Hi everyone. This little drabble-esque thing was partially inspiried by events that have happened recently, so I hope you enjoy it. Please review, even if it's to tell me you hate me.


She sits alone at her kitchen table, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Gazing silently out the dark windows, she wonders how her life could have gotten to this point. Life wasn't supposed to be this messy and complicated, she thought. Her job was already complicated and messy; her life wasn't supposed to be too. She supposed she had it coming to her. She was the profiler, after all. She had known for a long time. She just didn't want to acknowledge it, because that made it real.

She didn't know what to do. She was the rational one, the one with all the answers. She was the one people turned to when they were at a dead end, and now look where she was. She always despised being in the middle of things. Being in the middle meant you had to take sides, and that meant hurting someone. She never meant to hurt them.

A horn blared outside, momentarily distracting her from her thoughts. She glanced down at her cooling beverage solemnly, suddenly not in the mood for hot chocolate anymore. She dumped the drink into the sink and sprawled on her couch, searching for the remote. The TV flickered to life, displaying one of her favorite shows, but she found she could only focus on the love triangle in the story.

She liked Oscar, she really did. But Mal... She spent the majority of her time with him, and there was a bond there that was just about unbreakable.

She could have gone with either one of them tonight. Mal had invited her to go with him and Ken to the Drunk Tank, Oscar had invited her to go with him to a dinner party. But she was alone tonight. She had turned both of them down, each with the same excuse, "I'm sorry, I have a lot of work I need to catch up on." In reality, she didn't feel as if she could face either one of them tonight. It was still too raw, too painful to deal with.

She had heard what Mal said. Oscar had heard it, too. She had been dying, but she heard his words loud and clear. He had said that she was worth more than a lifetime in jail. She was worth everything. He'd pretended to kill a man, just to save her life.

Oscar understood her. He understood that unthinkable things had happened to her, and that she might not be ready to deal with some of them yet.

But then again, Mal understood her on a different level. He knew all her secrets and knew just which buttons to push to make her smile on her worst days.

Oscar understood the pressure that was put on her because of her job. He knew the frustrations she had when a suspect got away, or when they couldn't catch someone on time. He didn't try to stop it; he merely accepted it as it was and helped her through it.

But then again, Mal shared those pressures. He was her partner, after all.

She knew she wouldn't be able to choose if it came down to it. If they forced her to make a choice, one or the other, she wouldn't choose either. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt someone, and if she chose one over the other, she knew she would be breaking someone's heart. She cared too much about both of them to do that.

With an annoyed snort, she turned the TV off, threw the remote on the couch and stormed into her bedroom. It was much too early to be going to bed, but she figured maybe if she laid down it would help slow her thoughts.

After all, matters of the heart couldn't be resolved through thinking.