Originally posted for 15minuteficlets. Lily's POV. Falls between Sunshine In A Bag and Deja Vu All Over Again.

Every night, for weeks now, he waits until he thinks I'm sleeping, slides slowly out of the bed, and tiptoes away silently. I wait a few minutes, blinking eyes blankly at the clock to keep track, and then I follow him.

Sometimes he's just gone into the kitchen, and I have to double back before he sees me. Sometimes he heads to the couch, and pretends to watch TV -- he either flicks from channel to channel, not really seeing what is on, or he leaves on something completely random, and stares absentmindedly into space, while the light flickers off his face.

Sometimes he gets in the elevator and rides it all the way up to the roof. It took me a few days to figure this out, since I didn't know the elevator *went* to the roof, but Shane happened to mention it one day and I put two and two together. The next day I followed Chris up, thinking for certain that he would *notice* when I suddenly appeared behind him atop the building, but he didn't. He just kept leaning over the ledge, just looking out at what we could see of the city at night, occasionally glancing down at the odd person who would pass here and there.

And I can't talk to him about this, that's what gets me. I know what he's thinking about. He's thinking about *her*. He spends more time thinking about the one that got away than about the one who's *here*. The one who knows when he's not sleeping, the one who cares enough to lurk in shadows and worry.

And I *can't* talk to him about it. I just know that he's going to say things I don't want to hear, things about how it's *different*, it's something that's in the past, it's something that made him who he is, and there isn't any comparison, really. He won't mean it the way I want him to mean it. I want a reason, I want to know why I'm not more important, and I know that makes me selfish but I want to be the one he's thinking about. Because for the first time in my life, he's the only one that *I'm* thinking about.

*****

(The word was loss.)