Author's Note: This story is told from Lynette's POV on Desperate Housewives' season finale. There's major spoilers in it, so, in case you didn't watch it, I suggest you to stop reading!

LEAVING

Part One
Him

A suitcase.

Funny how such an habitual and innocuous object, that you see everyday while opening the closet or cleaning under your bed, could provoke you such an intense emotion.

"You want me to unpack it for you?" I ask, as I watch him placing it beside the door.

"No, that's ok" he nods in response, then turns briefly towards it. "Just...leave it."

I lower my stare, eyeing it curiously. "What are you doing?"

Seriously. What is he doing?

He looks at me, mouth agape and eyebrows raised, looking just like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar. He obviously has no idea how to respond. Or maybe he does, and that is the real problem.

"Never mind" he cuts short, heading downstairs.

I look at suitcase again, immediately resolving to follow him suit.
He's not going to get away with that.

"What do you mean 'never mind'? Why are you keeping your suitcase packed?" I ask bewildered.

And he finally turns around, while saying, matter-of-factly, "The company has an appartment near the office."

My jaw drops.

"And I think I should move in there for a while" he keeps on, and I can feel my heartbeat thumphing in my ears, deafening me.

"No. NO Tom!" I voice my thoughts, shaking my head and crossing my arms in denial.

"You don't think some time apart would do us good?" he says resolutely.

"Time apart? Come on, we both know what that means! It means if you walk out that door you're never gonna come back in!"

"You don't know that!"

"We just had a three hour co-ride and didn't say a single word, I do know that!"

But I'm not given the chance to hear his answer, because that moment, we're both interrupted by a nagging, pesky knock on the door.

"Guess who's just moved back on the lane?" says Susan in an exuberant gush.

"Oooh" Now, I love Susan. I swear I do. But sometimes, her bad timing just gets at me beyond belief. "Oooh!" I repeat, trying to sound more convincing as I give her a quick hug. "My God that's so great I'm so happy for you I'm just- right in the middle of something but I- I'm gonna call you alright? Yay!" I blurt out, closing the door in front of her face.
I'll think about how to apologize later, but right now, my mind is completely elsewhere.

"So what are you saying, you're done...trying to work things out" I state, incredulous.

"We've been trying" he answers, tiredly. He's starting to have enough of this conversation, I can perfectly tell. That is why I have no intention to drop it. I can't surrender like this!

"We can't. Give. Up. We have to keep fighting! For this! Fighting to save our family!"

"Are we fighting to save it or we're just fighting?"

I know he's right. Perfectly so. But I just can't bring myself to accept it. "It happens! We jus-"

"Lynette" he interrupts abruptly. "Leave the suitcase where it is."

Why on earth do you need a suitcase, Tom? Why do you want that damn thing instead of me? I wanted to scream, banging my fists against his chest. But then I see his eyes. His resolved, firm eyes. He's made his mind up: he's giving up. He's giving us up. So I just watch him leave, helplessly. And for the first time in our life together, I can't hope to talk some sense into him, nor to impose and force him to do what I think is best.
Because, honestly, I don't know either.

I walk out of the bathroom after getting ready for Susan's progressive dinner, and I freeze: it's not there.

It's not. There.

I swear I wanted that goddamned piece of fabric to disappear the instant I saw it. But not that way. Not that way.
So, this is it. He left me. After 20 years of marriage, Tom had...I can't bring myself to utter that word. I can't even think that word. And then, my thought goes immidiately to the kids. Preston, Porter. Well, they're already grown up...in some way, at least. They'll get over it at some point. But what about...Parker. Gosh, Parker! He's just a teen! And knowing how sensible he is...how is he going to take it? And Penny? And Paige? Are they going to grow up without a father? I can't think about it. I really can't.

I enter Renée's house quietly, everybody's already there, hoping no one to notice me yet. Or rather, not to notice who's not with me.

"Hi" I approach Susan and Gaby.

"Hey!" she cheers with a smile. "Where's Tom?"

There you go.

"Um...I don't think he can make it, he's got some work he has to do..." I shrug, hoping they'd buy my lousy excuse. That's the best I can come up with right now, and besides, it might not be an excuse at all. He would probably be working right now. He always works, lately.

