More Than That - Chapter 24: Never The Same, Again (Gwen/Luis)
 by Jamie Witter
 
 

Chapter 24: Never The Same, Again

Sometimes it's just harder to rebuild something than it is to just start from scratch. That picture you have in your mind... the way something was, it's never gonna be that way again.
-- Pacey Witter

Two days later, Luis sat beside Sheridan on her over-stuffed couch, situated in the middle of her living room. She had been surprised to see him at her doorstep but he had come barging in and without wasting any time, he told her that he knew about her illness. Sheridan’s eyes had been filled with fear but he could see that she managed to remain calm as she asked him to sit down so that they could discuss it in peace.

As she took small sips from the glass of juice in her hands, he studied her face – the one that he had seen many time in his dreams and in reality. The face he had grown to love, the face he had memorized and was saddened to realize that the person sitting beside him, the woman he had loved wasn’t whom he remembered at all. And she hadn’t even said much to him at all. Sheridan’s presence seemed alien to him; her eyes seemed grayer than he remembered, her skin paler, her hair shorter and her clothes casual and not the designer wear she always sported.

He felt as if his heart were aching for a complete stranger.

“So were you planning on telling me? Ever?” Luis asked as he ran his hands over his denim-clad legs and then stared sideways at his blond ex-girlfriend. Sheridan refused to meet his gaze and stared at the coffee table in front of them. He closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head, wondering how two people who had loved each other so much, couldn’t look each other in the eyes anymore. “Sheridan? Were you?”

“I don’t know,” she answered feebly. Slowly, she lifted her gaze and frowned. So different, he thought. Who are you? “I was hoping that you wouldn’t find out until I was six feet under. I wanted to be the chicken that I am. I wanted to make it easy.”

“For who?” he asked incredulously. This wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. Sheridan would’ve reached for him. She would’ve told him that she was scared and that she wanted to tell him. She wouldn’t settle for such a flippant answer.

“Both of us, Luis,” her eyes connected with his at his tone and he saw strangely controlled emotions shining in them. “What did you expect me to do? Come back into your life after you made it clear that you wanted us to put as much as space we could between us? You wanted me to come running to you when I had a problem?”

“I wanted you to think enough of me to tell me when something major was going to happen,” he bit back, his tone teetering on anger. “When we broke up, I told you that I would be there for you if you needed me.”

“Maybe I didn’t need you, Luis.”

He jerked off the couch and ran a frustrated hand through his hair, wondering if the conflicting emotions in his chest would stop so he could breathe. “So is this some type of punishment for me? That I can’t be a part of your life because we both wanted some space? I can’t even be your friend?”

“No, you can’t,” she answered evenly as she stood up, facing him. His eyes widened in surprise and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you honestly think with everything that happened between us, we could have been friends? I didn’t want to be your friend, Luis. I didn’t even want to be your girlfriend.”

“Well that’s just - ” he sputtered and flailed his arms around in a dramatic gesture. He couldn’t believe that she was saying what she was. Had she thought of them at all? Had she ever wondered about him? “That’s just great, Sheridan. A real valid reason for not telling me that you’re sick. That you have been that way for a long time.”

“It wasn’t about you!” she retorted, her eyes blazing. “This wasn’t about us. It was about me. I have leukemia, Luis and I’m sorry that I can’t find it in me to play the victim in your hero fantasy. You’ve saved me from danger, my family and death more times than I can count but you can’t save me from myself! You just can’t!”

Luis felt his most prominent emotion bubble to the surface and a clenched his fingers in hopes of stopping his tears. “I want to be here for you.”

Sheridan backed down from standoffish position, her eyes softened and for a spilt second they seemed bluer; a glimpse of his Sheridan – the one he had left behind. She took a step closer, not scared but confident and determined. “I wanted you to be here for me, too. I just didn’t feel like I needed to barge back into your life like that. How was I supposed to know if you’ve moved on or found someone else? I couldn’t keep tabs on you.”

