She - One Shot - Rated K

A/N: One day this little scene flashed in my mind and kept coming back until I wrote it down. I'm not sure what the inspiration was, but I did have a short soundtrack that played the entire time I wrote. "I Only See You" by Benton Paul and--thanks to Willgirl--Anouk's "Lost". Both are incredibly beautiful songs. And now...hope you find this interesting! --AnaG

He’d been coming there every day for five years. Well, maybe not every day. Close enough though that he felt he had a legitimate claim as part owner of the third spot from the left at the counter. The coffee wasn’t all that great and the food was only passable, but the place was clean and convenient. But in all the time he’d spent there, he’d never seen her there before. Of that he was certain. Because as soon as he laid eyes on her, sitting there at that small table by the window, he knew it would be a long time, maybe even forever, before he would be able to forget her.

Eyes never straying, he watched her as he sipped burnt diner coffee and wondered if she’d cast a spell on him, maybe carried a little bit of magic with her that could make a man forget the sort of man he usually was. Another time, another place he would have laughed himself silly at the thoughts running through his head. That kind of dramatic stuff was foreign to him, and poetry might as well be another language for all the good it did for him. But the longer he studied her profile, the only view his vantage point afforded him, the more he found himself willing to write entire stanzas about her. For her.

He didn’t know what it was about her. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, though she was. The curve of a cheekbone, the dusty rose color of her lips, the line of her neck. Alone, those things might not have made much of a difference, but together they had him thinking of words like elegant. And angelic. Yeah, that one too. Especially when the sun started shining through the smudged glass, teasing out those fiery auburn lines from her hair and putting this special light behind the pale blue of her eyes. That alone was enough to make him think he might love this woman he didn’t know, that he had never seen before in his life.

And the man he’d been before today would have had already been on his way across the room, ready to ask if he could join her for coffee and working out an angle to get her number. But he just sat there staring. He couldn’t really put the reason into words. The closest he could get was the image of a rock falling into a pond, breaking up the pretty-like-glass surface with a thousand ripples. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t muss it up and change something perfect into something real. So he made himself content just to be in her world for a little while, to watch her as she watched the sidewalk outside, the edge of her chin resting quietly on the heel of her hand.

If not for that decision, he might never have noticed how unusually still she was. So still that she could have been a woman in one of those paintings, the ones in the fancy gilded frames that hung in museums. As long as he’d been there— minutes or eternity, he wasn’t quite sure any more—she hadn’t moved. Not to eat or drink. Not to shift in her chair. In fact, she had only wavered twice, the first movement so slight he thought he might have imagined it until she did it again, reaching out to trace a finger along the edge of the small plate in the center of the table before drawing away like she’d been burned. No. That wasn’t right. Like she caught herself doing something that she wasn’t supposed to do. Or didn’t want to do.

The gesture spoke of something so sad, so lonely, that it forced him to see that it was mystery should had brought with her, not magic. Underneath all of that beauty and grace was the steel of a sentry. He’d know a few guys back in his army days that could’ve learned a thing or two from her. But she wasn’t there to stand watch over a piece of pie, so why was there? If not guarding, then waiting. Had to be. But for who? The guy that belonged to the pie? Way too long for him to be paying the tab. Just about the right amount of time for him to be a no-show altogether. Except being stood up might cause her embarrassment, maybe a little bit of mopiness, but not this kind of sadness. No, whoever the guy was, he’d broken heart but good.

Out of nowhere, the sound of pouring liquid broke his trance. He looked away to find the waitress behind the counter topping off his mug of coffee. And just like that, he was back to wondering what had gotten into him. There he was thinking about angels and heartbreak, when she was probably nothing more than a woman on one of those diets they were always on, trying to decide if that slice of apple pie was worth the fat grams or carbs or whatever it was they were counting this week.

Oddly enough, the idea gave him a little peace of mind. Or at least made him feel more like his normal self. At least until he looked up from his coffee when he heard the chimes over the door as someone new entered the diner. That was when she turned his world around all over again.

Because he wasn’t the only one that looked that looked towards the open door. For the first time, he was able to see her entire face. And he swore his heart stopped beating for a second.

Her profile had hidden it so well, that the possibility of even a blemish had never entered his mind. But there it was. One side was still the perfection that had enchanted him; the other twisted by a red line clawing its way over her skin. Angry and puckered it started near the delicate arch of her brow and crossed the smooth surface of her cheek to lay claim to her mouth, pulling it down into perpetual sadness.

She was heaven and hell divided on one face, but he couldn’t turn away. Instead he cursed whoever had done this to her. Wondered how in this day of science and miracles, someone could be left to live with such a thing, to be forced to face that scar in the mirror every single day.

He was so consumed with the desire to protect her, save her somehow, that he didn’t realize at first that she was no longer looking at the old woman that had entered the diner, but at him. She saw the pity and the heartbreak and the anger running through him, he didn’t have time to hide it. Then, as her eyes locked with his, he didn’t just see the defiant spark behind the peaceful blue, he felt it.

And it was so solid, so real, that whatever fairy tales he had been building around her disappeared into dust. He knew then why a surgeon’s knife would never be allowed to repair her ruined face. Knew that the scar was hers, earned through pain and honor. A badge she wore for the courage it took to survive whatever she’d faced, and as a memorial for the person that she had lost.

She acknowledged his understanding with a single nod of her head and then dismissed him to return to her vigil. No longer waiting, he knew, but chasing a memory. A ghost.

He lowered his eyes in deference and respect, then stood quietly and paid for his coffee. Hearing the chimes again as the door closed behind him, he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat and walked away knowing that he had been right about one thing.

It would be a long time, maybe forever, before he didn’t remember her.

Interesting. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.