And I can't be who you are

[sgmitchell]

Originally, he'd meant just to run. Honestly. Just a jog in the rain, to clear his thoughts and remember that yes, he agreed to it. It was alright. In the end of the day, Morgan came home to his hut. After all, just because she said so, didn't mean she would get around to that whole non-exclusivity thing

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[fallen_ancient]

Before anyone else had an inkling something had gone wrong with Cameron, Morgan knew. She knew in the bones that were hers by virtue of this island's operation, and in the spirit that had lived ten thousand plus human years. She knew the way a woman always knows when the man she loves is hurt, if she but cares to pay attention. Of course the fact that he left almost as early as she did and had not returned by late afternoon despite the rain did not hurt her knowing.

Unlike anyone else who might have chanced to find him in the rain, on the beach, staring at the ocean, she also knew what troubled him.

Her.

She came to him with dry clothes and an extra blanket wrapped in one of his leather coats and settled beside him, wordless, having set the bundle by his feet. For a time, she simply sat, fingers stroking through his wet hair.

But when the rain had soaked through and her dress clung to her shoulders, she asked quietly, "Will you not talk to me?"

[sgmitchell]

He knew it was Morgan who approached him from before she even sat near him. He knew what she sounded like, even through the rain. Or, he was fooling himself, and it sounded like a nice distraction.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, even after her question. He did finally turn his gaze from the horizon toward her. She really shouldn't have had to be out in the rain so late.

"There's nothing to say, Morgan." There was a kindness in his voice, even if it was tired.

[fallen_ancient]

Although she regretted the pain she had caused him, Morgan could not change who and what she was. That extended even to this moment of his unexpressed emotions.

Serene as she ever was, Morgan did not flinch when he rejected her overture. Instead she continued to soothe him as if he had not spoken. "If there is nothing to say, then come in from the rain."

[sgmitchell]

Damn it...why did she have to be so...

Cameron sighed, and closed his eyes in thought. There were three very opposing urges, and he honestly couldn't say for sure what he would do. Getting up and walking away seemed impossible. Tempting...but he knew better than to think he'd get far.

He didn't bother to conceal the conflict when he turned his attention back to her. There wouldn't have been a point. She'd know anyway--what were human tricks next to ten thousand years of omniscience?

"I'd miss the sunset."

[fallen_ancient]

For a long moment while he held his silence, Morgan considered simply letting him go. She loved him but if that love gave him nothing but pain, she would survive its fading.

Yet she would no more make that decision for him than she would any other. That did not mean she would not exercise all of her patience and her love to keep him from making it.

"Then I will sit and watch it with you."

[sgmitchell]

He bit the inside of his cheek, turning his gaze back to the horizon. "It's cold, Morgan. You don't have to be here. They're serving dinner about now, right?"

None of it sounded convincing, but they were excuses for her to go, completely blameless. She was always blameless, though. This whole thing was his fault. His own fault for believing in something that wasn't true.

[fallen_ancient]

"I am neither hungry nor cold." The first was true in the strictest sense. She had eaten earlier. The truth of the second depended on her ability to put the cold off from her, which she did now through reflexive mental discipline, even though the entirety of her conscious attention focused on him.

"If you want me to leave, then say so. Otherwise, I will stay."

[sgmitchell]

He wanted to say yes. He'd wanted time alone, to think, to straighten out and...figure out. Figure out what to do. And Morgan wasn't helping being there. She made the sorting things out in perspective harder.

In the end, his 'go away' didn't sound right at all.

"No." His voice was barely audible over the rain, but he didn't doubt she could hear him. Superior genes, after all. "I don't want you to leave me."

The truth of the words ached, even if they held a different meaning.

[fallen_ancient]

Although he answered her question in this moment, she felt the pull of his fears that by being with others she loved him less or would tire of him.

"Cameron." Morgan ran her hand up his arm, meeting and holding his gaze. "I am not going to leave you."

At least, she would not leave him by any means she could control, and though she did not doubt he wished she might promise she would not leave him in death or by the island's doing, there could be no point in speaking of such things.

[sgmitchell]

It hurt to maintain her gaze. He would blame it on the angle, and the rain that blew at him when he looked in her direction. For whichever reason he'd settle on later, he broke away from it.

"Yeah."

She wouldn't leave...but she'd never really be there, would she?

[fallen_ancient]

In all the time she had known him, Morgan had never thought of him as a child or her lesser as the Ascended did. Sitting here in the rain with him, listening to him sulk out of the desire to have her for himself and only himself, however, she could think of no other word for his sullen Yeah but 'childish.'

He loved her and had been raised to equate romantic love with possessive monogamy. She understood that, and had no particular desire to have relations with many men and women, nor to maintain other, parallel, love affairs. What she did need was the freedom to direct each of her relationships as they themselves required and not as adjuncts of this one. If that meant, as in Bill's case, a sexual relationship, it still did not change that she came home to the bed she shared with Cameron and loved him first and foremost

[sgmitchell]

"Morgan..." He sighed, but it didn't relieve the strain in his voice. "I know."

She was there when he needed her, because that was her way. Because she hadn't lied when she'd said that she loved him. She just meant something different than he did.

"I get it. I do. I won't try to make you someone you're not." His eyes actually stung. Irritating and distracting. "It's fine. Y'know, I misunderstood at first, but I get it now, and...everything's fine."

Completely fine.

[fallen_ancient]

"Yes, everything is fine. This would be why you are sitting in the rain instead of at home, warm, with me. Have we not already traveled this conversational circle, Cameron?" A mild but noticeable sharpness filtered through her voice, cutting across pretense and laying it bare

[sgmitchell]

"Morgan..."

He listened to what she said. No interruptions, no questions. He understood what she said, he was fairly certain. It made sense, even if he didn't want to agree with it. He was pretty sure Jackson had said one or two things similarly before.

It was just...more difficult than he'd like to say anything about it. The words were there, they just wouldn't form.

In the end, he sighed, and pulled her into a wordless hug. It didn't solve anything. It didn't make anything better. But it made the entire situation more bearable.

[fallen_ancient]

At least he had listened. Perhaps, like the rain soaking through his clothing, in time it would soak into his consciousness.

Drawing his head to her shoulder, she held him where her warmth and her scent would reach him through the cold and chill. For a few minutes, she worked her fingers through his wet hair, and rubbed his back with her other hand. "Come inside and let me warm you."

It would change nothing, except that every time he came to her, and every time he held her, it would be harder for him to discount what his heart already knew. Cameron needed only find the strength to choose it, and Morgan had patience in surfeit.

[sgmitchell]

Maybe. Maybe at some time, their different perspectives would coincide. The island certainly liked to change people's base natures, didn't it?

For now, it was all too easy to nod and accept what she offered. It was easier not to fight. Even if he did, it wouldn't do him any good, so he'd save his strength. After all, he'd probably need it with the amount of time he'd spent out in the cold and rain.

"Yeah, sure."