Okay, so I'm sure you're wondering why I'm not updating What Happens in Cyberspace today. Well, it's basically due to a severe lack of inspiration, coming to that part that you don't want to write but is necessary to the plot (I'm sure other writers can relate), and an emotionally rough week which I may write a one-shot about. Hope you guys understand, which fortunately for me, you guys often do.

Fortunately, my muse finally decided to come back to me (Looking around ff, I think she went to visit all of you instead!), and yesterday I had this 2 1/2 hour period where I was on fire. Okay, I'll stop talking now and let you read!

The nighttime wind gently grazed Tobey's hair as he stood atop the grand hill overlooking Fair City like a watchful monarch. Millions of quietly blinking lights smiled up at him sleepily from the quiet metropolis as it settled down for bed under the comforting radiance of the moon. Tonight, those tiny pinpricks seemed to be fallen sparks of starlight because for the first time in his entire life in Fair City, the stars shone clearly and defiantly through the city smog, as if a smothering blanket had suddenly been lifted from the heavens to reveal its true glory to the world.

But Tobey was not gazing in awed rapture at the stars, but rather a young girl, standing a few yards away in the obscurity of the moon's shadow. There was a certain mournful, burdened expression in her eyes as she looked down upon her beloved city. For quite awhile, there was nothing but the whistling of the wind snaking through the threadbare branches of a tree, a strange, unknown clinking noise of metal, and the gentle rainfall of the girl's tears. Her tears shone like diamonds as they wound their way like shimmering ribbons around her body, so that it seemed her skin was lit by their subtle glow.

Not even questioning the absurdity of the idea of glowing tears, Tobey felt as though he was intruding upon a decidedly personal moment and didn't think this girl would be pleased if she discovered he was spying on her. Looking around, Tobey found a hiding place among the branches of a gnarled, desolate oak tree. At once, the shadows eagerly invited them under their cloak of protection, their blanket of absolute concealment.

Or so he thought…

"Now really, Tobey, just how blind do you think I am?" asked the girl patronizingly, not even turning around to confirm Tobey's identity. Tobey's heart froze with panic, and for some reason, his cheeks flushed crimson with embarrassment.

"Don't worry, Tobey, I'm not going to punish you, although you certainly have a lot of experience with that." The girl's voice, while seemingly lighthearted, was lined with a certain misery and heartache, just as before. This time, however, she chose to reveal herself. Moving with a strange, echoing clank, the girl cautiously stepped into the direct spotlight of the shining moon.

"WordGirl?" exclaimed Tobey, barely able to contain a squeal of delight.

The heroine smiled endearingly at the boy's enthusiasm. "Me," she said simply.

"What are you doing here?"

"It's easier for me to think here, away from everything else," she replied cryptically. WordGirl then sat down on the damp grass and gestured for Tobey to do the same. "From here, I can see my entire life unfold before me, but by just looking up, I can see all the places I can go but will never get the chance. In a way, it's funny: I can fly to the moon, and yet I'll always be chained here, chained to what everyone wants and who everyone expects me to be. I think sometimes they forget that I'm a person, that I have just as many needs as they do, that no matter how fast I fly, I can't always be the one to save a life. That sometimes I need some time, time to just laugh and be with the people I love.

"But that's the thing: I can't love anyone. I'm supposed to be their savior, but a savior can't fall in love with a sinner, even when I myself have hurt everyone I've ever loved."

Tobey sat in silence, unsure as how to answer. He had always been abysmal at comforting people, although gratefully there appeared to be no need for solace with her. Abruptly, WordGirl stopped her speech and turned to Tobey. "Come with me," she said, standing up. "There's something I want you to see."

Taking the somewhat confused boy genius by the hand, she led him over to the same gnarled, rickety tree, and without any further explanation, began to climb. Her steps were light and nimble like that off a squirrel, and soon found herself more than halfway to the top. When she turned around and saw that Tobey had not followed, she beckoned him impatiently to come with her.

Tobey, who had never once partaken in what he viewed as such a dangerous and idiotic pastime, now found himself quite adept at it. He somehow managed to balance upon even the spindliest branches, and soon was on the same level as WordGirl. Together, the pair climbed higher and higher, moving in perfect, perpetual synchronicity, like a captivating dance, with all the thoughts of the world below vanishing with each step they took.

Finally, the two reached the top. Balancing on what was essentially the most brittle twig possible, WordGirl slowly extended her hand to the great expanse of the heavens and let her fingers delicately brush against a star. The burning ball of light clung to her fingers as she pulled it down from its celestial home to shimmer before Tobey's astonished gaze. The star's glow illuminated WordGirl's face, crazed with an immeasurable excitement as she cupped the star to her lips and gently blew, like a child cooling a spoonful of soup.

When she pulled her hands away, the star had been magically transformed into a radiant crystal firefly. It danced gracefully in the moonlight as it sent a trail of glitter streaking across the sky. She repeated this process over and over, teaching Tobey to do the same, until the whole world was filled with fireflies. As they did this, they did not only challenge the basic principles of physics but also all the rules they had created to keep themselves apart. They never spoke, yet they answered all the questions asked against the rules of the world, questions of love and hope and light and destiny.

Finally, when all the stars had been plucked like apples into their hands, the two gently glided down from the tree to meet the earth, Tobey landing gracefully while WordGirl descended with a resonating clunk. While WordGirl was the one grinning like an idiot, Tobey felt he had never felt happier, nor could any person on this earth ever had the capacity to.

For the first time, Tobey felt loved.

