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Five Moments Of Truth And Trust by Winter Baby
Summary: One suitcase full of money, two star-crossed assassins, three sex scenes, four mentions of mulder, and five ways it never was. Krycek/Marita.

title: five moments of truth and trust
author: winter baby
rating: r
category: sra
archive: anywhere, but e-mail me.
spoilers: patient x, one son, requiem, existence, the
truth
keywords: k/ma, au
summary: one suitcase full of money, two star-crossed
assassins, three sex scenes, four mentions of
mulder, and five ways it never was.

website: http://alienterritory.popullus.net
feedback: winter_baby@mad.scientist.com
disclaimer: none of them are even close to being mine.
timeline: patient x, one son, requiem, existence, the
truth. and in that order too.
author's note: the five things challenge. because alex and
marita were *made* for this.


-----------------------------------
+ five moments of truth and trust +
-----------------------------------


[ one: you hurt him like no one else ]

"Give you the means to save Covarrubias, after what she did?"
-Alex Krycek, The Red and the Black


Anywhere she goes, he'll follow her.

That's how betrayal works. There has to be some kind of backlash.
Nobody explained this to her until it was too late.

She thought she had slipped out of Cairo unnoticed, but she should
have known better than that. Alex surprisingly has eyes everywhere,
for a man who's supposed to have no connections left. She made sure
of that, but he's always had resources, no matter what the
circumstances.

There are moments of regret, when she thinks back to the first time
he sought her out. He told her, "You can be so much more than this."

She was a trained informant then, a dealer of knowledge and
misinformation, depending on the time of day. He promised that he
could take her away from all that. She only partly believed him.

In Istanbul, he finds her.

She thinks, that has to be a song.

He's in her room, even before she checks in, and what's amazing is
that she randomly walked into this hotel, without even knowing
herself where she was headed. She doesn't know how he finds her, and
she's a little afraid to ask.

"Why are you here?" she says suspiciously and drops her bag onto the
floor.

"You took the boy," he answers simply, standing up from the chair in
the corner. She nods, silently cursing herself for not buying a
weapon as soon as she stepped off the plane. He growls, "I'd like
him back."

"You're slipping, Alex. Your intel isn't what it should be, because
I don't have him anymore. I handed him over to Mulder." Her voice is
cold and hard. She doesn't believe that he didn't know this. He's
using it as a flimsy excuse to chase her across the world.

"Of course," he replies with a wry smile and takes a step closer to
her. "How silly of me to forget."

These are the games they play, even though both can see through each
other's words. Intentions, though, are far more difficult to discern.

She doesn't know what he wants from her.

He pulls out his gun and she's not at all taken aback. She is
surprised however, when he throws it onto the dresser and instead
kisses her, hard and terrifying and better than she remembers it.

They land on the bed in a tangle of clothes and he whispers into her
ear, "This isn't forgiveness." She shuts him up by pulling off his
pants and he grabs her roughly with a hand that will leave bruises.
The sound of her own moaning is muted out by the pounding of her
heart and she thinks, Maybe I don't want to be forgiven.

Afterwards Alex gets dressed quickly but leaves the gun on the
dresser. He's halfway to the door when he turns around and says in a
low voice, "It shouldn't have been like this."

Marita looks away because his eyes are too honest and too wounded.
He says nothing more and shuts the door behind him.

And this is how it is. She runs from country to country with Alex
following her always. Each time there is a moment of doubt when he
pulls out his gun, but it ends with a kiss and them lying naked in
bed. Despite all this, she knows the day will come when her doubt
will be truth, when his kiss will be a bullet because maybe it's
what she deserves.

He's right. This isn't forgiveness and it shouldn't have been this
way at all. She wasn't supposed to betray him like she had, but
people don't change and sometimes she can't be anything more than
what she was trained to be.



[ two: you love her like no one else ]

"Tests. Terrible, terrible tests."
-Marita Covarrubias, One Son


These are the things she is certain of: her name is Marita
Covarrubias, her hair is not naturally that blonde, and she once
loved a man named Alex Krycek.

Sometimes she dreams, and the images that float in and out of her
mind might be hallucinations. The suits she wore to work, the smell
of her perfume, all the other hazy details from her life before -
they could be something she made up, something she clings to because
this existence is torture. She can't be sure any of that was real.
There's no proof.