Luis swung his gaze away from her guiltily and forced images of the past few weeks with a certain brunette to the back of his head. He shook his head. “There’s no one else.”

“I left Harmony after we broke up. How was I supposed to know what you were up to?”

You were supposed to care! His mind screamed but he just looked up at her and gave her a small smile. “I did keep tabs on you.”

A corner of her mouth tugged upwards in a lopsided smile. “You can’t help it. It’s in your nature to make sure that everything is under control. I appreciate it, though. It felt good to know that you still cared.”

Did you care afterwards? Or did you hate me? Questions slammed into his head and he wanted to yell at her. He wanted her to for one minute, show him the Sheridan he remembered and loved. He closed his eyes and exhaled. I thought I hated you. “Yeah.”

“Oh and never use Beth and Hank as your private investigators. They’re crystal clear.” She smiled briefly, granting him his wish of seeing her as she used to be.

“Ingrates!” a teasing voice came from the door and the two whirled to see Hank and Beth at the door, identical expressions of mock hurt on their faces. Hank looked at his fiancée. “Is it too late to de-invite them to the wedding?”

“Not at all,” Beth answered and nodded. They stepped into the cottage as Sheridan and Luis burst into laughter. The group exchanged hugs and pleasantries before Beth’s tone took a hint of seriousness. “Sher, what’s so important that you had to call us over?”

She shot Luis a look over Beth’s shoulder and he realized that she planned on telling them about her condition and he merely nodded. Sheridan gestured for them to sit on down on the couch and once they were settled, she sighed and looked her two friends square in the eyes. “I’m sick.”

Hank nodded in confusion. “Yeah, you had the flu a couple of weeks ago. You’re still sick?”

Sheridan shook her head, looked at Luis as if she wasn’t going to bale to finish. He nodded again and she smiled at him before returning her gaze to the couple. “I lied to you, Hank. I wasn’t sick with the flu and that’s not why I was at the hospital. I was there for my chemotherapy.”

“Chemotherapy?” Beth asked, her eyes wide but confusion etching her features. “Isn’t that for…Sheridan? What do you…God, Sher!”

“I have leukemia,” Sheridan said softly and locked eyes with Hank. “I’m dying.”

Hank looked at her, his expression unreadable but his whole body tense and unmoving. Beth covered her mouth with her hand, tears already flowing from her eyes. With her free arm she grappled the other woman to her. The both cried silently, their bodies shaking lightly and Luis it his lower lip. Shaking his head, he put a hand on his best friends’ shoulder. Body contact seemed to jolt Hank out of his catatonic state and he glanced from Luis to the two hugging females. “No, this can’t be. Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Sheridan said as she pulled away from Beth and wiped tears off the brunette’s cheeks. “I’m pretty sure. I’ve known for some time now. There’s not much they can do, so I stopped my treatment.”

“What?” Beth exclaimed. “Are you insane? Why would you do something like that for?”

“Because it’s no way to live,” the blond replied, eyes connecting with Luis again. “I don’t want to spend my last days stuffing chemicals in my body. It’s only going to delay the inevitable and I am sick of it. I’m sick of running, of hiding…of being afraid to get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror.”

Hank got off the couch and pulled Sheridan into his arms for a long hug. Beth looked at Luis, questioningly. Her eyes still glistened with tears and he nodded slowly. She closed her eyes and then sat down beside him on the armchair and threw her arm around his shoulder. “When did you find out?”

“Two days ago,” he replied shortly trying to block out Gwen’s words as she told him about Sheridan.

After a minute, Sheridan pulled away from Hank and then leaned against him for support. “How did you find out Luis? It seems like everyone is finding out all at once. Gwen found out the other day and now you.”

Hank looked at Luis, raising an eyebrow. Beth tensed up, looking worriedly. Swallowing back the guilt that was rising in his throat, he cleared it and explained. “Actually, it was Gwen who told me.”

Sheridan’s brows knit in confusion. “She did?”

