Hi guys! Guess who's back? Back again? LJ is back, tell a friend! hahaha... I noe that I took a bit of a hiatus before, but now I'm back, alive and ficcing! So sorry for the long break... and even though I have my half yearlies on at the moment, I can't stop writing because... I dunno, I just like it! So enjoy my creative burst while it lasts my fellow readers... lol... nah, I'll be here for a while... and you know Reviews DEFINITELY get me going... heheh... well, I hope you enjoy... in case you haven't realised, I'm a diehard kel/neal fan... so KEL AND NEAL FOREVER!!! hahaha.. so basically all my current fics are about kel and neal getting together... but I assure you... this wun is going to get interesting... so enjoy!

One of these Days
I won't be afraid of staying with you
I hope and I pray
Waiting to find a way back to you?
Cause that's where I'm home…

Michelle Branch - One Of These Days

Kel sat aimlessly at her desk at new hope, trying to finish forms for supplies. She was expected back at the palace by next month, yet she was dreading it with all her heart. Or what was left of it anyway. Don't get her wrong, she was fine with the palace, in fact, she even missed its luxuries, its elaborate training grounds and peaceful gardens. She even missed her friends that were there, the ones that she hadn't seen for so long. Yet at the same time, it was her friends that were keeping her away as well.

She looked at the sums on the paper, frowning while she quickly calculated how much food they would need for the next quarter. Mathematics came easy for her, and she allowed her mind to drift back to the problem that had been occupying most of her mind for the past few weeks.

As much as she would like to deny that there was a problem, to just stay at new hope or at the palace and pretend that there was nothing wrong, she knew that it was time to face it sooner or later. Sure she could ignore her own emotions for a while, but how long would it be before she'd break? A month? A year? A decade maybe?

She could handle pain, and pressure. Heck she'd been stabbed in the gut by a grown male centaur and lived to tell the tale, alive and kicking. But this was new, something Kel hadn't experienced before. This was fear. Fear of being around Neal again. Fear of events repeating themselves. Fear of consequences of those events. And lastly fear of her heart shattering to pieces. Again.

Neal. Just picturing his face in her mind, green eyes glowing like emeralds and floppy brown hair made her heart pang. This wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to let her feelings for him destroy the next best thing that she could have with him. But it had. After all, wasn't the simple act of not wanting to see him already a sign of their tainted friendship? She had put off time and time again her return to the Palace, even though she knew she wasn't needed here. The war against King Maggur had ended and New Hope was now a village of some sort, where refugees lived harmoniously within its walls. She told everyone, including herself that she wanted to stay to make sure everything was okay.

But deep down her subconscious new better. You've been avoiding him all winter and you know it, the little voice in her head kept on telling her, again and again. It was gnawing away at her, the pain at not being with him, the pain of knowing that even if she was with him he wouldn't want her.

Kel sighed out loud. She knew that at this very moment there was a rider making his way to New Hope from the palace at this very moment with orders for her to return. She also new that she had no choice but to go and face the inevitable. Looking behind her at her window, she saw that it was almost dark already. Mithros! I must have been daydreaming here for an age! She hurriedly filled in the last of the forms and signed her name, then pushed her chair back and stood up, determined not to waste her last few days at New Hope thinking about her lack of love life.

Another day is going by
I'm thinking about you all the time
But you're out there
And I'm here waiting

And I wrote this letter in my head
Because so many things were left unsaid
But now your gone
And I can't think straight

Simple Plan - I'd Do Anything

Neal paced around in the garden nervously. He couldn't think straight, everything in his head was spinning around and around in circles, his train of thought like a song set on repeat. He ran his hands through his hair, trying to think of something else to do with his hands, anything. Anything to make him stop thinking about one thing, over and over again. Kel would be home soon. Half of him was excited, elated at the news that he would see her again, while the other half was dreading it. What if he had hurt her so bad that she never wanted to talk to him again? What if she couldn't stand to look at his face again? If that had happened, he didn't know what he would do. Throwing himself in front of her and begging her to forgive his sorry ass came into mind though...

He wondered how she'd reacted to the news of him and his break-up with Yuki. He had sent Merric to tell her at New Hope, hoping that it would give her the hint that he liked her more than a friend. A question of whether or not she wanted them to be more than friends. He knew that she wanted it, he'd seen it on her face that fateful day. It had been a wake up call of some sort.

He remembered that day. The day that he and Yuki left for the Yamani Islands to live with her family there for awhile. Her uncle had fallen sick and needed Yuki to look after him, and being her husband-to-be, Neal had no choice but to follow her. He recalled the week before that, when he'd told Kel that he was going and wasn't going to be back for who knows how long. How her usually blank, emotionless face had contorted into a face looking like she was going through more pain than she ever knew she could feel. How she'd looked straight into his eyes and all he could see was something that he couldn't recognize at the time. Throughout that whole week she avoided him like the plague, and whenever he tried to get hold of her to ask her what was wrong it was either just an 'I'm fine' or 'Nothing is wrong'.

And then it came to the day. The day that he left. They'd plan on leaving early midday, and they had everything packed on the ship that was to take them to the Yamani Islands. He had stood there, waiting for Kel to turn up, to say good bye to him. He remember fiercely standing his ground, refusing to leave the docks until he said good bye to his best friend. He had to know that things were Ok between them, that they were still best friends. But sunset had come and there was no sign of Kel, forcing him to finally climb on board and let the ship set sail.

But then he heard her. Calling his name from the docks with tears streaming down her eyes, running down her face in tiny trickles. She'd called out to him, telling him not to go and then she looked at him like she did that other night. And that's when he realised. He finally recognized what was in her eyes when she'd looked at him: Heartbreak. It was like someone had flicked a switch in his head that gave him the answers to everything: Why Kel had avoided him after the engagement announcement, why she avoided him after he told her he was going, why she'd distanced herself so much from him since he'd started courting Yuki. It had been there, staring at him in the face all this time. Kel loved him.

The realization that had changed everything.