But the three things she knows as truth, those she writes down on
pieces of scrap paper with pens she nicks from the nurses' pockets.
She writes them over and over, and hides the paper in random places
around her cell - under her mattress or behind her mirror - in case
she should ever forget.

My name is Marita Covarrubias.

This is not my natural hair color.

I loved Alex Krycek.

Proof of the first is on the hospital bracelet they make her wear.
It's indestructible. She can't pull it off or stretch it and she's
sure, if she ever got her hands on a pair, scissors wouldn't work
either. Not that she wants to, because it's the only proof she has
of her identity. It's not much, but it's enough.

The second fact was harder to establish. It happened so gradually
that she didn't notice it until there was at least a good inch of
light brown. Her roots are growing out, slowly but surely, and she
wishes she could dye her hair again. Maybe if she asks very nicely,
one of the younger nurses will take pity on her and sneak in a
bottle of L'Oreal. It's too much to hope for, but she has very
little left anymore.

The third and last is the most elusive. There's no physical evidence
of this at all, just a nagging feeling and the name Alex Krycek that
runs through her mind at random moments of the day, more often
during the night. She loved Alex Krycek.

But lately, she's becoming less and less certain about that last
one. There are memories of him but she doesn't trust those. They're
flimsy things, so easily shaped and reshaped. There are also holes
in her memory, and it's like living in a fog. The moments she does
recollect she can't be certain of, because it's quite possible that
she's mad and the feverish images she thinks are truth are anything
but.

It's a terrible thing, not being able to trust one's own thoughts.

With shaking hands, she begins to write her mantra on a slip of
paper she grabbed from the nurses' station while they were moving
her to the testing center. She's halfway through writing her name
when an alarm starts to blare, red lights flashing and the shrill
screaming of a bell.

The automatic lock on her cell door clicks open and she gapes at it
with wide eyes. Outside in the hallway, people are running and
yelling, but she's frozen on her bed.

It's her means of escape, yet she can't move.

She thinks, this has to be another trap.

Over the shouting of the doctors and security guards, she hears a
clear voice calling out her name. She opens her mouth to answer, but
then shuts it.

She recognizes that voice.

Alex opens the door of her cell and for a moment he just stares at
her. He's shocked by her wraith-like appearance, she can tell, but
not as shocked as she is.

It's him. He's real.

Which means that everything she remembers about him is real,
including what he did to the boy and then what the boy did to her.
That memory comes back to her like a slap in the face, and she
recoils.

He grabs her arm and pulls her off the bed, a look of concern mixed
with determination on his face. She struggles against him and hisses
desperately, "You did this to me. I'm like this because of you."

She falls to the ground in sobs, her skeleton-thin fingers covering
her face. Alex's arm wraps around her and helps her stand.

"You did this to yourself, Marita. You should have never left me."

His voice is soft and soothing, and this isn't the Alex that she
barely remembers. But this is an Alex that she can see herself
falling in love with all over again.

"Why are you here?" she whimpers and looks up at his face, which is
smooth and hard and tangible.

"I came here for you," he explains. "It's all going to hell. The
rebels are going to win. They took it."

He doesn't need to say anything more. She understands what he means,
and she also understands the urgency. Alex uses his one arm to carry
her out of the facility, staring down security guards as they leave
and daring them with his eyes to question his authority.

The world outside is bright and shining. She breathes deeply and for
the first time in a long time, the air tastes clean. Alex helps her
into his car and she leans up against window, taking in the coolness
of the glass.

Miles away from Fort Marlene, after she's assured herself for the
hundredth time that the trees passing them by and the mountains in
the distance are real, she turns to Alex and asks, "Where are we
going?"

The hope in her voice surprises even herself.

He glances at her and smiles.

"Who knows?" Alex answers with a shrug. "It's a brand new world."

And she can live with that.



[ three: you love him like no one else ]

"Do you trust Alex, Marita?"
-Cigarette Smoking Man, Requiem


She hates Tunisia. It's too hot and her skin crawls with sweat.

She doesn't know why she was the one sent to retrieve Alex. Irony or
poetic justice, she can't decide.

Negotiating in Arabic is a lot harder than she thought it would be.
It's been years since she had any reason to speak Arabic and she's a
bit rusty. But after numerous attempts, she finally reaches an
agreement with the warden of the prison.

