A/N: So I started this one-shot a while ago. I've been toying with this theme for a one-shot for a while and then I was listening to Duncan Sheik's "Half-Life" and it just struck me :) I just recently picked this up again in order to play with it and to see if I could find my JoLu spark again. This is a short (at least for me) future/semi-AU one-shot. Let me know what you think!

'Cause lately something here don't feel right
This is just a half-life
Without you, I am breaking down
Wake me
Let me see the daylight
Save me from this half-life
Let's you and I escape
Escape from time…

Come on let's fall in love…

"Half-Life" – Duncan Sheik

Half-Life

One night.

That's all he's given.

One night every month.

He tells himself that it's all that he'll need and he tells himself that he can live like this. He's becoming an expert at lying to himself because he knows, deep down, that it'll never be enough. His appetite for her is too insatiable to live a life like this. He needs to feel her silky tresses thread between his fingertips every morning and he needs to bury himself so deep inside of her that he may lose himself every night.

He just needs her.

He aches to feel her skin against his, sticky and moist from their excessive amounts of lovemaking. He marvels at the way that she can make him completely unravel with just one kiss and he is floored by the way she inhabits his soul, making him crave things that he never thought he would want.

That's why he said the words that changed everything.

"Leave him…" he whispered.

He pressed his lips to the back of her neck, letting his tongue swirl around the patch of skin before laying a delicate kiss, and he felt her shiver at his touch, something that he took great pride in being able to do. It was a little past four o'clock in the morning, meaning that they would have to part ways soon. Back to their own lives. She would go back to being Lulu Spencer-Falconeri, wife of one of Port Charles' finest, and he would go back into the shadows of her mind.

And he couldn't stand it anymore.

He was weary of seeing her outside of the confines of their various hotel rooms and their safe houses and not have her. Seeing her at Kelly's getting her coffee order before she headed to work, seeing her at Jake's laughing with Maxie as she proceeded to beat her at pool, and of course watching her take walks on the docks with her husband, as he lovingly looked up at her from his wheelchair, a constant fixture since he was shot and paralyzed in the line of duty, made him want to shoot someone.

Or maybe just himself.

It was hard to suppress how much he was in love with this woman that was lying in his arms out in the real world. So this was his world. These small rooms where they explored the depths of each other were his reality and outside was the dream. As much as it pained him, it was better than enduring an eternity of hellish nightmares.

Because that's what his life would be like without her.

"Why?" she whispered.

She was facing him, holding his face in her slim fingertips. Her light brown eyes were sparkling with sadness, an emotion ever present in her irises. He pressed his forehead against hers and sighed heavily. He knew. He knew that this she was feeling the same way as him. He felt it in her ever so delicate touch and heard in the way her voice just had that twinge of longing whenever she spoke to him.

He wasn't alone in this.

"Because I love you…" he said and she shook her head.

"Don't do this to me, Johnny… you promised me that you wouldn't ask for more than I was able to give…" she said.

She sat up, gathering the soft sheets to her chest. He rose as well and peppered soft kisses along her bare shoulder. Her skin was warm and smooth beneath his lips and he was even more determined to have her in every way possible. It was a genetic trait of the Zaccharas to be greedy and to want too much. It wasn't his intention to be in this predicament but he was too arrogant to listen to himself when he thought that he could possibly fall back in love with this beautiful blonde. Because you couldn't just have Lulu Spencer.

You were consumed by Lulu Spencer.

With one bat of her long eyelashes, he was at her feet, begging her to love him back in the way that he loved her. She had this uncanny way of making him do things that he never thought that he would've done. Stupid things.

Like asking her to leave her husband for him.

"I don't care if I promised… I want you to leave him and be with me… you know that you belong with me and not Dante…" he whispered against her neck.

He felt her back mold against his chest and her hand reached behind to run her fingers through his hair. He ripped the sheet away from her body and buried his face into her neck, worshiping her entire body with his tongue and his hands again. His ministrations made a soft but needy moan cross her lips as she collapsed back into his arms, meeting his lips with her own.

"I don't belong with you…" she said, in between kisses.

Her tone was convincing but she never stopped kissing him. She turned around and crawled into his lap, wrapping her legs around his waist. Not an inch of her body wasn't touching him. He could feel the heat from her core against him and he wanted nothing more than to throw her down and drive into her until she finally said yes to him.

"It's a quarter to five… I need to go…" she whispered.

Before she could even attempt to remove herself from him, he clutched her tightly to his chest, a silent plea for her not to leave him when the morning sun came as she had done so many times. He furiously tried to blink away the tears that were rushing to his eyes at that moment. It wasn't the first time that he had ever cried over her and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

"You're killing me here, Lu…" he rasped.

"Johnny…" she started.

She pried herself away from his grasp and began to dress. She didn't know that he noticed that she discretely wiped a tear from her eye as she reached for her shoes. He scooted to the edge of the bed, watching her go through the motions of fixing her appearance, removing any and all traces of him that were on her.

"You don't even love him… not anymore…" he said, not even bothering to cover the cracks in his voice.

"I do love him!" she cried, burying her face in her hands.

He walked to her and held her face in his hands. The tracks of her tears were glistening in the dim light and her bottom lip trembled violently as she gazed upward into his eyes. The love that she had for him was written all over her face. He knew that the love that she felt was confusing and terrifying because it was the same for him too. The depths to which he loved and needed her rocked him to his very core.

"But not like you love me…" he whispered.

Her shoulders caved inward as sobs took over her petite body. She knew the truth in his words. No one would ever love her like he did. No one would ever see her the way that he did. With him, Lulu wouldn't be a simple caretaker, bound by the duty of morality. No, with him, she would be a woman and he'd take care of her.

Mind, body and soul.

"You don't have to do this, Lulu… we can be together and we can be happy… you wouldn't—you wouldn't be here with me if you were happy with him." Johnny said, beseechingly.

And she kissed him, with all of the love that she could muster up. He felt the wetness from her cheeks spill onto his. The joy that he felt from her silent admission that he was the only one who could make her happy coursed through his veins. She pulled away from his lips but when he looked into his beloved's eyes, he did not see the same joy that was present in his. She gave him another kiss at the corner of his mouth before heading to the door.

"Will I see you again?" she asked quietly.

And he knew. He knew from the tone of her voice and the sadness in her eyes that she would never leave Dante. As quickly as his heart soared, it sank. She would never be by his side every morning when he woke, she would never wear his mother's ring and she would never give him children with his hair and her eyes.

He would never have her in the way that he wanted.

He turned away from her, unable to look at her for another second, and crawled back into the bed that had been his haven just a few moments ago. He could feel her eyes on him, waiting for him to answer but he remained silent. He couldn't bring himself to neither confirm nor deny that they would ever move past this impasse.

"I love you…" she sobbed.

His tears accompanied hers. He turned his face into her pillow, letting them silently roll down his face, as she walked out of their world, their half-life, and went back into the real world, the one where he meant nothing to her. He wished that he were stronger. He wished that he didn't care so much but that's the funny thing about love. Love doesn't do what is rational or good for the soul. Love could wreck destruction on a person so savagely that they would think that they would never recover but they would never trade it in for the world. And neither would he. When she called in a few weeks time, he would rush to be by her side again, to just hold onto that shred of time that was theirs and theirs alone.

Because having her like this was better than not having her at all.