Anna (Blake's 7), written August 1996
This was published in the fanzine "Straight Blake's #3", and so I've never posted it to the Internet before now (I think), aside from the mailing list Space City that this first appeared on. I have decided that I won't lock it, because, hell, it's been 8 or 9 years since the zine was published.

This is the only Blake's 7 fanfic I ever wrote. I find that regrettable.

And I am standing face to face with him for the first time in over two years, my heart pounding, lust and love and grief and terror all mingled together at once as I look into those pain-wracked eyes.

"Anna," he whispers. "Anna, you're alive..."

"And you," I say softly. "You came back from Cygnus Alpha."

"How can you be alive?" he says, almost pleading, wanting to believe in me. "Your brother thinks you're dead..."

"I had to let him think that. I had to let everyone think I was dead. I didn't know who betrayed us, Avon. I... I ran back to my husband... I didn't love him, he knew that, but he wanted me and he'd protect me. He was powerful." And I'd hated him, hated him, longed for his death every time he touched me, foolish man with his plastic trophy wife. Everything he touched turned to plastic, cold and unresponsive. Only with Avon had I ever been alive.

"Did you think I'd betrayed you?" His voice is cold, hard.

"No!" I don't need to feign shock. "No, never you."

"Then why didn't you tell me you were alive?"

"Who could I tell? Who could I send a message to? Avon, care of Blake, Liberator, Somewhere In The Galaxy? I didn't know where you were, except that you were in space, and you had joined the rebellion, and that someday when my plans came to fruition and and the people had won back Earth, Blake would come, and he would bring you. And then we could be together again, my love." I reach out for him. "Avon, I'm alive. Does it matter how?"

"No," he whispers hoarsely. "I suppose it doesn't at that."

He holds me tightly. Dear God, how I have hurt you, my love. I never wanted to, never meant to betray you, but they were onto me-- I'd used you as a cover for my political activities because you were so relentlessly apolitical and they knew it, it was in their files, but now my superior in the Bureau was an idiot who couldn't see how impossible it would be for you to be a political, how totally opposite your profile, and so he'd wanted you investigated and he'd found the sparse evidence of the few tracks I hadn't erased. I had to tell them about the bank job to give them an excuse, no, no, he's not a political, just a bright crimo, so they wouldn't wipe your mind. Better torture and death or exile to Cygnus Alpha than mindwipe and the destruction of all your brilliance and wit, all your passion, all your soul, while leaving your body behind as a shell. I did it to save you, my love, but you would never believe that, if you knew...

And I want to weep. "Love me, Avon," I whisper.

"Should I?" he whispers, mockery in his voice, and bitterness. "You're a married woman, Anna."

"That never stopped you before." I pull his face down to mine. "When he touches me, it's like sterile gloves on plastic surfaces. Avon, you are the only one I've ever loved, the only one I've ever wanted. Do you begrudge me doing what I had to do to survive?"

"I can't, can I?"

"Love me," I plead again.

"Oh, I do," he says. Another man would have made it a caress. From him, it is a pronouncement of personal doom. "God help me, I do."

He runs his hand through my hair and kisses me, and I tug at his shirt, eager to open it, to touch his skin. I'm on fire with need, hungry for him, oh it's been too long and I need him to hold me, to kiss me, to pull my tunic off roughly with trembling desperate hands and run those sweet hands all over my body, oh I need to taste his skin and feel the warm muscles playing under the silken surface, only you my love only you, oh...

Chesku who I killed when the revolution came and I took control, Chesku's touch was anathema to me, heavy-handed, plastic and loveless, for I was his doll, his toy, his helpless trophy wife who needed him for protection, who needed him to manipulate, for the Cause, oh I hated him more than Servalan for his condescension and his ham-handed touch that I had to pretend to enjoy. Only Avon could ever set my body afire like this, touch me, touch me my love for I'm burning and I need your skin against mine to stanch the flames, oh Avon it has always been only you...

He whispers my name-- "anna, anna, oh anna..." like a mantra, like a lifeline pulling himself out of the dark. I wish he had given me his first name. He hates his first name, he told me when I first called him Kerr that he hated that name, even with his lovers he was always Avon. But I should have been special, I should have had a name for him that was mine and mine alone, not something he shared with everyone he knew. Since I don't, I use that name to tell him my love. "avon I love you, I've missed you so, avon, oh avon..."

Right there, and he knows just how to touch me, and just where, and he's inside me yearning hungry and I need it, need to see his face so vulnerable with love and need and pleasure, need to know that I can give that to him, as much as I need the pleasure he's giving me, deep inside me and he's touching me all over and all of my skin is pressed against him, oh avon I want all of you I want to draw you into me and never let you go I want to press against your skin and become one with you, never let you go oh my love my love I'm so sorry...

And the fact that this is *him*, that it's Avon after all these years, touching me, inside me, kissing me desperately, all that drives me over the edge and I scream his name, locking my legs around him, pulling him to me. Shortly afterward he follows, and the expression of tortured pleasure and helplessness on his face when he comes makes me want to weep and lock him away where the universe can never hurt him again, where he will never leave me again, where I will never have to betray him.

Afterward we hold each other in arms and he says to me, "Why did you lie?"

"I didn't lie. I never lied."

"You lied all along," he says, and sits up. "I know it was you." His voice is so cold.

"Avon, what do you mean?"

"I know it was you that betrayed me," he says, and he reaches out and caresses my neck and his hand tightens, tightens, and as I gasp he says, "I know you were Bartolomew..."

And I awaken screaming.

Chesku is there, annoying, hateful Chesku who I must pretend to love. "Sula! Sula, wake up! Are you all right?"

I blink at him. He isn't Avon. Avon isn't here. And I'm not dead. "I'm... I'm fine, dear. Just a nightmare."

I manage to persuade him that I'm tired and I just want to get back to sleep, no I don't need a hot toddy to keep the nightmares away or his hand on my leg thank you very much, and I stare into the darkness.

In two weeks' time, I will have Earth, for the rebellion. And Blake will come, if the rumors are not true that he is dead, and he will bring Avon. Or Avon, who may be working for the rebellion himself if Blake is dead, will come himself.

And he will see me. And he'll wonder why I'm not dead.

If I thought for a moment you would let me live, I'd long for your coming with all my heart and soul, my Avon, sweet Avon. To be reunited with you, I'd give up anything...

...except my life.

Don't come. Please don't come.

It will destroy me if I have to kill you, too.