She tries not to mentally convert the suitcase full of dinar into
American dollars as she slides it across the table towards him, and
is instead grateful for the fact that it isn't her own money.

She is shown to his cell. It stinks of human excrement and it takes
all that she has to keep from turning away. Alex comes forward and
she doesn't flinch when she sees him.

He's wrecked. He stands oddly vulnerable without his prosthetic arm
and when he says her name, there's a hint of hatred in his voice.
There's some in hers also.

They say nothing as the cab brings them back to the hotel. She
silently passes him one of his old prosthetics, and he puts it on
without a word. He won't even look at her. She wishes he would.

At the hotel, Alex takes longer in the shower than she remembers he
used to, but she thinks it's probably been months since he had a
decent one and lets him have the small pleasure.

He calls out to her, and for a second she thinks he's going to say
something spiteful or cryptic like he usually does, but his voice is
more pleading than that.

She walks into the bathroom and he's standing in the shower stall,
glistening under the water and staring at her with greedy eyes.

It's also been months since he's seen a woman.

His eyes are roving over her body, and without even thinking she's
taking off her outfit, piece by piece. How easily she falls back
into habit. How easily she gives in to him.

He's whispering her name as his hand runs across her thigh and she
shivers despite the hot water. His mouth on hers is hungry and
wanting, unfamiliar in its desperation but not at all unpleasant.

When Alex slides into her, he stares at her as if he's realizing for
the first time the full implications of this all.

"Why are you here?" he asks, his eyes wide and confused. She opens
her mouth to reply but instead a moan comes out. Her answer is lost
somewhere between the second and third orgasm, and she forgets the
question altogether.

His body pressed up against hers feels so good. It's been too long
since she's had him like this and the way his tongue runs over her
breasts is enough to make her forgive him of anything. She thinks
the amount of times they've betrayed each other is pretty much even,
so it's a clean slate starting from now.

Of course, she's rationalizing her need to have him again. Pride
won't let herself admit the real reason she wants him so badly, and
when he looks at her with those green eyes, she has to turn away.
Otherwise she might say something she'll regret later, something
Alex can hang over her head and use as ammunition. Something he can
hurt her with.

After, when he's collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion and she's left
to pack their belongings, he looks up at her and says softly, "I'm
glad you're here."

She ignores him and continues to pull clothing out of the dresser.
Her back is to him and she's grateful for the fact that he can't see
her face. She's so close to breaking down, falling into his arms and
begging him not to betray her, or kill her, or leave her again.

Instead she hardens her face and turns to him. In an even tone, she
explains, "The Smoking Man. He is dying."

Alex is shocked. She knows what he's thinking because she thought
the same thing when she heard the news. It isn't possible to kill
that man, yet he's dying nonetheless.

"You got me out of jail just to tell me that?" Alex asks
disbelievingly and sits up on the bed. She shuts the suitcase and
slips the plane tickets into her purse.

"No, I was sent to retrieve you. He wants us back, for one last
assignment."

Alex rises to his feet and grabs her arm, pulling her close to him.
His voice is angry, bitter, but not at her.

"I'm not so easily manipulated anymore, Marita. That man has led me
to my death more than once. He had me thrown in that hellhole," Alex
hisses. With a scoff, he says, "And now the old man needs me. I
won't do it."

She yanks her arm away from him and retorts, "And what do you
suggest we do instead? Run? Hide? Whatever's happening out there, he
must think we can stop it. We have to at least try."

"Bullshit," he says, his voice growing louder. "We don't know what's
happening. He tells us that we're saving the world but for all we
know, he could be playing us for fools. Let him toy with Mulder. Let
him pump Mulder full of idealistic crap about sacrificing the few
for the greater good. I'm finished."

She leans up against the dresser and shakes her head. She feels
tired. She feels defeated. "This is a lifetime's work, Alex. I don't
know anything else."

He moves towards her and takes her hand into his. Alex is gentle and
charming, and she remembers this is why she followed him in the
first place, years ago.

"It doesn't matter," he tells her softly and he might be
sincere. "Just come away with me. We can leave all of this behind.
And if the end does come... at least we'll be together."

She looks up at him with uncertain eyes, hope mixed with doubt. "Can
you promise me that?" she says incredulously. "You've left me
before."

