AN: I sort of love that the first really nice thing Mimi says to Stanley is "Sorry you had to suffer through that", because it is totally their entire relationship in a nutshell. They both had so much go badly and so much go well...I am surprised no one burned their house down. I love the idea that they grew old(er) together, surviving the war and living in the most famous house in the country until Stanley died of cancer. It's my dream.

Disclaimer: If it was mine, they'd still be airing it.

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: post-series

Summary: Sorry you had to suffer through that. (Stanley/Mimi)

Suffer Through

Sorry you had to suffer through that.

He presses kisses along old bullet wounds, angry and red and never quite properly healed. She's never sure if she feels more or less when he touches the scars. He's got bullet holes of his own, of course, almost everyone living or dead in the state of Kansas does, but he always flinches when she touches them. Sometimes she wonders which of them is dealing with the trauma incorrectly.

Sorry you had to suffer through that.

Her hands are covered with calluses now, worn by work and cracked with the wind. He barely remembers what her hands felt like when they were soft and sex was all about how different they were from one another. They've been the same for a long time, and not even living in a national monument with an entire generation of heroes buried in the family plots will change them again.

Sorry you had to suffer through that.

Sometimes he thinks that he can actually feel the cancer eating him alive. He remembers the day it rained, tapping on the fishtank and joking about spider powers to make his sister smile. He would have done anything to keep her safe, but he didn't get the chance and she died alone. He knows he won't, has known it since that day in the kitchen when the woman he loved put her hand on his chest for the first time and apologized for something that wasn't remotely her fault. He'd almost thrown up when she did it. Millions were dead, starving or homeless, and he would live happily ever after. Jake will bury him, and then that will be the end.

Sorry you had to suffer through that.

When the rooster crows at daybreak, she is reminded that Washington DC and life as an accountant are gone forever. She'd been happy, she was even happy during her brief tenure at J&R, but she's happy now too. There are no children. She would have done it for him gladly, but with somewhat uncharacteristic pragmatism, he told her why it wouldn't be a good idea. Then she remembers burning fields, and wonders if it was so uncharacteristic after all. He'll die soon, but she doesn't think she'll outlast him by much, and then their house will be a shrine, right down to the bloodstained floor she was never able to purge.

Sorry you had to suffer through that.

He wonders what it means that he's not particularly sorry. She kisses him and tells him to go to sleep.

finis

GravityNotIncluded, September 16, 2008

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