Disclaimer: It's still not mine.

Chapter Summary: Identity is a tricky business. An episode-related fic for "Let Me Entertain You."

Coda: Season Seven

A story by Ryeloza

Five: Me…You

Susan

Susan knows who she is. She is misunderstood. She is a victim. She is a woman. Sometimes she feels like this is her entire identity.

When she was twenty-two years old, she married a man name Karl Mayer. It felt like the best decision at the time. She was a waitress with an Associate's degree that seemed more and more useless every day, and he was a rich, successful lawyer who told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world. So she married him, and she had a baby, and for a little while, maybe everything was perfect. Then Karl left, and Susan had no idea what to do. She wasn't independent; she couldn't survive without a man.

She's always known men were a dime a dozen. Blink your eyelashes and they come. But for a long time, she thinks she can only get a certain type of man. The Karl type. She still doesn't know how she was lucky enough to find Mike.

Mike is strong and tough and in charge where she is soft and compliant and cute. It is easy to identify herself through him: if he is those things, she doesn't have to be. She likes it that way. She doesn't want to pretend that she can take on the world because the truth is she can't. She's just a woman, struggling to get by in a world that can't cut her a break.

Her friends are so different.

When Susan first met Bree, she was able to fool herself into believing that she and Bree were the same: dependent; happy to be a wife and mother and nothing more. It took maybe two days to realize that Bree is so much more than that. Bree runs her household like a professional. Her food is impeccable; her house is immaculate; her appearance is never sloppy. Bree is control even when the world is going to hell, and Susan can't emulate that even when she tries.

Lynette is independence in every sense of the word. Susan thinks that it wouldn't matter if Tom ran off to Bermuda with a hooker, Lynette would simply pick up the pieces and move on. Nothing seems to faze her; nothing seems to shake her. Lynette frightens Susan sometimes because it seems unnatural to be that strong. Like Lynette is alone, fighting through life with no one to lean on. Sure, maybe Lynette can survive anything, but what is the point if there's no one there in the end? Susan loves her, but she wouldn't be like Lynette even if she could.

Everyone thinks that Gaby is beautiful—and she is—but Susan actually thinks that it's her confidence that carries her through life. The world bends over backwards to Gaby because she believes it should. Susan wishes she could be that confident. She thinks that her life would be much easier if she could simply make everyone believe that she deserves the best. But she's not Gabrielle either.

The world around her is full of women who are nothing like her. It makes her wonder, constantly, Why me?

She still hasn't found an answer to that question.

Bree

Bree likes to box people into their identities and leave them there. People shouldn't change if they can help it. It just makes everything messy and complicated. She knows because she has changed and it's only served to turn her world upside-down.

When Bree was a little girl, she wanted to grow up to be a wife and mother. She learned to cook and clean and sew, and while girls around her were talking about absurd things like becoming lawyers or doctors, Bree's greatest wish was to marry a lawyer or a doctor. At eighteen, she went away to college because that was what well-rounded people did. When she graduated four years later, she was engaged to a medical student.

Bree loved that life. A lot of the time, she still misses it desperately. She liked running her own business; she liked being successful; but the truth is that all of that was easy to give up at the end of the day. Life moves on. Besides, that isn't who Bree is, really. She is still a cook and a woman and a mother and a friend and a homemaker, and those are the identities that have always mattered to her the most. The only thing that's missing is the role of wife, and the truth is that she feels like she hasn't really fulfilled that role in years. She became distracted—lost in a world she never thought she wanted—and it cost her that identity.

Right now she's having fun, but deep down inside she knows that it isn't going to last. She can feel her true identity aching to burst out, and it's only a matter of time before nature wins. That's just the way the universe works. Her friends are living proof of that.

Gaby was lost for years, beauty sacrificed to a harsh reality. At times, Bree would catch glimpses of the old Gaby desperate to come back—a glance in the mirror that went on for just a little too long; a lingering touch of a silken garment at the mall; a sparkle in her eye when someone complimented her. Bree always knew that someday glamorous Gaby would come back, and she couldn't help but smile when it turned out that she was right. Proof, again, that people can only hide who they are for so long.

Lynette is cyclical because she foolishly wants it all. Bree has learned the hard way that that is impossible, but Lynette is stubborn. She treads water for a little while, but eventually has to swim or she'll drown. She jumps from motherhood to her career to sacrificing things for Tom and back again, never able to decide which she is; never able to decide which is most important. That is why Lynette will always be dissatisfied—she can't put enough effort into one thing long enough to truly feel successful.

Susan tries to pretend that the world has hardened her. That she's strong and tough and a fighter, but Bree knows that it won't be long until she admits that she's a mess. Deep down, Susan believes that there's always good to be found in the world, and that's why she's crushed by it so repeatedly. She wouldn't be Susan if she didn't cry.

