He is a stream.
He is supposed to be ice, but the ice is melting, and slowly, slowly, he is trickling away. All that will be left of him was that icy center that will never, ever be melted.
She knows, as she watches him. She has seen the empty look in his eye. How a little more of him leaves each time he was screamed at by that girl in the cell. She doesn't understand why he keeps visiting her. Maybe it is just a necessity for him, a feeble hope; or perhaps he wants to fall away so that the screams won't echo in his head.
She sometimes peeks into his room at night. He will not cry; no, never. He will merely sit, looking sorrowful out the window, no doubt thinking of days where she smiled and laughed at him instead of cursing his very existence.
He goes to see her again, and she follows him. She watches as the girl screams at him, sobbing, and watches as he breaks a little more. A little more each day.
And this is repeated, time after time, day after day, and she doesn't know how he can stand the monotony, because she certainly can't.
But finally, it happens. She knew it would. She knew from the very beginning.
He shatters.
When it happens, he is silent; but she can hear a dragon's scream of pain, and the sound of ice breaking into pieces, the pandemonium of the world ringing in his heads.
The girl has stopped too. She's staring at him oddly; she seems to have just heard that scream, the dragon's scream, his scream.
She tries to force something out, but he leaves.
He only comes back once more, years and years later.
She's still spiteful; he's put himself together, but the structure was fragile. One false move and he'd break apart.
She finally finds what she's wanted to ask all these years, after all those fits of screaming and rage.
"Why?"
He stares at her, and responds.
"You don't know."
It isn't a question, but a statement. He looks at her, seeing her rot as she becomes more horrible and unhealthy with each passing day. This will be the last visit.
Without a word, he opens the cell door and walks over to her. She seems torn, almost wanting to slap him; but she doesn't get the chance when he leans close to her, making her understand.
She is shocked, and finally she understands, finally she gets it, after all those damned years of him waiting she knows why he did what he did.
He gets up and walks out, closing the cell again. There's still some of them left, he's thinking. They're still there. So he must stop them.
And he says goodbye.
He walks away, and she understands. She knows the ripping sensation of someone saying goodbye and walking away to somewhere you can't go, while you want to scream and cry and just hold them, tell them not to go.
So when the tears fall and wash away her anger, she understands. When she says "I'm sorry" over and over again, she understands.
And later on, when Tousen is fighting him, and suddenly she's not in her cell but beside him, and when they both break together, shards surrounding both of them as they breathe their last breath, she understands.
End