"I've been waiting for you."

He felt himself suddenly grow weightless, filled with an indescribable energy and joy. Casting away the last threads that tied him to this world, he bounded forth in a burst of brilliant blue light.

And he saw her there, standing before him; glowing softly.

"After all this time?"

"Always."

Nothing more needed to be said. He felt the same old happiness that had been dormant for so long fill him once more at that single word, the word he had been waiting all those years to hear.

Then, as if to some unspoken call, she turned, and he followed. The two of them leaped and soared, drifted and flowed, as twin ethereal beacons leaving behind all sorrow, pain, fear; and into the light...

He was home.