Author's Note: I wrote this at first thinking it would fit in my fic, but it was too Ram-centered. So I thought it should have it's own spotlight. It actually was not supposed to be what it turned out to be, but a nice person was having a bad day and I thought a nice old Ram/Amber one-shot might make them feel better. Although, I think I might do a counter one-shot. Maybe...

This is in Ram's point of view. It is many years after season five, in which many things happen that are not thoroughly discussed. It simply isn't the point of the fic. The fic is just a love-sick analytical banter of Ramone Kingsley. Slightly depressing, but sorry.

Dedicated to Beaner Bop, have a better day chica.


It never occurred to me how much things have changed, how much I have changed. It's hard to look back at what I had been. I had been a dictator; ordering around my very own tribe. I had been controlling, and ruthless to achieve what I wanted. As a leader I was even slightly Machiavellian. I gave the city luxuries they hadn't had since the virus, and in turn they worked for me as willing slaves. The Mallrats found it sickening and twisted. Yet I knew that they were just jealous of what I had, that I had been able to manipulate a large majority of the city population with just a few technological advances. Amber, their leader, is too self-righteous for her own good, not always noticing that all her people want is peace. Not justice, not a paradise. They want to survive, and I knew that.

Then I joined them, the courageous Mallrats (that bitter taste just won't leave my mouth)! It was different having to prove myself countless times, when most of the time it was Lex who was causing problems. His insolence landed me in trouble with the tribe many times. On top of that, I felt more alone there than I did as a dictator. Which sounds awfully peculiar, doesn't it? A close knit group such as that should have compassion for me like they had for many others, but that was the exact problem. There was no room for someone like me, someone who they had all hated with every fiber of their being. Someone who experimented on them and tormented their minds for personal gain. Many might think that I was just lost, but I knew exactly what was happening. It was my plan, and the end justified the means to me then.

Unfortunately, I changed.

I changed into one of those bleeding-heart Mallrats over the years. The time passed by when we left the city. The younger Mallrats grew up, and I became an adult. Priorities changed for me, as they did for many of the adults. Ebony never grew up. She never had the chance as she fell, suffering the same fate as her husband Zoot. Now, why don't I claim her for myself? Because she was slime, and I still believe that now as I am an adult. Her sisters' never deserved the treatment they suffered from her, and Java never deserved to die the way she did. I regret the deaths of those girls, though I do not believe it would have made a significance in my life. When I joined the Mallrats, my compassion grew as well. The dark depths of my heart twisted and revealed a long hidden light. I learned to deal with my phobias. As life went on I stuck by the Mallrats on our new habitat, but I still felt as if I was just a bystander. I know now, as I am still with the remaining members, that they did hate me. They still hated what I had done to them, and now looking back I can't blame them. I hate what I have become now, but I cannot ignore it. On some nights, when I sleep, I get that overwhelming feeling of regret even stronger. So strong that I get sick, and think that the virus has taken me.

Sometimes I hope the virus would take me, because then I wouldn't have to live anymore with the knowledge that I have fallen for one I swore I wouldn't.

She has someone, I tell myself.

She would never love me, not in a million years.

Yet I see those green eyes stare at me, and my heart skips a beat. I see her face, and I have to restrain myself from stroking her cheek with my hand. I see her every day. I see her every night while in my dreams. And she haunts me in my nightmares. She destroys me in reality. This side that I reveal is because of her.

I have no conscience. I have no remorse for what I have done. Yet when I look at her I want to get down on my knees and pray to her like the temple she is to me. I would devote myself to her and throw away my name if it would please her; like Romeo had offered to Juliet. And I would kill myself if she ever knew I felt this way. I would have no will to live if she would not greet me every day, no matter how dismal or routine it sounds. This feeling just came to me one day.

I remember the bonfire, and the bittersweet reason for the smell of burnt flesh on the beach. An awful end for a Tyrant, but more importantly a beginning of a terrible curse for me. I find it disturbing how I can never make up my mind in this matter. That I can't have the control I desire to just turn off this feeling. But I knew that I was long gone as the moonlight illuminated her features, and I saw the tension leave her face. I saw a smile that made me melt.

I fell for her the night we buried Ebony.

And now I live with it every day. "The love that dare not speak it's name," the unrequited love that I will always feel until the day I die. This woman that I would have never even imagined myself with until that fateful night. She is all I think about, and it makes me sick to tear my mind away from her. I may sound redundant, I know that. I hate myself for feeling this way.

But she will never love me back. This is a disease worse than the virus, and I know it. As I write this confession down, and as I will fold it up to place through her door in hopes that she will read it after I am gone, I wish that time will heal all wounds. However unlikely that sounds. I am too old to worry about this lovesick feeling I get when I see her with him. What a fool I made of myself letting myself believe for even a moment that she would love me. I let my guard down when she simply complemented me, and I kissed her. I am a fool. A fool, a fool, a blasted fool!

I hope that I never hurt her, and that she will forget it ever happened. That I ever happened. Then she can live happily with Bray...

My Amber.