What she had done, she had thought was the best option, and that was why she found is so difficult to believe that Gaucho could not forgive her. Cannot or will not? she wondered as she gazed at him sadly, recognizing the bitter hurt in his eyes and finding herself unable to chase it away. She felt empty, adrift at sea, tossed into choppy waters like a piece of forgotten and unwanted driftwood, left to go wherever the current took her. She hated it. She wanted to be in control again. She wanted to be happy.

She wanted him to be happy.

Wasn't that what had started all this in the first place?

Gaucho's head lowered, but his expression never changed - those blue eyes were haunted, staring at her from beneath a tangled, soaked forelock with a mixture of anger and regret. She had hurt him, she knew - but she could not understand his unwillingness to look past it. He claimed that he had only gone to another when she wasn't there... but that wasn't love. That was flitting to and fro between mares willing to lift their tails and raise his children. That was boredom, or lack of caring, or any number of things - but it wasn't what she had wanted when she spoke of love.

She couldn't see how her transgression was any different, not really. She could have come home, could have seen his new children and his new family, and felt angry for his betrayal and guilty for hating them when it wasn't their fault. She could have asked him to choose, but what would he have said? He had never understood her before, had only rarely expressed any sort of interest in an exclusive kind of love... why would that have changed after she had left? And if it had, well... it wouldn't have changed for her.

Had he never spent a night filled with such aching, bone-chilling loneliness that he had sought out another, only to find that when morning came, nothing had changed?

"Gaucho..." It came out a whisper, almost hidden in the barrage of rain. The storm was beginning to slow now, lightning flickering dimly in the clouds and soft rolls of thunder lulling her into a glassy, dazed calm. Soon, she knew, the rain would stop, and new growth would blossom temporarily all around them. The desert was beautiful after a storm. She wished that their relationship would be the same.

She knew it wouldn't.

Neither of them moved for a time. Sohalia listened to the rain, gazing across the oasis sadly. If this was the end, she wished that he would throw the final punch, make the final cut to set her free and send her out to sea. "Do you... do you want me to go?" she asked softly, refusing to meet his gaze. "Not from the Throat, but... away from you?" She glanced toward him, then took a step forward, desperation shining in her eyes, begging him silently to say no, stay with me, don't go. Begging him to save them.

words words