in the car. So yeah, it's short. And probably questionable... Set after the winter finale, but ignoring all previews for what will actually happen when the show returns.

Heavy to Bear

By Eileen Blazer

December 2012

I love her.

I can admit that now. I tried to avoid that particular truth, but the futility of it was an ache stacked on a thousand others, and the sight of her blood seeping out onto my arms as I pulled her from the wreckage dragged it out me - and I can't put it back.

Yes: I love her.

But sometimes, the weight of her crushes me.

No, not her physical weight (of course). She's nothing, in my arms, but small and soft and warm. At times, I want to wrap her around me like a scarf or a favorite coat, because she blunts the cold reality of my life.

No, I'm talking about the weight of her need and want and expectation.

Here is the problem: her lips assure me that I am just a man, despite it all, but her eyes betray that lie. They hold a greater hope, the hope that I am more than that, that I am not just human, but superhuman. That I can tame the beast in her, the one made up of her insatiable desire to know why.

Why her mother died, why she lived, why the hurt still pounds in her head and her heart, why she feels like she's standing still and the rest of the world is spinning by. Why, why, why. If I had the answers, I would give them to her, but I don't, and when she looks at me so expectantly, so unexpectedly bright and hopeful and happy, I strain.

I'm trying to be what she wants, but it feels like I'm blowing smoke and calling it fire. Like I'm playing a game of darts, throwing out all the truths I can think of in hopes of a bullseye.

I love her, and I think she loves me, though we have never confessed it out loud. But if I'm right, its a hard love - not just hard to admit, but hard to keep and sustain, with the world pressing in like compacting walls, and Catherine holding my hand like she's holding the key to a lock she's been trying to pick for years.

She's here, today, pouring over my files with JT, absently pressing a hand against the bandages still wrapped around her tiny frame, and after a moment, she looks up from the papers to grin at me.

I smile.

I strain.

"Catherine," I say. "You've been at this for forever. Why don't we let it go, at least for now." Now, and tomorrow, and as long as we can. I extend my hand to help her stand and she looks hesitant and I know - I know - that if we don't find a way to move on, and live for this moment and put aside all the terror of our combined yesterdays, there will be a day when I hold out my heart the same way and she will hesitate then, not to let go, but to hold on.

When she will see all my inadequacies as I see them daily.

I pull her up before she can voice a protest and add, "Please."