Date Finished: July 6th, 1999
Classification: Story, Angst, Romance
Keywords: Jarod/Miss Parker, Miss Parker/Thomas
Rating: PG. Oh, and bring your official 'nutcase' license along for this
one, folks.

I Once Loved
By Elsewhere
<elsewherecw@iname.com>

Disclaimer: The characters of Jarod, Miss P., Catherine and Thomas don't
belong to me. Okay?

All lyrics quoted are from the song 'Rocket' and belong exclusively to Billy
Corgan.

Spoilers: Up to and including 'At the Hour of Our Deaths.'

Warning: If this story could get more vague, I'd hate to see it.

Summary: 'And there, at the end of the book, the drawing he had teasingly
tried to do of her. It was a blatant stick figure with swirls of long hair
and a skirt to denote its femininity. Lacking the talent to truly capture
her in picture form, he had made the little drawing into a diagram, lines
extended from it in all directions, each carrying a description of one of
her attributes. He had been aiming for a thousand words to describe her...
but even ten thousand was insufficient for all the things she awoke in him.'
---'I Think I Loved,' Babylon 5 Fanfic by Flarn.

*****
Bleed in your own light
Dream of your own life
I miss me
I miss everything I'll never be
And on, and on
*****

"But I do know that I'm sure of one thing."

"What?"

"Love transcends death. That the people we love touch our lives, even after
they're gone."

*****
I torch my soul to show
The world that I am pure
Deep inside my heart
No more lies
*****

<He came to her in the middle of a sunlit day, a vision of peace somehow
neglected, shorn away from a life once forgotten.

"So many dead," he whispered as he stood across from her, and she ran her
fingers across the beads of the rosary resting on the gravestone of the
sister she had never known.

"Everyone dies," was her automatic answer.

"Not everything," he said, looking at her. What is truth? she thought,
recalling bible lessons.

She pulled the rosary away with a small scrape against the stone, gathering
its coolness into the heat of her palm, curling her fingers around it like a
lifeline. Around her, the world went still, waiting.

Slowly she stood, her knees dirty from kneeling, her eyes weary from
staring, her head angry from accusing.

"You wait for death," he said, hands in his pockets as he peered at her.

"Not exactly," she said.

"Close enough."

"No," she looked over at him, holding up the rosary. "No, not close. Not
ever."

He smiled, slowly, and edged a little closer. The sun framed him. Angel. He
was an angel. Almost.

"I understand why, now," she told him, turning her head. "I understand why
we have to die."

"I understand why we have to live," he said, and she smirked.

"Always contradicting me," she shook her head. "Jarod...Jarod. Why, then,
Jarod?"

"We die to live, and live to die," he answered. "Only if it's fleeting can
we realize...understand..."

"Understand?"

"Understand."

Nothing more.

He walked her home, his hand at her back, not asking. Inside her house, warm
and cozy, belying her mind, he looked around, finding the room of her
mother.

"Catherine," he whispered, running his hands along the walls, staring at the
paintings.

"She was beautiful," she answered, and he nodded numbly. "She died before I
could understand."

"No. She died so you could," he shook his head, and she nodded slowly,
fingering the rosary, touching it to the base of her throat.

"Why have you come here?"

"To talk, just like this," he said, gesturing to the phone. "It's
too...apart."

"You've never..."

"Exactly. I've never."

His eyes were dark, and she shivered, clutching the rosary to her chest.

"I don't have the strength for this now," she whispered, eyes widening as
she realized it had been said aloud.

"Now is all we can ever hope to have," he answered, eyes darkening further
as he stepped towards her.

"Here. Take this," she said hopelessly, offering him the rosary just as her
knees failed her. He caught her by the elbows, and the rosary spun to the
floor.

She stood stiffly as he bent between them and picked it up. After a moment
she felt its cold metal tracing the outline of her closed eyes, her parted
lips.

"No time..." she protested, but to no avail. His lips closed over hers, and
she knew one moment of perfect beauty before it all went black.>

But of course that was just a dream.

"Are you all right?"

She glanced over her shoulder. Thomas. The only light in a life of sadness.
She smiled, nodding slightly, holding up the rosary like an offering.

"I think I understand now, Thomas," she said softly. "I think I understand."

He took her hand and led her to bed, but she was silent. So he left her
alone.

But she understood, now. She understood.

*****
I shall be free
Free
Free of those voices inside me
I shall be free
I shall be free
*****

THE END-strange, huh? <g>

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