TITLE: Heroes
AUTHOR: Samiam (Sampiper@aol.com)
RATING: G
ARCHIVE: Just tell me where to send the child support payments
FEEDBACK:  I'll beg if needed
SPOILERS: Existance Post-Ep ... vague allusions to FTF
KEYWORDS: MSR
DISCLAIMERS: Um yeah, you know what this is and you know the drill.

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Webster's New World dictionary defines a hero as any person admired for
nobility, courage etc.

It seems like such a inadequate description.

For most of us, our first concept of hero is that of our own parents - a 
father
who first teaches you to swing a baseball bat and years later, teaches you to
drive; or a mother who holds you when you are scared and makes you feel better
when you are ill.

As children, we are introduced to the storybook heroes of old.  Princes and
Knights who fight demons and dragons all for the love and honor of their
ladies.  Later, TV shows us the modern day hero - the cowboy in his white hat
or the good guy cops that fight the good fight and are rewarded with a kiss
from a special love.

As we grow older, we take for granted the everyday hero - The cop on the 
street
or the fireman on his modern steed who risk their lives everyday without being
asked and yet most of us are too busy to even smile and wave as they ride by.

Sometimes, if we are lucky, we are introduced to a new kind of hero.  Someone
that will hold you when frightened, make you laugh when you are down.  Someone
that challenges you, frustrates you, excites you, and - if you are really 
lucky
- loves you.  Someone who will go for days without sleep to sit by your
hospital bed just so you aren't alone when you wake up.  Sometimes, they'll
even fly to Antarctica for you.

In the storybooks, we are told heroes ride up on white horses to rescue their
fair maidens from evils unparalleled and whisk them away to castles on the
hill.

In the real world, heroes arrive in government issued helicopters to rescue
their maidens from ghost towns and fly them away to a hospital in southern
Georgia.

Heroism can be defined in an instant and remembered for a life time.

So here I am, wrapped in the arms of this man; my friend, my partner, my love;
I can't help but feel safe as he gently lays a hand on the head of our son and
smiles at me.  In his eyes, I see everything; love, hope, life and above all
-admiration and in that instant I realize ...

I am my partner's hero.

And he is mine.