Second-sight:
Definition: extrasensory perception
Synonyms: inner sense, insight, lucidity, precognition

I am standing outside the door to her apartment, waiting. I know she is on the other side of the door. I can feel her breathing, sense the acceleration of her heartbeat, as she waits, anticipating. But now that I've arrived, I'm not sure what to do next. She won't let me in. I know this. She feels my anger, and she is afraid of me, of herself. I place my hand on the door, willing her to open it. It's no use. I stare at the door for a long second. It doesn't look very sturdy. One quick kick proves me right. I enter her apartment.

He is standing in the hall. I know he's there. Has been for almost 10 minutes. I stand frozen in place, staring at the door for the same amount of time. I want to run, hide, flee but there's nowhere to go. I am unable to force myself to walk to the door, to let him in. I don't want him in. I don't want to do this, but it is out of my control. My pulse quickens as I feel him come to a decision. My door flings open.

She is standing in the middle of the room. She isn't surprised by my assault on her door, my invasion of her apartment. She doesn't move, accepting of the situation, staring at me. I turn and carefully push a table in the hall against the door, propping it shut, the simple movement helping to calm me from the adrenaline flood brought on when I kicked it in. I start to walk towards her, willing myself to be calm, control my anger, my fear, my passion.

I have to show her.

I take off my coat and throw it to the floor, my sweater follows.

She has to see.

She begins to slowly move, move away from me, her eyes never leaving my face. I stalk her as she goes, my wallet tossed aside, gun freed from its holster, it joins the wallet. I snap my belt from my pants, and tug my t-shirt free from my waist. Lifting it over my head, my eyes break the connection with hers for a split second, and I can sense that she freezes, our connection severed for a moment, she feels a release. I catch her eyes again, and resume my pursuit.

Bosco has kicked the door in to my apartment. I am not surprised by this, have really been waiting for it. I knew he wouldn't leave, that we have reached a point of no return. There is no point in running, in trying to flee. This is our end, the end as it has scripted from the beginning. We are just players, at the mercy of the gods of such wicked games.

He stands, staring at me for long moment, eyes never leaving mine. He begins to walk, tracking me like prey, slowly, purposefully, taking off his coat and throwing it aside without breaking his gaze that is locked on to mine. His sweater joins the coat on the floor. His wallet comes out of his back pocket next, and his off-duty gun out of the shoulder holster. Both are thrown onto the side table that has been knocked askew when he kicked the door in. Involuntarily, I back away - where am I going to go? My heart races.

"Bosco, what..." I don't bother to complete my thought - I know what. His belt is pulled from his waist and he tosses it to the ground. He lifts his arms over his head and pulls his t-shirt over his face. For a moment, our connection breaks, and I am disoriented, off-balance.

Run!

But it is too late, his eyes seize mine again and he continues tracking me as I move around the room, away from him. He follows me, flinging his t-shirt aside, where it comes to a rest on the back of the kitchen chair. My eyes follow its path to where it lands. He stands before me, naked from the waist up. I skirt my eyes past his scars, over his face and his chest, and stare at his chin, his neck. I can see fading red lines there, scored by my nails, from our battle in the locker room a lifetime ago.

I don't want to see. I can feel his anger, radiating around him, illuminating him.

"Look at me, Faith" his words are low, husky, intense. I've backed myself into the corner of the kitchen, pressed up against the cupboards, the handle on the drawer digging in as I attempt to put more space between us. But he comes closer, closer. I feel a sense of deja vu as his body again presses up against mine, hands this time resting lightly on the counter on either side of me, pining me in place. The weight of his body against mine, the feel of the heat of his skin drains all the strength from me , and I slip downward, held in place by his hips, his hands at my waist.

"Look at me, Faith" She doesn't even blink, won't lift her head to mine.

"Do you see these, Faith - do you see the scars I have? Scars from bullets that were meant for you?" I lift my hand to my face and remove the bandage I always wear. Her eyes flick upward at my movement and drop downward again.

"The plastic surgeons wanted me to have them worked on, erased. I refused. No time, I said. I didn't know why, didn't want to think, to look too closely, why I didn't want them gone. But now I know. They're you. I wear you with me everywhere I go. I can't, won't, cut you out of me like that" Her eyes had dropped further, resting now on my chest, my abdomen where I wear the additional scars of my betrayal. She can't do that, she has to see.

"Please look at me, Faith" She still won't, doesn't respond, so I raise my hand and lift her chin, forcing her eyes to mine.

"Do you see me, Faith?" she nods - yes, no – I can feel her confusion. She is slumped before me - I'm sure if I stepped backwards, and released my bodies hold on hers she would fall to the ground. She is weak, limp, defenseless. What have we done? Her abjection alarms me, humiliates me. I feel my anger abate. She doesn't understand – she thinks I am mad at her for shooting Mann. How can I make her see?

"Faith, don't you understand? When I look in the mirror, I see you, who you are, what we are. I don't want to cover it up anymore. I thought I had to, that I had to hide from everyone, from you, that you wouldn't understand, that you wouldn't want..." I break off, unable to explain with words why I had hidden my scars, and why I now felt I didn't have to.

"Why didn't you tell me Faith? Why didn't you tell me you had killed Mann?"

"I couldn't. I didn't know. Really..."

"What? What didn't you know Faith? Please, let me understand."

