Disclaimer: The only things that belong to me are the characters; the Speaker, Vaughn, Ariane, and any other unnamed ones. The world belongs to Mercedes Lackey, i.e. the setting, Healers, Companions, stuff like that.

This is what I originally started out with when I first got the idea from Floria. I later realized that I'm not very good when it comes to regular fics, because I can't seem to figure out when to end them. I like songfics because when the lyrics end, the story has to also. I thought that there might be some odd person who'd like to read the original, but since I finished the songfic first, so the story has deviated pretty significantly.

*shrug* Maybe there's something here that's worth while.

*~*~*~*~*~*

I was always bitter, no one ever understood. I'm sure they probably though I should be grateful, that I'd been given a place, not turned out, sent home. I'd never seen it that way; couldn't see it that way. What I saw was a great gift given to me, then taken away, as though someone with their hands in the inner workings of life said as an afterthought, "Oh, I gave it to you? It belongs to someone else. Better fix my mistake before it goes too far." Well too late higher being, it went far enough for me to get very attached to those gifts I was given.

I guess people thought they were being generous by giving me a position in Haven, but they were only hurting me worse. Everyday I saw more, and it continually killed a part of me. I didn't know I had so much left to kill.

I was there the day the new one came in, my replacement. She had a look of nervous fright etched on her gorgeous features. Gods how much I hated her. I hated the way she took over what I had. She came in, and took what I'd been given. My rooms, my schedule, my friends. Those are just a few of the least painful. She had my Gifts, and my Companion.

Ariane, her name was, and I hated it. I came in contact with it more than her. If I saw a flash of golden hair I could always take a different path. When a conversation turned to her; however, diversion didn't work.

And so I had to listen to her accomplishments.

She wasn't me. That's for sure. I was never brainy. She was top in all her classes. Ariane knew everything there was to find in a book. She spent her free time in the library or shopping for books in town. She was a know-it-all, and she was just too perfect to gloat over her academic honors. She was humble and sweet and I hated her.

I'd never been the academic. I was much better suited to fighting and riding. Both the Armsmistress and the Equitation teacher had expressed some interest in letting me take over for them when they vacated their positions. By the time I was in my second year, I was teaching students of any age in Grays and I even had some pupils in Whites. My free time was spent with a blade or arrows or atop Vaughn, the Companion who abandoned me for her.

It's his fault I'm where I am. I was practicing horseback fighting techniques and I was certain Vaughn would be there to help me, but he let me down. Literally. And the hard way. I'd been trying to get him to rear and kick at the same time, vicious if done properly, but he refused. The one time he tried, I wasn't ready, and I was thrown.

We'd been practicing in a wooded area in the Companion's Field; and had we been in an open area, I'd still be with Vaughn and Ariane would have some other Companion. Maybe we might have been friends, maybe not. As it was, I was thrown off, and I hit my head and spine against a tree.

A miracle, they said, that the Healers could save my life. Shame about the Gifts and the back, but at least I could still be a productive member of society. A member of society, with all my dreams crushed? I'd have been better off dead.

True, at the time, stuck in my own mind I wished to live, but I knew not how the Healing would go. The green garbed Healers came into my mind through an undeveloped Healing Gift, opening it for their use, so I would, with aid, Heal myself. The blow to the head destroyed my Heraldic Gifts, and the one to my back ensured I'd never ride again. When I learned the extent of what had been taken from me, I renounced Vaughn, though I knew he was on the verge of doing the same. The only being to truly love me, and we couldn't share that bond any longer. The Healers offered to take me in, teach me to use the only gift left to me; the one of Healing I'd never had before.

At the time I didn't realize what taking the position would do to me. I didn't think about how many Heralds and how many Trainees would pass through the doors and into my hands for Healing. I took the light greens of a Healer-in-training, tortured with young Trainee patients with hopes of their Heraldic futures, and Vaughn picked her up.

I'd been separated from him for half a year when she came, and I still missed him. One of those forever in a day kind of things. It feels like so long until the right, or wrong, thing hits you and shows you that you aren't over it. She rode in with a frightened look, stared around at all the buildings, and promptly fainted. Vaughn kept her from falling off, and the Herald at the gate ran over to her side. After he pulled her out of the saddle, he carried her over to me. He didn't seem to notice that the girl wasn't the only one in shock.

'Well help her,' he demanded.

I couldn't do anything.

It wasn't like I couldn't do anything to help her, I'd had enough training for that. It was that I couldn't do anything. Period. I mean even breathing was a struggle then. The Herald muttered something rude about 'trainees' under his breath and called to a passerby to get a Healer.

After my superior had arrived and tended to the girl, the Herald led her away. He seemed very concerned for her, but that could have been just her pretty face. She got the easy adult to deal with. The Healer that was found berated me for not jumping to her aid. His exact words. He hadn't met me before.

'I don't see why you didn't do anything. It was only a faint. You could have easily helped the poor girl. I thought you Trainees were always eager to show off your skills to anyone around. This was a perfect chance, why didn't you jump to her aid?'

'Sir,' I said, clenching my teeth. 'I am not in the position to jump to anyone's aid.' He seemed to notice for the first time the rather stiff position of my legs and swallowed.

