A/N - As some may know about me, I love to kill me some heros. So, over the past few months I've thought of all sorts of ways for my buddy Jim to eat it. These are ways of 'getting it out of my system'.

This one was my first idea that I thought up when I was re-watching season two and writing 'Night Windows'.

-SL

1 – "To Be Loved by the Ocean" - Drowning in Australia

Cool water.

It surrounded him, embraced him, cradled his broken heart within its salty, soothing waves. Up and down. Up and down.

He had found this secluded little beach not far from the resort where he had been languishing for the last few days, unable to get his mind off of what was happening today on the other side of the planet. He was celebrating June the tenth in his own way, here in the quiet little place where he had finally been able to find some solace by sitting on the beach and letting the surf wash over him again and again. Crashing noises and cool water, at one with the sand, the rocks, the shells. He felt his mind ease and for a while, forget.

Like the song of the Sirens, the waves called him further, to not be content with merely their gentle lap, but to enter their Mother, the Ocean, and feel Her around him, to let Her endlessness love him like no one else. He could not resist their call to go to Her, so he waded out as far as his long legs would send him, then he felt Her lift him from the ground like he were a child, like he weighed nothing at all. He closed his eyes, relaxed and let his body float, carried in Her gentle arms, and for the first time in so many weeks his mind was completely at ease.

In this trance-like state, he forgot about time, forgot about the shore. When he remembered that he belonged to the land, that his heart still belonged to a woman very far away, he saw that the sun was sinking low over the waters and that the shore was somehow impossibly far away. Panic gripped his heart, like waking up beside a strange person after a night of too many drinks and tears, and he started to desperately swim back. But his new lover would not be spurned.

As his tired limbs began to burn and slow despite his great effort, he began to feel Her pull down on his legs with an undercurrent. He felt his fighting become more futile, no more landward motion remained, only his steadily weakening treading keeping his face above the water line. He coughed and spat as salty water drove up his nostrils and down into his lungs, and he took his last taste of air as he was consumed by the waves.

He sank further down, his heart pounding, his mind thinking only of more air and how to get it. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. His mind began to clear of panic then; he felt Her with him, Her soft currents, Her soft but unbreakable grasp.

She entered him, Her waters filling his mouth, his throat, his lungs; he felt the fullness of the Ocean's embrace of love. And Her waters gave him the transcendent peace of Her own endlessness.

He was one with Her, and Hers alone forever.

Far away, the woman from his thoughts finally thought of him, too late. He belonged to Her, the Ocean, and She never gave up any of those whom She loved.