Then, as always, those stars began to fade away and were replaced by those grey clouds that darkened everything and made you want to go home and crawl up beside the one that was waiting for you. The storm broke and the bad memories rained down on the unsheltered Bette, mixing with the fresh tears that were flooding down her cheeks. She thought of that night of the miscarriage and how she came home and found her wife emotionally imploding on the kitchen floor. She remembered how she had felt so helpless. Here falling apart on the floor was the woman she loved, the woman she knew better than anyone else did. Yet for the first time Bette didnt know what to do, for the first time she didnt know Tina. She sighed as those thoughts strayed to the night Tina had found about Candace, and how this time Tina had simply exploded into a frenzy of anger, hurt and desperation. Bette remembered the aftermath, how they clung to each other wondering how they had drifted so far apart yet knowing the other was the only one right now who understood them at all. Both of them silently wishing they would be able to find a way back home.

But how? She thought bitterly, how could she ever reach out to Tina when she couldnt even reach out to herself? And if she couldnt do it how could she expect Tina to ever do it?

You see, it all came back to expectations. Bette had always been expected to be more than she was. Bette had always expected herself to be more than she was. Setting standards and living up to them was all Bette had ever known. It was the blueprint to her structured life and without it everything would simply collapse. And as Tina was a part of Bette that meant that certain standards were expected of Tina as well. Tina was expected to care what Melvin thought of her and make it her life mission to impress him. Tina was supposed to care about what everyone else thought and try her hardest to impress them too. But Tina didnt care, not that she didnt care about Bette, just that she didnt care what anyone else thought.

And those times Bette felt she felt herself falling, those standards finally seeming unreachable, her control over her own destiny slipping through her fingers, she would blame Tina. She didnt mean too and the rational side of her knew it was unfair, but for the sake of her own pride she would make Tina the scapegoat. And to solve the problem Bette did what she always did, she would tighten her control over Tina. She would raise the bar of expectation to impossible heights, and Tina would always come up short. Yet ironically in these times of insecurity and vulnerability, she realised, were the times she needed Tina the most, the one person who would never see her as any less for expressing her truest self. But instead of letting Tina in, instead of letting her see, she pushed Tina away because she didnt aspire to Bettes unrealistic expectations. And so she was left, unable to reach out to Tina because of her own fear of being seen as weak, yet unable to allow Tina to reach out for her because she wasnt considered good enough.

Bette lowered her head and shook it, she didnt want to think these thoughts anymore, she didnt like these realisations about herself. All she wanted was to wake up from this nightmare with her Tina sleeping soundly beside her. But, she groaned as she forced herself up from her spot on the floor, that wasnt her reality, this was. She stood unsteadily all this thinking had tired an already exhausted being. She had made progress today, but she knew that if she was going to have any chance of getting Tina back she was going to have to make some more. And a good place to start, she decided, was a shower. The clean water would maybe rinse the cluttered thoughts from her confused mind, leaving room for fresh ones to grow. Fresh thoughts that would lead to new answers. And new answers that would maybe lead to Tina.