So I don't know what this is. I think it started off with me thinking about the fairytale tropes in Beth's arc and morphed into this. It's not my usual style, I never use second person because it makes me feel weird, but who knows, here it is somewhere, hidden. Also this is heavy, we do go through Grady so be warned. But the ending is uplifting or positive at the very least.

Idk, read the thing, or don't. I don't know okay? I just don't know.

I'll see myself out. I own nothing.

You know this story, you know it well. You probably know it better than me, maybe you even know it better than them.

Maybe

There's a girl - of course there's is. There's always a girl. And she's bright and she's beautiful and her eyes are like the sky and her voice like air. There's a girl, and she's everything.

There's a man too, dark, scarred and world weary. A man who lets the sunlight in only through the cracks on his back. A man who lost more than he ever had. And he loves her. How could he not? He'd give up his life for her.

He very nearly does.

I said he was a man, but really, he's more of a boy. And he's lonely and frightened and lost and suddenly she's there and he's none of these things anymore. Maybe she loves him back. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe he's her knight in shining armour. Or maybe she doesn't need one.

Maybe

But he loves her. There are no maybes about that. And, as the world does when it sees something good and pure, when it sees something worth having, worth fighting for, it devises a way to tear them apart.

You know this story. You know it well.

So it takes her away. Far, far away to a place where there is no happiness and no joy and it leaves her to fight monsters.

It hardens her, it makes her strong. But it does these things only because it can. It's not changing her for a reason, not preparing her for a return, a tearful reunion. It means to keep her. Keep her for itself. There's no cosmic plan here, no fate, no destiny. It wants her and it doesn't want to give her back. That is something she has to fight for on her own, something she has to want for herself. And she does. The world may try to change her but she'll change it too. It can't have her soul.

It never will.

She won't be held because it can't hold her. Nothing can.

Not even him.

And where is he now? Where does his wander while his fair lady fights monsters? Does he lie down to sleep in the cold, hiding his face from the sun because its light makes him think of her? Is he trying to forget? Forget what once was? Her eyes and her voice? Or is he tearing the world apart? Shaking its bones, drilling down into its core, breaking it open to uncover the abandoned corner where it hides her from him.

Where is he now?

You want to know? You're certain that you do?

I can tell you that he's fighting monsters too. Maybe not the bloody, corporeal ones that she is, but demons nonetheless. He thought she chased them away and maybe she did. Maybe she's that magical, maybe she has that power. But he's alone now and he has to learn to chase them himself, chase them like feral dogs coming to bite pieces out of him. Chunks of flesh and bone until they find who he is inside and tear away at that too.

He's fighting for himself, but he's also fighting for her.

And the closer he gets the further away he feels and he tries so hard to hold onto something. Anything.

Everything.

xxx

He finds her - of course he does. She is much changed but so is he. He's still fighting his demons, fighting hard. But she's fought hers. She's killed them. She's strong. She knows she is.

She knows it too well.

There's one left though. One final foe. One to the millions he still has to conquer. It should be easy. She's succeeded so many times, fought imps and evil, beasts and brutes, even a Judas who betrays her over and over again. She's fought them all. She's won. She can't fail now. It's not on the cards.

But you know this story, you always have. The final challenge is always the greatest, childish fears and nightmares come full circle. A wicked witch, a stepmother, an old hag so jealous of beauty and spirit that she'd do anything to break it. Destroy it. She laughs at the marks made by time and healing, gloats in her fleeting beauty, and revels in power so elusive it only exists as an illusion.

She should be so easy to vanquish. She's weak. And the girl, the girl is strong. So strong. So very strong.

Maybe too strong.

You know this story, you've heard it before.

You knew it would happen before she falls to the ground, before the world breaks apart like her head, blood in her hair, staining the floor, seeping into her clothes and trailing in rivers down his face so that his tears come away red.

He's crying blood. It's so very dramatic.

He falls with her. That boy, now a man, who would die for her. He falls to catch her but also because his knees have given in and his strength is sapped.

He remembers firing a shot of his own, killing her last demon, the old hag, the stepmother, the wicked witch. He killed her and somehow that seems wrong on a cosmic level and he can do nothing but wait for the universe to right itself. But it doesn't. He killed the monster and it was easy. It could have been so easy.

And then he's gathering her into his arms, rocking her back and forth, begging her not to leave him again because God, oh God, he missed her so much when she was gone and he's not sure he can manage it again. Not sure he wants to.

Don't leave, don't leave, he saying.

But she is leaving. He can feel it and not matter how hard he tries he can't call her back.

Remember when I said no one can hold her? No one can.

Not even him.

So he carries her out of her tower. Her ivory tower drenched in blood and gore and the screams of the dead and dying. He carries her away from the monsters and the demons, from the hurt and the pain. And there's blood on his hands and blood in his hair and even more blood in his heart.

And he hears screams which are not his own, myriad voices, shrill and crying, hands grappling at him, at her. They don't touch him. Not really. Nothing touches him now. He's like he was before. The same. A shell with nothing good inside, incubating darkness and infection. He's lost and the sun is hiding. He collapses onto the asphalt and buries his face in her hair and sobs until the world ends.

