I do not own the BMFM and create this story only to be freely shared with those who wish to indulge in the same adoration for those handsome hunky travelers from the red planet.

The Monster

By Morning

"Why can't you let go? No matter what happened, it wasn't you, not really you. Please, I still love you sob that has to mean something? "

"I tried towarn you, Charlene. I told you I had little, to nothing, to give you. I'm all shattered inside. There's nothing left but the shards of a once, so called, hero."

"Nothing is hopeless? I won't let you go. I can't. I've waited so long, dreamed of us together. Before you got on that ship, you have to remember what we did. You held me closein your arms and kissed me so tenderly. It was the most extraordinary kiss I've ever experienced. Then you lifted me up and cradled me like a baby and whispered that promise. I'll never forget those words and how they captured my heart. Please, if you only let me try, I know …I can…can…make you feel again, show you how to love again?" She desperately grabbed his arm almost falling to her knees to stop him from getting on his bike.

Her touch did something to him andthat sweet, smokey, gravel wrapped in silk voicereturned,"Do you think that, because you say, you still love me, everything that made me like this, will magically disappear? This isn't one of those fairy stories, no happily ever after, Charley-girl. The guy you knew,the one that loved you, the one who's heart you stole, that guy'sas dead. As dead as, The Garden of Hope, back on Mars. You gotta bury him and on go on with your life. You're still so beautiful, give all that love to someone who deserves it."

She dared to peer up and saw that old look on his face. The beautiful, compassionate, gentle man she loved, the one she would always love, for a brief instant he was able to clawed through the despair. That glimmer of hope moved her hand and she reached up to touch his face, "Why can't you see, it wasn't your fault. They were to blame, just the same as if they had done it themselves. They made you into a mindless machine, that could only take orders. You have to know that, you have to forgive….,"

Suddenly the cold-hearted monster, the monster he could never forgive, reared its ugly head devouring the hero once more.The blank stark coldexpression returned andshe trembled as a shiver escaped from deep inside her. She wanted to run from those steel-gray, soul killing,metallic orbs, that now served as his eyes. He wasn't going to allow her to escape. She had to see the monster and hate it for the hero's murder. For robbing them both of the joy they would never have. For crushing to bits the blissful life they would never share.

He roughly pulled her against his chest and her hands flew up pushing against the smooth alien material that made up the armor that incased his upper body. Slow, hard, deliberate words shot arrows that impaled her heart with merciless words, "Should I ask forgiveness from all the children I left without a mother and father? Do you think they would be so easy to forgive the monster that stole everything from them?" Do I ask the tiny lifeless bodies I left rotting in the Martian death camps? Tell me, Charlene, who do I get that forgiveness from? Will your love bring any of them back? Will it clean the all their blood from my hands?"

All she could do was cower in fear and want to die. He was right, her heart crumpled into a million tiny pieces when the realization of his words exploded what was left of her already broken heart.

She allowed herself to finally cry as she struggled to pull away from him. He let her go and watched as she stumbled up the stairs to her bedroom and collapsed across the bed leaving the door open.

There appeared to be no emotion on his face as he reached from behind the bike and put on the jet-black helmet. None, when he touched the side button to activate the darken visor with a soft hissing noise. But one would have to look very closely to see him turn just slightly toward the sound of her racking sobs. It didn't stop him as he started his machine to pull out of the Last Chance garage. No one could see the one small tear that was allow to escape and slid down to be captured in the corner of a sad smile. Redemption filled him as he left knowing this was one life the monster would not destroy.

The end