Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

What do you do when the person that you are is broken? Fractured. Shattered into a thousand pieces. A million pieces. An infinite number of pieces. Unrecognisable to anyone, even yourself. I survived the unthinkable. A plane dropped out of the sky and I lived to tell the tale. Lexie didn't. Mark didn't. Christina lost a shoe and I lost myself. Somehow I came out of it supposedly "whole" and then my body betrayed me. My wife betrayed me. She cut off my leg and in doing so I lost myself. Fully. Completely. Finally.

"Apparently I lost you."

Damn right you did. I lost me, so why shouldn't you?

I still look like myself, just minus a limb, at least to others I think I must look the same. I see someone else, as inside I am twisted, dark and souless. I am not the person that I was. I am not the person who walked up to a stranger all those years ago and kissed her in that dirty bar bathroom.

"I think you'll know."

I should have stayed in Africa and left her to get over me with Mark, or the girl from the coffee cart. Anyone would have been better for her than me, but then I would never have had Sofia. She would never have given birth to the baby I never knew that I wanted.

"No, no, we'll have kids, we'll have all kinds of kids... And I always thought that I wasn't cut out to be a mom, but you'll be a great mom, you'll be an amazing mom andI love you so much and I can't live without you and our ten kids."

My daughter. Our daughter. I have betrayed her too. Logically I know that if Calliope had let me die that Sofia would be without her father and her mother and that Callie would have been alone. Alone to raise our beautiful child. She would have mourned us both and eventually moved on, with a man or woman I'm not sure, but it would have been her right.

But now I have done the unthinkable. I have cheated on my wife. Not out of spite, at least I don't think so. Rather it was out of the hate I have for myself for hating her.

"Stick out your leg and I will go grab a bone saw and we'll even the score."

Awful. Hateful. Shocking even to myself. Terrible words that I can never take back. That I never even knew I could say.

Now she feels how I felt. Feel. Lost. Betrayed. Broken. Devastated. Perhaps we can rebuild? My wife can build cartilage from scratch. Perhaps she can re-build us and grow me a new leg while she's at it. Doubtful but who knows?
Until then I will keep pushing away at my life, knocking down the bricks as they are re-built. One day I will open my eyes and find myself living a new life, bourn out of this destruction. One day I might find there is no way back. One day I might be grateful of that. But not today. Today I want my old life back. The knowledge that I can't have it is devastating. Today I will go through the motions and hope that I catch a break, hope that she smiles at me and it reaches her eyes, hope that I can get through a day without wanting a cigarette or a drink. Hope that when I close my eyes to imagine her kiss that it isn't Lauren whose lips I feel.

I have the warrior wounds and one day I will wear them with pride. Just not today.

Not today.