Disclaimer: I am not looking to earn any type of income from this story.
Notes: This is a one-shot from Kate's point of view. I'm going to issue a purple-prose alert on this fic. Sometimes I get a little carried away.
Stolen Moments
She takes the moments as they come. Soft whispers from aching throats, gentle brushes from shaking hands. The hurried minutes or stolen hours when life slows down just enough for her to pretend. To live in a world of illusion where she's not a fugitive and they're happier than they've ever been. When the future is bright with promise and she can smile into his face here, in real life, the way she tells herself it was meant to be.
But she's a fugitive and there's no such thing as meant to be. And she knows he doesn't deserve this, her upstanding doctor with his moral compass always pointed North. And she doesn't deserve it either, the fleeting moments of bliss that always turn to ash in her mouth. The whispered words of love that somehow always sound like goodbye lash them both.
But when the world is dark and his arms are around her, she can't find the strength to care. It doesn't bother her that each times she leaves, he breaks a little bit more. Or that when she walks out his door into dawn's pale glow, she leaves a piece of herself caught on the doorway. Each time losing a part of themselves until one day she won't recognize herself anymore than she'll be able to recognize him. Then they'll both wonder how the love they'd thought re-made them, destroyed them both.
Every time, she promises herself, is the last. The last time she'll tighten her choke-hold on his heart. The last time he'll fill her defeated heart with hope. But he's the light in her dark, a siren's song. She likes to pretend she's strong enough to resist the force of his pull, but like a wounded bird's final flight, she always falls. Into his arms, into despair, into the loneliness that rushes from her past to claim her future.
But she treasures those moments, and takes them as they come. Those whispered words from aching throats, and gentle brushes of shaking hands. The hurried minutes and stolen hours when she can pretend that they were meant to be. She treasures those moments because one day, she knows, one of them will be strong enough to turn away for good.