"I don't see why not," said Lament. "But do you have enough people to monitor her. Do you have anyone who's be willing to give up the rest of their life to spend with her?"

"I would," said Skulduggery.

It's hard to classify exactly when Skulduggery gets up; he doesn't need to sleep after all and he hates to meditate and leave Valkyrie alone. "Getting up" here means that he leaves his arm chair and puts on a record to signify that another day has started. He has a large collection, a collection that is always expanded by Fletchers dropping in with new albums. He is always enthusiastic, that lad. Always giddy about whatever he can give to her. "I got a limited edition EP off a friend!", "I ordered Imelda May on vinyl!" Lord knows how he manages to get them all but Skulduggery has an inkling that Grand Mage Ravel is not above the occasional string pulling to supply him with even the rarest of records. So cheery, so suddenly loud in the quiet hush of the mountain hideaway that Skulduggery could wince if he had any eyes. With all that grinning, one could easily overlook the softening in his eyes as he looks up to the Cage. Again, if his sockets weren't so utterly empty, Skulduggery thinks he'd do that too.

Today, he starts off with Gloomy Sunday by Billie Holiday. He turns the volume up so he can hear it over the crackling of the Cube. As it plays, He speaks.

"Gloomy Sunday, otherwise known as The Hungarian Suicide Song. It's been linked to 19 deaths by the press. But that's just the media, isn't it? Always wanting to stir things up...Anyway, this was banned from the BBC at one point, did you know? It rained on the wartime moral parade. A lovely song to start the day off with, eh?"

The rest of the day is sort of tricky; time isn't used up by preparing or eating food. He doesn't need exercise or bathe or drive around being paid to save the world. The monkeys and the butterflies have long since been shipped away to better homes and the trees were done away with ages ago. By all means, this should remind him of the brutal loneliness he suffered in between the excruciating torture while trapped with the Faceless Ones. But it doesn't. He's not alone, you see. He's got her.

Sure, she seldom comes back with that quick fire wit of hers when he makes a joke at her expense and he sort of misses her insulting him but he's not as isolated as he expected to be. He's sure she can hear him. She must be able to. Aregiddion managed to control the minds of his guards didn't he? Maybe she can't get inside his head and control his thoughts but she could easily be able to understand and respond to her, right?

The grainy noise that marks the end of the record fills the room and he lifts the needle away.

"Remember that time when you almost got eaten? Granted, you've almost gotten eaten by lots of things but I'm talking about that one particular time with the dragon. Those were the days. You couldn't believe dragons actually existed and I tried to tell you that they were very rare and not as scary as you probably thought but you went ahead brimming with excitement. How old were you? Thirteen? Fourteen? You had a little spring in your step as we walked to the field where it was being held and once you saw it you turn around and yelled "is that it?!" It was quite small, wasn't it?" He chuckled, "I probably should have told you not to raise your voice because it came at you, all fangs and talons. You never have forgiven me for laughing, have you? I saved you didn't I?"

He realised quite early on in here that laughing isn't as much fun on your own.

The silence soon fills the room once more and it suddenly dawns on Skulduggery that today is a bad day. A day when he'd gladly accept a dancing hallucination of her. A day when he wouldn't mind being under Darquesse's control.

Which is why he is delighted to have a visitor. Not an actual in-the-flesh visitor, mind. He doesn't get many of them except from Fletcher. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he sees that the text he has received is from an unknown number.

"I want to talk."

He wastes no time and strides to the room littered with sigils, the room where Valkyrie and himself had conversed with Erskine and Ghastly on their visit here all those years ago. They begin to glow andafigure appears before him.

She is tall. She is lean. She is blonde. She raises her eyebrows at him in greeting.

"Hello, Tanith." He says as smoothly as he can, ignoring the fact that she isn't Tanith. She's not the Tanith he knows.

"She ok?"

"Oh Tanith," he wants to say. "Even with us hiding in the Alps and you with an evil parasite in your head, you're still worried about her. Remember when I first met her? When you thought that we'd lose to Serpine and you told me you'd had enough. You told me that you didn't want to die. That she didn't want to die. And then all those times after that, warning her to not use her reflection too much. Telling her to go to school more. I wish I could say that nothing has changed but everything has, hasn't it?"

He doesn't say that. Instead he nods and the image fades out.

Skulduggery heads straight back to Valkyrie after that. He doesn't leave her side if he can help it. He talks over the crackling energy and pours his magic into the Tempest and he walks about a bit and watches her sleep. He likes that word better. Coma sounds too clinical too...permanent.

After an antagonising moment of staring at her closed lids, he speaks up again because, hey, he's having a bad day and no one is around to hear apart from her.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out and I'm sorry you're not free and I'm sorry that I could watch you get older – I mean, it would take you a long time to look old but I would have been willing to sit around and observe." He laughs, "that's what I'm doing now, though, isn't it?" He sits down in his armchair and leans forwards. "I wish I could have supported you as you told your parents about magic and I wish I could have bought you your first car as a birthday present because I was thinking about it y'know and I wish I could have seen you walk down the aisle or been on the other end waiting or – I don't know." He puts his skull in his hands and studies the floor. "I wish it could have been different."

And with that, he allowed his mind to clear. Slowly, as if timid of what might happen, he slips into meditation for the first time in years. He reasons behind it are a little hazy; maybe he feels at peace, knowing that she knows or maybe he's simply too tired with reality. Whatever logic that lies behind it, he quickly drifts away from the room and the arm chair and the stupid bloody Alps. It's just him. Just him and – ooh look, he's not alone. He doesn't look up to her, he can sense her presence.

"So do I, Skulduggery." She tells him, "So do I."

So, I wrote this around one in the morning and the tense has probably slipped a little bit but I don't care because MY VALDUGGERY FEELS.