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Before
Deslea R. Judd
Copyright 2003


DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine. Interpretation mine.
ARCHIVE: Yes, just keep my name and headers.
RATING: PG.
SPOILERS/TIMEFRAME: Some years after NIHT II.
CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: Knowle. Shannon.
SUMMARY: It seems to her that her life is divided into before
and after. 155 words.
MORE STORIES: http://fiction.deslea.com
FEEDBACK: Love the stuff. deslea@deslea.com
AWARDS/ELIGIBILITY: Spooky Awards 2004 eligible.




It seems to her that her life is divided into before and after.


She hasn't seen Knowle in years. The last time, they came to
blows, but she misses him anyway. In her darkest moments, she
comforts herself with his memory. His arms around her are an
afterthought, but she misses being known.

He was just another soldier to her once. He might have stayed
that way had her life followed its predictable path. There was
no attraction - just the shared satisfaction of a job well done.
They high-fived one another, cheered each other on. Nothing
more.

But that was before. Afterwards, he was the only one who knew
her. The only one to understand. Coupling was inevitable. The
alternative was silence in a world of walking dead.

It occurs to her that she loves him - after a fashion - simply
because he was there.

She loves him because he knew her before.



END



AUTHOR'S NOTES: I don't normally write 155-word pieces, but this
one - originally meant to be part of a larger work in progress -
just seemed to work on its own. There is a longer Knowle/Shannon
backstory in the works revolving around the same basic idea, but
that probably won't be finished until after XFVCU is done.