My All Time Favorite Fictional Couples *Slightly Spoilery*

I've seen and read hundreds of these. Most are quite good but they tend to stick to the "mainstream" television/literary/whatever couples. The Geek sector is overlooked. As an intense member of the "Geek faith" (saw this earlier and made my day), I have to add my two cents in. These couples are tragic and dysfunctional and just oh so much fun to watch and/or read. So here's my list of the best couples ever: [Disclaimer: I took major liberties with some of these "couples" since I know a couple of them were just "friends." Haha, yeah right!]

Bill Compton and Sookie Stackhouse ("True Blood" and the Stackhouse Books)

This was a doomed romance from the beginning a la Romeo et Juliet. He's a vampire, ousted from society for being dead. She's a hick waitress with an unusual "gift." Bill doesn't really get being "human" anymore since he's been a vampire for over a century. Sookie is all human and more so with her compassion and understanding. Her friends are against her dating Bill and the vampires Bill associates with, don't get why he's trying to go "mainstream." I won't spoil the story since season 2 of "True Blood" hasn't even started, but if the books are any indication, Bill and Sookie have a long way to go.

Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, etc)

Everyone, and I mean Everyone, knew there was something between the FBI student trainee and the cannibal when Lecter ever so slyly brushed his finger against hers when she was handing him the file on serial killer Buffalo Bill in the movie "Silence of the Lambs." The tension in rooms and movie theaters was electric! Just that little contact caused the whole chemistry between them to change. The sequel "Hannibal" did a good job with keeping up that strange, dark attraction, but Ridley Scott should have kept the original book ending... Yes, audiences would have been thrown into the 8th ring of Hell shrieking, but it would have worked better than the lukewarm ending they used.

Josette DuPre and Barnabas Collins (Dark Shadows)

Love really does make you do the wacky to borrow from another hit vampire show. You just knew Josette and Barnabas were meant for each other but they would not be able to be together due to Angelique's resentment toward Barnabas. If Barnabas had only kept himself in check... Josette's death is really the breaking point for Mr. Collins who turns into the blood thirsty, insane vampire after being the first sympathetic, self-loathed creature most vampires are portrayed as now. I'm dying to see who is the lucky actress to be chosen to play Josette in Johnny Depp's "Dark Shadows."

Jenny Calendar and Rupert Giles (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

You're still in a love with a guy who had raised a demon decades ago and then possessed you, making you torture said guy? You forgive the woman who practically destroyed your surrogate daughter's love life in one fell swoop and lied to you about practically everything, even her true name? Don't forget she shot you with a crossbow, too. Giles and Jenny were the nerdy couple that I seriously thought were going to break the Hellmouth's hold on relationships. He was the bumbling librarian, brave and stalwart when facing evil. She was the computer nerd, quick witted and beautiful. They learned that neither of them were perfect but they loved each other regardless. Giles finding Jenny's dead body in his bed was the most horrifying, tear-jerking scene I've seen in a while. I still haven't seen anything so sad. Giles was never the same afterwards. In my book, that proved she was his soul mate.

Severus Snape and Lily Potter nee Evans (Harry Potter series)

After reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" you have got to be crazy to argue this couple with yours truly. Yes, they weren't together romantically, but damn it! Snape did anything and everything to avenge her death! Almost two decades went by with Snape mourning and planning in his own sadistic mind. He risked his life and swallowed his pride to help the "Chosen One" even though he wanted nothing to do with him. I would be as hateful and resentful as Snape if I had to look into the eyes of the person I loved, shinning through on the person I hate most's face. He died for her. To take a quote from Marryanne (Sense and Sensibility), "what's more glorious than dying for love?" Plus, even if you hated Snape and think he was the world's biggest bastard, you know you balled your eyes out when, after Dumbledore asked if he was still in love with Lily, he replied, "Always."

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (The X Files)

There is nothing like a good extraterrestrial event to bring opposites together. From the pilot to the last (awful) episode, Mulder and Scully were the "it" couple. From the moment they met, you knew they were destined to be together. I think audience's fell in love with that tension that always surrounded them and that indecision on both their parts. When they finally got together in season six and seven, I think the writer's relied too much on the fan's expectations instead of letting the characters grow naturally.

Doctors Gregory House and Lisa Cuddy

These two are the Mulder and Scully of the medical world. Bickering about anything and everything, they just can't stand each other. But they can't keep away from each other either. We really don't their history, but we do know they've known each other since their college days. The deception of the season five finale though has me questioning my own sanity on whether they really were as "friendly" as we all thought. Hopefully we won't have to wait long to see where their relationship goes.