Disclaimer: Big shock, I don't own 'em! I'm just messing around, stealin' 'em, cause I can't even rent 'em! How sad is that? So if you still feel compelled to sue, well, you have to have like no life!

Author's Notes: This is a short, Max POV, angsty genfic. Big freaking surprise, I know, more like, been done a thousand times. But this one's got better plot then the others, so THERE! J/K. So be a sport and read it anyway, okay? And then you can rant or rave to me in e-mail. Isn't that so much better then just stopping right now? I mean you already went to the trouble of clicking the link and everything!

Summary: "If the shaking stopped, she stopped being real; if it didn't, she stopped being alive…"

Rated: Light R

Thanks: H2O Lilly! Babe, haven't heard from you in a bit, but you're still my inspiration. I write in the aims of pleasing you. Plain and simple, my beta/feedback-goddess!

Feedback: Love it? Hate it? Go on, you'll be my best friend! See, all you have to do is click the little link!

Date Started/Finished: March 11th, 2005


Only Human
By Delenn

Moments passed. Moments where nothing felt real, she didn't feel real. Not now, not – the shaking was real at least. She couldn't control it, couldn't will it away, it was there and it made her real, at least. For a little bit, at least.

Vision blurry, it would go on. Memories sharp, it would go on. It was only her, huddled in a ball on her bathroom floor, shaking.

Eventually it stopped. It always stopped. Just like she stopped. She stopped being real when the shaking stopped. When she thought on this, it always made her feel at least, for she could see how it would all play out in the end. If the shaking stopped, she stopped being real; if it didn't, she stopped being alive.

So hard to be alive but not real in a place where everyone else was both. They expected so much, took so much, reveled in her non-humanness and demanded she be real at the same time.

She has nothing to offer them. She can't be what they want her to be when she doesn't even know what she is anymore. No, not true. She knows, knows too well, and it's a sharper pain and more real than anything else about her.

Murderer, the tiles whisper behind her blurred eyes. Monster cries the dripping of the sink: mon-ster drip mon-ster drop. She fees herself falling away with each drop until the tiles are screaming silently because she can't see them anymore.

The best part is when she can't see them. It all fades away, drop by drop, until even the harsh shaking gasps of her body don't hurt anymore.

Silence.

Darkness.

Reprieve.

The reawakening is always harsh. Inevitable. The shaking stops, the blackness fades, and suddenly she's there again. A brief birthing moment of reality, where she can see the sharp, stinging colors of her pain, and then it's gone.

She's gone.

Hands too pale, too smooth, too steady brush through her hair, push her off the floor. Staring into the blankness of her soul as the haunted face in the mirror mocks her. Still alive it screams; still tough and still strong and still a lie.

She's fumbling in weakness that will soon fade; sure in principle.

The mirror shatters, just as she knew it would.

The blood flows out of her, just as she knew it would.

And she sighs; calmness, relief. The blood flows from her, red and harsh against pale skin. It's all okay now. She bleeds, and even if she can't feel it, she can see it. Relief. For she bleeds and that's who she is. She's only human.

The End