Note: Every time I watch the last episode of the anime, my heart breaks and the Abel+Esther fanatic in me cries for justice! So, this is dedicated to all those fans who, like me, can only watch the gorgeous closing theme "Broken Wings" and dream of what could have been.

- Crossing -

The balcony couldn't have taken more than six short steps to cross, but in his eyes, the distance between him and the windows of her room was long and arduous, stretching ominously in front of him like a great marble road that glittered in the sunlight and disappeared into the far reaches of the horizon. The courage to leap those few feet in front of him leaked through his fingers, and no matter how hard he tried to collect himself, no matter how desperately he tried to believe that everything was going to be okay, doubt clawed viciously at his resolve and rendered him immobile.

He clutched the smooth ivory railing he was perched on, not out of a fear from accidentally falling from such a startling height, but out of the realization that he clearlyshouldn't have come. What would he accomplish by seeing her? What good would it do either of them?

He didn't know.

All he did know was that he was doomed—doomed perhaps to stay roosted on her porch like a gargoyle forever.

He had sealed his fate the day he had stepped into Albion, the second his eyes had fallen victim to the castle that rested proudly at the country's epicenter. The structure had gleamed at him tauntingly, with its arches and towers and with the fact that somewhere in its midst, she was there, her and her smiles and that internal fire that had never failed to warm him. There had been a torrent of emotions then so unbelievably strong that when curiosity and yearning lassoed him tightly about the neck and tugged him earnestly in her direction, he complied like a man with no free will of his own.

Before he knew it, he had been jumping over walls and climbing vines and moving forward even though his brain told him not to, even though he knew he was a hopeless moron and that nothing would come out of this.

The reality of his situation hadn't hit him until he had reached her balcony, when he had realized how close he truly was. Then, the adrenaline that had so shamefully driven him minutes ago dissipated, and he was left quaking in his stupidity, balancing precariously on a slab of wood no thicker than his foot.

Why had he come? Why, after working so hard to bury her memory into a dark, unobtrusive corner in his mind, was he going to go against his oaths and rip open those mental barriers again?

The answer was simple and oddly made him feel more human than he had ever felt in his long, gloomy life.

He missed her.

And...he wanted to see her.

Perhaps it had been an effect of this conclusion, but suddenly, in the midst of his despair, he found a small shard of hope. A fool's hope, of this he was certain, but it had been enough. Cautiously, he pressed the soles of his feet to the shiny granite tiles of the balcony, and when the ground beneath him did not shatter from the weight of his sins, he began to cross. Every subsequent step that followed felt like a stab in the gut, prickling him with uncertainty.

Within a few seconds—or had it been an eternity?—he reached the near-translucent curtains that gave him an ethereal impression of the room inside. The thin drapes fluttered like dancers of a song he could not hear and brushed softly the tip of his nose where he inhaled deeply and realized how impeccably they smelled of her. Drawn, he crossed the barrier, felt the satin material caress his face as he stepped into her world.

- Turning -

Her world, he decided, was comfortable and perfect, but made him feel nervous and out of place from being surrounded by things that he certainly did not have any right to be amongst. The room was large and cozy, draped in silk and gold, and furnished with all the expectancies of a queen. It reminded him quite piercingly that she was no longer the nun he had once long ago known, but something indisputably larger, more powerful, and highly revered.

He touched a nearby span of wall somberly, gliding his fingers over the intricate wallpaper until his skin greeted the smooth oak of a headboard. The bed that it connected to was covered with tranquil, wrinkleless sheets, and it was there he imagined she spent countless nights wrapped in her blankets, infinitely safer in them than if she was ever to be his arms—arms that were, when he lifted and inspected with pity, covered with his black habit, old and weary and coated with a layer of dirt from his travels.

He was a mess, he realized embarrassedly. He patted himself with a frantic need to be presentable; it had been a while, after all, and she was Queen now, and—

He looked up sharply, realizing something.

—and where was she?

His eyes roved the chamber and its beautiful decor, over expensive mahogany tapestries, tables of jewels, and neat piles of documents waiting patiently for approval. He searched in almost starved desperation for the slight figure he had expected to encounter, but, upon seeing nothing of the person who haunted his dreams, tasted only deep, seething disappointment. It coiled around his heart like a deadly snake and sunk deep into an abyss in his stomach.

See? his reflection in a mirror nearby seemed to say, eyes narrowed with disgust. You foolish man. She has far more important things to do than to reunite with the likes of you.

The sun burned his back, and something, perhaps shame, roared in his ears.

Suddenly, the doorknob jingled, and he froze, legs unwilling to budge. The door swung inward, and in came the form of a woman gently built and dressed in a white garb that hugged her torso and flared like petals at her waist. She was hooded and currently so engrossed in her book that she went unaware of the fact that there was an intruder in the room and that he was currently standing at the balcony windows. The covering slipped off, and she sat, mumbling aloud, onto a cushioned chair whose back he faced.

He felt a jolt of recognition. The red of her hair was unmistakable.

