The Mechanics of Being a Hero.

By: Em

Betaed: yup, ta Izzie!

Summary: She turns to face him slowly, her eyes wide and unsure, breath dusted with the scent of wine. He doesn't move when she cups his cheek with her spare hand and what could have been falls to pieces in her eyes.

A/N: Not my normal, but then, writing is fun when it's whacked out :)

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003. a place between sleep and awake;
end of innocence, unending masquerade

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and Sweden ends.

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Her thoughts are noise and everything's ringing, ringing in her memories. It's a jumble and confusing and all she knows is the steady beat of her heart and the sharp rushes of breath dancing in the early morning air.

The walking machine was a trap and all she needs is freedom and the scent of death to stop haunting her. She sees it in her dreams and it's an elegant child with eyes that are black for want of innocence.

She feels the bite of gravel in the jolt in her knees and the heat in her shoes and she thinks friction and desperation and one last goodbye.

She stops at the lights and her life is just there in front of her for a moment. It's her everything and nothing and for one second living almost resembles simple. It passes though, like all things must.

She smiles, darkly, and crosses when the light turns to amber.

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there's no answer.

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He is perched carefully on the armrest of her couch, staring curiously at someone he doesn't remember. It's beyond late, with the promise of tomorrow creeping and curling in the sky.

Her left hand is clenched tightly in a fist and she's hugging her knees to her chest and just looking at it. He sighs and rubs a hand over his face, stubble scraping his fingers.

He remembers a call, all silence except for a slow breath and the clinking of glass. There was a shade of indulgence in his voice when he murmured a husky: I'll be there in ten.

It was a lie, but a sum and an excuse are all he thinks in and traffic was bad for five am.

She spreads her hand open, fingers stretched out, and whispers quietly: 'This is my gun.'

He stares curiously at her hand, smooth and pale and empty. He shifts into motion until he is towering above her, before sliding till they are shoulder to shoulder in a parody of friendship, sprawled on the ground.

'Alright Allison,' he returns as he dances his fingers along her palm.

She turns to face him slowly, her eyes wide and unsure, breath dusted with the scent of wine. He doesn't move when she cups his cheek with her spare hand and what could have been falls to pieces in her eyes.

Instead he ends up with a numb arm and Allison Cameron asleep on his shoulder.

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the light shatters.

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She's sitting on Agatha McMillan's gravestone, legs spread a little for balance's sake, when he finds her. She's fingering a white rose with one two three holes in her fingers from the thorns.

He stands next to her, head tilted as if to say: what's this then? She pulls at her green dress that's hitched up a little, heat tingling in her cheeks. She tugs the petals off, one by one; it's now or later singing in her mind instead of loves me loves me not and that feels like some sort of treachery.

'I went to a wedding today,' she tells him, tracing a blur of white as it glides to the ground.

He nods self-importantly but doesn't speak. They linger curiously on the intimacy in this, there's something new to the angle of their profiles. Finally he pushes a curl of her hair from her shoulder, and her neck prickles with exposure.

'You have a hickey,' he informs her, ghosting a fingeralong the graceful curve.

'Last night,' she informs him, and her safe distance is broken in pieces at her feet with the petals.

He breathes and it might have been a laugh or a sigh but she doesn'tmove when he leaves.

'Later' is last and lying on the ground.

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an orphan cries.

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He walks in to find tears clinging to her lashes and thecredits for The Notebook rolling up her T.V. screen. 'Bad day at work' twists with a silent awkwardness betweenthem as he helps himself to her beer.

'I locked the door,' she murmurs tiredly.

He shrugs and flicks a bent bobby pin at her. They return their attention to the screen. 'Starring Ryan Gosling,' it informs them. Two beers are finished before 'menu selection' paints the television.

'I hate that movie,' he tells her casually.

She twitches a smile at him mechanically, just a motion with no feeling. He brushes a hand across her lips carefully.

It's his turn for gentle rejection.

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.fin.

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