Later he hears more cries, shouting and wailing, but these are not for her. These are different. He knows the quality of screaming now. He can identify fear and anguish. He can tell the difference between demons from the outside and those from within. He's a fucking expert in screaming. And this is danger, this is fear and worry, terror. An emergency and there is no time to linger. The dead want their land back, they want their ground. They've been patient and generous with their time, but their goodwill has run out. It's time to go. It's time to run.

He looks to the wraiths shuffling slowly across the tar, the frightened faces of his friends, a black car with a white cross to his left. He looks to the dead girl in his arms. A dead girl just like any other and he knows what he has to do.

No funeral for you my love, no funeral for you who found comfort in the ritual. No last words, no flowers on your grave, no ground to help your body return to earth. No my love, we have to run. We always have to run. So here I leave you, this one final insult, a nail in that non-existent coffin. I have no bed for you, no final resting place. You came here in the trunk of a car and it's fitting that this is how you leave.

My love, my heart, my girl.

My wonderful, beautiful, brave girl.

They tell him they have to go. It's time now. It's really time and they can't wait. And he shoves them away. All of them. Even her sister.

He'll do this. He'll do it right.

He lays her out in the trunk, he takes his time. He's gentle, a tenderness he barely knew he had. She's beautiful even in death. a frozen princess awaiting her true love, hands clasped over her breast and hair shining golden and bloody.

So pale. So numb. And all he wants to do is climb in there with her. Climb in and hold her.

But he can't hold her. No one can.

He takes the time to button her cardigan where it came loose. Winter is coming after all and he'd hate for her to get cold.

And then they're screaming again. And the dead hordes are closing in. And the princess lies asleep in her tomb, still and pale and if he looks away and closes his eyes he can imagine her breathing, can almost hear it.

He was a boy, now he's a man. He feels that in every inch of himself. There's no going back after today.

He reaches to shut the trunk, hand resting against the cool metal. Already the demon snarls are close.

And then he does it. You knew he would because you know this story. Because you know it well. Because you've heard it before and there's a rhyme and a rhythm to these things.

He leans down, leans close until he can smell the copper of her blood and the husky scent of rosemary and sage beneath it. Until he can find all that is her, her sweat, her hair, her flesh and fill himself with it.

He kisses her lips, soft, gentle, fleeting. They're warm but they're also cold and that's all he feels.

My love, my heart, this is all I have. This is all we'll have. One kiss in death. I had so much more to give but this will have to be enough.

And the man closes the trunk, the tomb, shuts out the light and turns to go and fight monsters again.

He's very good at killing monsters.

xxx

When he's done he wanders. He has others. Friends even, but in his heart he's alone. And sometimes the pain threatens to break him open and carve him up from the inside out and sometimes it sits there like a dark little imp, twisting and twining around his soul. Sometimes it threatens to suffocate him. It's his last demon and, like that wicked witch, it could well be his end too. No burning shack to vanquish it, no moonshine to chase its shadows. It has no weaknesses, no steel can pierce its armour and maybe he doesn't want it to. Maybe a dark part of him wants, no, needs to carry it.

Maybe

She could chase it away, if she were here, if she was with him now. But she isn't. So he holds it, like he holds her flame, her fire. Twin parts of a black soul. And his heart is still blood and his hands are still stained and his mind is still broken. and he wonders if this is all he has left.

And it frightens him how little it frightens him.

And one day there is a storm that shakes the earth to its core, breaks the ground open for the dead to rise, feasts on the air and the sky. The others rejoice. They're thirsty and overheated and to them it's a gift, a blessing. To him it's an escape and he hopes the world drowns with it. But it doesn't. God keeps His promise and instead the water soaks into the soil, fills the dry rivers and turns the wilting grass from brown to green and when the storm eventually passes it feels like there is something new in the world, something less than awful. But it doesn't matter. He's turned his face from the sun because it reminds him of her and he is too blind to see it.

xxx

But what of the girl?

What of her? She's dead. There is nothing more.

But what of the girl? What of the love? What of the strength?

You know this story. This is not how it ends. It can't because it lost its rhythm and rhyme. You know this story. You know it well.

He kissed her lips. Soft, Gentle. Fleeting. A final gift, a promise of what could have been.

Do you remember that? Did you see it? Did it make you rage and scream because it felt like your heart was breaking with his? Because this loss just seemed too great to bear? The price just too high? Did you think that was all it was? A final goodbye? The culmination of all that pain and all that loss? All that love?

Did you really think that was all it was?

You know about kisses, of course you do. You know their power, how they shatter spells, how they make magic and miracles. You know this because you know this story.

She opens her eyes.

She's alive. She's strong. She given the world its due. She agreed to its terms and now she gets whatever she wants. Enough tears, enough suffering. It's over now. She's paid in flesh and blood.

She leaves her things behind. They're just things. She even finds it in her to kiss her Judas goodbye.

There's a man and he loves her. There's a man and she loves him back. There are no maybes.

She will find him.

Nothing can hold her.

Not even the world.