"Same with Carlos" she symphatizes. "That's the bad thing about being married to rich guys. The good thing, we're rich!" Same, old, smug Gaby. I'm sorry, my face is already soaring for all the smiles I had to force till now. I can't go on like this all night long.

She leaves, and now it seems Susan has something to say. "You might wanna talk to Penny, she was overwatching MJ today and she seemed a little upset."

"Oh, about what?"

"Well, I don't know if you and Tom had a fight but...she has it in her head that you guys are splitting up!" a disbelieving smile crosses her features at the end of the sentence, as the opposite reaction is probably taking form on mine. She knows. She knows! How could I let that happen?

"Oh my God..."

"No no. No 'oh my God'. I told her not to worry, I told her nothing was ever gonna happen to you two". Now it's me she's saying 'not to worry' to. But she doesn't know she's far away from the truth, and I can't bring myself to meet her reassuring eyes anymore, so I lower mine, defeated. And she understands.

"Oh my God..." now it's her mouth to utter those words.

"Uh...Tom left me" I say slowly, as if whispering it would make it less real. I grip tightly onto my drink, taking a much needed sip from the glass. It won't help, I already know that. But I don't care. Not tonight.

"It's not like I didn't see it coming, I just did not see it coming tonight." In other words, I knew we had problems. But I guess it was easier to ignore they were that big, instead of facing the truth.

"Oh, sweetie. I'm so sorry...how are you even keeping it together?"

"Right know I'm just...thinking about making salad, for fifteen". I'm struggling to keep my voice steady, but I'm not sure I'm doing such a good job. Sure thing is, I'm really glad I've got something to keep my mind off.

"Now how hard this is. Yeah but trust me, however turns out, you're gonna get through this. Because you've got your friends."

I trudge myself towards home, opening the door. I don't want to talk about this, not anymore. Susan has been far too kind to listen to what's happened to me, and besides, this is her night, and I don't want to ruin it.

"And...Tom" she adds, pleasantly surprised, as we enter my house. "Look, Lynette. It's...Tom!"

My head snaps sideways at that name. I nod at whatever she's saying while leaving, my mind fully focused on the man in front of me as he's tranquilly placing the last leafes into the plates.

He didn't leave me. He's here.

My heart swells with so many emotions I've got no control over. So, maybe there's still hope? Maybe there's an actual chance we can make things work?

"You wanna sit out the forks?" he asks nonchalantly.

"Forks?" I both think and say. "Where the hell have you been?"

"The recepie called for mandarin oranges, you told me to get mandarine oranges."

"Yesterday! And I we-I got them myself!" I can't believe this. What in the world do you think you're doing, Tom?

"Well I didn't know that, so I guess we've extra now."

I approach him. "But-" I stop, waiting for him to look at me. "I didn't see your suitcase" I manage to say, the words struggling to find a way out of my throat.

"It's in the closet" he states simply.

The closet. The closet.

The fucking closet!

I don't know what to do, if either thrust myself into his arms making sure he never leaves again, or smack his idiotic head for leading me on the verge of a heart attack.
He's not leaving. He's not leaving.

...but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to.

And as realization hits me, all I can say is "People will be coming soon. I'll get the forks."

Empty words. Empty the way I pronunce them. And so I just go.

Everyone is engrossed in their free and easy chit-chat in the living room. Conversations I have hardly joined in the last twenty minutes, mostly asking if everything was alright or if they wanted more salad. Actually, I've been observing my supposed-to-be husband the whole time, but he never gave so much of a single glance back, as if trying to shut everyone out from whatever is clouding his mind. At least, trying to shut me out, something he is doing a pretty darn good job with. And not just tonight.

He's heading towards the bedroom, mine and his, but not ours in a long time, and I immediately set my mind on following him. I don't know what I'm gonna tell him, I don't know where this is gonna lead. But I'm just darn sure I want to face him. I'm tired of going away. I'm tired of pretending.

And there he is, pouring himself a glass of double malt scotch from a little bottle I see for the first time, but which had obviously been opened many times before today.

He sighs resignedly the moment he notices I'm in the room. "You want one?"

"Want one? Uh, no. Need one" I say as I take the glass he's offering me.

"So you wanna tell me why it took you two hours to get mandarine oranges?"

No answer.

"What were you doing?" I keep on.

"Leaving." His answers hits me like a stab right through my side. Or at least, I thought it would. Honestly, I don't feel anything. At all. My husband has just told me he was going to leave me, and I feel nothing.

