A/N: I own nothing.

Elizabeth began this day like any other. She dressed, tied back her hair, and prepared breakfast, just like she had for a thousand yesterdays. She took her time getting to the library. Enough time to open a tear. But that was nothing new, either. She'd seen that street, those buildings, those lights, before.

Once inside the library, surrounded by hundreds of books she'd read at least twice, she let her mind wander far away. She thought of Paris, of bustling cities, of crowded sidewalks. She pictured mountains, beaches, forests, fields. She imagined sights, sounds, smells, the likes of which she had never experienced outside of her fantasies.

As she made her way to the window overlooking Columbia, she tried but failed to keep that all too familiar doubt from invading her daydream. The real world isn't like your childish fairy tales, it said. It's cruel, and ugly, and painful. But you'll never know, because you'll never leave this tower. You'll spend everyday like you spent this day, and the day before that, and the day before that...

But this day, with a cry and a crash, a man fell into her life. He greeted her in the normal fashion, with a 'hello.' He responded to having books thrown at him like she assumed anyone would, by defending himself. He spoke to her in a voice she'd expected him to have, his tone both comforting and intimidating. His face was the same face she'd always given to the heroes in her favorite fictional, picture-less novels.

But for all his familiarity, all his ordinariness, he brought with him something that was possibly more frightening than her prison: change.

The moment she reached out to touch him, she knew everything would become different. He would change from intruder to protector. She would change from Elizabeth to 'the girl who's getting out of this tower.' Her prison would become her past. And her tomorrows would become not like today.

This day, her life was torn apart.

Her only regret was that she wasn't the one to do the tearing.

A/N: Thanks for reading!