A/N: This is a yaoi!  If you don't like Link being with Gannondorf (with hints of a previous relationship with Sheik), don't read!  This is the fic I'm going to eventually base a doujinshi around.  I'm writing in bits and pieces as thoughts come to me, so I'll post sporadically.  Enjoy!

Also, I am desperately looking for a beta, as my other beta is not happy with my yaoi fanaticism. 

Please be kind.  I had given up writing completely for maybe eight months.  I'm just now getting back in the groove.  So if things don't flow well, that's why.

If Link acts OOC, just remember that in my universe he has very, very low self esteem.

***

Way away away from here I'll be

Way away away so you can see

How it feels to be alone and not believe

How it feels to be alone and not believe anything

Yellowcard, Way Away

***

Link let out a soft sigh of painful reminisce.  The Temple of Time…  So much of his life had taken place here.  He had been sealed away from the world, seven years of his life taken from him because of the sword he now held.  He had met his beloved Sheik here, the man who had given his life for the Hero of Time.

There was a soft noise behind him, the gentle tap of soft boots.  "Who goes there?" he asked without turning around, his grip on the hilt of the Master Sword still loose.  Without giving the person a chance to answer, he turned around, turned to meet the man whose death he had caused in the bloodied chamber of Volvagia.

"Oh my God!" he cried, his blade clattering onto the floor.  "Sheik, I thought—how could—!  …Oh."  The initial joy he had felt had frozen over once again.  He turned to pick up his sword, saying, his voice seething in rage: "It's you, Zelda.  Why do you masquerade as Sheik?  He died years ago."

Zelda walked forward, pulling the strips of cloth from her face.  "Good to see you too, Link.  Glad to know you still care."

"You killed my boyfriend in cold blood.  Of course I hate you.  I'm surprised you even care to meet me anymore, knowing I would have killed you then if you hadn't fled from me."

"I came to remind you of your destiny," she said coldly, walking to stand next to him.  She tried to lay her hand on his shoulder and was rudely pushed away.

"I know my destiny," he answered angrily.  "It caused the death of the man I loved more dearly than anything in the world, and my most beloved friend is sealed in another dimension now.  I look at my destiny each minute of each day, and I cringe before it."

"If you kill Gannondorf, you will be free of your destiny," Zelda said softly.

"I won't!" he snapped, turning around to strike her.  She jumped back, and that was the only reason he did not slap her.  "I will know until the end of my days that I have bloodied my hands with human blood and caused the death of my own lover!  I will know that if I had not listened to you, none of this would have happened to Hyrule!  I will know that it is all my fault that Sheik died beneath Volvagia's claws, and that Dark Link died with your arrow in his back because I wanted to fulfill my destiny!  I will know!  And there will never be any escape for me!"

He shoved Zelda aside, knocking her down, and stormed to the door.  She leapt up and trialed after him, her face burning with anger.  "So is this how it will be?  Will you show your cowardice now, when Gannondorf will finally fall before you?  Will you flee when Hyrule's future rests on your shoulders?  Will you—"

This time Link actually did slap her, backhanding her so hard she fell to the floor again.  "You got me into this and now you preach to me about cowardice!" Link cried.  "If you wish a good look at cowardice I will give you a mirror.  You use me as a shield while you pretend you have everything under control.  Do not talk to me about cowardice ever again!  I will defeat Gannondorf this day, do not doubt it; but if I ever see you again, you also shall fall beneath my sword."

With a final disgusted glare, he stormed from the Temple.  Behind him, Zelda's sobs cut harshly through the shrieking air.  He was not sorry that he had promised to kill her, but he was truly sorry that all of this had happened.

Only one thought kept him from letting her misery hurt him: the memory of Gannondorf riding, his long hair flowing behind him in the winds, his lips twisted in a smile.

And that, Link thought softly, miserably, is the man I love, the man I will have to kill.