Subtext Warning: Yeah, I guess so. This story implies a loving relationship between two consenting adult women. If you are under 18, this type of thing is illegal in the state/country where you live or if you are offended by it read no further.

Acknowledgements: This story would not have been possible without the multitude of friends who make me feel. In no particular order, these are, Noël and Shuana, Laura, Theodora, Kent, and a very special young man, even though I only knew of him for a few hours, those few hours made a hell of a lot of impact, Johnny. He was probably the reason I started writing this in the first place. Thanks to Kamouraskan for an edit, despite her cold. Rule number one, never share the communal harmonica.

Feedback: I'm archaeobard@hotmail.com

Sometimes, you think you know someone better than you know yourself. You love them beyond question, so much so, you never stop to ask if they feel the same. Then, that part of you that you thought was so irreplaceable, just . . . leaves. It's no longer there, and you wonder how you could have let it go. But that's the thing. How did you know it was going? You didn't, and that hurts more than anything else. It's not so much what was said, but not said. Not so much was felt, but not felt. How do you do that? I don't know.

I had always seen my scrolls as a representation of the joys and failings of life and death. Never did I imagine they would act as my conscience. As I write now, this scroll is just that, an expression of my soul, because the personification of that has gone.

It's best for you, she said. You don't need me anymore, she said. I only end up hurting you, she said. Yet surely I know what is best for me, and those things make me love her all the more. What I need is her, not her absence so I can live a lonely life. My only regret is that I never talked to her as I should have.

I had to leave, but she would never understand that. She's too full of love and life to see my pain. Maybe she saw it and chose to call it something else. I don't know, and that's what frightens me. Yes, I am frightened of myself, because I can't escape who I am. I plead with myself to make all this hate and anger just go away. It won't. I know that. So, I continue to lie to myself, telling myself that it will be all right. Yet there are some things beyond even my control, and I hate that. There is nothing I can do now, to erase what I have done. I have no idea how many people detest me, but I can see it in their eyes. She doesn't need to be part of that. I don't need to tarnish her with my pain. I know that, yet it is something she cannot see. In that respect, she is blind. I don't know where she is, but I would be even more false to myself if I said I didn't care. I care more than I ever told her or showed her. I should have showed her, but then that would have been giving up myself and I wouldn't have been able to have done what was right. I wouldn't have been able to let go. I've always believed that I never needed anyone, until I met her.

She confuses me more than I could have imagined. Nobody just walks away like that. One day she was there, the next, she was gone. Nothing, no goodbye, no real explanation. After all we've shared, doesn't she know who much that hurts? What does that make me? It makes me less than nothing, not even worth an explanation. No-one can exist like a lump of rock, especially her. I know what she's like. It's all a mask. I thought I had climbed behind that, but obviously I was wrong. What makes people do that, hide themselves? Why hide from the people you love? It's not worth it, if not for you, then certainly for the people you hide from. I never thought she would hide from me. Well, maybe at first, but then when I really saw her, I didn't think she could hide any longer.

I used to watch her working out her anger and her fears in the forms she put herself through. She'd go off and work herself up into a panting exhaustion, unaware that I was watching. She never realised that all she had to do was talk to me, and I'd help the darkness subside. She never understood that fighting it the way she did, fighting anger with anger, would only create more. It was a temporary relief. I knew this, otherwise she would not have had to fight the demons so often.

I must be a fool. Why else would I push the only thing that ever really mattered to me so far away? I don't understand why I did it, save to say that I was hurting too much, and I wanted to escape. Leaving Gabrielle must be the most cowardly thing I have ever done. I curse myself for it. How can I live the rest of my life knowing I have done that to her? The question is, done what? What have I done? Should I hate myself for it the way I do? That is idiocy in itself. What does she mean to me anyway? I hardly need her to survive. I was fine without her. I lived. I didn't need her then, so why in Tartarus do I have this gaping hole in my existence now? I don't want this feeling, I don't need it. It's destroying me, and the thing that angers me the most, is that I created it.

She'll come back. She has to, she needs me. She just doesn't realise how much. She thinks I can't give that to her, no matter how much I say. She won't believe me, because she doesn't want to. But wanting is something different from needing. And I need her as much as she needs me. It's childish to run like this. What is it going to achieve? She can't possibly feel safe like this, because I feel wasted.

I have to do this. I ache too much. It's not very nice to feel dead inside, and I have felt dead inside for too long. Why should I deny myself a little bit of life? I say it is for her sake, but is it really? Maybe I took myself away because I was too afraid of what she made me feel. But that's the point, she made me feel. If I can't live with feeling, I shouldn't be here. Tomorrow. I'll go back tomorrow, I just need time to . . . think.

Until next time,

Archaeobard.