All the characters are property of Kudos and BBC, so don’t sue – I’m a penniless student anyway. I promise I’ll return them in good condition! Actually...would anyone like to buy me them for Xmas?

And the good ol' Bard owns the words of the title!

The Course of True Love

Chapter 1: Twisted and Knotted

Strain this chaos turn it into light
I've got to see you one last night
Before the lions take their share
Leave us in pieces, scattered everywhere

Snow Patrol - You're All I Have

---

She sat, shivering, with her back against the cold, hard concrete. It had been a long night and it was far from being over. She hadn't slept a wink. Her mind raced with a million thoughts, each running into the next. To begin with she was consumed with the immediate: the where? the how? Then came the long term fears: the what ifs? the what nexts? Throughout it all ran the why: why her? why him? why them?

She never knew it was possible to hurt so much. To have your heart so thoroughly twisted and knotted that it's barely even beating. Her face stung bitterly from the cold, to the point that she could barely even feel the tears running down it. She liked it though; as if it drew some of the pain inside to the surface, letting it seep out with agonising slowness.

She dared not close her eyes for when she did, he was right there and she'd find herself reliving every moment they'd ever shared. She was petrified; not of a new life but of leaving the old. Certain things were a given in this world; a constant. She thought he was one of them. She'd even come to believe they were one, in whatever sense that might be. How utterly, utterly wrong can you be? she thought.

She pushed herself up from her slouched position, and felt the bite of the gravel on her bare hands. She pushed down harder, willing herself to draw blood, to raise a scream: anything to shake her from the blackening void of numbness which threatened to consume her.

---

He sat, shaking, with his back against the cold, black leather. He struggled in his mind to determine whether the shudders which racked through him were anger or grief. He couldn't tell and he didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing did. Not any more. Nothing apart from 'her'. She didn't exist any more though. Just a corpse on a table, a name on a file and a person that didn't exist.

He knew exactly where her ghost was though. Down by the docks, probably cold, probably wet. He couldn’t remember whether it was Zaf or Adam with her but it seemed inconsequential either way. He wrestled with his emotions over whether to go and say goodbye. She’d be leaving early no doubt, but that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t sleep. He wondered what he would say to her. If he would even be able to say anything, stood there in front of her, knowing that this was it. Forever.

Would he tell her that he loved her? That he always had, for as long as he cared to remember? Longer even than that? Or would he just let her walk away? Say nothing but “goodbye”?

Angrily, he swept the glass of white burgundy from his desk and it collided with the wall. The scattered glass like the remnants of his life. The life to come. The life without her.

---

In the outer reaches of the fluorescent street lamp’s glow, she inspected the tiny pinpricks of blood she had drawn on her hands. Scratches were insignificant. Nothing compared to what she was going through. Nothing compared to what was ahead.

She looked to her left. Zaf was asleep and she envied that he could find such a relief. Lying back, she let out a deep sigh, a gloved hand clamped around her mouth. The smell of leather filled her nostrils, and a panic welled up inside her lung, drowning her as she tried in vain to scream.

PS: I'll update soon