"I'm going to show you one more thing," WordGirl said, although this time, there was a certain wariness and misgiving behind her voice. Closing her eyes, the girl cupped both hands to her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut in absolute concentration, as if the exercise was painful. Tobey was breathless with inexplicable anticipation, as too seemed the entire world; it too seemed to be holding its breath in expectancy, with a faint mechanical ticking the only sound in the entire world. Finally, WordGirl relaxed her clenched fist and brought forth from her cupped hands a star, only this star shone a thousand times brighter than any celestial body, and Tobey believed this lone star could light up the entire universe. In addition to physical light, the star appeared to exude a feeling of breathless weightlessness, a blissful insanity that drove actions not by any rational motives, but by a force far greater and deeper than that held inside the boundaries of explanation.

"I'm going to give this star to you," WordGirl told Tobey, "as a reminder of me when I go away. Do you understand what this means?" Tobey nodded in agreement, but he did not pay attention to the words. The feeling the star was giving off was intoxicating, and Tobey wanted nothing more than to continue reveling in the emotion. Greedily, he stretched out his arms in a burning desire to make the star his. The star pulsated in WordGirl's trembling hands like that of a beating heart.

"First, I must ask you something," WordGirl said nervously. "Do… do you love me?"

"I do," Tobey replied firmly, but now, unlike any other time in his life, it was said with strength and conviction and meaning. The words seemed to weigh upon his tongue with a certain responsibility, and yet he relished the blissfully sweet taste.

"Do you truly love me?" WordGirl demanded. "And you must answer me honestly. Would you do anything for me? Would leave behind everything for me? Would you sacrifice yourself for me? For what I need for you is true love, whole and untainted, without any misgivings."

"I would," Tobey said with the same conviction, although this time he was hesitant, unsure if he could make good on his promise.

Suddenly, a terrible, heart-wrenching feeling tugged at him, and he compelled himself to ask, "Do you love me?" Even before WordGirl opened her mouth, Tobey braced him self for the heartless blow he knew he would receive, that he always received. Whether it was his friends or family, the whole world despised Theodore Tobey McCallister, and that was a concrete fact, the kind you found in a textbook listed next to Einstein's theory of relativity and Newton's laws of motion. How could he expect WordGirl of all people to love him?

"Of course I do," she replied sincerely, thus radicalizing Tobey's entire world. "How could I not, Tobey? I owe everything to you. I'm the only thing on this earth that can love you." The connotation of those words meant everything for him, and Tobey felt as though he would pass out from it. With more confidence this time, WordGirl held out the burning star to him.

Perhaps if he had been more aware, Tobey would have noticed the thinly disguised trepidation in her eyes or a mysterious metallic ticking, but he did not. He was so focused on finally grasping the one thing that had forever been just out of his reach, now held out with open arms.

With an ominous finality, Tobey's hands closed around the star, crushing it.

A piercing scream wrenched through the silence. Dropping the star, which shattered upon impact, in shock, Tobey backed away in horror. WordGirl's skin was melting off her body to reveal with a gruesome irony a gleaming skeleton of gears and wires.

She was an automaton.

She was Tobey's finest creation.

She was dying.

"WordGirl!" Tobey cried in alarm. Running to her, he closed his arms around her just as she sank to the ground. Sparks ignited and sputtered from her joints, and parts of her body began to fall to the ground, bleeding and broken.

"See, Tobey?" she asked bitterly, now with a screeching, robotic undertone to her voice. "I'm the only one who can ever love you. If you had only been more careful, you might have saved me, but now you'll lose me forever."

"But I never wanted this to happen!" Tobey screamed. "I just wanted you to love me!"

But his cries went unheard. Her speech glitched and stuttered incoherently. The steel metal plates began to heat up, and Tobey knew her internal mechanisms were crashing. As the scraps of metal burned white-hot and horrendous screams wrenched the air, Tobey pressed his lips to hers. Then, he closed his eyes, unable to bear seeing his beloved spontaneously combust.

"Can't you ever love me?" Tobey sobbed through his tears, though whether his plea was for WordGirl or the entire world, he could never be sure.

Just as the world was about to plunge into darkness, Tobey heard the automaton whisper in a voice that was not its monotone self:

"I'm sorry."

With a jolt, Tobey's eyes flicked open like a light switch. Sitting up and looking around, Tobey saw that he was not in an open field with WordGirl, but in his bed and utterly alone.

Tobey wanted to curse his dream self's stupidity. No matter how hard he tried to snatch her attention, her love, it always was just out of reach, taunting him cruelly.

"She'll never love me," Tobey told himself aloud, the spoken words agonizingly painful, as if saying them would somehow lessen the blow and drive home what he knew (if he was being honest with himself) since the first moment he laid eyes on her.

Sighing with the pain of unrequited love, Tobey leaned against the windowsill to behold the radiance of the moon, the face of his beloved emblazoned in its silvery eyes.

Unbeknownst to him, a certain alien superhero was gazing upon the very same moon, with the parting words of her dream still burning on her lips.

Ugh, I use way too many metaphors in one-shots...

Overall, I was satisfied with this one. I didn't capture quite the amount of surrealism I was aiming for, though, but I guess that's okay. As for the periodic metallic sounds, at first I decided it would be a chain, then a bomb, and finally I chose automaton, so even I didn't know what it would be!

So, this story is going to be submitted to A Pencil in her hand's fanfiction contest. (If you haven't heard about it/entered, I encourage you to do so!) Looking around the fanfiction page, there are a lot of really good entries; I think it'll be exciting to see everyone duke it out! Good luck to all those entering!

As for What Happens in Cyberspace, I can't determine a specific date for the next chapter. Between my upcoming Confirmation, the possible one-shot I mentioned, and my muse's fickleness in dosing out inspiration, I haven't a clue. Just rest assured that I am far from abandoning the idea.

Love to all,

Bella