Bree likes depending on the predictability of people. It makes it much easier for her to admit that while she's having fun right now, ultimately she isn't really going to be happy until she's someone's wife again.

Lynette

Lynette is keenly aware of how the rest of the world sees her. She is a mother who isn't satisfied to just be a mother. She is a businesswoman who doesn't care enough to sacrifice her family. She is a begrudging wife who doesn't appreciate what she has. And, despite all of this, she is strong. That is what people tell her time and again. You are strong.

Lynette is tired of people defining her.

This is how she sees herself:

She is a woman who loves her kids more than anything else in the world. If she has to, she will give up everything for them. She will die for them. But the truth is that she doesn't have to give up everything for them. At least not right now. And as long as she knows that she is willing to sacrifice everything in the world for her babies when the time comes, why is it such a crime to take a little time for herself now?

She is a woman who married the man she was crazy about because she knew that he'd be a good husband and father and friend. She loves Tom even more now than she did when she met him twenty-one yeas ago, but the plain and simple fact is that it's been twenty-one years. There are patterns and routines and rapport that develop between two people who have been together as long as they have, but sometimes she still worries. Her marriage is the hardest job she's ever had, and the only one she's never quit. More than anything, she wants to still be able to say that in another twenty years.

She is a woman who has always had a great head for business. It's a world where she thrives because it's a survivor's environment. Every man for himself; the smartest, quickest, wiliest comes out on top. Lynette can maneuver that world with her eyes closed. At one time, her career was the only thing that mattered to her, but somewhere along the way, it took a backseat to her family. Now, work is an escape; a place to be the best for just a little while before she goes back to the world where her heart lies.

None of this makes her strong. And she's not sure why her friends describe her this way because they're really not so different.

Susan is what she was as a child. Insecure and scared of the world. The unknown is a terrifying place and tomorrow is always a mystery. Susan reminds her why she never wants to be vulnerable. Sometimes she's harsh with her because she resents that weak little girl, but mostly she feels compassion because she understands.

She used to think that Bree was the competition. If she was ever going to be the best in a world that didn't extend beyond her home, Bree was the one she had to beat. But Bree's life has fallen apart time and again, and Lynette has come to realize that perfection she shows the world is nothing but a façade. It's a soothing reminder: no one is perfect. Because Lynette knows for sure that she isn't perfect either.

Gaby is a fighter. She will go to hell and back for what she wants, no matter what the consequences are. Lynette understands this because she's a fighter too. Neither of them can lie back and let the world step on them; not if there's any possible way to prevent it. Whenever she feels like she can't struggle any more, looking at Gaby reminds her that it's not a choice.

Lynette is scared and lonely and smart and jealous and funny and harsh and compassionate and so many other things besides strong. Sometimes she wishes people could see this.

Sometimes she wishes she could let them.

Gaby

Gaby knows that she's shallow. She knows that it's a joke to the rest of the world. What will Gaby say next to top the last vapid thing she said? But she's not a fool either; she knows that her beauty is all she has.

Other women get by in the world in a lot of different ways. Lynette is smart and savvy. Even if she didn't have anything else, she'd have an amazing career. It makes Gaby horrendously jealous sometimes because Lynette does have everything. The job and the marriage and the kids. And Gaby knows those things aren't going to disappear at fifty or sixty or seventy. Lynette is always going to have that life.

Susan is willing to put everything on the line no matter how much of her pride she has to sacrifice. Gaby has never met another person who is able to give herself over so completely, whatever the cost might be. That's why Susan will always be taken care of. Someone will always be willing to step in and help out a person who is willing to be that exposed.

Bree is classy. She's an ageless, effortless woman who only wants to take care of someone else. If Gaby's learned anything, it's that there's always someone out there looking for a substitute mother. Bree will never be wanting for that attention. And now, apparently, she can even find it in an insatiable lover, a fact that almost seems unfair to Gaby.

All she has are her looks. In time, those looks will fade. What will be left after that? Gaby dreads that day. She dreads it because all of her options will be closed. Carlos will finally have all of the power, and if he ever decides that she's not enough, he can leave her with nothing. She knows that it sounds crazy because Carlos loves her—for more than her looks, though she can't figure out why—but it's a thought that creeps into the back of her mind every so often.

She supposes that's what happens when her whole life is just a bomb ticking down.

Ten…nine…eight…

What will she be when her beauty fades?

…seven…six…five…

How will she get what she wants? How will she have any influence on the world?

…four…three…two…

What options will she have left but to be entirely dependent on her husband?

…one…

She tries not to this about it too hard. After all, she's not educated or talented or helpful. All that is has is beauty.

Kaboom.

She'll worry later about what she'll be once it's gone.