"And you've left me," he replies matter-of-factly. Alex takes a deep
breath and after a pause, asks, "Do you trust me, Marita?"

She thinks, this has to be a joke.

This is how Alex got her to betray the Syndicate once before, with
sweet words and a soft face. But there is no Syndicate now, only a
dying man half a world away.

There is however, another man, standing in front of her, offering
her what she couldn't ask for, and asking from her what she can't
offer.

Trust, he said, as if it were ever that simple. Trust him not to
leave her again. Trust him not to betray her again.

There are leaps of faith and then there are nosedives off of cliffs.
She can't decide which one this is, but she's no stranger to
falling.

She needs Alex, in ways she doesn't understand and that doesn't
change the fact that she wants everything he's willing to give her,
and maybe even more than that.

Sometimes it's as simple as want and need.

"Yes," she says slowly, wrapping her hand tighter around his. "I
trust you, Alex."

She might be lying, but when has that every mattered before between
them.



[ four: you hurt her like no one else ]

"You think I'm bad, that I'm a killer."
-Alex Krycek, Existence


He comes home at odd hours of the night. She doesn't know where he's
been, but she's too afraid to ask. He's rougher, more threatening
than she remembers. He speaks to her in curt sentences and slams
doors in her face. It bothers her that she can't pinpoint the exact
moment when Alex began to change, and then she realizes it's because
she wasn't with him when he became this hostile. He's been like this
ever since she's returned.

Leave a man for a year, and he's a completely different person.

They haven't touched at all either, which she finds the strangest of
all. She sleeps in a separate room of his D.C. apartment, cold and
alone and a little frightened.

She should go, leave Alex to his bizarre comings and goings, but she
doesn't. Something keeps her here, maybe her own morbid curiosity to
find out what's changed in him.

She follows him one night, carefully, stealthily, using all her
training because Alex has developed this kind of hyperawareness that
she doesn't understand. He can hear her open a water bottle from
across the apartment or know that she's been with another man just
by looking at her.

Alex gets into his car and after a few blocks, she knows where he's
headed. The FBI building stands prominent in the distance and she
speeds past.

He's going to see Scully, with her bulging stomach flaunting its
ability to create life and she looks down at her own flat one, empty
and most likely barren.

Fort Marlene ravaged her body, and whatever miracle brought Scully's
child to life most likely wouldn't work in her case.

She returns to the apartment and searches through Alex's room for
secret documents or anything that will give her a clue as to what's
happening. It feels like old times, when she was told only what she
needed to know, except this time Alex has deemed that she needs to
know nothing.

Something's coming. Something big and drastic, and she's scared
witless that she won't be prepared for it.

After discovering nothing, she shuts off his laptop and resignedly
climbs into his bed, burying her head into his pillow and breathing
in his scent.

Except, it's not his scent.

She sits up abruptly and stares at the room with new eyes, as if
she's never seen it before. Everything is orderly and neat, with
none of Alex's messiness about them. There isn't the stench of
cigarettes in the air anymore or random packs lying around the room.
And smaller things that only she's noticed about him, like the way
he used to keep his prosthetic in its case on the nightstand to the
left of his bed, yet now it's sitting on the right one. Or how his
cologne bottle is almost full to the top, barely used, when before
he would douse himself in it to cover up the smell of smoke.

She can't find his presence in any of the things here. It's as if
all the small, everyday inconveniences that Alex lived with were
corrected by someone assuming his life. Like how his razor is kept
in the toothbrush cup, instead of behind the mirror like she
remembers.

Tiny matters like that, which really have no consequences but stand
out to her because these are habitual things that aren't so easily
broken.

She doesn't know why it surprises her so much that his change in
personality has also extended out into the smallest details of
himself.

The phone rings. She almost jumps out of her skin and after
steadying herself, picks it up, sitting on his bed and still
scanning the familiar yet slightly askew surroundings.

"Marita Covarrubias," a deep voice states simply.

She recognizes it, although barely.

"Mr. Skinner," she answers in the same tone and waits, holding her
breath. He can't be delivering good news. He wouldn't have called
otherwise.

"Alex Krycek is dead," he tells her coldly and hangs up. The
abruptness of his words snaps in her ears.

She doesn't believe him, because she's been lied to before and has
learned never to accept anything at face value. There is such a
thing as seeing it with her own eyes, and she grabs her car keys.

