Intersecting Lines – Drabbles

Maura

She is strong and brave and fearless and giving and most important of all, she is mine.

I was brought up to be modest and gentle and self-effacing and to share, not take, but she is the one thing that is unequivocally mine, I will fight to keep her safe and well and mine.

I lay with her, feeling her trembling in my arms while she is sleeping and while I normally bear no one ill will, I curse Charles Hoyt's name and wish him an eternity in an afterlife of torments.

She is lean and tall and strong and loving, she is everything I ever dreamed of in a life partner. While the fact that my perfect complement was a woman came as a surprise, her personality, her protectiveness, the love given so freely and without question, that was not, for it is so quintessentially her.

I was drawn to her for her warmth, her care, her willingness to overlook my sometimes difficult personality traits to become my friend, the first, best friend I have ever truly had.

Over time I saw all that she was and looked beyond the exterior she turns to face the world, the armor she uses to protect herself from a life of cruelty, seeing instead a shy, loving woman who is devoted to her friends, her family and I.

We are polar opposites in so many ways, but proof of that trite saying opposites attract. When we first met, I recognized that she was a gorgeous woman and a fearless detective, but I did not realise she was everything I had ever sought in a lover.

She is loving, protective, caring and devoted to me in ways I thought only existed in fiction; the reality is so much more than I could have ever imagined.

Not that she is perfect, she is messy, disorganised, sarcastic and careless with her clothes, her health and her life; I despair at the number of times she has been injured in the line of duty.

Her past haunts her still, Hoyt most of all, but he is not the only one, other monsters exist, she has hunted them down but each has left their mark, stalking the quietness of the night. Many are the nights I am woken by her quiet whimpers, her trembling and her tears, as she confronts the monsters of the past that stalk her dreams once more.

I hold her to me and whisper words of comfort, bringing her back to me, to the love we have, the knowledge that they have lost and we have won.

For all that though, she remains true to herself, sarcastic, selfless and self-depreciating, passionate and giving and above all mine. How I was ever so fortunate is beyond me but she is as essential to me as oxygen, without her I feel lost, restless and unsettled, without centre or grounding I am adrift; she is my anchor in turbulent seas; with her I know we will survive anything life can throw at us.

I wear her ring and she wears mine, but these are simply outwards signs of what we both know, we are meant to be together, our love binds us, defines us and completes us, whatever we are, whatever we do, together we are stronger.

Our shared love is the stuff of classic romances, but it is real, that fact at times leaves me stunned and shaken, to know that I have somehow managed to find my one true love is something I cannot and will not ever take for granted.

My life has boiled down to one simple truth, she is mine and I am hers, today, tomorrow and forever.

She is Jane and she is all that I have ever hoped and dreamed of, in a lover, a partner and a friend.