Easy Regrets by Star Angel Disclaimer: Yes, yes, I know they're not mine. But I can love them anyway! Author's notes: I'd just like to take a moment to do something I haven't done in any of my other story notes. I've forgotten something very foolishly and that's very selfish and stupid of me. I forgot to thank some people! I'm part of the PTCA community and many of the people on the messageboard have helped me out of writer's blocks and story jams more than once. My two 'official' beta reader, Barb and BR have both been extremely helpful in improving my stories and inflating my ego. Seriously though, without these people, I don't know where I would be. I love you and hereby dedicate all my PT stories to you.~BMG(aka: Star Angel) and now... Easy Regrets It'd been so easy for so long. She had a knack for it. Perhaps something she inherited from her father. She wasn't sure of course; the memories of him seemed so far away now, blurred behind a wall she strengthened every day. Strengthening her mind, weakening her soul, destroying her heart. She couldn't remember a time when her heart wasn't bleeding. For him, for a mother, for friends, for love, for a 'normal life'. Things she knew she would never have. So, she pushed it all away, ignored the yearning emanating from deep inside herself, from a place she refused to acknowledged yet desperately wanted to know. Perhaps just a peek, just to see what she was like. Just to see beyond the ridges, beyond the scars, the tears. Beyond her ugliness to the inner-beauty she prayed she possessed. It'd been so easy, to ignore it. To let everyone else's voice fill her ears, drowning out what she needed to hear, what she needed to believe about herself. She never had been good enough at anything. Except engineering of course. But, besides her trade, she was a failure at everything else, and she knew it. Too strong, not tall enough. Too fast, not respectful enough. Too stubborn, not confident enough. Too much like herself, not enough like the self she thought she should be. In the end, she'd found out it was easier to just stop feeling. They couldn't get to her like that. The taunts and insults no longer hurt her. The inner loathing no longer touched her. The deepest yearnings no longer haunted her. She just pushed it all away, everything else be damned. It'd been so easy for so long. Why wasn't it easy anymore? Damn him, why did he make it so difficult to forget about him, to ignore the subtle glances, to forget the gentle smiles, to scoff at the obscene jokes...why was it so difficult to push him and everything he brought with him aside? She'd done it before. Pushed aside her father's betrayal, her mother's disapproval, the cruel names, the aloof boys, the would-be lover who knew her only as a friend. She pushed it all away...over and over. She forgot...everyday, she'd have to forget. She'd pushed...he'd pushed back. It ruined her private little world. Damn him for making it past the wall, for making her show him who she was. He'd gotten to her. It'd been so easy for so long. It had become in integral part of her. Like breathing. Something she did without a thought. An instinct. A survival instinct. She would've self- destructed by now without it. She knew that. Didn't she? This reflex had saved her many times. Saved her from broken bones at the hands of others, from crying in her room every night, from picking up the D'ktagh her mother kept in a place on her mantle and slicing it across her wrists. More than once. This feeling had never hurt her. Not too much anyway, not too many times... That was a lie, and, suddenly, she knew it. The reflex had kept her from smiling. From laughing. From talking with her mother. From going to Stephanie Lauret's house to play. From accepting the secret valentines she would sometimes receive. From staying in her own home. From going steady with the two boys who had asked that of her. From getting close to the girls who smiled to her. From staying in the Academy to complete her dream. This instinct had kept her from crying... It'd been so easy for so long... The days had been so hard for as long as that... She'd been so cold... It was getting so hard to breathe...she could barely see anything in front of her. She needed to see the two piercing blue eyes. The ones that would light up when she walked towards him in the mess hall, that would squint in delight at their owner's joke, that could hold more tenderness than she'd known, that looked at her sometimes like she was the only thing, everything... Precious. She'd never been precious before... Her vision was so blurry...But her mind had never been clearer. A shake, a few desperate words spoken with her small reserve of air. They flickered slightly before appearing to her finally, a little dim but still there, as charmingly blue as the moment she'd looked into them in that dusty cave, on those rickety steps. Looking at her like she was all that mattered, even at the threshold of Sto'Vo'Kor. Not Gre'Thor, not for her. Not for them, she'd make sure of that. He looked at her, trying desperately to stay with her, not to be alone at these final moments, but more so, not to leave her alone. She was more fragile than she knew. He heard her voice barely, fading in and out of Limbo. He forced himself to concentrate, to anchor himself to the words dancing towards his ears. And then he heard, the last few tones strung into one beautiful sentence riding on the wings of her silken voice, rough but clear. "I-I love you..." He'd heard the expression, "My heart skipped a beat," he'd even used it once or twice, but not until then, when his heart stilled for an eternal moment, did he know how true those words were. He wanted to respond. He wanted to smile and look into those eyes and tell her that he loved her more than any words could say. He wanted her to know him, his soul and his bleeding heart. But... ...It had been so easy for so long. Through all the mischief and the loud words and the seemingly off-handed remarks, he'd never let the wall go down. He'd wanted to, so many times. He'd wanted to push beyond that instinct and just let himself burst through. But... It was so easy. And he was a coward. He'd been a failure for most of his life; it came as no surprise to him that his courage should fail him, that he should fail her. It hurt him more than he realized. "You picked a great time to tell me." She looked at him for a second, as if trying to accept that she'd heard those words. It broke his heart to know that she expected something from him he wanted so badly to give but his fear just wouldn't let go...Her silent tears broke him and he did all he could; pulled her close, cradled her lovingly in his arms, letting her know as much as he could through the thick material separating them, without the strength of words, that he belonged to her. A million regrets passed through his mind at once. Abandoning his Jules Verne novels for scientific books he never fully understood. Nagging his sisters when they decided they didn't want to join Starfleet. Backing down every time his father wanted him to. Never having the guts to go against the admiral. Lying after the crash. Not letting his father visit him in prison. Not letting Harry all the way in. Never telling the Captain how grateful he was for having his life back. Never telling Chakotay that he was truly a good man. Using the cheesiest lines and the most unimportant girls and not telling the woman he loved the truth. He had the same regrets she did. Never knowing himself... Never letting anyone else know him... Letting it be too easy...