'I apologize for the harsh words, but I was in the middle of my rounds. To learn that a Trainee was present and did not help was somewhat dismaying. I believe I understand the reason now. He was yours wasn't he?'

I knew what he meant, but I didn't want to reply. This was my hurt, and no one else could understand, least of all some Healer who'd known he was destined for Greens since he was six. The only destiny I'd ever known decided I didn't deserve it. A curt nod was all I could answer him with.

'I must return to my rounds. Perhaps you should find someone to talk to about it. It can't be good to hold onto pain such as that,' he said before departing, shuffling back to endless rounds surrounded by the sick and injured.

What would he know about my pain? What would anyone know about it? The gaping hole left in my heart and mind since Vaughn and I split could never be repaired. I hadn't lost someone, I'd lost myself, and how can any amount of talking fix that? I didn't want to be a Healer, I wanted to be back in Grays, back with Vaughn, back to where I knew I belonged. I didn't have the heart it took to be a Healer, I didn't have the heart for anything.

Not even suicide.

I couldn't be without him, even though I wasn't with him. Before she came, I still knew that he was there, despite the gaping hole. Now he was heart-whole, and I was still empty.

I couldn't have done anything. After all what was there to do? I didn't have what it took to be a Herald anymore, she did.

I threw myself into a job I didn't love with the same fervor that I once used with Him. I worked myself to near exhaustion, in an effort to fall asleep before tears overtook me.

It wasn't a position many Healers found themselves in, and none of my peers knew what to make of it. They had never shown much interest in me before, but I can't blame them when I didn't put up much of an effort towards them. I don't know why they still tried to get me help. I think that's what a true Healer would do.

I don't know, I'm no kind of Healer.

*~*~*~*~*~*

My days would pass in a fog, a sickly green that pervaded my vision of the world. I didn't think how damaging I was being to myself till one day I entered the room of a young patient who wouldn't allow me near to treat him. Another Healer who had to come in and take over my duties, looked at me severely, declared he had no idea what the hell was going through my mind but I'd better get help.

I was a full Healer, a mage's work I was sure. There was no way I should have been a Healer, but there I was dressed in the bright Greens that marked the passage of time unbeknownst to me. I administered medical aid to countless people automatically without really thinking about it. The other Healer's verbal slap in the face made me wonder about what I was doing. The edges of the fog began to burn off.

Still dazed, and excused from rounds for the rest of the day on the premise that I would be getting my head together, I pondered where I would get help. I sat myself on a bench in the gardens, a peaceful place if there was one to be found within the walls. I'd been living with the Healers for six years now, hobbling around the grounds on crutches. Ariane had gone off on her internship two years ago. Word had spread of her ingenious decisions. Little of that registered in my mind until I heard a soft young woman's voice behind me. She was laughing, a light, joyful noise that pierced the dark hopelessness had left me in. I turned abruptly toward the noise, almost shocked that someone would disrupt the reverie that despair had led me into.

It was a mistake.

They were there. Golden hair mingled with silver mane, warm brown eyes lay next to deep blue, perfect smile flashed alongside a horsy grin. The laughter stopped when they looked up at my motion.

I caught the look of 'Listening' that I had once used with him on her face, then she turned to face me again. A world of hurt radiated from my half-Healed being. He'd told her who I was, had been. The flash of anger in my eyes didn't deter her from walking toward me. I couldn't outrun her, so I refused to make the half-hearted attempt at getting away.

She came up to me and said, 'He'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind?'

He wanted to talk to me? After what had happened between us? This ought to be interesting. She helped me over to him, much as I didn't want her aid. I stood, balanced on crutches, before him, remembering that I couldn't hear Mindspeech anymore and wondering how he'd speak to me. I gave a reluctant glance at his face and found my answer.

Vaughn's deep sapphire eyes caught me once again, in a way I hadn't felt in years. I Felt the profound sorrow he'd carried around since we parted, and I knew that his sorrow echoed mine. I knew that he'd been watching me, and he felt heartache like I did. Not even a new Chosen could Heal him. Something about my Healing Gifts communicated what he could no longer tell me, feelings and emotions that we had both felt.

That simple look into his eyes began the Healing of horrible damage I'd done to myself since we parted. He still loved me, despite the pain involved in doing so.

I heard Ariane step closer to the two of us. I turned to face her and lost my balance. She steadied me, and I couldn't hate her as I had for so long. Anger and rage can only hold out for so long, and the look that Vaughn had given me had melted it away.

'He still loves you, you know,' she whispered to me.

'I know,' I forced out around a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. 'I know.'

*~*~*~*~*~*

The three of us have changed since that time in the garden. The melancholy that pervaded my days has been pushed away by golden laughter. I recognized that I had the ability to do something worthy with my Gifts, if I only put my all into them. They weren't the ones that gave me Vaughn, but they were the ones that won him back. I couldn't have him the way we had been before, but sharing time with him, one way or another, was important to me. The love we still shared spilled over to enwrap another, Ariane. I couldn't ignore her anymore, not when they belonged to each other. But I was now welcomed by both; somehow the three of us fit together. They were my Healers.