Season Three Arc Spoiler

Here I sit in the cold, scribbling at what I like to call my journal. My gun lies forgotten at my feet. I giggle, feeling punchy, thinking that if someone should come I shall shoot him with my pen like Inspector Gadget, that cartoon character Adam loved so well.

I look up at the moonlit security mirror, a distant reminder of when this building was a factory. I see a tall girl, ghostly pale. She is shivering in the cold. I think about this bag lady I once knew on the streets. She used to mumble about poetry as she pushed her bag lady booty down the street. When she'd see me she'd touch my hair and smile. " The lady of Shallot had long, beautiful hair. She would sing before her mirror and brush it with a golden brush and watch for her true love in the mirror. " I thought that she was crazy. I never brushed my hair and my singing stunk. And what kind of dope believed that there were knights and princesses and happy ever afters. The bag lady told me that the lady took one look at Lancelot and flew out the window. Landed on her head, probably. He put her in a boat covered with flowers and sent her down the river.

Oh, Michael, something inside me wants to believe in happily ever after. Michael, if they find me here frozen in the morning, housekeeping can skip the boat and the flowers, but I 'd like someone to stand over me sadly and say. " Alas, she has a pretty face . . ." Or whatever it was Lancelot said in the poem.

This is my third night here. Walter told me that his mother told him that sitting on cold cement will give you piles. I didn't dare ask what those were. I am amazed that Walter ever had a mother. I feel the beginnings of a cold scratching at my throat and an ache low in my back. I long for a hot bubble bath scented with jasmine of ylang ylang.

I hope the sun comes up soon.

Last night I nodded off, dreaming that you had come to me with sweet, mulled wine. Cinnamon ticked my nose and heated my belly. You wrapped your coat around me. It was warm and scented from your body. I love the way you smell, Michael, clean and earthy at the same time. You held me close and whispered in French against my hair. I awoke at the nicest part, cramped and sore, my face smashed against cold, cement, not your beating heart, my body alive and yearning. I smiled, thinking, that this is my life. I dream of things I cannot have and I wake alone.

It was darker here last night. Tonight the moon is full. Did I ever tell you that I am afraid of the dark? Bg, bad girl that I am. I think that it started when I was four. My mother had a boyfriend. This one had money for beer and drugs. I hated him. He had rotting teeth and holes in his socks. His toenails were long and ragged and he punctuated his speech with belches. He told me there was this huge dragon in the hall of the apartment, waiting in the dark. If I ever opened my mother's bedroom door the dragon would kill me. I would cower there on the sofa that served as my bed, listening to the sounds of the other drunks in the hallway. And of my mother's moans and the bed springs creaking.

When I was older I would think about a hero to save me. Someone who would look like a movie star. I would lay there in bed and imagine him. He would smell like soap and shampoo and toothpaste. His eyes and his hands would be gentle. He's give me a lovely smile, fall madly in love and ask me to marry him.

I look up at the girl in the mirror. She has that goofy look that girls get when they have a secret crush on someone. That familiar smile. Hopeful and scared at the same time.

I look around sheepishly thinking that I stare at you like that during briefings. Operations gives me that look that says he will send me to the principal's office. Talk about a big, fat dragon waiting in the dark. Section is like a big, epic poem, if you think about it. Sorceresses and dragons. A wizard or two. Knights and princesses . . .

The knight is upstairs playing the cello at the moment, the same refrain over and over. He is quite ill-equipped to slay dragons. Real or imagined. And the princess who is not really a princess is freezing her butt off wishing for things that will never be.

The cello plays on. Do you take requests, Michael? Something with a beat that I can dance to? I will dance just for you here in this dark hallway. I will bewitch you out of the spell you are under. . . . I sigh, wishing for hot, sweet coffee laced with cream, blankets and a pair of strong hands to ease this ache in my back. I want you to come down and give me one of those imperious stares, Michael and ask me what the hell I am doing. I want you to care that I am here.

I have always sought to change you, haven't I, Michael, while not wishing to change myself. How unfair I have been. I never knew what they had done to you or how alike we are. I have always thought we were so different. . . How I hated it when you would look down that fine Roman nose at me like I didn't know the half of it. You were right . I didn't know.

The cello stops. I jump as I hear a crash. I hear you cry out your son's name. Adam . . . Adam. Your voice is ragged and broken. My insides twist and I steel myself not to run to you. Last night you did this. I heard a car backfire and thought that you had done it. I sneaked upstairs and found you asleep on the floor. Make him be okay, I say to that God you believed in. Help him. Keep him safe.

I wait now, trembling. I see you in my mind's eye. You are passed out on the floor with that yellow blanket that had been Adam's, the one he loved as a baby. The one with the little ducks on it. I can see you breathing. I lay down next to you and hold you, protecting you from the dreams. I brush the hair at the nape of your neck with my fingers. It is my favourite place on your body, Michael. So vulnerable, so soft. I whisper, " I can slay the dragons if you let me, Michael."

The sun is glittering through the panes of frosted glass. There is no sound now from your loft. I hope that you sleep.

I look up at the girl in the mirror. She is stiff with cold and fatigue and there is a sad knowledge in her blue eyes. It is hard for her to admit that somewhere she still believes in knights who ride to the rescue and dreams that come true.

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