She sat across from me at my table, her calm, cruel features set in a thoughtful form that seemed more mocking than her smile. Between the two of us was a wine bottle, halfway between empty and full, and a pair of cups, for she was not one to let me drink alone.

Somewhere outside this little apartment, people were enjoying themselves in the gathering twilight, excited and happy and ready to take on the night in good cheer. However, inside this little darkening room, she and I contemplated each other as the radio played the most melancholy of blues.

Perhaps he was out there, having fun. That was part of his nature.

"You're thinking of him, aren't you?" she asked immediately, ever the mind-reader, as she watched the darkness shadow my face. She clasped her hands together on the table, her bare arm so close to me that I could feel her heat against my skin.

I growled softly, half-hoping that she would take it as a sign to stop talking, but she hasn't taken that particular hint yet. I made a motion for the half-empty bottle of wine, but she reached it before I could.

With thin, elegantly white hands, she poured some of the clear liquid into my cup before placing the bottle far out of my reach. She was not one to let me forget that I was both alone and not alone in my own personal misery.

"You know," she said, starting up her favorite statement, as the tenor saxophone on the radio began to wail morosely, "you should forget him." Her voice carried itself in such a way that there was no doubt in her mind that forgetting was the most logical thing I could do. The way it harmonized so lovingly with the saxophone only made my own sorrow grow.

I glared at her with all the bitterness I could muster, but didn't say a word in reply. She has yet to properly respond to threats, to violence, to fear, and I have grown tired of trying.

She gives me a knowing smile, mocking my weakness as I drank down the wine in my cup. It was naturally fruity and sweet, but so very bitter in her company.

She knew about all this, about how my relationship with Duo was crumbling apart, for from the moment Duo left, she has been here with me. She has become my very own blonde-haired shadow, following me wherever I go, never giving me one moment of reprieve.

She walked in that day without preamble and barely a knock on my door, to take advantage of my pain, my nostalgia, now that Duo decided to leave. He told her everything, she said in her calm, cruel way, as she settled herself in the place we had made 'home' together. For she and Duo were good friends, just as she and I used to be. 'And will be once more,' she hinted with that demeaning smile.

I've tried to fight of her advances, this creature, but my attempts were futile against her. I was weakened when Duo left; I had neither the energy nor the will power to drive her away.

There was a void in me from the moment Duo left, and she was more than willing to fill it, with or without my consent.

Neither of us made a motion to turn on the lights. She sat there, as calmly as always, in the darkness with me. Her blonde, blonde hair was desperately trying to catch enough stray light to shimmer, but soon there was no light but that of the street lights outside for either of us.

She tilted her head a bit and stared at the portrait on the wall. It was of Duo, some time ago.

Her face grew pensive as her eyebrows scrunched up a bit in the middle. Any moment now, she will mention Duo again. She will ask absentmindedly about what he was doing right now, or wonder if I'll ever learn to forget him.

This time, however, she said nothing as we contemplated at his photograph in silence.

The first few days without him were a horrible, horrible affair, with this creature lurking nearby with every step I took. I ranted. I raved. I threw small pieces of furniture across the room at times. I beat myself up for small things that may have driven Duo away. I badmouthed Duo for leaving me. I yelled at her to leave me be.

Then I would become exhausted, and she would be there to gather me in her arms and wrap me in her calm, cruel embrace.

The television set was on, flashing colors and cathode ray blue into the room, but I couldn't remember turning it on. She raised the bottle once more to top me off, but I raised my hand against it. I have drunk enough, of both this silence and the liquor.

She lowered the bottle. "You have to forget him," she says again in her calm, cruel way.

"And what will help? You? The liquor?" I said back bitterly, half-muttering to the table. One of her dark, forked eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. Perhaps she wasn't a mind-reader after all.

"The wine will help you," she said, raising the bottle once more to fill my cup, but I would have none of that.

Turning off the television set with a hard jab on the remote control, I lurched towards the bedroom, knowing full well that she would follow me in.

Sometimes, part of me would start to believe that perhaps Duo would return. He would say that he missed me, that he still loved me, and that we should be together again.

I would foolishly announce these hopes and dreams of mine to her, for she was the only one around that could truly appreciate such things, but she would just smile then, mocking me, laughing at me, making fun of me for hoping. 'What you should do is forget him,' she would say, and I would swear at her, asking her to stop talking like an old, broken record, but this would only bring another smile to her face.

Even when I learned better, and shelter these little fires of hope from her calm, cruel winds, she would know, and sometimes, when I see her smile, I could only think of her cruelty.

Lying in bed, I felt the mattress shift slightly as she slid in with me and held me close to her body. Her breath fluttered against the back of my neck, each exhale just bursting with the same sentiment she shares over and over again in the daytime hours.

'You have to forget him.'

'You have to forget Duo.'

She shifted next to me, dragging me deeper into her, her soft, cruel lips brushing against skin only Duo has kissed before. As I shudder and cry silent tears for him, she holds me. Her breath courses up and down my body as I continued to feel that she's making love to me.

She and I were making our way through the grocery store. She would watch, in that calm, cruel, completely unchanging way, as I filled my cart with instant foods. Instant noddles. Instant soup. Instant rice. Heat and serve pizza. Heat and serve chicken. Things for one listless man and his shadow of a companion, neither of which would could even if they had the energy to.

Food cooked in my hands would always come out bad.

She smiled to herself as I stared at the choices of breakfast cereals available, knowing that they were reminding me of Duo. It helped very little that everything reminded me of him. It helped even less that she mocks me this way.

"Heero?"

Wasn't that his voice?

I turned away from my contemplation, half in surprise, half in anger, afraid that this was one of her brutal tricks, only to see Duo's cart pressing against my cart, his instant foods and microwave-able meals touching my own. He looked great, with his hair shining underneath the fluorescent lights and a sad expression on his lips.

Why was he so sad?

"Oh, hi Duo," I said, hoping my desperation to touch him didn't show.

"I..." He hesitated as he looked at what was filling my cart before restarting. "So how is everything?" he tried cheerfully.

For his sake, I tried as well, even as she stared at Duo from over my shoulder. "Everything's been wonderful," I lied.

"That's good," he said, as he grabbed a box of cereal. He wasn't paying attention, though, for he grabbed what he had always said tasted like 'shit covered in glass'. He leaned close to me, so close I could smell the soap he had used that morning against the nap of his neck.

"I'm sorry, Heero," he said softly as we stood side by side in the cereal and cake aisle, "but I still love you." His eyes were on the glossy, clean floor. "Miss you, but..."

He stole a glance at my blonde-haired companion, uncertain as to how to phrase what he wanted to say. "Who is she?" he asked, even more softly than before, a whisper barely heard above the natural din of a supermarket.

"You know her," I said, my voice so lifeless, I was afraid he would not be able to recognize it. "She is... loneliness."

I caught his eyes then, and for an eternity, there was nothing in the whole world for me except for him.

~~~~end

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