AN:  A random Nick story that popped into my head the other day.
I'm actually rather proud of this one and I'd be very appreciative
of any feedback you would feel inclined to send.  I'd be interested
in getting some reactions from this one... Thanks guys!

inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com



******************* Never Taught to Love ********************


I answered the door bell even though it was late, maybe because on
some level I knew who it would be.  It was raining outside, like it
always did on warm Tampa nights, when the stars were obscured and
choked by gray clouds that lightened midnight and hung low and heavy
in the sky.  Thunder rumbled as I opened the door.

"Hello Nick," I said softly as I leaned against the door frame,
casual in my pajamas which consisted of low riding sweat pants and
a shirt two sizes too big.  The bottom hem was cut off at my navel
but the short sleeves reached past my elbows.  I was a slender, model
thin woman but hardly tall.  If we had still been dating I might
have cared that I didn't have a lick of makeup on and that my
shoulder length brunette hair was piled in a tight pony tail at the
top of my head.

Nick always preferred my hair down.

But then, we weren't dating, and I didn't care.  Tried not to, for
both our sakes.

"Hello Ashley."  My name was soft and warm, rolled on his tongue
like a spice I never knew.  I'd always hated my name, so ordinary
and common, but from Nick, it sounded like a blessing, or a
benediction, or a prayer.

I never really decided which.

Maybe it was a curse.

He looked good but then, he always did, it was part of the allure.
I'd never seen a bad photograph of him, no matter what he thought or
how much the guys, in moments of seflishness, might rag on him.  He
wasn't beautiful like so many others in that dirty business of his,
but he was...  He was masculine in a quirky kind of way.  He might
have been beautiful as a child but I vastly preferred the man he had
become.  There was natural muscle on his arms and when he smiled,
you knew he meant it.  Nick had been born to sing, not act, and I'd
always been proud that he knew the difference.

Unlike some.  I snorted mentally at the thought and at the old
bitterness I clung so stubbornly to.  I wasn't known as a
particularly forgiving woman, though I had been so damn patience
with HIM.

It was easy to be someone you weren't when you were so much in love
you could barely see straight, let alone look yourself in the eye.
It had been years before I had wanted to look anywhere besides HIS
eyes.  It was so damn easy to get lost when you didn't want to be
found.

My gaze clung to him, hungry, and he might have taken advantage of
that ache if he didn't know me better.  I wasn't a weak woman,
despite my love for him.

His hair was wet and curling at the ends and I knew he had forgotten
an umbrella.  For all Nick's charms, he was far from practical.  Or
maybe it was simply carelessness.  He had had someone looking after
him since before he could learn independence.  Adulthood would come as
something as a shock to him the first time he forgot to pay his water
bill and no longer had an assistant to do it for him.

He was dressed in stone washed jeans that probably cost a cool five
hundred and a ragged seventies concert shirt from some nameless one hit
wonder from decades past, another hundred easy.  The lack of jewelery
told me he had dressed himself, instead of a stylist... well, that
and the lack of visible tattoos.  Stylists loved to show off his
tattoos.  As if his fans needed anything more than him to love.

"Can I come in?" he asked, hedging, always so damn awkward in
uncomfortable social situations.  I felt a brief pang of pity but
ignored it.

"Why?" I asked cooly.

Nick exploded in predictable anger, hands clenched into fists, face
outraged.  "Dammit Ash!  I just want to talk, okay?  Is it a crime
to want to talk?"

I stared at him long and hard, blue eyes measuring.  I knew he was
serious when I saw the beginnings of tears.

Nick didn't cry unless he was hurt.

I cursed roundly but stepped aside, granting him the oblique
permission he sought.  He stepped in behind me, closing the door
quietly, breathing harshly in the aftermath of his outburst.  He
followed me into the den, dripping all over the carpet and I bit my
tongue.

It wasn't my place to nag, even if it was my house.

I wordlessly got a wash towel from the kitchen and tossed it to
him before sinking bonelessly onto the love seat, leaving Nick alone
on the couch.  There were too many memories of us to sit comfortably
on it together.  I was a strong woman but hardly made of steel.

He sat as well and I waited for him to speak, knowing what was coming
as surely as I knew it was him ringing the bell after midnight.  He
avoided my eyes and stared at his clasped hands, fiddling a bit with
his fingers, and I knew he felt naked without any rings.

