Title: Stopping

Author: ScullyAsTrinity

Rating: PG

Category: Romance/Angst

Dedication: So I was listening to 'I Want To Be Moved' and thought... HEY! Time for another chapter, why not? This is for Bisse, who pushed me to write more before. ;-)

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Time ceases to exist there, there in the second.

Time is only his skin, the flush of it as he rolls over in the bunk and mumbles my name, deep in sleep. It is beautiful and painful at the same time, the one word bringing back so many memories, both good and bad.

My hands long to reach over and trace over your skin, soothe you back into a comfortable slumber but I cannot. We all have our demons Neo, you just have more than I. Every night it's the same Neo, you calling out for me, needing me there with you inside your head.

As much as I love you, it's the one place I can't go. And as strong as I am, I refuse to fight your demons for you. They are yours and as horrible as I'm sure they are, the only way to make them disappear, the only way... you have to fight them on your own.

But as I think this I know that either way, I'll be standing right there beside you. Mind, body, spirit. All of it, because you have all of me and I all of you.

Again you toss, the skin of your chest pressed firmly against the arm. I cannot hold back any longer and bring my palm up to your heart, feel the strong pulse there. And it is strong, so strong. Full to the brim with love for life, lust for life.

And knowing that time will be through before we're through with it, that the present will be done before we're both done living it, I allow myself to fall into your searching embrace. Here, in the warmth, it's easier to feel.

I can feel the pain, the pain and the pleasure and the horror as it all mixes into a wash of light that takes over my body.

And I weep...

For time just stopped.