A/N: Griffin knows she's just as doomed as her love for Valtor is because it is her life.
In the end of her life, he is always a stranger to her.
If she is a ballerina, he'll come to her show, sit at the first row, at the best spot in the entire hall, from where he can watch her closely and she can feel his eyes on her the entire time, leaving her with the question how much he followed the story and how deep he saw into her soul as she gave her everything to her performance and, therefore, to him who was watching like his life depended on it. And she'll leave that night with the feeling of his gaze penetrating into her being to her very core and making itself at home there, filling her with anticipation to see him again. After all, he must seek her out after the way he was looking at her, like his eyes were making love to the soul that was pouring out of her into her performance. But she never sees him again as his mothers have taught him to only watch art but never make it himself, for it reveals too much about his own soul. And she's all made of art so loving her would be the greatest art of all, forcing him to be vulnerable like he'd never been before. And he can't let go of his walls. They're the only thing keeping him whole and stopping him from turning into a broken mess all over the floor.
If she's a teacher, he'll come to teacher-parents day and she'll know his name, she'll know he's married to a woman he doesn't care about, she'll know he's the only man she'll ever love, and she'll know just as well that it is wrong. And she can't have him either way so why compromise with herself? Why sacrifice her own soul when she'll get nothing out of the whole ordeal? Why plague herself with guilt that would get in the way of any love she'll get to feel from him? So his words are the only part of him she allows to touch her because she couldn't stop them even if she wanted to, because he speaks such beautiful things but they make her feel so ugly for wanting him, and in the end she's relieved when his daughter graduates and she won't have to see him again. He gets the message and doesn't seek her out again and her heart is breaking that he will never be more than a stranger to her. Because she never got to explore any part of him for herself and his words are the only thing that is ringing in her ears, screaming at her that it is her own damn fault because he wanted her but she was too cruel to give herself to him and put them both out of their misery.
If she's a rich heiress, he is the man that bumps into her on the sidewalk and she feels his hands on her as the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground and probably breaking something. She thanks him, he says "You're welcome" and they're both on their way. And it is only later that she realizes her bracelet that is a decades-old heirloom is missing from her wrist where she can't remember his fingers ever being. They must have stopped there on their way off of her, though, and snatched her bracelet away while she'd been charmed by his beautiful face. And the fact that she'd remembered his features perfectly was only of so much help as she went to the police, for they couldn't find him. He was a phantom who had left his touch on her and his face burning in her head and had stolen a part of her heart away, for she loved that bracelet dearly. She'd thanked him for helping her, but he'd only been helping himself, and she is feeling oddly betrayed considering he is nothing to her, just the thief that got away because that's what he'd been trained for. And she doesn't know that it was him who'd drawn the short stick because he feels like a betrayer for the rest of his life.
If she's a lonely soul, he is the company she's been looking for. She meets him at a bar that her friend dragged her to to cheer her up even though they'd both known it wouldn't work. The only thing that can is a connection with another soul that she is doomed to never find. And that is exactly the thought running through her mind as their eyes meet and she feels something, something she can't identify because she's never felt it before. And he holds her gaze even when she's been staring for too long, never drops it and never lets the window to her soul hit the ground and break apart, leaving her in the dark. And that is so reassuring that she accepts the silent invitation and joins him where he's sitting. They're flirting and it's the first time she can feel herself breathing freely as she knows her words are always reaching him and his words are genuine. His touch even more so when she takes his hand and lets him take her home where she can let herself feel him all over her and his kisses are a heaven she's never thought she'll enter as their souls are dancing together bound by passion and understanding. She falls asleep wrapped in the light of his inner flame and not in the darkness of her own mind and wakes to an empty bed that makes him so unfamiliar to her at the wake of his betrayal. And she walks like a ghost ever since then, a stranger to herself, for she doesn't know who she is without his soul to complete hers. It kills her slowly.
If she's the one who spills her tea on him, he's the one whose coffee pours all over her when they're both in a rush to get where they're going. But as their eyes meet, they realize they've just arrived at the only destination that matters – each other's lives. And it hurts when they have to let go of that subconscious knowledge to look at the damage they've done to each other. It hurts more than it would have if they'd been scalded by the hot drinks but, currently, it is only their coats that are ruined, and perhaps a bit of their souls when they're occupied with irrelevant things. It would hurt them even more to know that they only have so much time together. They exchange phone numbers and names–for the dry cleaners bills even though they could just pay their own–thinking that they have any control over what is happening to them but they're bound in a sinister ritual of heartbreak that is not in their power to break. And they've barely parted, with her having made only a few more steps when a speeding car runs right into her, breaking all her bones into stardust, and she's not even alive for long enough to hear him scream out her name and run back to her, but it's too late, for he'd already let her go when he shouldn't have. Her soul feels his touch as he cradles her broken body, though, and touches his in an attempt to soothe him because that's all she can give him after he didn't hold on to her for a little while longer. And she waits for him in heaven but when he never shows up, she knows it didn't work and his soul was lost when her life was because he never got to know her and that crushed him harder than the car did her.
If she is his wife, he is her future ex husband since they are divorcing. They had a good run, or at least so she tries to tell herself when the yelling gets so loud it will make her deaf if she doesn't leave. It is painful to feel him touch her hand as he takes the pen from her to sign the papers now that she knows he no longer loves her, or at least so she tells herself when the coldness of the empty bed hurts her more as it creeps into her body and the knowledge that she'll have to get used to that instead of his hot kisses and eager appreciation for her body infests her mind. It's better to watch his back as he walks away from her instead of having him sit next to her on their dinner table in dead silence with the very sound of her breathing grating on his nerves, or at least so she tells herself when she's all lone in the house that's full of memories from their life together that haunt her like ghosts and make her want to pull her heart apart so that she won't have to feel his absence so acutely and she wants to slice her mind in half so that she won't have to face the truth that he wouldn't be able to save her from it anyway since he hasn't been there with her for a long time. He was pulled away by his ambitions and she tried to stand in his way so he shoved her aside. She survived the fall but the love in her heart fell out and got broken apart in tiny pieces that would only cut you up if you tried to put it back together. And she should have left it right there, on the side of the road that they no longer walked together, but she couldn't make herself leave it for dead so now it feeds on her life force as it keeps living like an abomination in her soul.
But the worst part comes when she wakes up from the constant nightmares. Because the nightmare is the scariest then. She is his past and he hates her. She knows all of him but he's a stranger when he looks at her with the desire to kill her. She made him like that and the tears fall from her heart that's already drowning in her love for him that she can no longer give him. And there is only death for her from now on because he is a stranger to her and that is how her life always ends. With him being the stranger that she can never have.