Okay... Challenge fic... Sunday's challenge...
Doing some standard header stuff... Not good at this...
Author: fishyone
Word Count: 579
Rating: PG, I think
Summary: We all have a price.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters... If I did... No one wants to know what that would be like.
And I don't get paid for this... If I did, I'd be writing for the show, which would never happen.
Author's Note: I did have this beta'd by Vaberella, and Jess also gave me suggestions for it. Unfortunately, I'm kind of stubborn, and I didn't accept all the word changes they gave me as I felt it lacked my "voice." So any mistakes found in here are mine...though they tried to persuade me otherwise. Oh, VB, if you don't want to beta for me again, I understand... I wouldn't appreciate it if someone ignored my suggestions as I did with some of yours... Sorry...
We all have a price, and he wonders if she is his. He wonders if he would sell his soul, doom himself to eternal damnation if he could only have her. He wonders just how much he’ll pay, if it will be in blood. She’s right there but just out of reach, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t catch her. She’s untamed and mysterious in ways that he can’t begin to imagine; so complex that he would need more than a lifetime to understand her.
Strange. It doesn’t seem to matter so much the pain, the knowledge that he probably won’t live through this. Weren’t a person’s last moments supposed to be about considering life? What is his life?
Without her, nothing. That is why she is his price. He didn’t truly live before he knew her. He had given up everything that he had ever known, everything that he had—granted, it wasn’t much—but it had taken everything to find one thing, one person so infinitely perfect that no one else mattered.
Yeah, she was his price—all right. He hadn’t known that he would find her, not really, yet somehow, a part of him had. Even after that, he didn’t have her. Didn’t deserve her.
She is a price that he can never pay, not in his lifetime, which is looking shorter and shorter by the minute. He is dying, and he’ll never get the chance to tell her that he is a stupid fool that has taken the easy road rather than fight for her. He’s done some stupid things—fallen for other women. Maybe even pushed her into another’s arms. He wants to tell her all this. He knows he can’t. There isn’t time, and she isn’t here. He’d gone off to be the hero again, and this time, it would cost him everything.
His life is slowly leaving him, trickling out a hole so small that it can’t compare to the one in his heart since he has known her. He is bleeding, warm blood running down his side. Not much longer now…
Regrets? Sure, he has them. She’s the biggest one. He regrets not telling her how he felt. He’d give anything to change the past, but he can’t. He knows this. What was it they said about prices…? A familiar cliché… We all have a price. The price is always more than you can afford. He’s learned that lesson now. Too little, too late.
He thinks he should leave the trite remarks to someone else. He’s starting to lose focus, concentration. He’s more than half-gone already.
What price, he wonders, would bring her to him now? Would let him see that enigmatic smile of hers? Let him touch that beautiful hair?
Death, probably. He can’t give much else. He’s lost his gun—dropped it somewhere in the middle of his fight. Everything important is gone. She is gone, and that is the only thing that matters now.
He closes his eyes. He’s had enough. Time to let go…too late… Too late to fight now. Too far gone…
He blinks into the sudden light. He’s somewhere else now, not heaven, but it can’t be hell because she is standing above him.
She holds his hand. “Welcome back, John. We were afraid that we had lost you.”
She calls him John. And somehow he understands that he has paid his price, and she’s his.
Just as soon as he apologizes.
Doing some standard header stuff... Not good at this...
Author: fishyone
Word Count: 579
Rating: PG, I think
Summary: We all have a price.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters... If I did... No one wants to know what that would be like.
And I don't get paid for this... If I did, I'd be writing for the show, which would never happen. Author's Note: I did have this beta'd by Vaberella, and Jess also gave me suggestions for it. Unfortunately, I'm kind of stubborn, and I didn't accept all the word changes they gave me as I felt it lacked my "voice." So any mistakes found in here are mine...though they tried to persuade me otherwise. Oh, VB, if you don't want to beta for me again, I understand... I wouldn't appreciate it if someone ignored my suggestions as I did with some of yours... Sorry...
We All Have a Price
We all have a price, and he wonders if she is his. He wonders if he would sell his soul, doom himself to eternal damnation if he could only have her. He wonders just how much he’ll pay, if it will be in blood. She’s right there but just out of reach, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t catch her. She’s untamed and mysterious in ways that he can’t begin to imagine; so complex that he would need more than a lifetime to understand her.
Strange. It doesn’t seem to matter so much the pain, the knowledge that he probably won’t live through this. Weren’t a person’s last moments supposed to be about considering life? What is his life?
Without her, nothing. That is why she is his price. He didn’t truly live before he knew her. He had given up everything that he had ever known, everything that he had—granted, it wasn’t much—but it had taken everything to find one thing, one person so infinitely perfect that no one else mattered.
Yeah, she was his price—all right. He hadn’t known that he would find her, not really, yet somehow, a part of him had. Even after that, he didn’t have her. Didn’t deserve her.
She is a price that he can never pay, not in his lifetime, which is looking shorter and shorter by the minute. He is dying, and he’ll never get the chance to tell her that he is a stupid fool that has taken the easy road rather than fight for her. He’s done some stupid things—fallen for other women. Maybe even pushed her into another’s arms. He wants to tell her all this. He knows he can’t. There isn’t time, and she isn’t here. He’d gone off to be the hero again, and this time, it would cost him everything.
His life is slowly leaving him, trickling out a hole so small that it can’t compare to the one in his heart since he has known her. He is bleeding, warm blood running down his side. Not much longer now…
Regrets? Sure, he has them. She’s the biggest one. He regrets not telling her how he felt. He’d give anything to change the past, but he can’t. He knows this. What was it they said about prices…? A familiar cliché… We all have a price. The price is always more than you can afford. He’s learned that lesson now. Too little, too late.
He thinks he should leave the trite remarks to someone else. He’s starting to lose focus, concentration. He’s more than half-gone already.
What price, he wonders, would bring her to him now? Would let him see that enigmatic smile of hers? Let him touch that beautiful hair?
Death, probably. He can’t give much else. He’s lost his gun—dropped it somewhere in the middle of his fight. Everything important is gone. She is gone, and that is the only thing that matters now.
He closes his eyes. He’s had enough. Time to let go…too late… Too late to fight now. Too far gone…
He blinks into the sudden light. He’s somewhere else now, not heaven, but it can’t be hell because she is standing above him.
She holds his hand. “Welcome back, John. We were afraid that we had lost you.”
She calls him John. And somehow he understands that he has paid his price, and she’s his.
Just as soon as he apologizes.
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