Möbius Strip

Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. ________, _________, and ___________ all belong to Aaron Sorkin. So does the West Wing.

A/N: This is a choose-your-own couple story. After reading several by Michelle K, ideas started forming in my mind and...well, this was the result. Enjoy. Your choice on the lawyer, as well!



I watch you sign the paper and nothing happens. No heart breaking. No nostalgia. Nothing. I just wait for you to finish so that I can sign my name opposite to yours.

I should be happy about that. I should be happy that it doesn't matter to me, that your looping letters don't form regret for me. This is supposed to be a sign of moving on. And besides, I've seen you sign papers countless times. This is just another one. The wedding paper was just another one, even if it didn't seem that way at first.

The lawyer takes the paper and reads it. "Everything's in order." Then a pause. More quietly, "Are you sure about this?"

Neither of us answer for a second. We've gone over "Are we sure about this?" millions of times, but neither of us wants to cement it. Nobody wants to be the heartless one, especially in front of an old friend.

"Yes." you say, doing the thing I want to do but can't. How many times have we done that for each other? Sacrificing a part of your soul. How many times have we done that?

The lawyer wants to save this marriage more than we do, their eyes speak that as they look at me, begging me to contradict you. We shouldn't have chosen a friend from the administration.

The administration. God, those were the years. We were happy. We were in love. We shared victories, we shared fights, but even the fights were good. The fights were a sign we still cared. And that lasted for years afterwards. Going on to another campaign a little while back was almost like taking our wedding vows again. Everyone commented on happy we were. It was harder than the administration, but heck, that's just because we were getting a little old to be living off of caffeine.

What happened? I ask myself that question as I leave. Why can't I bring myself to care? Or is all this asking myself why I don't care a sign I care?

Question like the Möbius strip the lawyer had on the desk. The Möbius strip twisting between fingers as they run alongside me.

"Why?" the lawyer asks.

Möbius strip. The question we'll both be facing for months to come, as everyone else discovers what happened. What will we tell them? No, not we, not we anymore. We haven't been we for a long time. No, scratch that. You and I haven't been we for a long time. How will you answer?

And how will I answer?

"I don't know." I say to the lawyer, my friend. Your friend. Our friend, when there was an our. "Maybe we..."-there's that word again-"just weren't in love anymore."

The lawyer looks at me in disbelief, the Möbius strip still weaving through fingers, trying to comprehend how two people can simply no longer be in love. And why they can't make it through it.

I still don't know. Maybe it's true, maybe we just weren't in love anymore. Something happened between marriage and now to make your signature just ink on paper. Ink that twists into the Möbius strip.

I wish it could be as it were. So that we could still fight, so that we could still celebrate, so that we could still feel, love. So I won't have to deal with my own disgust at my fickleness. So I won't have to deal with losing the naïve idea of love is eternal.

I miss celebrating. I miss fighting. I miss feeling. I miss loving. I miss naïvety. I miss your signature.

But I don't miss you, and that's worst of all.