Title: Stabbing Westward I: Shame

Author: Margaret Brown

Pairing: Rommie/Dylan

Rating: G

Status: Complete

Archive: Yes to list archive if any, all others please ask first

Feedback: Yes, please!

E-mail address for feedback: phoenyxphiyre@hotmail.com

Series/Sequel: Stabbing Westward, part one of four

Disclaimers: I don't own the characters or the lyrics, just my story ideas.

Summary: Rommie ponders Dylan's reactions to the events of Star-Crossed

Notes: Part One of the Stabbing Westward series. Yeah, I know - it's an evil song fic. ::laughs:: My muse smacked me upside the head with this one and wouldn't let go, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The song is Shame by Stabbing Westward, off their album Wither, Blister, Burn, and Peel. I'm assuming for this fic, BTW, that Rommie and Gabriel actually slept together in Star-Crossed - I don't think they did - and that Dylan ran into a few problems accepting the events of that episode, despite comforting Rommie at the end.

Title Note: I titled this series Stabbing Westward for two reasons: one, all the songs I'm using are by the band Stabbing Westward, and two, the direction West, ruled by the element of water, symbolizes emotion, instinct, and intuiton - exactly the territory Rommie and Dylan are trying to get to and through...

Warnings: Spoilers for Star-Crossed. Also, undiluted angst ahead that could prove addictive.

I only see myself
reflected in your eyes,
'til all that I believe I am
essentially are lies.

I wonder sometimes if you even realize how much of what I am is that way just to please you. Not you, my captain, or even my fellow officer, but you specifically - Dylan Hunt. The things I say, the things I do, even down to how I dress and wear my hair. Pathetic, isn't it? A warship with no mind of her own...

The problem is that you've been - how would Harper put it - "freaked" since my affair with Gabriel. You try to cover it by hiding behind Commonwealth protocol, but I know you too well. I can see how you flinch inside whenever mention of Gabriel comes up. And I heard from Beka about how you drank yourself into an angry stupor after I admitted that I'd slept with him. Come to think of it, you haven't looked at me the same since that day - there's always something lurking behind your eyes now when you look at me. Like I'm somehow tainted now, or flawed. Or like I've betrayed you somehow... That, I think, is the part that hurts most...

I've spent hours talking to Beka and Rev, and even to Harper, about why you're so distant suddenly, and why that distance hurts me so much. The sad truth is that nothing in the world matters as much to me as you do, and that I'm no better than a pet seeking its master's approval. And that without that approval, there's nothing left.

I have my own theory about what's so wrong between us suddenly, but I'm not sure I like it. Because if I'm right, it would mean this is all your fault and I can't do a damn thing to fix it. It would mean you're too much of a coward to face what you feel for me - what we feel for each other - and that's something only you could remedy. I'd hate to think that someone like you would let something so base as jealousy ruin what little we're allowed to have together...

The worst part of this is that that one night with Gabriel woke something in me, in more ways than one. I know what it is to be loved body and soul now - and I finally know that that was what I wanted from you all along. Harper would call it one of the universe's little jokes - I understand it all now, just as it's all slipping away from me. Maybe I'll have the courage someday to ask if you lie awake at night like I do, too filled with these... cravings to sleep. I have the feeling your answer could make all the difference...

And, of course, none of this helps with the fact that I don't know what the hell to do with myself right now. I feel so... disjointed and disconnected, and I'm beginning to get a little frightened at how much of my self, and my life, revolves around you. Is this what drove Pax crazy in the end, that Warrick's absence from her life left her without any sense of reality?

I'm sick of crying over this, Dylan. And I'm sick of bearing the weight of your misplaced silent disapproval just because I can't make myself do anything else. So sick of it all, in fact, that I can actually understand finally why Pax chose to die rather than fight to go on. I'm ready to crack after a few weeks - and she lived with this for three centuries...

You should have dismantled me when I begged you to. That would be preferable to the way I die a little bit more inside each time I see you...

You swore to be my heart, Dylan. You held me in your arms and promised to help me when I got like this. Do you remember?

If you do remember, Dylan, I need you right now... I can't handle this on my own.