Fortune, Fate and Magic
Maybe it's supposed to be this way. Maybe this is fortune. Bad for Luke. Luke gets hours of tears, softly rocking himself to sleep and clenched fists pounding into hard walls at the injustice of it all. He gets long, insomniac nights spent pacing and shards of glass in his heart which feels like it can barely be bothered to beat. Good for Chris. He gets a wife, a son, underserved Christmases with overfilled stockings and picnics in the summer heat. Good and bad, dark and light.
Maybe it's fate that they meet. Maybe Reid was always meant to come to Oakdale and help Noah regain his eyesight, to fall in love with Luke. Luke's blackmail had nothing to do with, it wasn't his fault: it wasn't. He wasn't responsible. Katie whispers this to him over and over again as he sobs against her shoulder.
"You didn't kill him," she says. Luke doesn't believe her. There is no fate, no destiny, nothing but the stark reality that it was his fault. Luke hates himself more than anyone will ever know.
There is no maybe about it. It was magic. Laughter, smiles, jokes, touches, kisses. Gliding together, fitting, completing. Hands wandering and teeth clashing. Tongues soothing and fingers pressing, pushing, deeper. Slow burn spreading like wild fire until they are both consumed by the scorching rise of the flames. And finally the silence, magic still hanging in the air.