Stony silence and icy sarcasm are reasons enough for Laurel Payne to worry about her partner and lover. Alaine has always been quiet (but not silent), shy (but not aloof), witty (but not cruel). She's too sensitive and kind to be so angry and harmful. But she has withdrawn into herself, and comes out only long enough to lash out and leave scars before she retreats again.

It's spring; why then is she so cold? But when Laurel looks at the calendar, at the May day circled in purple ink, the pieces fall into place. Suddenly the sweet smell of flowers and life is the sweet smell of rot and death, and the wind cuts a little harsher than it has any right to, and the showers that Washington-born Laurel took for granted as part of spring seem more like Mother Nature's tears.

Alaine looks like her pen name, white as a sheet, skinny enough to be invisible, her step and her voice so soft that she might not really be there. Sometimes Laurel wonders if that's intentional, if Alaine thinks that only a ghost can draw a ghost, or if she's trying to play the pity card on someone who was always kind and generous to her friends.

Laurel has been wiping tears off Alaine's cheek with her gentle fingers for ten years now, soothing Alaine's frustrations for more than fifteen. She knows that this is love, knows that Alaine knows it too; love was blind when first they met over the Internet, nearly six years before they finally embraced as refugees in New York. What they have is sweet and precious and true, and yet it isn't everything. Alaine means all the world to Laurel, but Alaine doesn't- can't- reciprocate. There is someone else, always has been, always will be, and that's just the way it is. You never forget your first crush and you never forget your first love.

Most of the time Laurel can't bring herself to resent Gina. She liked her well enough, and her tears when Gina died were honest ones. It's just that every once in a while, when Alaine withdraws into herself like a turtle into a shell and Laurel can never be the right person to coax her out, Laurel can easily hate the woman who was never really the other woman. Whenever Laurel isn't enough, she wishes that Gina had never come into Alaine's life. It's selfish and irrational, cruel and counterproductive, because Gina helped Alaine become the woman that Laurel fell in love with, helped push them together when Alaine was too shy and scared to make a move, but logic never could convince a heart. Laurel wants everything and Alaine can't give it to her.

The jealousy sits like lead on her tongue, something that she has to say even though it's inexpressible. It's not a pleasant feeling, this sickening emotion that weighs her down so that she can't move. There's the jealousy, and then there's the guilt that's a result of the jealousy; there's the gratitude that something took Gina out before their unstable situation could fall apart by itself, and then there's the shame that stems from that; there's general guilt too, the shame planted in her subconscious by the seductive voice of the machine that quickened to life in her home state. It blends with more black-and-white emotions of anger and sadness to confuse her.

Laurel cropped her hair right before she got on the plane to New York. It was a statement of pride more to herself than to anyone else, since she was going to a place that she was sure was safe. She refused to give in to the system, and this was her act of defiance. It had taken Alaine by surprise the first time she saw it, but nary a word of complaint had crossed her lips about the matter.

Laurel doesn't wear her hair short anymore, not since last May. Alaine used to fiddle with Gina's hair all the time. She needs something new to play with, and Laurel steps into the gap. She has to. There's no one else, not in this world.

Whatever Alaine wants, Laurel tries to give it to her. But she can't do miracles.

Alaine is a Virgo, and that means she's a compulsive perfectionist. She can't help it. She was born to line up every piece of paper and every notebook on her desk so that they're perfectly even, destined to be forever puttering around the house. It shows in her writing, the way she goes through a thousand drafts before she throws up her hands and declares that a piece will never be good enough to see the light of day. There's a reason that the byline always reads 'Wraith and Opal', and it isn't just because Laurel bends and stretches to reassure Alaine that what she's trying to write is well within the realm of physical possibility. It's Laurel who does the publishing for her neurotic and obsessive lover.

It shows in the way she makes love, too. Alaine's the kind of woman who rests her head on Laurel's chest and counts the heartbeats, thump-thump-thump-thump, and worries if the amount changes too much from minute to minute. She is slow and careful, even when Laurel wants her to hurry; too afraid to make a mistake, she nearly misses her moments.

She loves Laurel's body, the jut of her hip, the arc of her back, the gentle curve of her cheek, the softness of her thighs. One of her favorite activities when they lie together is to run her finger around Laurel's breast in an ever-narrowing spiral, perfectly drawn and even, working her way up steadily. And the key thing is that Laurel must remain.perfectly.still. She cannot, must not, move; if she does, if she shivers with the excitement of Alaine's touch, Alaine loses her concentration and has to start all over again. They can go an entire night like this, Alaine tracing endless circles, Laurel keeping control as long as she feels appropriate and then letting go. Because if she were to tell the truth, she would say this: she never wants Alaine to finish, she wants Alaine to keep arousing her and paying attention to her. Because if Alaine is paying attention to her, making her shudder and moan and sigh, Alaine is not screaming Gina's name when she comes. Not that it happens often, but it happened twice, and if it happens twice it isn't as much an accident as it is an embarrassment.

Laurel used to joke about threesomes and getting themselves a third girlfriend. She never bargained for a menage a trois with someone who wasn't really there.

Laurel's pen name is Opal, and part of it is because she used to have a little crush on an Aussie. But it mostly comes from the gemstone itself. Opals have rainbow fire trapped within them, sparkling, never the same twice. Laurel is gay and proud of that, fiery and unafraid to show it, glamorous and beautiful when she wants to be, different every time someone looks at her, and always, always under control. She prides herself on her control, on the thin and seemingly transparent veneer that overlies her personality and her temper. The pen name semed like a perfect match for her, like Connecticut Yankee for the baseball fan from New Haven or Switch-Hitter for the bisexual softball player who ended up changing sides on them.

Opal is also the birthstone for October, the month that Gina was born. Some things are just dictated by the fates. Sometimes Laurel wonders what kind of a sense of humor the universe has. These things can't be coincidence.

So it's May, and Alaine cries, and Laurel holds her close. It's May, and Alaine curses at anyone who comes near, and Laurel takes it. It's May, and Alaine sits silently in a corner, and Laurel tries to coax her out of her shell.

It's May, and Gina's ghost haunts Alaine's heart with reminders of what never was. It's May, and Gina's memory sits on Laurel's shoulders to taunt her with what she can never have.

And the worst of it is that Laurel can't cry with frustration, because Alaine is crying for grief, and that's more important.