A/N: So I just wrote this and, I'm hoping you'll like it :-) Is longer than most of the things I've written lately and of course HUGE thanks go to Annie, who is an awesome beta and person. And to everyone else, who knows who they are. Oh and review? Because then I'll love you always. :-D ::bats eyelashes::

A beginning…

In every relationship in life, there's a flaw. Every relationship in life should have a flaw.  Whether it's the relationship between newlyweds, an elderly couple or between mother and daughter, there's always a flaw. A flaw which keeps every relationship we have from being perfect. Maybe it's God, or some higher being telling us that there's no such thing as a 'perfect relationship', but it's this imperfection which can make or break the relationship. Some flaws are easier to put to the back of your mind, but it'll always be there, lingering.

So many of us spend all our life searching, sometimes frantically, for this perfect relationship, which in all reality, doesn't exist. It's all too easy to jump ship at the slightest hint of something going wrong, not only is it easy, it's natural. When put into words, it seems easy to comprehend that we are searching for something which doesn't exist, but it is something so easily forgotten during long nights spent at home, alone, waiting for that knight in shining silver armour to come and find us.

See it starts with two people, who love each other. It always starts like that, and then it deteriorates. There isn't any choice in the matter, it always will, but it's after that when we get to make a choice. Do we give up on what we had? Or do we try again? It's easier to give up, so many of us do. It's rare to find two people that really want to try and pick up the pieces of what's left, but when they do, it's then that you know that they've got something special. It's not what you have to start that counts, it's what you have when it all ends.

A middle…

Abigail Lockhart, usually just called Abby. Or "Hey, you over there." Strong, independent young woman, been broken too many times to count and so she built up walls around her to stop love breaking through and surrounding her heart again. In her opinion true love didn't exist, and so she resisted love, resisted caring for so long that it became a routine. Then Luka came along and she realised that it was easy and completely possible to have a relationship without having to reach into her heart. It would be a lie if she said that she didn't care about him in any way, but it was more like the care she would give to a patient. It was care, but it wasn't love.

She considered letting the walls crumble around her many times. Yet every time something stopped her, something unexplainable stopped her from letting him into her heart. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was her being "Abby", but she found herself unable to let him in, and that was that. That was the flaw, the fatal flaw. She refused to let him into her heart, the timing was wrong and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't love him. So when everything fell apart, she had no will to try to build it up again because she knew it was wrong. It didn't fit.

It was while she was trying so hard to resist Luka's charm that he found his way in. He did it so sneakily that she didn't realise that he'd made his way into her heart until it was too late. Until he'd slowly taken apart that wall, brick by brick. He did it through friendship, and without her consent, he made her fall in love with him. For once in her life she felt almost comfortable, but Abby being "Abby", she expected something to go wrong. No one can be happy for too long something bad has to come along to ruin it all and it did, her family. What went wrong wasn't that she had problems with her family, but that she didn't know how to handle them. She didn't know how to handle them without leaving her newfound happiness behind her, and with it him. John.

John Carter, but again his name was shortened to 'Carter'. An endearing nickname, because John seemed too "familiar". His story was all too similar to hers, a past containing a tangled mess of broken relationships and shattered dreams. He didn't have to bother about building walls up around him, because no one got anywhere near close enough to him. There were the odd, perhaps lucky few, who came close to his heart. The odd pretty blonde who managed to find her way to his heart in some way.  They came close, but none managed to capture it.

Then there was Lucy. A pretty blonde who he almost fell in love with. Almost, but not completely. Her time on earth was too short-lived by any means and around that time someone caught her eye. It would be an understatement to say that she "wasn't his type." She was pretty, brunette and…different. Independent it could be said and he slowly fell in love with her whilst they became steady friends. He was there for her until he couldn't be any more, until he couldn't control the situation they were in. So he kissed her. And it began.

It could have been perfect, but as the situation between Abby and her family worsened, he began to feel somewhat neglected. He wondered if that made him selfish, that he began to hate her for not being there for him the way he was. That he somehow expected back in return all that he'd given her. Perhaps it did make him selfish, maybe it made his a worse person, but above all it made him human.

So began the falling apart of something that was once beautiful. And they let it fall. They both did, they both let the other fall further and further away out of reach, until he left. He went away and wasn't going to tell her. That just about sealed it for her, in her opinion it was over and as she fell into denial she told herself that she hadn't loved him anyway, over and over until she almost began to believe it herself. Until one day she surveyed the wreckage to scout what was left, and it surprised her when there was more than she could ever have imagined. If you looked closely, what was left could be built up again, and so she resolved to try. Nothing bad ever came of trying, apart from heartbreak and failure, but there was something different about Abby. She had nothing left to lose.

***

An End…

Loneliness is something that no one can quite put their finger on. Something that can't be put into words, yet so many try to. It's that feeling you get when everyone around you seems to leave and you're left with a sinking feeling in your stomach and a pain somewhere around your heart because you're scared. Scared that you'll be immersed in solitude for your whole life, that is, until you die, cold and alone. Loneliness comes hand in hand with want, and unfulfilled wishes for someone to share your time with. Someone who understands, someone who cares.

So what should we do? Tell the little girl dreaming of her prince that he doesn't exist? That everything she sees on television or reads about in books is a clever act of fiction? No, she'll find out on her own, in her own time. Perfection? Well it's boring; every relationship in life needs a flaw, to keep it on its feet, to keep it standing from all the pain it will surely endure. Because this flaw is what allows us to get back up again when we fall down, and although it may send us running when first seen, when acknowledged it helps to build something new, something healthy, something real.