“Yeah, um the other day I saw her, uh at the Book Café,” Luis replied feeling like a world-class heel for lying to her after telling her that he expected her to be honest with him. “She said that she knew you didn’t want me to know…she felt like she had to tell me.”

Beth’s hand clamped tightly on Luis’ shoulder and he smiled at her, silently thanking her for the support. Sheridan sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t be mad at her. Although she was mighty pissed at me. She seemed so…I don’t know, anxious. Like she was trying to convince me to do something…but she was trying to convince herself too. I don’t know it was weird.”

The other three people in the room shifted uncomfortably in their spots and Luis looked away from her, a bunch of different emotions joining the ever-increasing swirl in his mind and heart. He tried to think of why Gwen was so anxious about it but the cleared his head of any thoughts related to her. He cleared his throat again. “What about your birthday? It’s next week.”

Sheridan smiled slightly and he saw a twinkle of happiness in her eyes. “I know. Julian and Ivy are throwing me a party. It’s going to be the first-ever Crane barbeque. All of you are invited. You’ll come right?”

“Of course.” Beth and Hank replied in unison.

When Sheridan’s gaze connected with his. He nodded. “Yeah Sher, I’ll be there.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Gwen stared at the piece of paper in front of her, her mind a million miles away. Sighing, she closed her eyes in hopes of shaking herself out of her stupor.

“Why do you want me to talk to you? Why does it concern you?”

“Because,” he stuttered caught off guard. When she raised an eyebrow he took in a deep breath and looked her in the eyes. “Because you’re you. You’re someone I care about.”

He cared. She knew he did. She had felt it in the way he had held her, looked at her and kissed her. She couldn’t deny the tender way he had made love to her three night ago and the hurt that had flashed in his eyes when she had told him their relationship was over did not go unnoticed by her. But if he had wanted to be with her, he would have said so. He wouldn’t have let her let him go so easily.

She wanted to hate him for not wanting her, but all she felt for him was love. Maybe it was the flip side of the same coin. Maybe she was thinking wishfully, but she had half-expected him to take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her too. Loved her even though Sheridan was dying.

But he wasn’t selfish and Sheridan Crane mattered to him. The moment he had found out, he had been devastated and she hated herself even more for falling in love with him all over again at that moment.

“Ms. Hotchkiss, Ethan Winthrop is here to see you.”

Gwen blinked twice, pushed Luis to the back of her mind and pressed the button on the intercom on her desk. “Please ask him to come in.”

As her ex-fiancé strode into her office, she stood up swiftly and rounded her desk to greet him. She hadn’t seen him since the night she had been in the Lopez Fitzgerald living room and she knew that things were still up in the air with them. He smiled warmly at her. “Hello Gwen.”

“Ethan, what brings you by?” Gwen said with a small smile of her own.

“Sheridan,” he said solemnly. “She told me that you found out.”

Gwen’s throat constricted. “Yes, I did. God Ethan, how could you not tell me? I am her best friend and you and used to be close. I should’ve known.”

Ethan shrugged. “It wasn’t my place. Sheridan wanted to keep it a secret.”

Gwen nodded, not knowing who the man in front of her was now. She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to one side. “Is that all you came to tell me? That you knew? There must be something else.”

“Yes,” he started slowly. “I came to say sorry.”

Gwen eyebrows knitted together, perplexed. “Sorry? For what?”

“What I did to you two years ago at our engagement party,” he answered looking down at his shoes and then back up at her. “For breaking your heart and forgetting what we had.”

Stunned by his answer, she blinked and took a step away. “Well, that certainly is long overdue. But why now, all of a sudden?”

He sighed and pocketed his hands. “I’ve been thinking about you ever since you came back to Harmony. Thinking about us. Did you ever think about me, Gwen?”

Does he not know me at all? She thought incredulously. “What are you getting at, Ethan?”

“Do you ever wonder what would had happened if we had gotten married?” he asked impulsively. She gasped at him, shocked. “Do you, Gwen? Do you still think about us and the way things used to be?”