DISCLAIMER: None really. No specific references are made in this story so I am not "borrowing" from anyone. As a matter of fact, these are my emotions from a very real relationship of mine. I just realized that my cathartic writing also fits a favorite pairing of mine.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Episodes Loss and Ghost.

It really isn't about me…
By PiperT

She hurt me more deeply and profoundly than I thought anyone ever could. Certainly more than anyone else ever had. Impressive, if you ever met my well meaning, but horridly judgmental and opinionated mother. No one should ever be able to scar us worse than our parents. That's an unwritten rule somewhere, isn't it? It should be. And yet it's not my mother that left this hollow shell. Mommie Dearest move over. She hurt me even more.

I guess that's because she had a choice. She chose me. She chose to entwine in my life. She chose to hurt me. Then she chose to walk away. We don't choose family. For better or worse, we get what we get and thereafter remain endlessly shaped and affected. In its way, no matter how far removed, family never leaves us. Friends and lovers can. And do.

Not that we were lovers. Many thought so, but we weren't. Not in the carnal sense anyway. I wonder now if I wanted to be? I'm not sure. She captivated and compelled me. And I believe she knew her power. Power with which she expertly spun her lethal web and caught me within. So bewitched, I courted her, the dangerously venomous spider-woman. Knowingly damned, I wooed, charmed and cajoled the beautiful beast.

What a paradox she was. Soft and kind. Harsh and hateful. Vulnerable, yet barbed. Sensuous, yet cold. A self described "Ice Bitch with only slush where her heart should be." But I never thought so. Not really. I saw more. I saw so much more. And I loved it. I loved her. Pain, torture and all. I suppose that somehow makes me twisted, eh? What can I say? I love a challenge.

We fought. Oh, how we fought. With so much passion, heat and fire. Each so adamant in our stance, in the righteousness of our own holy opinion. You would think I would have learned. Never contradict the lawyer. Especially, not when your knowledge base is regularly proven to be less than that of your opponent. But never, never was my conviction less than hers. I had that in spades. Easily equal to, if not surpassing to her own. No matter how ill formed and emotional my argument, my heated conviction kept me painfully toe-to-toe with her many a day and night on many an issue. Sometimes I think we fought just to fight. I wonder if we didn't use it as wickedly intense foreplay for the sex we never had.

And then, eventually, the tension would break. We could only sustain the ire so long, until finally collapsing together in tearful reunion. Hard words forgiven and forgotten, replaced by vulnerably emotional whispers and soft caresses. I loved those moments when I was allowed to caress her face, ostensibly to wipe away the tears I was so repentant to have caused. Moments I could hold her hands, encouraging a safe environment for her to truly share herself with me. Moments when she would finally let me hold her tight, melding her body to mine. I never wanted my baby to cry. I never wanted her to hurt that much. But consoling her in her pain was my secret heaven. Only matched by the nirvana of her soothing embrace about my body as she lovingly stroked my back until my sobs subsided. Oh the excruciating pleasure of her heated breath on my neck in those tender moments!

Some might label our relationship as "narcissistically co-dependent," selfishly supplying our own personal needs by hounding expected reaction out of the other. This is the conclusion to which she has come after much "therapy." I know, as she has told me so.

My, how she's changed. Seemingly for the better in many ways, and yet I don't like it. I especially don't like what time and distance have done to us. I feel like I haven't changed at all. Like time and reality stopped for me when she went away and could only begin when and if she returned. I really hoped to pick right back up from before she left me so broken and confused and alone. I know now that that won't happen. Her presence in my life will be fleeting. She's been dating a man. I guess he gives her what I can not. What I never could. I guess she never really wanted me. It hurts. To think she's not who I thought she was. Not what I wanted her to be. I wonder if I ever really knew her at all? Was I was just safe and useful enough at the time? A prop easily discarded? Did I simply serve my purpose for as long as it could last? Must I now accept that it is over? If it even ever began? Was it all in my head? Does she not realize all that we were? All that she was to me? Does she not care? Did she ever? And even if she did, does it matter now?

Is it really over? Is it ever really over? Is she really OK with that?

I'm not. I don't know that I'll ever be. But I don't know that it matters. It really isn't about me…

The End

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