A/N: This just came to me while I was stuck trying to write a multi-chapter story for you lovely people. Don't ask me why I'm posting something so sad the day before Valentine's day. :)

These are the confessions of Zoe and Alec as they reflect on their failed marriages. It's more of a character study than a story, an idea of what they would say to their therapists if they were feeling unusually honest. They are designed so that you can read them separately, but I think that they are better when read together.

Disclaimer: I don't own any television shows. Not one.

Twin Soliloquies

Zoe

"Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences."

-Isadora Duncan

You can't control who you fall in love with. I couldn't. Did I want to fall in love with Cal Lightman, psychology student? Not at all. He was ambitious, no one could deny that, but then, no one could deny that psychology didn't pay for the kind of lifestyle that I was planning on. When he told me he was into the research side of it, I admit that I was relieved. At least his wife wouldn't have to deal with all that misery shrinks get from their clients.

Did I think about having his last name the first time we met? Of course I did. I thought about that a lot back then, when I was young and foolish. I thought I was a hard-nosed, logical cynic, but now I can see how much of a hopeless romantic I was. He was shorter than me, but I'd always liked that in a man. I like wearing the pants, and Cal, well, he didn't seem to mind. Sure, I found him irritating and nosey at first, but he wasn't a chauvinist or racist like the guys at the law school. And when he found out about what he calls the black and white leaves on my family tree, I think he found me even more attractive. To him, I was exotic and exciting. That was when I knew he had me for good.

Of course, I hate him. I always hated him. I always loved him, too. It's complicated. I told myself not to marry him, even as I was saying yes to his proposal. I went home that night and told myself to go back in the morning and say no, but I didn't. I couldn't. I'm not an expert in expressions, like he is, but I could see how much he loved me. I could see that his love for me was honest and true, and I knew that he'd be faithful to me as long as I breathed. I was a bi-racial law student, the first person in my family to ever go to college, and the first woman in my family to ever venture outside of the home. But I hated myself so much back in those days. No, it was a kind of loathing. Disgust, as Cal would call it. So when he offered me love, I took it. I snatched him up before anybody else could. I'm a lawyer, after all; I didn't get where I am now without being fiercely competitive.

I can't believe that I was stupid enough to think that he could fix me. At the time, he made me feel so good about myself, like I was his princess. Sure, we fought all the time, but it was never serious. It was a game. It was the weirdest way of showing how much we loved each other. Cal loves things like that. He loves to say, "I love you," in every way he can think of without saying the words directly. When we were standing on the altar, I told myself to run, but I couldn't. I was addicted to the way he loved me—I couldn't run away.

For a long time, we were so happy together. I know it sounds strange, when you see how were are now, to believe that we were ever happy, but we were. I was worried when he said he had to go to New Guinea. We had been married for less than a year, and I couldn't stand being away from him for so long while he was stomping through some jungle in the middle of nowhere. But he gave me the most beautiful gift before he went away, a gift we would name Emily. My whole life, I never wanted to be a mother. I wasn't the type. Of course, I never wanted to be a wife, either. It scared me to be alone and pregnant, but he promised that he'd be back before she was born. He wasn't there to see how many times I almost went and stopped Emily from coming into this world, and he would hate me if he knew. Why wouldn't he? But somehow, I got through it. Somehow, I made it to the delivery room, and when I looked at that perfect face, I knew that she was the best thing that ever happened to me. When Cal saw her for the first time, I knew that he would be as loyal to her as he was to me.

In the end, I did run away. I left him. But it's just, I couldn't take it anymore. I know it's a cliché, but he'd changed. He thought he was God. The more he went to school, the more he learned about facial twitches and all that crap, the more I became his favorite subject. One day, I just realized that I wasn't his wife anymore—I was just his favorite thing to study. And slowly, all of that disgust and self-loathing started creeping back in. You don't know how betrayed that made me feel. He was watching me, always watching me, but he could no longer see me. It was unbearable. I tried to make him leave, I tried to show him how bad it was, but that was one thing he just couldn't learn. No matter what I did, I couldn't get him to leave me.

I had to get out.

I see the man that I married every once in a while, but only when he's looking at our daughter. He made his mistakes with me, I guess, and now he knows better. Now, he knows that you can't just barge in and rape a woman of all of her secrets. There has to be a line, even in a marriage. If he knew that when we were married, maybe I'd still be Mrs. Zoe Lightman. Maybe not.

I know that I'm messed up. I lie awake at night wondering if I've already ruined my daughter's life beyond repair. Now she has to deal with two egotistical, messed up parents who love and hate each other all at the same time. Who love and hate themselves all at the same time. I don't know how Emily has managed to make it this far, with parents like hers. Someday, I'll make it up to her, by marrying Roger, or by fixing whatever's screwed up in my head. I hope to God she knows how much I love her, how I would do anything for her. I know I don't show as much affection as I should, but I try.

Every day, I wake up, and I try to be the mom that Emily deserves, knowing that as much as I hate him, Cal gave her to me.