Title:Alone
Author:Insanity
Summary:If your alone and you scream, do you make a sound?
Spoilers:None at all.. This could be set just about anytime. S1/2 in my mind.
Disclaimer:If I owned them I wouldn't be writing stories, I'd be making TV shows. Not even the words are mine, the belong to the Oxford Dictionary. ;)
Note:This wasn't meant to be my first story, but now it is. I'm writing a veryyyyy long story that won't be finished for ages and I kinda figured I should test the waters first, see if anyone actually likes the words I throw down. Wouldn't be surprised if that was a negative, I'm not exactly gifted, but 'twould be nice if someone thought it was alright..
Note2:Also, I haven't decided yet or anything, but this could have a few more chapters. If you're wondering HOW on earth I could make this waffle longer, then you'll have to keep wondering cos I haven't decided yet. Have a few other bits written but I might use them for something else..

Alone

5 Márta 2010

In the darkness of his quarters, the easy smile fades. The positive tough exterior fades and his shoulders slump. Head bowed resting in his hands, which rest in turn on his legs one might wonder how he manages not to fall from the apparent weight he carries. Who's to know he doesn't? For in the night he is alone.

Only in his quarters in the midst of the sleep cycle can he take off his carefully placed mask. Only then can he relax his jaw muscles and rid himself of the painfully upheld smile. His eyes close wearily and reopen, clear blue warmth gone and replaced by bleary-eyed weariness. A deep shudder runs through his bones.

The rest think that he is strong, that nothing can get him down. His attitude makes them feel better. His acceptance of their insults so calm. They think that their comments do not hurt him, that they just bounce off his human exterior, generously accepting the frustrations and anger of the battle worn crew. Perhaps he is too 'primitive' to realise their words are meant to hurt. Maybe he doesn't notice how they belittle him. Though they suspect he allows it because he is most capable to accept their harsh volleys. If not him, then who?

He fights back the only way he knows how. By using his smiles and his jokes, by saying incomprehensible words that even he does not understand, he makes them think that he is strong, that nothing can get him down, that the inferior human will always be there for them. And when the pain becomes too much he simply widens his grin and lends his comfort to them, never thinking of his own hollowed out body.

Alone in his quarters he doesn't have to pretend anymore. Here it is just him and he knows how much energy it takes for him to carry on with his meticulously created facade.

In the day all hear his laughter. It comforts them, makes them feel that nothing is as dire as it seems. Perhaps that is why he does it. Not only to save himself but to save them as well. Always the compassionate creature.

And when the day winds down and the others grow tired, who is it who sends them off into the night with a well-placed sentence and a heart-warming smile? Always he is giving. It does not occur to anyone that because he is the one to always comfort, always joke, there is nobody there to do the same for him. He must be contented with absorbing their miseries and giving them what joy he has left.

He does it because he loves them. Is always looking out for them. He gives so freely what he has never received. But in the night, that strength leaves him. When he is alone his sorrow hits him. He will arise in the morning as cheerful as ever, and none will ever know his secret weakness.

His head still in his hands, he lets out a deep breath. Slowly, as if unsure of its course, a single tear runs down his face.

In the night, nobody hears a lone human cry.