Before he was aware of it, his mouth was moving, molding to a name imprinted on his soul.

"Esther."

Formalities were tossed and lost in the wind that tickled his neck and played with his hair and carried his whisper across the expanse that estranged them. She visibly stiffened and stood slowly, as if time was suddenly made of molasses, and he waited, breathless and faint, as she turned towards him in a flurry of lace and silk and frills...

And that was when everything around them seemed to disappear.

- Falling -

She was the same, but at the same time she wasn't. Familiar blue eyes stared back at him, a color much like his own but considerably darker, livelier, and innumerable eons younger. Her hair was still stylishly cropped at her ears, still vibrant and entrancing. Her nose was still gently perked upwards, her lips, still a rosy hue.

But her face was bit slimmer now, longer, from the aftereffects of maturity. There was an air of wisdom that could have only harvested from ruling, learning, and maturing. He also suspected she had grown, as most humans generally did, an inch or two their time apart.

They stayed silent and motionless for many never-ending seconds, hearing only the clock tick somewhere in the background and the wind moan behind him. He wanted to say something, anything, to melt the frozen awkwardness between them, but his tongue was dry, and his throat was parched, and no acknowledgeable syllables escaped him. What could he say after so long, anyway? How could he possibly express how much he had craved to see her without saying too much or likewise too little?

There was movement, unexpectedly, and it shattered the stillness and brought their surroundings rushing back to their respectful places with unsurpassed speed. He watched her lips part and make a lovely sound—

"Abel."

—and he knew, in that instant, that it had been the most pleasant thing he had ever heard. He couldn't tell whether he was drowning or flying or powerlessly trapped somewhere in between, just that he needed to breathe because somehow he had forgotten how to.

Then, her mouth—the very mouth that had uttered his name and had pulled on his heartstrings—swiftly pressed together and curved and transformed into a blinding, happy upturn of the lips. She was smiling as if years suddenly did not separate them, as if the last time she had seen him had been yesterday and not countless, countless months ago.

He felt his heart clench in guilt and boundless yearning.

She took a step forward, and he resisted the urge to take some too, to dart ahead and encompass her whole in an embrace. That would be unwise, he mentally chided himself, and discourteous, and he certainly did not have the privilege to be so intimate with her.

No, he certainly did not. Any chance for such a relationship had been forfeited the day he had left her in front of his casket.

She made another stride in his direction, and another, and within a few heartbeats she was merely an arm's length away, standing so close that touching her cheek would have been an effortless and much desired task on his part, one that would've required him to just raise his hand and brush aside those ruby locks of hers that stirred against her face.

In the breathless proximity, he saw in her eyes all the words she could not express verbally, all the tears of relief, of delight, simply swimming in the vast ocean of her orbs.

It left him weak, mind and body. His joints shook.

And then, suddenly, he was on his knees, and her arms were stretched out like wings before him, and he was falling forwards, falling towards her, falling completely and irrevocably for her...

- Accepting -

Her arms—her wings—tightened around him, enclosing and engulfing him in warmth and an immediate feeling of completion. He felt the unbelievably smooth cotton of her dress on his face, currently buried in her stomach, and heard her heart play a symphony in synch with his own and succumbed willingly to the fingers that gently preened his hair.

His own hands, seemingly with a mind of their own, reached for her, wrapping about her waist even before he was consciously aware, through the blissful haze that had taken control of his mind, that he was clinging onto her as if he had only then come to realize how precious, how fragile, how enticing she truly was. He could not remember a time he had breathed in a sweeter, finer scent, or touched anything warmer at his fingertips. He could not recall a single moment but perhaps those in dreams and of a life not on Earth where he was so in peace that it was like being weightless.

She whispered something that delightfully tickled his ear, and it took him a moment, so busy trying to convince himself that all of this was real, to register what had been said, what his heart had been secretly longing to hear.

"I've missed you."

The elation that such a statement ensued was dizzying and overwhelming and wholly intoxicating. To be missed, to be thought of...

He was sure that such a reward he was never meant for in this lifetime.

He clutched the puffy skirt of her dress that prevented him from pulling her any nearer than she already was and offered in response all that he could, all that he was capable of.

"I'm sorry."

She laughed, but in her laugh there was acceptance.

- Promising -

Somehow, sometime later, when he had become conscious of the world around him, when his soul had finally calmed down to a quiet excitement, they had made it to her bed. They sat at the edge of her large silk-clad mattress, close in that their legs brushed and their hands nearly touched and he saw how pleasantly the light hit her visage.

She talked—of her accomplishments, of her dreams, of her hardships—and he dutifully listened, soaking up in his hunger all that he missed in her life in the hopes of reclaiming a place, however insignificant, in it. He swelled with pride when he learned of her diplomatic efforts with the Empire, mourned with her when she told him of the terrorists groups she had encountered while ruling, and burned with secret jealousy when the topic of fervent suitors was casually brought up.