The elevator takes her down to the bottom floor of the FBI parking
garage, and she knows with certainty where she's headed. She's been
out of the game for a while, but she still has the resources to
trace a simple thing as a cell phone call.

When the doors slide open, there's a body crumpled on the cement
ground and she gasps loudly, a sob caught in her throat. She begins
running towards it, tears forming despite herself. The closer she
gets, the more details she recognizes and his brown hair is drenched
in red blood.

There's a bullet hole in each of his limbs and one right between his
eyes. She brings a hand to her mouth, forces herself from retching,
and cries silently at the sight of Alex's unmoving body.

All of a sudden, his eyes fling open and she jumps back in surprise
as he blinks and turns to look at her. The flesh around his wounds,
torn and bloody as they are, seem to be growing smaller and smaller
and a cold smile spreads across Alex's face.

She backs up into a cement column, horrified eyes staring as he
stands up without the slightest sign of pain.

"Alex..." her voice trails off and she can feel fear grip her heart.

She thinks, this cannot be happening.

With his right arm, he grabs his prosthetic and flings it across the
garage; it lands with a clatter but she doesn't take her eyes off
him.

"Well, now that you know, I can finally grow this stupid arm back,"
he says as if she's relieved him of some great burden.

She can feel her knees weakening.

"I don't understand," she cries pathetically, her voice trembling.

"You must know by now. I'm not your lover. I'm not him," he explains
matter-of-factly and she can see it in him, the lack of humanity.

Her breaths are shaky, on the verge of becoming sobs. "Where is he
then?" she whispers, knowing that no matter how inaudible her voice
is, he'll still be able to hear her.

"Dead, I assume. This is only his body," he continues in his
mechanical explanation. "Whatever made him human, whatever made him
exist, is gone now. I have replaced it."

His eyes are cold and dead, and she knows he's telling the truth.
This *thing* is not Alex, and she can feel silent tears falling.
Some silly voice in her head admonishes her for crying in front of
Alex, which is something she's never allowed herself to do, and she
almost screams out loud, It's not him.

"What's happened?" she whimpers and he gives her a quizzical look,
as if he doesn't understand why she's acting so desperate.

"Walter Skinner shot me, trying to kill me. I think he felt he owed
you something, which is why he called you to tell you that your
lover is dead. Except he's been dead for a long while now," he tells
her and some of the cruelty she detects in his voice may be
intentional.

"No, that's not what I meant." She shakes her head and asks in a
small voice, "Why are you here?"

He smiles callously again, understanding her question. "This isn't
your world anymore. I was created to prepare the way," he answers
cryptically and for a moment she thinks, this could be Alex, if she
just ignored the fact that he could never have hurt her this way.

In an instant, he's looming over her threateningly, muscles tense,
yet his eyes still remain vacant and dispassionate. She looks up at
him searchingly and probably for the millionth time in the last
three minutes, her heart breaks when she recognizes nothing in his
face.

"I should kill you," he growls and grabs her wrist roughly, almost
to the point of breaking bones. She swallows her pain and
straightens herself, pushing her nose into his.

"Then why don't you," she hisses tersely, and for a moment she
swears that a look of doubt crosses his face. It's a flicker that
resembles Alex too much and she can't stop herself from hoping that
there's something left of him in that cold body.

But it's merely a fraction of a second and his face becomes hard
again. He flings Marita across the cement floor and races out of the
garage at inhuman speeds.

A sob rips out of her before she can stop herself and she cradles
her wounded body, forcing herself to stand up. Whatever conspiracy
that she's been left out of this time, a cleanup crew will
undoubtedly come to cover it up and she doesn't want to be caught in
that.

Some bones may be broken, and Alex is gone, and there's this
horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she's realizing
that this may mean, for the first time ever, she's truly alone.

Abandoned and tattered, she finds her way back home through the dark.



[ five: they love like no one else ]

"They'll kill her."
-Alex Krycek, The Truth


She stares at the summons, black ink on white paper, and wonders how
such a simple thing could seal her fate so completely.

They want her to testify at Mulder's hearing, a joke of a trial that
won't save his life, no matter how much evidence they bring to
light. Yet they're calling her to the stand anyway, because of some
foolhardy gullibility or maybe more artfully, to expose her.

"Don't go. Don't leave me, please," a familiar voice says somberly
to her, and she turns around to face it.

