AN: Finally it's longer than 400 words!
Happy endings sell a lot of books and boy do I have my dreams for happy endings on GH. (Endings happen on soaps regardless of how long it airs.) I also know that happy endings only occur when the story ends at a happy moment. If the characters move beyond that point (either on or off screen), they may still be 'happy' but I bet some sadness and other feelings come along for the ride. Anyway, you can't have an end without a beginning and if an end isn't really defined, who's to say where an individual story begins.
Everything begins with the first thought. Sometimes we aren't aware of the moment of creation. If we are fortunate, we will find awareness upon reflection, or perhaps not; but does the beginning really matter, or is what matters the content of the moments in between beginning and end?
Ewen puts down the case file he just finished and wonders where the beginning was for him. Many would say the file that brought Elizabeth to his attention was the beginning. Perhaps, but he believes that was just a moment in another story.
Elizabeth was nothing more than a one dimensional picture and some words in a vanilla file folder similar to the one he just set aside. He hadn't met her, she wasn't real to him. At the time he didn't think about her much beyond not believing her to be the succubus nor the harpy the file intimated her to be.
He was surprised the first time he held her. The water was his domain and fishing her diminutive and limp body from that cold realm was no hardship for him. He thought only to rescue her, to bring the breath of life back into her chest, but then he sees her face and it's her. The woman in the file. No longer was she ink on a flat page but a real flesh and blood woman, with a fluttering and dying pulse.
Her lips were a shimmering blue, a color he loves, but not on her. He breaths into her, warming her, and brings her back from the abyss, back into life. In that moment she was not part of a plan. She was just a woman who needed his help. Was that the beginning?
She became real to him then but he didn't know her. He was concerned for her but he could still push the concern aside. Was it at Shadybrook?
Yes, perhaps it was. He told himself that listening to her was just part of the plan, part of being her therapist but looking back he knows better. She was so shy, standing outside his doorway, to shy to be the woman described in the file. She was to hard on herself, to unforgiving of her faults. There was strength in her too.
He remembers the mischievous look of guilt on her face when he caught her attempting to look at his painting. Perhaps that was the beginning. He found himself seeking her out after that, more than was necessary for the plan. He wanted to see her smile. Her smile shines through her eyes and is a joy to see.
Seeing her around the hospital he never thinks of the plan, he just thinks of her. The plan never called for him to make her happy, to help her see how wonderful she is. It didn't call for him seeing her as more than a means to an end. She was never meant to be harmed. He protects the innocent as much as possible but sometimes the innocent play a part in righting a wrong.
She stepped towards him in the supply closet and spoke about wanting to be in the present, not wanting to miss what was right in front of her. He wanted to close the gap between them but he couldn't interrupt her moment of self-discovery. Not then, but he also couldn't resist checking on her later.
Only children have the luxury of living in a black and white world. Adults who have seen life and death are left with a palette of gray. There are no easy answers, sometimes people start things without realizing what they could find along the way. Ewen hopes that what matters to Elizabeth about their story is not the beginning but the moments in between.