Author's note: A Rebecca angst fic, as far as I can tell the first of its kind. I don't know why I wrote it, and I don't know what Dan's thinking while all this is going on ... maybe that will be worked out later. I just thought she needed to appreciate him more.

As for the song, sure, it may not sound like it fits, but sing it softly to yourself. It works.

Spoilers: Quo Vadimus and the rest of the Dan/Rebecca relationship

Distribution: Please, just ask me first.

Disclaimer: Sports Night belongs to Mr. Sorkin and "How you remind me" belongs to Nickleback.

Waiting
by Gatekeeper

Rebecca sat alone in the dark of her hotel room. It was self-pitying, sure, but she felt she deserved it. There was a digital clock somewhere, but she had stopped looking at it long ago. It had been too painful watching her second chance tick away.

Never made it as a wise man
Couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
Tired of living as a blind man

She had been an idiot before. She knew that now, had known that for the entire three months of divorce proceedings ("divorced in every land, now") as she gathered up her possessions, her courage, and prepared to start her life all over again.

She had thought of Dan the entire time, seen him in restaurants and crowded street corners where she knew he couldn't have been. She had heard his voice in her head, making jokes, whispering encouragement, saving her from herself. Supporting her well enough to last an entire lifetime. Why hadn't she seen it before?

The knot that had been inhabiting her stomach for weeks, the one that had tightened when Dan said that Sports Night might be cancelled and he couldn't have dinner with her, was slowly melting into a puddle of pain. It was so late, and she was leaving tomorrow.

I'm sick inside without a sense of feeling

It had been a week since she had gone to the station, and Rebecca had done this every night since then. Vigil, torture, it had become something of a tradition, watching the show and waiting, waiting, for a call she was slowly realizing would never come.

She had known the show had somehow been saved. Halfway through the broadcast that first night, the light had suddenly come back on in Dan's eyes. A light that had lit a corresponding one in her heart.

He had said he didn't want her to be the one that made him stay, but now he was going to stay anyway. After a well-deserved celebration with his friends, he would call her, and she would do her damnedest to convince him that he still loved her.

But the call still hadn't come yet.

And this is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am

She must have done it wrong. Rebecca had kicked herself more times than she could count for coming on so cocky, so self-assure, so certain that he would still want her. Even has she handed him the hotel phone number, she had only allowed a hint of the desperation she was feeling to come out.

It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story

She had planned on telling him the truth at dinner. How much she still missed and needed him. But it didn't look like there would be a chance, now. He was too smart to trust her with his heart again.

This time I'm mistaken
For handing you a heart worth breaking

The look on his face has she had left with Steve that first time was burned into her memory. He tried so hard to hide his emotions, Dan did, but the hurt that had radiated from his eyes had been clear even to her. Someone else he cared for had rejected him, not thought him good enough. He had been so good to her, so patient, and she had crushed him.

Rebecca replayed the look over and over in her head every night as penance.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Who was she kidding? She had been a fool, an idiot, a bitch, had been given a gift of infinite value and tossed it aside. She was never going to get it back, no matter how much it now meant to her.

She would not cry. The villain was never allowed to cry.

She hoped so badly that he was happy.

And this is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am