Disclaimer: Not mine.

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He dreams of her again. She's—in the Sixth Dimension; she's—she changes, she's never simple and rarely candid. She—

she loves him, she said, and he believes her with all his heart. She's an illusion, changing; but she can say a thousand words with her eyes (or can she, must not force her image to believe certain things, but she is also forthright and blunt), and he likes to believe he made her happy, for a time.

She is different, extraordinary; he cannot predict her in a fight or under any other circumstances. She is shatter-bright, the sharp edge of diamond brought to bear; he has exchanged many taunts with her, and seen her abandon reticence for forceful argument, passionate and well-researched.

She challenges him to become more, to fight and to think, and lately to become someone else entirely; he has found that to have the power to feel means so much, and can only hope she agrees. She is why.

Unpredictable, as changeable as a stream, as harsh and steadfast as iron; she is all of these, sharp-featured and soft-eyed, controlled and impassioned, inscrutable and crystalline-glaring.

She is often quiet, not to hide incapability but in silent restraint, the words she does say more vital for it. He listens to all she says, though he hopes that she will, someday, say more to him. Perhaps she resents enforced silence, standing alone next to the one she calls lord (always, inevitably; she does not allow herself to slip on that); and he would hear her, he promises, listen to her and make sure she is not harmed.

He remembers, once in another world, feeling almost sorry for her, bound to the skeleton he had crippled; he regrets that past, and the future, and that he stood by while she was harmed in his place. He can only pray that it shall not happen again; she is a person, he vows, as real as anything that exists, and she deserves far more than anything she was granted. Perhaps she will forgive him, perhaps not; but for her to have that choice is enough for him, her chance at long last.

He remembers dancing. He remembers happiness in her eyes. She's alive then, dancing like the shimmer of sun on clearest water. It ends, always too soon. Memory is fragile, the space brief; in some ways it is enough (it must be, must be) and in many others all too little.

He remembers a garden, and her closeness to him, almost touching each other. She's taken away like wind, leaving him alone; and then he sees her save him.

He wishes he remembered more of a kiss, another rescue; not even ten words said, atop a dais in the centre of the Carnival.

And at what he believed what would be the end of it all, they danced again, in silence, perhaps the same tune within both of them. She left, again; and he waited until there was no chance left to wait.

He can remember more fighting. Darkness taking them both, the foes overwhelming. The…look in her eyes, Sparx' sword at her throat. He wants to let that escape him, skip over to a next (if there be one), but he should not refuse to face this. Finding her gone from the Tower on their return. Mark telling him, much later, that she had warned him. He should have, could have gone to her then; and he did not, and she was the one hurt for it.

He remembers that last instant, almost managing to kiss, swept away by the cold air.

He remembers this, and tastes the sting of past regrets; there is nothing he can do but dream, and vow that he will wait.