From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 16 Feb 2005 00:45:12 -0000
Subject: THE BEAT, by J. LaVa (1/1), MSR, V, PG by Jacquie LaVa
Source: direct

Reply To: [email unavailable]


THE BEAT

By Jacquie LaVa

MSR, PG, some angst, vague mytharc spoilers and post-Truth musings

Disclaimer:  They who remain nameless in this story know whose
Clones they are!  Originals still owned and operated by 1013 and Crew

Written for the BTT 155-word Valentine's Day Challenge -  I ended up
with 500 actual story words.  Oh, well... I've always been an over-
achiever! <g>

Thanks to Sallie for thinking up the challenge in the first place!


"The Beat"


Once he held a gun in his hands and wondered what it would be like
to feel his heartbeats skip, slow, peter out, one by one.  His life
at the time seemed less than worthless; how easy it would have been
to pull the trigger, stop those beats.

He didn't do it.

Once he sat, nailed to a chair of anguish, his flesh pierced and his
mind shredded.  Amidst the unending pain he heard his heart beating,
slowly, reluctantly.  How easy it would have been to make his mind
persuade his body to stop the agony, stop his heart.

He forced those thoughts away.

Once he slumped in the dankness of a prison cell, body sore from
repeated beatings, mind numbed from utter loneliness and despair,
from more worry than one person should ever feel.  When he laid his
palm over his heart it seemed as if those lurching thumps within
meted out a rhythm of the burden of his life.  How easy it would have
been to let his tormentors administer the fatal physical assault that
would end his pain, finalize his existence.

He refused to allow them the satisfaction.

It took a long time for him to understand why his heart needed to
keep beating... almost too long, in fact.  He trod a rough and
difficult road, taking little for himself yet doling out so much to
so many, until his heart wasn't much more than a husk waiting to dry
up completely.  How easy it would have been to unlock the chamber and
allow the stones and sand of the path he walked to fill him up, dry
him out; until nothing remained but a shallow form that would barely
fill a coffin.

He somehow found the strength to pull back from that particular
abyss, before it could steal his soul.

He could have fallen any number of times, offered up that heart of
his on several occasions, instead of keeping it intact for its true
owner.  Thankfully, he was always smarter than that.

And so, tonight it pounds in tandem with its true mate, beat to
frenzied beat.  

Tonight his heart pulses against hers.  Tonight his blood runs hot 
and fast through his veins, telling him he's alive, vital, strong and
whole - and all for her.  

Tonight the need is so powerful that he can only hold on tightly as
she draws from him all of his passion, all of his urgency and every
drop of his love.

Tonight he gives his full essence to the woman whose memory brought
him back from the very brink of despair, time and time again; who has
blessed him with a reason to live, to love... 

To hope.

End