When twilight all but kissed the sky, she had nothing left to say and stared up at him with smiling eyes. He blushed slightly in self-consciousness, then grew rigid as rock when she lifted a hand to touch his silver locks. Her fingers slid and left his hair, traveling downward until they skimmed his forehead and caressed his eyelashes and touched his cheek. Wherever they went, they left burning trails on his skin, jumpstarting his nerves in mayhem. His body refused to move, so absorbed by the feeling that, when her thumb accidentally grazed his bottom lip, his heart lurched forward with startling force.

"You haven't aged at all. I'm a bit jealous."

The statement had been innocently said enough, but he winced, for it reminded him with an unyielding stab in the gut just who he was, what he was, in comparison to her. The realization bound him with lung-compressing burden. He chuckled to hide his grief and offered her a smile, but the sound was hollow and leaden with years of accumulated fatigue, and the smile cracked before it could even form.

"Perhaps not physically, but..."

But...Esther, my soul is weary.

Shamefaced, he looked away and clenched his teeth to prevent words from coming out, but they managed to escape anyway in a whisper that was raw and harsh and mortified of the mouth, the mind, the person it belonged to:

"I'm tired. So very tired."

Her hand, still resting at his jaw, turned his face back to her, who gazed at him with so much understanding and admiration that his heart ran widely in the small, suffocating expanse it was provided with and did not know what to do with itself.

"Then rest, Abel."

He smiled ruefully.

"The idea is wonderful—"

That it certainly was, for it caused hope to flutter within his him in the most peculiar of ways.

"—but who would accept a monster like me? Where could I possibly—"

Before he could finish, she grasped his hand with both of hers, spread his fingers delicately, and pressed it against her chest where he felt the distinct musical throbbing of her heart. It was fragile under his palm, like an excited, tiny bird, but radiated with utmost courage, reaching for him with unsurpassable compassion and promise and certainty.

"Here."

- Shedding -

She was offering more than just a stationary place by her side. He realized, with a shock that made him incidentally both numb and eager, that she was also offering in some discreet way herself as well.

His breath hitched in his throat and refused to dislodge itself, and he couldn't help the anticipation and apprehension seeping into his voice or how his legs trembled under him as if they were suddenly made not of bone, flesh, and muscle but merely jelly.

"Esther..."

I can't.

There was a pregnant, heavy silence that followed in which his desires raged war with his brain, where he felt the conflicting needs of holding her near and fleeing back to a world that was without her, that was much, much colder. He discerned, as the facts ripped the vicinities of his spirit, that she deserved so much more than what he could provide and that, thus, he could not, should not—

But there was a fire in her eyes burning with such pure determination that it caught his stare and stripped him of all rationalities until all that remained was the organ sheltered, imprisoned in his ribs, urging him, pleading him, to be selfish, at least just this once.

He bit his lip and looked helplessly at the fiery figure in front of him, from whom he could not turn away and because of whom he felt more alive, more at peace, than he had ever in his life. This girl—this woman—this queen, who had become, since the moment he had met her, a strong pillar at his side, a perpetual factor in his stream of thoughts, was now demanding that he stay with her. It sounded almost surreal to his ears, like a slip of fantasy that had escaped from a book and merged into reality, like a dream he expected to dream for the rest of time, not a vision so tangible and possible and real that it made his chest constrict painfully.

Do you dare cause her unhappiness, Abel? the wind sighed at him from faraway, and he nearly jumped at how unusually the voice reminded him of certain empress. Isn't this what you want, too?

Before he could make conscious effort to reply, his heart answered 'yes' with such strong conviction that he realized with startling clarity that he could not deny her of anything and that, therefore, a decision whether his brain liked it or not had been irreversibly made long before the dilemma even existed.

...Can I? he asked, unsure but hopeful, of the wind that gently pushed him.

He could almost envision a grin from the light tone that responded to his anxiety. You will never know unless you try.

And try, he decided, he would.

"Are...are you sure?"

He had to make certain, before he let go of his restraints, of all the things that currently prevented him from touching her face, from brushing her cheek, from expressing the feelings that coursed through his veins like hot, burning liquid.

"Yes."

The honesty in her eyes certainly quenched any lingering doubts.

"Thank you."

He wasn't sure if he had said it to himself or aloud, but it now lingered between them, linking them together for as long he could cling onto her, for as long as he could have her, and for as long as fate and God and any other mystical, all-knowing force would permit him the right.

Suddenly, driven by thunderous desire, he delicately lifted her chin and leaned forward until their bangs brushed and their breaths mingled and their heartbeats were in sync. He saw her tears as they ran down her face like several evening stars, and, perhaps, he had begun to cry too because she gave a little breathless laugh and gently, with charmingly trembling hands, wiped his cheeks, whispering to him, for him, a thrilling phrase that tenderly reached his ears as "I love you."

Lost in the proximity, he pressed his mouth to hers and began to shed himself of his chains.

- End -

Comments: I had this beautiful dream where Abel was on his knees embracing Esther, face buried in her stomach...and I woke up compelled to write a story around it. Hence, this was born.

...although, knowing me, I probably would've written something for those two lovebirds even without the aid of my subconscious. Viva la Abel+Esther! ;)