Juliana's Poetry and Shortstuffs

((This is just a little songfic set a while after the ending of my Saga of Traitor and Betrayed. The song is "Feels Like Tonight" by Daughtry. And I think this time, since both my previous tries were destroyed by accident, I'm going to actually post it before it's finished... Don't worry if you don't understand something. The point is that you won't know everything until the very end.))

Vance Tanner stared dully through the window of the perfectly average two-story house where his wife lived. Her beautiful face floated past, then was obscured by the cloud of smoke issuing from her latest cooking disaster. Emily.

"Mom!" cried their son as he raced past the window. "What are you doing?!" Without waiting for an answer, he drew on his mage powers and cast a rapid water spell to put out the fire.

"Scrambled eggs," Emily replied innocently. "Maybe you should take over, Taylor."

Taylor grinned and, with all the manly aplomb his sixteen years would allow, turned to the stove and began attempting to repair the damage his mother had done both to the kitchen fixtures and to their meal.

In a sudden rush of envy, Vance wished he could be in there with them. There should be another participant in this happy little scene, a man with dark red hair. A husband. A father. He knew exactly what role he would have played, too: the loving husband who would have spun Emily away from her disaster area and kissed her before helping his son extinguish the conflagration. But, he remembered afresh with a painful tug, he couldn't do that, and all because of her. Juliana, the survivor. It's all her fault. Drat the girl.

It irritated Vance that he couldn't be deceived anymore, not even by himself. No matter how much he wanted to believe it, the lie always felt hollow and wrong to him. The truth stared him full in the face: he was alone, an outcast, forever consigned to watch without ever wielding real influence again, and he had no one to blame but himself. He had failed in every way.

Vance wondered once more why he had come here tonight. He hadn't spoken to Emily in years, not since the day Taylor had been born. The day everything else had fallen apart around him. Yet he was pulled to this place over and over again, to watch, and to wait, and to dream of what could have been. But those possibilities were gone forever, unless he wanted to take Juliana up on her offer. No. Vance doubted that he could ever swallow his pride enough to take Juliana's way out. Still, if he did...

There was, of course, a reason why he was thinking like this, Vance realized. Every time he came back here to watch, he was reminded in some new and raw way of what he'd lost. Back when they'd been able to speak with each other, Emily had been in many ways his conscience--the reason he had been able to keep his humanity. She was so very unlike her little sister, the genius hero Vance had gotten so very tired of hearing about, but even though she could never come close to matching Juliana in intelligence, she was good. With his wife, Vance had never felt like he needed to prove anything. He had proven all he needed to, and that was that. Emily's life was so simple... and when Vance had shared it, he had had moments where he felt like his life could be simple too. Just like that.

While Vance had been thinking, Taylor had somehow repaired his mother's damage to their dinner, and the two had sat down to eat. "Mom," Taylor said innocently, "I was just thinking... why did you marry my dad? I mean, everyone hates him, so why did you marry him?"

You have got to be kidding me! Vance thought, horrified by the perfection of the coincidence. He's actually asking this? Right now, while I'm eavesdropping on them?!

Emily put down her fork and regarded her son for a long moment. "I loved your father," she admitted. Vance's heart leapt to hear his beautiful wife say that she had ever loved him. "And when I met him, when I married him, I didn't know what he was. I only knew that I loved him, and he loved me back. I think that was real."

It was. It still is.

"Then, when he broke with the Order, I was expected by most of the world to choose between my husband and my sister. I still loved them both, so I refused to betray either of them. The woman in the old story, the wife of the first Traitor--I think she was every bit as bad as her husband, because she gave him up. But then, the day you were born, he said goodbye to me and promised to be back. But he wasn't, because he died that day. He took a piece of my heart with him when he didn't come back."

Wrong, but you don't know that. You can't see me now, and you don't have Juliana's power.

"Thank you, Mom," Taylor said quietly. He had finished his eggs, and cleaned up as he spoke. "I think I understand now. Good night."

"Good night, Taylor," Emily answered. She didn't go to sleep right away after she finished cleaning the kitchen. Instead, she stayed where she was, clearly thinking, for a long time.