A/N: Might be a few errors in relation to the actual storyline of the manga, and the chronological order of events.
Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to Pandora Hearts, and have not sought or made a profit from this work.
Oz crept down the hall. Really, Gil was too easy to get past. But then, using Raven had exhausted him to the point where he fell down on the table and slept. Right in the Mad Hatter's best plate of cupcakes. For a blind guy, Xerxes had an eerily good aim.
Oz didn't hate a whole lot of things, but Gil's animosity towards Alice gave him a weird feeling deep down, somewhere he wasn't meant to be. Everyone was linked through the Abyss, and Sabrier, but how Gil knew Alice was still a mystery. And what Gil could have done to help Alice die.
Oz shoved those feeling into a box and threw them out the proverbial window while he tiptoed the long way around the mansion, avoiding Xerxes' room. The last thing he needed was Xerxes peeping over his shoulder where he was going. He jumped out the ground floor window, tearing a handful of ivy from the stone and ran down the gravel path.
He had to dodge tree limbs for a good five minutes before he saw her there. Alice was sitting at the edge of the lake, splashing her boots in the murky water. The moon was hidden behind the clouds that hadn't left the sky since he had seen Sabrier.
Still tense, he dropped down beside Alice and put his chin on his grassy knees. But Alice didn't do anything she normally would. The Alice who was not the Black Rabbit, nor a shadow of the Will of the Abyss should have hit him by now, or thrown something at him for not attending to her. But she didn't. Oz desperately wanted her to; he wanted something normal, an anchor to the lighter days when he had found his way back to the world.
Alice.
"It's not your fault, you know, what happened then."
Oz jumped in surprise, then realised she hadn't said its name. Alice hadn't moved, hadn't taken her gaze from the dark shore opposite. Oz opened his mouth.
"Sabrier?"
Then he realised she meant everything. Alice had told him in nine words that he shouldn't be guilty, and shouldn't be held back by what Jack, or Oz, or the Will had done. But eloquence wasn't generally a trait of Alice, whatever she was.
So Oz just smiled.
"Yeah, you're right."
"I always am, you stupid manservant."
She glanced at him, her great dark eyes flashing, and leant her shoulder into his. Oz returned the pressure, with a lighter heart. Really, no one knew Alice if they thought all she was capable of was darkness and pain. Alice might be the dark twin, but not all dark is evil. Alice was the dark that comforted, rough and gentle, cold but warmer than anything that killed.
Alice had changed him, and time would show how to everyone else. But for now, it was just them against the world. Oz felt the buzz of the contract in his blood, their bond, and reached his left hand into her right.
Us against the world, Alice.
They stayed like that, and just before dawn, the clouds parted for the coldest but most comforting light. The moon shone on the lake, and on the illegal contractors bound by fate.
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Falcon :)