Atlanta, May 2001

Brenda moved down the aisle at a stately pace, a smile plastered on her face beneath the thin lace of her veil, only her fingernails digging into her father's arm through his suit jacket giving any indication of her reticence. She couldn't believe she was about to do this. Her friends couldn't believe she was about to do this. Her parents really couldn't believe she was about to do this; she'd had the same conversation with both of them at different times earlier this morning. Yes, Mama, I do want to get married. Yes, Daddy, Daniel is a good man.

He was waiting for her at the end of the aisle, smiling brightly, and she tried to latch onto that smile. To let some of his confidence transfer to her. He was the one who'd gotten her into this mess, mostly because he was the one who asked her, but if Daniel thought they would be good together, surely they would be. Wouldn't they?

At the heart of it, she did want to be married. She was thirty-four, turning thirty-five in just a few weeks, and it was high time she grew up and admitted that she wasn't the most important person in the world. People need people, Mama was always saying, and Brenda Leigh was people, too, even if nine years at the CIA had called her own humanity into question. She couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life entirely alone, and if she couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life with Daniel, either, well, she'd give it some time. She was almost certain that she would get used to having another person in her home, in her bed, every day for the rest of forever.

And it would be nice to come back to Atlanta a married woman. The move would be official by the end of this year; she was leaving DC's police department behind for a promotion in Atlanta. She'd live closer to her parents, maybe she'd have children (she actually shuddered when that thought crossed her mind and her father looked at her oddly out of the corner of his eye as though he feared she was having some sort of episode) and she'd finally get one of those lives people were always talking about.

The problem, she realized as she reached Daniel at the far end of the church, was that she wasn't interested in having one of those lives people were always talking about. Her father lifted her veil and kissed her on the cheek before dropping it back in place, and she reached out and took Daniel's hand just like they'd rehearsed.

She was interested in having someone take care of her, she was interested in not feeling alone all the time, she was interested in the idea that maybe she could open herself up to another person, but she also couldn't shake the notion that maybe she had already had that opportunity, and she'd screwed it up royally. She tried to focus on the preacher's words, on the feel of Daniel's hand in her own, but she couldn't. She tried to keep her mind away from an auburn haired woman she'd lost long ago, but in the process her mind lighted on a much more recent, and much more unpleasant, memory.

"You can't seriously be considering this," Will said, stretching languidly on her bed and toying with the little diamond ring on her finger. Brenda snatched her hand away.

"Why shouldn't I? Because you're going to leave your wife and we can finally be together?" her tone was biting, cruel, but then Will had been cruel, too. Will had been promising her things for years, and had never delivered. He had been irate when she first started seeing Daniel, but as she'd pointed out, he didn't really have much room to talk. Pot calling the kettle black and all.

"You don't love him," Will said, not a question or an accusation, but a statement of fact.

"Honestly, Will, at this point, I'm not sure anybody loves anybody anymore. You're supposed to love your wife, but here you are with me. And if you loved me, you wouldn't stay with your wife. We see this every day, people killing people, not for love, but for sex, for money, for drugs. No one loves anyone but themselves. And I think Daniel will be good for me."

He stared at her, his shockingly blue eyes so sad as they took in her form. "Who screwed you up so bad, Brenda Leigh?" he asked, reaching out to gently touch her face, but Brenda pulled away.

"You," she said with a forced little smile, sliding out of the bed and into the robe she left hanging by the door. The truth was Will hadn't damaged anything that wasn't already broken. Sharon had left her in pieces, and no one, not Will or Daniel or Brenda herself could put her back together.

The preacher had asked her a question, she just knew he had, and Daniel was looking at her expectantly. She took a deep breath.

"I do," she said.

Los Angeles, May 2001

"Please don't do this," Sharon said, but even she could hear how deflated she sounded. She'd already given up, and this posturing, this trying to keep him here, it was all for show. Jack was leaving, and there was nothing anyone could do about it anymore.

He didn't answer her, he just kept right on shoving clothes into his bag, staring resolutely at nothing.

This wasn't how this weekend was supposed to end. They'd sent the kids to Sharon's parents for a few days so they could be alone together, so they could talk. Just as Sharon had always feared, the move to Los Angeles had really only served to push them further apart. Her job with LAPD's internal affairs was not a regular nine-to-five desk job; she was gone all hours of the day and night, and though she had risen from Sergeant to Lieutenant in record time and there were rumblings of her being made Captain at some point in the near future, her success had only meant more time away from her family. And though she pretended otherwise, she had been grateful for that time away. Jack was growing angrier and angrier as the days went by, and her sons needed her less now than they had when they were smaller. And Lily, her precious Lily, the baby who had prompted this move in the first place, her golden blonde hair drove her father absolutely crazy. It was insane, it was madness, to think that the fact that Sharon had been fucking a blonde woman when she got pregnant might have had some impact on their child's hair color, but Jack hadn't been particularly sane lately.

Lately, every time Sharon walked through the door it was to find Jack sitting in his chair, beer in hand, scowl on his face. He never used to drink, but he hadn't made many new friends in LA and work hadn't been as easy to come by as he thought it would be. He'd lost the job he came here to take within the first year, and nothing really stuck after that. He missed Virginia, he missed his parents, he missed the way Sharon used to be. He was always commenting on her clothes now, asking why she dressed like such an uptight bitch. He was always commenting on her comings and goings now, asking where she'd been and with whom and never believing the answers she gave him. Sharon didn't recognize this man. He was not her Jack, not the sweet man who used to hold her hand in the car and roll around on the floor with their children, not the man who used to send her flowers at work for no reason, not the man who always used to make her smile.

Their last argument rang in her ears-

"I'm not going to uproot my life, our children's lives, again, just because you haven't put in enough of an effort-"

"Enough of an effort?" he erupted. "You think I haven't been trying, Sharon? I've been trying every day, trying to trust you, trying to be good to these kids, trying to like this fucking city," he never swore, not her Jack, who was always so kind, so good, "but it isn't working. We aren't working."

"You still don't trust me?" she asked brokenly. He hadn't said the words out loud before now. She supposed that's what their problem was at its heart, but to hear him say it, to him proclaim so matter-of-factly that he didn't trust her, it tore her up inside. It had been four years since Brenda Leigh, and the thought that Jack had never gotten over what she'd done to him made Sharon want to sit down and weep for her own foolishness.

"Are you kidding?" his tone was spiteful, derisive. "Every time you walk through that door I wonder if it's your perfume I'm smelling or some other woman's. I wonder what goes through your mind every time we walk by a pretty girl. I wonder if I'm ever going to be enough for you."

"Jack," she started to say, her voice shaking with the tears she was trying so hard not to cry, "Baby-"

"Don't do that," he said, turning away and reaching for his bag. "I can't do this anymore Sharon. I'm going to a hotel and I'm going to call a lawyer."

He hadn't spoken another word after that and now his bag was packed. He was ready to go. Ready to walk out on her, on their children, on the life they'd built. Jack headed for the door and Sharon let the tears begin to fall, chasing after him on unsteady legs.

"What about the kids?" she cried, reaching out for his hand. When he snatched his hand out of her reach she recoiled as if he'd slapped her.

"I don't know what we'll do about the kids," he admitted, his hand on the door handle. "But I do know that I can't stay here, with you, for another second. I'll see you around, Sharon."

He threw the door open and disappeared out into the gathering darkness beyond, leaving Sharon well and truly alone for the first time in nineteen years. She sat down in the foyer of their suddenly empty house, buried her face in her hands, and wept.