Fandom: Popular

Title: Landslide

Author: Carla

Email: cmfloresfd@yahoo.com

Rating: R – more about the topic then anything particularly vivid

Disclaimers: Still not Ryan Murphy therefore these lovelies are not mine.  No harm intended, no profit made.

Archiving: Okay to the Realm all others please ask. All of my delusional flights of fancy can be found at http://www.realmoftheshadow.com/carla.htm

A/N:  This is what happens when you listen to the Dixie Chicks version of Stevie Nicks’ incredible song Landslide on endless repeat.  This has actually been going through my head for a while but I couldn’t get it on paper for the longest time.  Which I suppose means I should be grateful for that late night cross-country flight because in the face of all that down time I finally put pen to paper.

This is un-beta-ed so any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone. I take full credit.

Should you deign to do so I would be delighted to receive your feedback wither on list or directly at cmfloresfd@yahoo.com

Well I've been afraid of changing

cuz I built my life around you

But time makes us bolder, children get older

And I'm getting older now too.

-- Landslide, Stevie Nicks

The first blow was always a surprise. Rather not the fact of the blow but the timing of it, which was always the surprise.  Now she sat at her vanity putting on her makeup, trying to conceal the nearly faded bruises.  She’d promised herself not again, that the next time would be the last and she would leave sooner than later.  But a week later and she still hasn’t left yet, afraid of change, afraid of being without the one person who’s been a constant in her life since high school.  No that’s not right Brooke has also been a constant she reminded herself.  Nine years they’ve been together, the last four a downward spiral of shame degradation and abuse interspersed less and less frequency with joy, love and friendship.

How had it come to this, she’s not sure but this is how it is.  She knows she needs to leave, knows she needs to save herself because it’s so painfully obvious she can’t save Nicole.  She’s been a fool staying as long as she has, there’d always been an element of cruelty to the other girl but she’d known it was a defensive posture.  She’d seen past that to who the bottle blond really was and been rewarded beyond her wildest dreams.  So what if sometimes the cruelty was directed at her, she told herself, she understood where it came from and she didn’t take it personally.  But somewhere along the line the taunts had become commonplace and she had become placid.

And then that first blow followed by apologies and almost seven months of damn near perfect.  That is if perfect is simply not being hit because how perfect could it be to be called a moron, an idiot a stupid loser on an almost daily basis.  When had she begun to accept these names as her due, when had Nicole come to see them as hers to bestow on the woman she supposedly loved?

She jumped startled to feel a hand on her shoulder she’d bee so lost in thought that she hadn’t seen the other woman’s reflection in the mirror as she approached.

“You ready?” the hand on her shoulder is soft, gentle a kindness she hasn’t felt in too long.  She checked her reflection in the mirror, she’s hidden the yellow stains around her eye well the scrape on her cheek too is virtually undetectable.

“Yeah”

“You know you have to leave.  She’s not going to change and you can’t be afraid of it anymore.  One day she’ll kill you.”

“I know.”

“Well then”

“I don’t know how.”

“Just leave with me right now.  Take my hand and we’ll walk out of here together.”

“I love her”

“Love shouldn’t hurt like that.”

She caught Brooke’s eye in the mirror unable to look at the other woman directly as she said, “I can’t Brooke.  I know I should but I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“She loves me.”

“She beats you,” Brooke crouched down so that they were eye to eye. “That’s not love.  You don’t do that to someone you love.”  Brooke paused and bit her lip, indecision clouded her features for a brief moment and then she leaned forward.  The kiss was gentle, slow filled with Brooke’s love and hope, her desire to protect the other woman and take care of her the way one should when they loved someone.  The way Brooke loved her. “That’s love.  That’s what it should feel like not a fist in your face or a foot to the ribs.”  Brooke stood, hand extended she said, “The next time someone touches you it should be filled with love.”

“I’m scared.”

“Change is scary.”

She slid her hand into Brooke’s and stood up so that they were eye-to-eye, “Help me.”

“I’m right here Mary Cherry, right here beside you.”