A/N: set during the season eight separation.
Surviving the war.
She knew the story all too well. She was, after all, the inspiration. A co-author, of sorts, to this tragic tale.
What started as a somewhat unconventional homage to her, to them, to a partnership beyond the scope of what either one of them could have predicted, had turned into the most painful love letter. The story of a life that was no longer theirs. The dedications, once a heart-melting honour... now a gut-wrenching souvenir of what once was.
To the extraordinary KB.
She glided her thumb across the printed words. Extraordinary? Her? He had a tendency to romanticise. She couldn't be held accountable for that. He thought theirs was an epic love story. She had tried to tell him, to warn him, that there could only be misfortune. That was the path of her life, unfortunately. Something written in the stars. It seemed... destined.
She had purchased his latest release as soon as it was available, ducking out of the precinct during her lunch break to make the purchase. He had offered her a paperback copy weeks before - as he always did - but she had declined. She saw the way his heart broke, despite his best attempt at stoicism.
She had followed the progress of his tour, too. Watching his TV appearances, listening to his radio interviews and reading any-and-all articles she could find about him. He did his best to avoid talking about her... about the separation. But it didn't take long for people to catch on. The steady progression from dodging questions about married life to hesitant musings about potential future dating cut her deep, infuriating her beyond reason. She had no right. The audacity, to feel possessive over someone she made the choice to leave behind.
But it didn't feel like a choice. She was headed to war, where nothing was fair and no one, no matter their innocence, was safe.
She wasn't trying to hurt him. She wanted to save him. To spare his daughter the heartache she herself had lived through. To prevent his mother from ever having to grieve the loss of her only child. Her actions may not have been ideal, but they were certainly justified. Because the enemy was closing in. Her fortress was burning down and while she was surrounded by the burning embers of the life she had worked so hard for, he was somewhere far away, promoting his work. Safe.
She vowed to herself that if she survived this, she would do whatever it took to make things right. She would stop pushing him away. Stop chasing the ghosts that haunted her. Stop listening to the inner demons that told her she had to do it on her own. Stop punishing him for things well out of his control, even inadvertently. If she lived through this and he was willing to take her back... to let her in and to love her again, she would spend the rest of her days proving her love for him through words, through actions, through moments big and small.
She would love him the way he deserved. Truly, deeply, unconditionally. And she would make sure he never, not even for a second, doubted the depths of her love again.