Summary: An opportunity doesn't last forever. It didn't for Piper. WARNING: character death, and it doesn't have a happy ending. And the end really is the end of this oneshot. (Sorry.)

Genre(s): Angst, tradgedy, a little one-sided romance I guess.

Rated: T

Length: Oneshot.

This is dark for me, but the inspiration for it was sparked by two very sad stories: one, a fiction called 'The True Color of Night' by darkmistress in the shadows, and two, a published book "Children of the River" by Linda Crew. Pleasant reading!

The moments passed in slow motion to Piper. The skimmer they sat on was spiraling out of control, plunging faster and faster towards the earth, but it seemed like time had slowed to allow her to grasp the dire nature of what was occurring. Desperately she was tugging at his leg, her muscles straining to the point of injury, but there was no getting around it. His ankle was wedged tightly between the metal parts of the skimmer, and would not budge.

When he looked at her, she saw the resolve in his eyes. An ice cold hand gripped her heart like a vise. "No!" she shouted over the sputtering coughs of the engine beneath them. "I'm staying with you!"

She caught a glimpse of his sad, determined smile as he thrust her off of the skimmer, and shouted in agonized protest. His words were barely audible to her as he drew away.

"I can't let you die with me."

Then her parachute unfurled and she was jerked roughly as the air caught in it. The calm and tranquil breeze swirling around her was at acute variance with the violent storm in her mind.

Thirty seconds later the terrible sound of metal crunching as it hit the ground at full speed echoed up to her, amplified by the cruel walls of the deep canyon so that the thud crashed repeatedly on her tormented ears. A scream of tortured anguish overrode the sound of the collision, and Piper did not realize it was her own because she was only cognizant of the knife of terror in her breast. He always comes out all right, even out of the most dangerous situations unscathed. He could not be gone.

Her feet struck the unforgiving rock of the canyon floor, and she slumped to the ground because her knees were unable to support her. The parachute fluttered like a sad but complacent bird behind her, settling slowly to the ground.

Harsh gasps cut through her chest. Piper forced herself to rise, dragging the parachute along with her, her legs leaden with the weight of her fear.

A flash of lightning illuminated both the ground and the awful truth, casting the grisly scene into sharp and unwelcome relief.

A moan escaped from her lips, and she sank to her knees beside his broken body, gathering him in her arms.

The blue eye of heaven began to cry then, like a woman bereaved of all she loves. Her fresh tears mixed with the salty ones streaming down Piper's cheeks, and together they saturated the ground with sorrow. Thunder ripped across the terra like the low, horrified shudders quaking Piper at her core.

For his chest was still, and his heart was silent. His eyes were closed, his body stiff, and his ears unhearing.

Those ears would never be able to hear the words floating around in Piper's head, the words that were now beginning to haunt her because they died before they could be born.

Her throat was constricted. It was too late. Those phrases that had been at the tip of her tongue every time he grinned at her with mischief dancing in his expressive and kind eyes, which had always been shunted aside, now plagued her vindictively.

They came tumbling out now in a whisper, hovering around them. "You're wonderful. I admire you. I can't believe how good you are at everything you do. You brighten every day of my life that you touch. You can make me smile even when things are going completely wrong."

She looked upwards, unheeding of the drops of rain splashing into her eyes. Here was the hardest one to say, the most difficult and daunting one to speak aloud. But the words rolled off easily on her tongue, because her chance had passed.

"I love you."

An earsplitting clap of thunder did not even make her twitch. She stroked his hair, and ran her fingers over his closed eyelids.

Why couldn't you take me with you? Piper pushed the thought aside, because it implied the unacceptable- that she would never hear his laugh again, never feel his gentle touch, that the strong arms she'd dreamed of being enveloped in were turning cold and stiff.

She abandoned his broken corpse then, shrugging the parachute off of her, and ran as far and fast as she could to outrun the cold fact. Blindly she fled, her legs carrying her far from that barren canyon that was red and black with death and blood.

Broad leaves stung her face like spiteful hands, but she was grateful for them because they distracted her from the guilty anguish burning away at her stomach. She fell down many times, her face coated with mud. There were two clean channels on her face where her tears had washed away the dirt, but nothing could wash the regret from her heart.

Finally her body could take no more. Although she felt nothing, only mildly aware of her surroundings, her reserves of energy were completely spent and her limbs did not obey her command to continue. The thunder pulsed with the uneven beat of her broken heart.

No.

It was not true. Her mind searched wildly for an explanation. This was merely a hallucination, perhaps a nightmare. Maybe Master Cyclonis was toying with her mind somehow, trying to break her spirit.

Of course he was not really gone. She would come back to the Condor and he would greet her with a smile along with the rest of the team. Stork would be there too, and would be paranoid around her for weeks because he was afraid she contracted a loathsome disease from her captors.

Then she would tell him. It would not be too late. She would say it right away, and all would be well.

Piper closed her eyes, and believed the illusion with all her heart.

-One Year Later-

Piper stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down into the abyss where he'd died. The time had filed away the raw edges of her grief, but it had also slowly eaten away at the delusion she'd clung to from the beginning.

Even now she had not completely admitted to herself that he was departed. That her opportunity had been lost- forever. That was why she stood stiffly erect on the edge of the canyon, her face impassive and all the emotions roiling behind her topaz eyes. She needed closure, needed to allow reality to sink into her soul.

"I loved you," she choked, and fell to her knees with the pain of admission.

But even though the lie was gone and with it her hope, she felt slightly lighter. The truth was almost intolerably bitter; but now at least she did not have to fight it. With using the past tense, Piper had admitted once and for all that he was truly dead.

His eyes rose before her own, as though he was standing in front of her. They were smiling kindly, dancing in the light. He lifted a hand to touch her face, and dissolved into the wind blowing across the terra and ruffling her cobalt hair.

He was not there to forgive her, but she knew he would want her to forgive herself. Maybe she could, eventually. It would be hard, for because of her silence he'd never known the existence of her love for him; because of her hesitance to gamble her pride, she would never know if he had loved her.

The sun shone down compassionately, warming her dark skin. If heaven's eye was sad, at least the light coming down from her blessed a new beginning.

-

An opportunity: A moment in time that could be a happy epoch in your life, or merely a second of the day that passes by with mild regret, and disappears into obscurity. Take the chance. It is true that if you do not, you will never lose- but it is also true that you will never win.

Beware, for life is unstable and ephemeral… Harsh words- or words never spoken- will taunt you when it is too late.

Act now, for tomorrow may never come.

I did a little bit of experimentation with this. I really could not decide between Aerrow/Piper or Finn/Piper, and so I never did. I was hoping that your imagination would fill in one of them, but I think it may have come off disjointed never having defined her lost love. Tell me if you didn't notice I never named him, and if I pulled it off tell me which guy you imagined. I'm very curious as to how it turned out.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Review, please?