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Stabbing Westward I: Shame
By Margaret Brown
I only see myself
reflected in your eyes,
'til all that I believe I am
essentially are lies.
I wonder sometimes if you even realize how much of what I am is that way just to please you. Not you, my captain, or even my fellow officer, but you specifically - Dylan Hunt. The things I say, the things I do, even down to how I dress and wear my hair. Pathetic, isn't it? A warship with no mind of her own...
And everything I'd hoped to be,
or ever thought I was,
died with your belief in me.
So who the hell am I?
The problem is that you've been - how would Harper put it - "freaked" since my affair with Gabriel. You try to cover it by hiding behind Commonwealth protocol, but I know you too well. I can see how you flinch inside whenever mention of Gabriel comes up. And I heard from Beka about how you drank yourself into an angry stupor after I admitted that I'd slept with him. Come to think of it, you haven't looked at me the same since that day - there's always something lurking behind your eyes now when you look at me. Like I'm somehow tainted now, or flawed. Or like I've betrayed you somehow... That, I think, is the part that hurts most...
I don't know if I am real without you.
What is left of me without you?
I don't know what's real without you.
How can I exist without you?
I've spent hours talking to Beka and Rev, and even to Harper, about why you're so distant suddenly, and why that distance hurts me so much. The sad truth is that nothing in the world matters as much to me as you do, and that I'm no better than a pet seeking its master's approval. And that without that approval, there's nothing left.
I'm wandering 'round confused,
wondering why I try.
The more that you deny my pain,
the more it intensifies...
I have my own theory about what's so wrong between us suddenly, but I'm not sure I like it. Because if I'm right, it would mean this is all your fault and I can't do a damn thing to fix it. It would mean you're too much of a coward to face what you feel for me - what we feel for each other - and that's something only you could remedy. I'd hate to think that someone like you would let something so base as jealousy ruin what little we're allowed to have together...
I pray for someone to ache for me,
the way I ache for you...
If you ignore that I'm alive,
I've nothing to cling to.
The worst part of this is that that one night with Gabriel woke something in me, in more ways than one. I know what it is to be loved body and soul now - and I finally know that that was what I wanted from you all along. Harper would call it one of the universe's little jokes - I understand it all now, just as it's all slipping away from me. Maybe I'll have the courage someday to ask if you lie awake at night like I do, too filled with these... cravings to sleep. I have the feeling your answer could make all the difference...
I don't know if I am real without you.
What is left of me without you?
I don't know what's real without you.
How can I exist without you?
And, of course, none of this helps with the fact that I don't know what the hell to do with myself right now. I feel so... disjointed and disconnected, and I'm beginning to get a little frightened at how much of my self, and my life, revolves around you. Is this what drove Pax crazy in the end, that Warrick's absence from her life left her without any sense of reality?
I stare into this mirror,
so tired of this life.
If only you would speak to me,
or cared if I'm alive.
I'm sick of crying over this, Dylan. And I'm sick of bearing the weight of your misplaced silent disapproval just because I can't make myself do anything else. So sick of it all, in fact, that I can actually understand finally why Pax chose to die rather than fight to go on. I'm ready to crack after a few weeks - and she lived with this for three centuries...
Once, I swore I would die for you,
but I never meant like this.
You should have dismantled me when I begged you to. That would be preferable to the way I die a little bit more inside each time I see you...
I never meant like this.
You swore to be my heart, Dylan. You held me in your arms and promised to help me when I got like this. Do you remember?
No, I never meant like this.
If you do remember, Dylan, I need you right now... I can't handle this on my own.
I don't know if I am real without you.
What is left of me without you?
I don't know what's real without you.
How can I exist without you?
How can I exist without you?
How can I exist without you?
END