Alex is leaning against the wall in his leather jacket, both arms
crossed over his chest and a pleading look on his face. She ignores
him; by now she's used to these intrusions.

"It won't do any good. He's as good as dead, and you will be too if
you go," he continues softly, earnestly, and it's so unlike him to
be this honest with her.

"Leave me alone, Alex," she mutters as she refolds the summons and
slips it back into its envelope. He doesn't listen and she really
didn't expect him to. Alex crosses the living room and crouches in
front of her to meet eyes, hands placed gingerly on either side of
her face.

When she first saw him like this, she almost cried at the sight of
his left arm, functioning and whole. He told her that there are only
two times in a man's existence when he feels completely whole. One
is in death, he said. The other is in the arms of the woman he loves.

She asked sarcastically, "So which one is this?"

He didn't return for a week after that. She wouldn't let herself
miss him.

She rises from the couch and sidesteps him, moving towards the
kitchen. When she walks in, he's standing by the sink and she
doesn't give him any notice, immune to his ghostly appearances.

"Why do you want to expose yourself like this?" he asks, genuinely
confused, and she abandons the coffee filter to face him.

"I used to be a good person, Alex. But I've done so many things in
the past," she whispers. "I'm trying to make up for so much."

It's a confession she thought she wasn't prepared to make, but he
has a way of drawing things out of her that she thought was locked
safely away. It's an affect that's carried over into death and she
finds that it's all too fitting.

She's kept secrets from him before, about conspiracies and
colonization and loyalties, but never about the important things,
like how she felt about him or how much she needed him.

She regrets that now; she thinks Alex only haunts her because of the
things she said to him before he left, that night he got himself
killed.

"Don't go. Don't leave me, please," she begged because she didn't
think he'd be coming back.

He did, though. And he never left.

"That's not who we are, Marita. We're not good people," he says
dejectedly, reaching out to her but not being able to actually make
contact. She longs for his hands on her body but no matter how many
limbs he regains, he can't ever truly *touch* her. She thinks that's
the worst part of this all.

"I'm not like you," she snaps, taking out her anger at his corporeal
inadequacies by throwing him annoyed glares.

"But you are," Alex murmurs almost absently, looking down at his
boots. "We're the same, you and I."

He tells her these things as if they're as obvious as two plus two
equaling four, and maybe what he says is fact but her admitting that
wouldn't do any good. It's just something else he'd use to keep her
here.

"They'll kill you if you testify," his voice becomes dangerously low
and it sends shivers down her spine. It reminds her of the way he
used to whisper into her ear while he was inside her, hard words and
a harder prick, and she would moan and gasp and claw at his back as
she came.

It can never be like that again, and she wonders what's the point of
him hanging around if he can't kiss her like he used to.

"Why are you here?" she says evenly and it's not a question, more of
an accusation.

"I have nowhere else to go," he answers with a shrug.

She thinks, that has to be a lie.

Alex follows her into the bedroom and she begins to change into a
suit. He keeps protesting, telling her that going to this trial
won't absolve her of her sins, that it'll only get her killed.

"You think I don't know that!" she exclaims out of frustration and
throws her jacket onto the bed. He grows silent and she won't look
up to face him.

"We're not good people," Alex repeats softly, so gently. She falls
onto the bed, face buried in her hands and she's sobbing silently.

"You said you'd come back," she whispers and can taste tears.

His voice comes from all sides, but still she won't look up.

"I did, didn't I?" he defends himself, and she shakes her head.

"Not like this. I wanted you *back*. Really back," she's whimpering
and it hurts to speak. She finally raises her face to meet his green
eyes, sincere and so bright she almost believes that he's alive
again.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left," he tells her and rests his hands
again on her cheeks again, but no matter how hard she tries, she
can't feel them. "Don't make the same mistakes I did, Marita. Don't
leave me."

Tears don't stain his palms, and she'll never feel his touch again,
but somehow his presence is becoming enough for her.

"I won't. I'll stay," she promises and nods weakly. He smiles as he
watches her crumple the summons and throw it into the garbage can.

"That's my girl," he says fondly and he's right, she is his girl.

She knows now that the things he said are true - they are the same.
And maybe that's why she can't let go of him, because only in his
arms, whether she senses them or not, does she ever feel whole.

And because without him, she's nothing.


[ end ]