Risenfromash: For those of you hoping for a quick resolution to Miles and Franziska's problems I'm sorry to say a resolution will not be coming immediately and that I risk alienating some of you with the actions they choose to take, but that's the story and I hope that you will continue to read it as it progresses. But don't worry the angst and melodrama will be lessening after this posting as one of my pet peeves are books where the characters ruminate on the same damn thing for chapter after chapter making me want to claw out my eyeballs.

EPISODE 16

PART III

"I was with someone else." The words echoed in his head as he stumbled away from her blinded by his tears. In his mind, Franziska's voice speaking her confession grew more and more distorted with each reverberation. Miles fumbled with the doorknob to his room and upon entering locked it behind him. He calmly walked over to his bed and sat upon it. He felt like continuing to sob but all he seemed capable of doing now was staring into space. It was as though all his tears had once again dried up.

While with Franziska he had been ruled by such intense passion that now even his feelings of anger and betrayal could not fill the void. A mere hour ago his world had been an entirely different place. It had been full of hopes and dreams, but now all that was left was fear and confusion as though he had been plunged suddenly underwater and held there.

His whole world, his whole purpose in life had collapsed. He had held many beliefs about him and his sister and now they were all subject to greater scrutiny. He had thought that despite society's reasons for believing their relationship scandalous that they belonged with one another. He believed that they were truly one another's other half. He believed that Franziska's stern, argumentative nature was merely armor protecting the very delicate creature underneath and that she was lonely and too scared to admit it. He had thought that he served her as no one else could slipping through her barriers to ally himself with the true Franziska. The one only he knew.

Most of all, Miles had believed that what he and Franziska shared was special and uniquely unbreakable because of the combination of their bonds both as siblings and lovers. As her brother he knew more about her than anyone else. He understood instinctually what caused her grief or happiness because he had experienced the world in which she grew up. He had shared with her many of the same challenges and, therefore, he didn't just try to understand, he knew, as no one else could. And as her lover he was determined to care for her and to eliminate the things that caused her unhappiness, partnering with her to slay the demons that plagued her.

He had believed that when they slept together they were making love, honoring this unbreakable connection between them, but now that union had proved itself to be more fragile. Miles felt stupid. He had loved her, really, really loved her. He would have done anything for her, but it appeared that she'd been using him. He cringed to think that all they had been doing was fucking, but it certainly seemed that Franziska saw it that way. Why else would she have chosen to intentionally be with someone else? Why else would she not call him when he left her messages to say that he was thinking of her and that he loved her?

Maybe I really am a fool.

~xxxx~

That first night was the hardest. He couldn't sleep. He kept picturing Franziska in the arms of a generic faceless man and he wondered if that was that all he was to her, nothing more than a very handy sexual plaything to delight her? He wished he could convince himself that it weren't so but her actions seemed like evidence enough.

Miles thought that perhaps a drink would soothe his discomfort and he opened a cupboard in his room and found to his dismay that after one shot of his best rum the bottle had been drained. He headed toward the kitchen to find some more spirits and was forced to pass the site of his reunion with his sister. There in the hallway still lay the items Franziska had dropped there when she had embraced him.

He saw her whip and recalled a previous time when she had become separated from it and he had returned it to her. It had been the first time in their adult life that she had displayed her vulnerability to him and he remembered how seeing her crying had pulled at his heartstrings and made him want to scoop her up and hold her till her pain went away. At the time he thought it was only his brotherly protective instinct, but upon reflection he had to wonder if even then there had been more to his love for her. Perhaps latent desires he was too much the gentleman to admit or recognize.

He picked up the whip delicately as though it were a sacred thing. This object had bared witness to so many important moments in her life. He caressed it. It reminded him of how irritating she could be when she insisted she was right and how commanding she could be when he agreed with her. The whip was not unlike his sister; it could be soft and gentle or bite with such ferocity that it could rip your very heart and soul out.

She'll be in need of you.

He carried the whip in his arms cradling it like an infant as he crept down the hallway to her door. He stood before her threshold knowing that she was just on the other side of it and feeling his desire for her taking hold of his entire body. The magic of her presence was pulling him in. He was desperate for her, so addicted to her in his life that he wanted to dash through the door and throw himself at her feet. He knew he could lie and say what she did didn't bother him. That as long as she allowed him to continue to worship her and serve her that he would do so and he knew those words would allow him back in her arms and things could be as they had been.

But Miles valued the truth too greatly to lie and what his sister had done wounded him. He placed his hand upon her door his palm connecting with her door so he could feel her energy one last time before he knelt to place the whip in front her door, a final offering for his queen. And then he turned from her room resolving himself to a future of loneliness.