AN: The song is "The Queen and the Soldier," by Suzanne Vega. I should probably stop posting chapters I've written at 2am; the last one featured 18 uses of the word "just." (I edited it, though, so it's better now.)

the soldier came knocking upon the queen's door
he said, "I am not fighting for you anymore"
the queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before, and slowly she let him inside.
he said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill
and I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill
but I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will;
only first I am asking you why."

I love you and I'm sorry. Six short simple words that I might say to the cat if I stepped on its tail but I just couldn't force my mouth to form them now, so instead I remained silent. For weeks. Around him, at least. I mean, we'd talk as much as we had to around the others and at the shows, but that was all. To be honest, I really thought I was handling the whole thing pretty well until Fiona came back at the beginning of the summer. From almost the second I laid eyes on her she was asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions, and I supposed it was nice that high school hadn't squashed her inquisitive nature yet. But it made me wonder just what she knew and how she knew it, because obviously she was trying and mostly failing to hide something. I'd look at her and she'd smile innocently and I'd think, hey, maybe I'm just paranoid, how silly, how would she know?

down in the long narrow hall he was led, into her rooms with her tapestries red
and she never once took the crown from her head
she asked him there to sit down.
he said, "I see you now, and you are so very young
but I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won,
and I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun,
and now will you tell me why?"

But then she'd ask another leading question and I'd know and she'd know but I'd answer nonchalantly, as false as her innocent smile. By the time we made it home I was ready to be anywhere not near her. I tried to stay strong for a few days after her return and pretended that nothing was wrong. He came over once or twice; we were civil enough not to arouse suspicion, but colder than we'd ever been before.

I guess it was the end of the first week that I finally cracked. I don't know why--maybe I'd just had enough of pretending by then. We finished a quiet dinner and I was carrying dishes to the sink when I caught her staring at me. Normally I wouldn't have been so paranoid, but I knew her so well, or at least I thought I did, that I could almost hear her thoughts and I could almost feel the resentment and anger she was directing at me with a simple steady gaze. I made an excuse and retreated to my room, locking the door.

the young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
she said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try"
but her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry
but she closed herself up like a fan.
and she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread
it cuts me inside, and often I've bled"
he laid his hand then on top of her head, and he bowed her down to the ground.

I knew I loved Fiona, of course I did, I was still a mother and when she and Jack needed it from me, I had been a particularly protective and nurturing mother as often as I could be. But Jack and I always had a bond that Fiona and I just didn't have. It was as if Jack was a (very repressed) reflection of me and Fi was a reflection of Rick. As she delved further into the paranormal, picking up right where he left off, looking at her only reminded me of him. And looking at her and thinking of him only made me feel guilty for driving him away. Even before she left, I started reading deeper meanings into every teenage mood swing she had; every glare was an accusation, every sigh a bitter argument unspoken. I tried not to let it show, but when she offered to stay with Melinda for the school year, I was relieved that finally the pressure might be off.

I had barely seen her during the spring break visit, being mostly laid up in bed recovering for most of it. So having her around and acting suspiciously just brought all that old resentment rushing right back, as much as I wished it would go away. I mean, taking my personal problems out on her, just because she had the misfortune of reminding me of unpleasant facts about my life--namely, that I was older than I wanted to be right now, and apparently lacking the moral compass that seemed to keep other people from doing terrible things like meeting clandestinely with boys barely older than their own children. I stretched out on the bed and listened to the muted noises coming from the guest room, allowing the modulated voices to lull me into a state of half-sleep and half-waking.

"tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel.
as you are living here alone, and you are never revealed,
but I won't march again on your battlefield," and he took her to the window to see.
and the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray
and she wanted more than she ever could say
but she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away
and would not look at his face again.

Hours later, it seemed, I came out of my semi-trance and pulled myself up from the bed. The place seemed to be quiet. I crept into the hallway and looked into the guest room. Jack was asleep, but Clu was awake, frantically pushing buttons on the game controller. I smiled at the sight and stage-whispered loud enough for him to hear, "You should really go to bed."

If it had been a cartoon, I think his body would have actually risen up off the floor entirely. "Geez, you scared me."

"I'm serious, though. It's late, isn't it?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Not that late. The sun's not up."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I will," he promised. "I just need to finish this game."

Some things remained so constant it was a comfort. I just laughed and closed the door. I sincerely hoped that Fi wasn't awake--I really wasn't in the mood to be interrogated again--but figured I should probably check on her just to be safe. Since Jack had arrived home first, he'd claimed the guest room for his own, which left Fi in the living room sleeping on the couch, at least for this week. They would work out some arrangement, probably, by which they could switch off on alternate days or weeks, whatever. I tried to walk quietly across the carpet to make sure she was both on the couch and still breathing, my motherly duties.

She was still breathing. And she was also on the couch, her head resting on the chest of a companion who was quite familiar to me. A tape was sticking out of the VCR and the TV screen illuminated the space with bright blue light; presumably they'd fallen asleep watching a movie. I didn't bother to turn off the television, instead tiptoeing at top speed back to my room. I closed and locked the door.

and he said, "I want to live as an honest man,
to get all I deserve and to give all I can
and to love a young woman who I don't understand
your highness, your ways are very strange."
but the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break
and she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached
she took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait;
she would only be a moment inside.

I sank to the floor with my back against the door. I hoped I could find a way to clear my head out before the tirade began, but I couldn't make myself move, so I was powerless to fight her when she started in.

So, you got what you wanted. You wanted to make it all go away and now it looks like it finally has. Sure, it could mean nothing... but don't act like you didn't know about that silly little crush she's had since she was old enough to have crushes on people other than Ernie and Bert. Why should you care what it meant, anyway? You got what you wanted from him, didn't you? And you were successful in alerting him to your true nature--you know: cold, callous, uncaring, unworthy--before he had the chance to discover his own and leave. He would have done it anyway. It's better that you told him to go, isn't it? Now you get to feel that old comforting combination of fear and anger and sorrow and regret and self-pity and self-hatred all over again. At least this time you can pretend you had some control over the situation.

Oh, come on, Molly. Why should you be upset? He's with the girl he should be with now. And so are you.

out in the distance
her order was heard
and the soldier was killed
still waiting for her word
and while the queen went on strangling in the solitude she preferred
the battle continued on.