"I, I just…I couldn't think, couldn't see what to do. All I knew was you were dead and he had to pay, had to die too. He couldn't just go to jail. That wasn't justice. That wasn't right. That wasn't enough for you. I had to make it even, make it right for you. That was all I could think, all I could see." Her hurried whisper ends in a sob.

"But I don't understand Faith. Why couldn't you tell me? Why was that so wrong, why was what you felt so wrong? I would have...I am, shit, I don't know...overwhelmed, blown away that you did this for me. Why couldn't you tell me? I want what it means, Faith.

Tell me, please. Make me see"

He is relentless, again. His questions are innocent, and he has every right to ask them. But I feel each one like a blow, weakening my armour, my walls. I have to tell him everything. What's the point anymore?

"Why? You want to know why? While I was mourning you, avenging you, crying for you, do you know what didn't cross my mind once, what never even occurred to me until the next day?"

I am breathing hard, fighting for control.

"I never once thought of my kids. Christ, Bos - my children, my son and my daughter. While I was loving you, I forgot my own children" I start to laugh at the irony, but almost choke on it instead. I breathe.

"When I killed him, when I stood there and emptied my gun into his handcuffed body, when all I could think of was you dead, and having, needing to kill him, I never once thought of my children, what doing this meant for them, that I would likely never see again, who would never want to see me again. They never even crossed my mind. That's why I didn't tell you. How could I be that person? How could I forget my kids?

Bosco, don't you see? I lost myself in losing you. I disappeared, poof, gone. There was no more me, no cop-me, no mom-me, just lost-me. I don't lose control, Bos. You know that. But I lost everything when you were shot. And I couldn't bear afterwards, what that meant. What it could mean. You're everything, you're all of me. And I didn't know.

Fred once told me to ask myself just what it was you meant to me. I never did, until the day after I killed Mann. And the answer was the most terrifying thing I've ever faced. You are more than me, than my life, more than my kids. How can I let that be?"

I am shamed by my confession, horrified that I have let him see everything, told him everything, desparate for him to forgive me. There is no going back.

I am humbled by her words, and the anger begins to build again. Anger that we had fought against this for so long, anger that she doubted herself, believed she had somehow failed.

"But Faith, don't you see? Don't you see? That's what I want, I want to be everything, you're my everything." I had to explain to her, had to make her believe in us.

"Faith, I had a lot of time to think in that hospital. Thinking about being shot, almost dying. They kept wanting me to talk to a shrink, have counseling. Couldn't understand why I wasn't expressing my anger, they thought I was "suppressing my emotions". And one day, you know, not long really after I woke it, I realized. It's because I wasn't angry, really wasn't. Because it didn't matter, because I had saved you. That was all that mattered, and me almost dying? So what? It just didn't matter as much as you being alive. And you were alive. And because you were, we were. I had another chance. That's what kept me going, got me out of that bed. I had to make it all right, with us. To stop the stupid games we've played over the years. Faith, I love you. What else is there?"

"What else is there? Oh Bos - how about nothing? How about the nothingness I could become, if I give in to this, if I surrender to us? I'm afraid of losing myself, of being consumed. I lose myself with you, Bos. What if I disappear altogether" I whisper, afraid to say the words out loud, that it make them real, might make them come true.

I had never in my life not known exactly who I was, exactly where I was. But when I lost him, it all disappeared. I was fury, I was the red-hot fire of vengance, my corporeal being blown away as Mann collapsed on that roof-top. How could I risk that again, how could I risk losing myself, losing us together? What if we burned ourselves in the fire that I knew raged between us, burned ourselves too badly, burned away what we had, who we were? I could stand never feeling Bosco's mouth on mine again, I could stand never knowing what it felt like on the rest of my body, never experiencing what it meant to hold him to me, in me...but I couldn't survive losing him, destroying him. What if we burn too hot, and have to flee from the flames?

What if I never feel this again?

"Faith, please, I have to know. We don't have to be alone" I sense her hesitation, the beginning of her acceptance.

I push, physcially, emotionally. I can't lose her now, again. We are so close, she is so close As hard as I had fought in the hospital, to heal, it was nothing compared to this, the fight for her. I am shaking from the effort of trying to make her see, make her understand, make it real for her as it is for me.

I need her heat, the fire that drives her, I need to taste her, consume her, save her.

I want him to be right, oh God, please, I want this so much, I'm so scared. He moves in closer to me, I can feel the blood in his veins, sense the quickening of his heart, echoing mine. His breath warms me, the fire begins.

"Please, Faith, let me kiss you, please, I have to see...if it was real. It's killing me, I need to know, need to see, to feel. You. Please. Let me in let me touch you, love you please, please" His mouth hovers over mine, his plea a litany of breath into mine.

"God, oh my God, Faith are you real? I have to have you, love you, Let this be real, just once, please, let me let me let me..."

Do I speak, say yes? I can't tell, we are breathing as one, he feels it from my soul. He kisses me, and I am lost. He touches me and I am found. He moves in me and I am reborn.

We are gone, forever. We have entered the fire and will be consumed, devoured whole. But I was wrong to be afraid of the fire. Like the phoenix, the fire will cleanse us, purify us and from the ashes of our past, the flames will witness our rebirth, we will rise, transformed, fused, healed.

We will live forever, love forever, finally whole in each other.

"Phoenix: A mythical bird that never dies, the phoneix...represents our capacity for vision. It represents the union of ying and yang"