The girl's eyes fly open, her breathing loud and ragged. It had been too real...after all this time, shouldn't the memory have faded, have blurred until the details were unrecognizable? But it is still there, every time she closed her eyes; the moment forever frozen in time. The moment when she had made the choice—the one choice that had utterly shattered her heart and nearly so with her will to go on with life without him.
The boy jolts upright in his bed and brushes off the covers. It had been the girl again, the one with eyes flecked with glimpses of gold. Once again, the second he wakes up, he feels that something, or someone, is missing. The silence, the absolute loneliness in the bedroom presses down on him, though he is well aware of his younger brother resting in the adjacent room. But no matter how hard he tries to recall the memories—any memories, good or bad—of her, it is like she is forever shrouded in a haze of mist that is impenetrable. Only her eyes he can picture in his mind. They are absolutely exquisite and unique—golden sprinkles hidden in her dark eyes—and he feels that if he ever meets her again, he would be able to tell by her eyes alone. If he ever meets her again. It is highly unlikely that he would, but he has a feeling that fate isn't done messing with his life just yet.
The girl dares to let herself hope each year that it would be the year he remembered. The year that he would come back. The year when every wrong is righted, and everything is alright because he is there. That teeniest sliver of hope is all that she clung to, year after year, growing slimmer with each passing day. She didn't care if it is hopeless; it is all she had of him. Only hope that he would return someday. Every second, she thought of him, she wished that he would remember and come back for her. Each second she would push down that little flicker of hope lest it be crushed.
It is her friend that finally points out the sentence.
The sentence that utterly changes her life yet again.
The boy never knew why he had that huge, blank gap in the midst of all his memories. They never told him. Perhaps it had something to do with the old government. He never knew why they changed, either, to what they were now; though they told him it is because of him. The idea is ridiculous—him, working together with them to change the government?
But it is the only way to explain why he is treated like a hero in his homeland and why they had transformed the system to a whole new one. Even his brother agreed with them.
Yet he always had a feeling that they weren't telling the whole truth….
The girl desperately tries to push down the tidal wave of hope crashing over her. It must've been idle gossip that somehow made it into the headlines—yes, that was it. He wouldn't be coming back. He would still be there with his brother. He wouldn't remember her, anyhow.
But how she longed to see him again—in real life, standing in front of her. It had been so long since she had left, since she had said goodbye, since she had let go of almost everything that she had cared about. Everything lost in one single moment.
Her heart starts beating faster, hope still leaking through her mental barrier into her thoughts. He is here, with his brother. Walking the very same streets as her. Perhaps there is still a chance….
The boy takes in the familiar, yet different, surroundings. Here he is, back home with his brother. The same streets that he grew up in, the same streets that he knew like the back of his hand.
As if by instinct, his eyes seem to be searching the dimly lit street for someone. Someone that he lost. Someone who he must've once cared about. His gaze is torn away when he realizes that his brother is talking passionately about something or the other about engineering. He soon is caught up in his brother's carefree chatter, occasionally laughing at his words.
His brother stops abruptly in the middle of one of his enthusiastic explanations and smiles at someone behind him, before looking back to him.
Curious as to how someone got his brother to stop while he was ranting about engineering, he turns around and catches a glimpse of a girl with black hair walking near them. Her head tilts a little as she walks, and he notices a flash of gold hidden in her dark eyes.
The girl from his dreams….
Somewhere in the forgotten corners of his mind, something stirs.
The girl never thought that he is this close to her. Only a few feet away...if only she could close the gap between them. But she couldn't—she couldn't risk hurting him again, and as selfish as her other reason is, she couldn't tolerate another heartbreak.
He doesn't know her anymore, and she doesn't know him. They are complete strangers. She wills herself to believe it.
It is like fate had given her another chance. Another chance to rebuild what they had before the answered prayer. Before the sacrifice. Before everything that had happened.
So when he glances at her, she almost accepts. Almost. She almost tells him everything, almost risks her heart again for him.
Almost. But maybe she could finally yield to her emotions after this long time.
The boy wonders where he had seen her before. She seems so familiar. And suddenly, the constant aching of loneliness that is always present is gone. It feels like he is complete, whole again—that he finally has found the missing piece of a puzzle that he had been looking for the whole time.
But how does she fit into this mess of a thing he calls life?
He turns around and hurries to catch up with her, and she looks over her shoulder hesitantly. When he asks her if she knows him, he senses that she's torn between something and the other.
When her answer comes, he frowns, perplexed. No? He was so sure that he had seen her somewhere. Running his hand through his hair, he struggles to find the right words to say. When he does speak, he is still concentrating, trying to find why he seems so...whole and complete with her, why she always seems like she's hiding something from him.
Did he ever know her?
Something inside him wakes up—something that he has never felt before, and whispers: Yes.
The girl can hardly breathe; can hardly process what is happening. He is standing in front of her, short blond hair endearingly messed up, his eyes as blue as ever. Here is her chance to right everything, to end her pain of being apart for so long. But when he asks her, she refuses; says that no, she didn't ever know him.
She can tell that he is still searching, still seeking the answer as to why they seemed to have met before. The intensity of his gaze almost catches her off guard. It had been so many years since he had last laid his eyes on her. So many years spent wishing, spent yearning for this moment.
He whispers something to himself, something the girl could barely catch. An untamed surge of hope envelopes her, and she barely hears what she says next. It is like one of those wild fantasies that she had often envisioned of him returning in those first few weeks of desolate loneliness.
As he steps closer to her, he apologizes for what he is about to say next, dismissing it as strange. He begins uncertainly; unsure of his words and what exactly he is trying to say.
She is hoping, wishing that he knew what had happened—everything that had developed, had gone wrong in two short years. Two short years, and she had felt like she had known him for eternity.
He thinks he knows why she completed him. The voice that had awoken when he had first seen her after such a long time shows him the blinding, broken flashes of distant memories. But he isn't sure, not yet.
She is split between two parts of her. One that urges her to tell him all that had happened. The other that holds her back, whispering how she needs to protect him from the truth.
He feels the forgotten memories slowly becoming brighter, becoming recognizable in his mind as he stares at her. A fight, a bet, the war, the betrayal, the explanations, the tears, the sickness, and most of all, pieces of them together. The pieces of them showing the love that ran deeper than the ocean.
She sees the shards of memories swirling in his eyes, gradually coming together, as the realization hits him. She expects to see the same sadness, the same tormented guilt that seeped into his eyes whenever they had been together. But she doesn't. She sees something else altogether.
He finally knows why.
She finally gives herself fully to hope.
And yet again, on that dimly lit night, a new legend starts.
He reaches out for her hand. "Hi, I'm Daniel."
She accepts. "Hi, I'm June."
Okay, a ton of things I want to say right now. But, first of all, thank you a million times to all who read this. I know that most people think that Champion's ending doesn't adequately satisfy them, but for this fanfic, I think that I'll end it here. And I realize that June and Day are adults now...but seriously. Ten years. I really can't bring myself to imagine June and Day as grownups. Second, if you also read my other fanfic for Red Queen, then just saying that I'm still working on that one. Legend was just so good that I had to write this. Third, a huge shoutout to my friend TheBookWorm0623 for getting me obsessed with this series. And finally,(not to sound desperate or anything but I totally am), please review and tell me what you think of this! Probably the only fanfic I'll write for Legend because the whole series is so perfect. At least to me. :)