"What made you come back?"

"I couldn't do it that way. Having you hit the party, people asking where I was and you having to make stuff up. Wasn't right."

"My biggest fear about marriage, was that someday you'd leave me" I confess honestly. That is something I had never told him before, but I realize that maybe, if I did, we wouldn't have gotten to this point.

"I...I grew up in a home, where people left, and I had to clean up after, and I just couldn't go through that again. And so, when I didn't see your suitcase I thought 'Well, here it is. My worst fear, he's gone'. And then I thought 'Oh! Damn! Paige's car seat is in Tom's car and I have to get her a new one! You had just left me and I was thinking about a car seat. It was so weird, I kept waiting to feel devastated, but instead I-I felt...I didn't know...then when, I walked in and, you were back! I suddenly realized what I had been feeling the whole time you were gone."

A lot of things, actually. Shock, because I couldn't believe our marriage would have gotten to the point of leading one of us to leave. Fear, for how our kids were going to take it. Melancholy, not managing to realize how a life without you would have been.

"It was relief" I choose to say. Well, that too. I felt relieved at the thought I wouldn't have spent every single night awake, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with us. I felt relieved knowing we wouldn't have gotten into the umpteenth fight over nothing anymore. I felt relieved, I have to admit, that you weren't coming back. Because I'm so tired of that look of uneasiness I read in your eyes every time you're with me, badly wishing to be somewhere else. "I...was relieved."

"What are we gonna say to people?" of course. Your wife has just told you she was relieved you had left and all you can think about is people.

"Nothing. It's Susan's night" I say mostly to myself. I have to keep that in mind.

"Yeah we shouldn't tell anyone until we tell the kids."

"Oh God the kids" yes, you're right. We should think about them now.

We're at Bree's now. There's a smell of burning in the air, something I would have never expected in her perfect, always pie-scented house. And there she is, her bright orange air all ruffled up, her untidy dress giving away a part of the black bra she's wearing. There's a mischevolous smile on her face she's struggling to mask, as she casts a quick glance to her companion looking for complicity.
I know that kind of smile. I know that kind of stare.
Me and Tom used to share so many of those when we were engaged or freshly married, and anyway in every year we've spent together, until a couple of months ago. Even though, at present, I can hardly remember how it feels like. And, as bad as it may sound, I'm way beyond envious of her happiness.

After all she's been through she deserves it more than anyone else, I know, but it's a feeling I can't really help. Funny, though. This is not the first time I feel such a thing towards her.
I remember myself, some years ago, telling her how lucky she was to be the successful business woman she had become: she stood for everything I could have been, for everything I wanted to be, and for everything I gave up to. But I didn't understand her world was falling apart just because of what she had achieved, and that she would have given everything up for what I had: a beautiful family, and a husband who loved me more than anything else.

And now, here I am: I have loads of money, because I've pushed Tom into a job he didn't even want to accept in the first place, blinded by my own desire of success. And my marriage is on the verge of...what am I thinking? It already has fallen apart. And I swear, I swear I would give up all the money and all the accomplishments, if I knew it could help to save it.
Though I'm not quite sure Tom would be so willing as well. I cast a quick glance upon him, at the opposite side of a room filled with couples, and he seems caught up on the lame excuses Bree and Chuck are trying to make up.
He probably hasn't even noticed I'm staring at him, or if he did, he'd be quite annoyed and hoping for me to stop soon. We're getting into a divorce, Tom. No need to worry about your controlling and bossy wife anymore. You're a big shot now, you lay down the low. Your balls aren't going to be knocked over ever again.

I just hope you're happy. I really do.
Because as for me, I feel like a wreck inside, and my heart skips up to my throat at the mere thought of not having you by my side from now on.

I love you.

I love you, Tom Scavo.

Not because of the size of the rings you can buy me, not because you make big money. Maybe I should have told you, that I wouldn't want you any different from what you were. You're kind, and thoughtful, and funny. And I absolutely loved the way you took care of me, always ready to take a step back so I could have control over the situation and feel safe.

But I guess I've pushed it too far. Maybe we both did.

And sometimes, love is just not enough.

Author's Note: I'm thinking about making a second part, dealing with Tom's POV this time. Depends on how many reviews I get on this one! Did you like it? Hope so! :))