Ally McBeal – The Final Dance

He was the love of her life

He was her first love, he was the love of her life, he was her entire world. He was Billy Thomas, and when he collapsed in the middle of the most beautiful love confession Ally could ever have imagined, she lost a piece of her heart, she lost a piece of the girl Billy met and fell in love with, a piece of the woman who held him as he passed away.

The woman who stood in front of their colleagues and announced his passing was not the woman Bily fell love with, because that woman died with him. The woman who walked away from his cold body was forever changed because of his loss, and what a loss it was.

She lied to Georgia, and a piece of the new her dissolved. Billy had died confessing his love to Ally, his first love, not Georgia, his ex–wife, but the Ally who wouldn't have comforted her grieving friend was no longer around, and she spilled the lie with ease, because she also knew Billy had had love for Georgia still, and would have liked to see her smile, even because of something so far from the truth.

Everyone who ever loved Billy mourned his passing, and some gently tried to get Ally to open up to them, to cry, however she couldn't. Not cry, that she did for days on end, but she couldn't tell anyone that Billy died telling her how much he loved her and it hurt, it hurt, it hurt–

"I love you" – she whispered as his casket was lowered, as his entire family cried around her, as they came and spoke to her, the woman they knew all her life, the woman Billy had, as they put it, allowed to walk away from him (even if he had been the one to leave her – then and now). She held her head high and she walked away even as it killed her just a little bit more.

Billy was gone, inside a box to just rot away, his beautiful eyes, his handsome smile, his gentle caresses, his reassuring voice, it was all gone, and for the first time in a long time, maybe even her entire existence, Ally felt completely alone in the world. It suddenly felt cold and unsafe, like a little bit of the Sun had ran away with Billy, like the wind cut a little bit deeper into her skin, like the rain couldn't quite wash away her tears anymore.

If there was a God, Ally could no longer trust him. How could Billy die such a lonely death, in a courtroom surrounded by strangers and with only Ally by his side? No matter the love, the bond they shared, she would've wished for him to go with his friends and family by him, telling him how much they cared about him and would miss him, that was what Billy deserved and what he was denied, so Ally, sweet, naïve, silly Ally closed a good portion of her heart to God. Billy would have hated it, he would have frowned in disappointment, but now he was absolutely gone, he was gone and buried and becoming nothing but bones, so what did he know?

John was gentle about it, and Ally realized she was at the anger stage. She wondered where the other stages went, and when Acceptance would finally come, or maybe it already had. Billy was dead, she was still alive somehow, for some reason, and she–

None of it was fair, he was the boy who loved her, he was the man who left her, he was the man who danced with her and made her feel like it was possible to love someone to death. He had loved her to death. Tumor or no tumor, she had that to sleep on every night.

Life... Went on. She met, dated, screwed and fell in love with other men, men who didn't know all of her childhood dreams and fears and secrets, men who would never declare themselves like he would have (like he did). Even Larry, perfectly perfect Larry, who walked away one day and never came back (and he didn't even have the excuse of dying on her).

Yeah, she was stuck in anger over Billy, so what. She loved him, he died loving her, what good did that do to him, to her, to anyone?

Sometimes, she still looked at his photograph before bed and cried herself to sleep, wondering what paths they would have taken if he hadn't left, would they have walked back to each other? Would it have been possible for them to dance back into falling in love? Love as they loved each other, then, now, forever, it wasn't passionate, in love, love, even Ally could recognize it, but maybe– Maybe–

She tired of feeling empty and angry and regretful and wishful for a future that would never be, but she didn't know whether she'd ever stop. She loved Billy, always had, always would. Maybe this was what truly remained of him, his first love (final love) in eternal mourning. He would have scoffed at her, told her to stop being so foolish, but. Billy wasn't here, the smile she sometimes saw in strange men, the voice she heard in her nightmares wasn't his because he was gone, it was all gone the moment he closed his eyes for the last time.

Billy was dead and she wasn't. It wouldn't ever be okay, it wouldn't ever be forgotten, but maybe one day, she would finally be able to accept it.