His voice when he finally broke the relative silence of the storm was
rough and emotional.  Like Nick tended to be.  "I can't do this
anymore Ashley.  I need you.  I..." He sucked a breath swift and
sharp between frustrated lips as he pleaded, "Please Ash, we can do
this, we can be right together.  I... I've never asked any woman to
come back to me and,  I'm... I'm begging you Ashley."

I swallowed and wished I could pretend to be unaffected by the
rawness I saw in him.  I couldn't pretend when he rose from the couch
and knelt in front of me, warm hands damply resting on my legs.
"Give me one reason we can't be together," he said earnestly, and
dammit he was begging, sapphire gaze guileless and pleading.

I shuddered beneath his touch and tried to gather myself.  Eyes
squeezed tightly shut to block out the reality of Nick Carter I
answered, my own voice gentle despite the emotions behind it.  Nick
was hurting worse than I was.  It wasn't in me to be cruel.  "Which
reason do you want Nick?  You cheat on me, I've caught you doing it,
have had the boys tell me you do it, have had YOU tell me you do it
for one.  Or how about you never being home?  Never being here when
I need you...  I could give you the one about my privacy too because,
you haven't heard that one before.  Or maybe the stress of your
lifestyle.  Or, or, and I know this is your favorite, I don't love you
and I never did.  I was just using you.  Is that a good enough reason
for you to walk out?"

His breath was controlled when he took it, his hand irons on my knees.
"But you did love me.  You still do.  I know."

I opened my own blue gaze and wordlessly looked away.

"Ashley..." he whispered.

I shuddered again and fought the ache in my heart.

"Damn you!" I cried, rising up in a surge of anger that left him
behind, sodden and unhappy on the floor as I rose and paced.  I felt
his eyes on me and ignored him until I could control my own tears.

I whirled back on him and advanced until I was standing over him, for
once, for once, the taller of us two.  "Do you know why we broke up
Nick?"  I asked, demanded, "We broke up because I loved you.  Because
I love you.  And because you can never, NEVER love me back."

I sank onto the couch, head in hands, and flinched when I felt Nick
gingerly sit next to me.  One hesitant hand reached up to touch my
shoulder but I shrugged it angrily away.

"Ashely..." he tried but I stopped him, voice tired.

"Don't Nick, just don't, we've done this all before."

The silence of the storm stretched between us again, despite our
closeness.

"I want to love you," he finally said softly.  "I want... I want to
love you so badly I cry because of it.  I want to love you because
you deserve it and because, because if I can't love you I can't love
anyone, ever."

I didn't deny what I knew was true.

"I know," I answered, voice small.  "Its not your fault, but its not
mine either."  I looked up, eyes bloodshot, and Nick reached out,
gently, tenderly taking my hand and pressing it to his cheek.  I
choked back a sob before continuing. "Its not your fault they only
taught you to sing and not to love."  I laughed hollowly and hated
how old I sounded.  "Funny how you've sung about love for over a decade
but never learned what it meant huh?"

He dropped my hand and it was his turn to look away.  "I'm not just who
they shaped me to be Ashley," he responded quietly.

I pitied him for the lie he spoke so easily and stretched up to kiss his
tears.

"Yes Nick, you are, and that's the problem.  You don't know how to be
anything else."

We stared at each other across a distance so vast I knew we could
never cross it.  "Will you teach me?" he asked helplessly.  "Please
Ashley, try."

I let my tears fall to join his.  "I tried Nick, I tried so damn
hard.  Why do you think I stayed so long?  I tried to love enough for
the both of us but it doesn't work that way."

"No..." he whispered, "no it doesn't.  I, I don't want to loose you."

"You can't loose what you don't know how to claim."

Nick snorted and sighed.  "You were the only one who ever truly
pitied me.  I could see it in your face sometimes.  I used to think you
were crazy because, I have everything...  I'm a pop star.  But, that
doesn't mean so much does it?"

"You tell me."

"I'm here aren't I?"

"Yeah," I said gently, pitying him, "you are."

And he left because there wasn't anything else to do.  His tires squealed
on the wet pavement under the dirzzling sky as I watched, remote, from my
window.  You can't teach someone to love, even if they want you to.  I know,
because I tried.

Tried and failed.  Nick Carter was never taught to love and I, I wasn't
the woman to do it, no matter how much we both wished it had been different.
He had been different.

In the continuation of the storm I pitied him, and myself.  When I went to
sleep that night I pretended not to notice the tears that made my pillows
damp as I cried once again for the man he could never be but who I still
missed, and loved, more than any other in existence.

And in the forgiving light of dawn I pitied the thousands of women who thought
Nick Carter could love them.  Because I used to be them.  Because I still was.