Flights of Fancy, a nightwing fanfic

Summary: Out of the ashes of tragedy can arise something beautiful and heartfelt...

Characters: John and Mary Grayson, and two OCs.

Disclaimer: The universe this is set in is not mine. Nor do I want it. I'm quite happy being a penniless writer. And all mistakes left are no doubt mine, seeing as I'm endlessly tweaking even after my two wonderful betas, Char and Lanna, have given everything the all-clear...

Setting: Hmmm... The year Dick's parents died, specifically the week before it happened.

Series: None planed so far beyond a few vague thoughts, though I am certainly open to suggestions...

Rating: Oh, uh, G for ghastly? No? Well, um, G is good for all, I'd expect.

Notes: Romance mainly, some angst/pathos. Vignette, based on the song of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Tell Me On A Sunday, from the musical of the same name (lyrics given at the end as I know them). Basically, its another look at a fateful night that changed the lives of those involved, although perhaps from a more unusual perspective than most. Other than that, I'm not sure what to make of this one...

FLIGHTS OF FANCY

Monday

It began, as all the great things in life do, on a day that seemed like any other day. There was no warning—

Well, not really, so long as you didn't count their small "discussion" of the night before. If you counted a lot of yelling as a "discussion," that is. An euphemism if ever there was one.

Still, he should've known it was too much to expect to escape its aftermath.

Perhaps too many words had been said, or perhaps not enough. Perhaps the emotions behind it all were too strong in themselves to be denied, to be pushed aside. Perhaps it was all these things. Or maybe it was nothing at all. In any case, the following morning saw no obvious indication of the upheaval of the night previous . . . or of that which was to come.

The couple's two bedroom Tudor house was quiet and still as it was caressed by the sun's dawning rays. The morning was heralded, as it always was in this peaceful and quiet suburb of Gotham, by the calling of songbirds in the trees lining the streets and in the bushes shielding almost every house. The lilting calls filled the air with music, with the joy of nature. Pleasant enough, certainly, but still rather hard to sleep through, even after all the months they'd spent living here.

Thus it was that he woke early this Monday morning, as indeed had been his custom for many years. It was something which the ease of retirement – if indeed there was such a thing – had yet to remove from him. By the time he rose from the queen-size water bed he'd splurged on a few years ago – a retirement present to himself, in deep thanks that he no longer had to work – it was only about ten minutes after the official dawn. Early, yes, but at least it wasn't still dark out, not quite such an inhuman hour to be awake. He'd done that entirely too many times while working to want to do it now that he technically didn't have to. Too bad that the body wasn't yet ready to listen to that kind of reasoning, if indeed it ever would.

Not that he was complaining. There was something almost sacred about being awake this early in the morning, before the day was spoiled by other voices and other sounds of civilization. This time of day, when the air was clean and pure and the peace so pervasive even he could feel it, was something he'd always cherished and, in fact, had looked forward to for as long as he could remember.

Pulling out a comfortably old and tattered dressing gown from his closet, he pulled it on over his equally worn pajama bottoms as he headed out of the bedroom. All his thoughts were focused on trying to remember what was left in the fridge from the weekend's cooking, not to mention figuring out how to get away with avoiding everything that didn't absolutely have to be done today. Mondays, after all, were made for lounging around and basking in the sun's rays, not for formality, and definitely not for working – yet another aspect of his job he'd been more than happy to leave behind. Wandering out towards the kitchen, his coffee mug held lazily in one hand, he found himself yawning as he walked down the hall. Last night's sleep obviously hadn't been as restful as he'd needed it to be, given that he was still feeling rather wrung out after all the outbursts of last ni—

All thought and movement halted.

There was something new sitting on the mantle of the large open fireplace that was the centerpiece of the living area. Something new, white, and waiting for him. Smack-bang in the center of the place his Lissa always left messages for him before going out. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen or heard anything from her since he woke up, and she was always waking up before him. Every single morning she'd been with him, he'd always woken to find her bustling about in the kitchen and cooking the day's bread, regardless of what day it was . . .

And he definitely wasn't smelling any bread cooking today.

He was barely aware of putting down the empty coffee cup on the dining table before he could drop it, so deeply were his thoughts tied up in the presence of The Envelope. All the fears of the night, all the buried and dispersed anger of the evening before, it all came rushing back and solidified in his gut into a dreadful certainty.

Damn. At least he knew now why he hadn't gotten much sleep last night. He must've been subconsciously listening to her movements all night.

And that would be why the letter was there, sitting on the old mantle above the open fireplace, its envelope a pristine white that mocked him from across the room. It simply sat there on the mantle, looking innocent when he knew it was really anything but. It was there, yes, as he now realized he'd feared it would be but hadn't been able to bring himself to acknowledge before now. For this particular fear was a fear more familiar to him than he liked. That familiarity was why he didn't have to cross the room to know the envelope was not going to be sealed, nor did he have to pull out the reading glasses he'd reluctantly admitted to needing a few months ago in order to read the name written in sloping script on the envelope front. He already knew who it would be addressed to: himself. Especially since he was, after all, the only person to live here now that . . .

. . . Now that she was apparently gone from his life.

Again.

But that was his Lissa for you. Of the two of them, she'd always been the flighty one, the one always looking to the next horizon, to the next challenge . . . or the next scene to capture her artist's eye, and no doubt a part of her large heart too. On the other hand, he'd always been the grounded one himself, the one to keep them stable . . . and thus the one who worried about how on earth they were going to pay this month's bills. When she'd always been the one fleeing, he was always the one chasing, the one luring the other back.

So of course when their differences didn't complement each other, they were clashing. Horribly. It was always one or the other, harmony or chaos, never anything in-between, and it was long since wearing him down. It was no doubt one of the main reasons for what had happened the night before, despite what excuse he had no doubt used at the time. Hell, he couldn't even remember what the argument had been about anymore. All he remembered was that it had been loud, harsh, full of poisonous words and more dangerous emotions . . . and a whole world (or two) of hurt.

Pretty much just like any other argument they'd had – rather regular arguments too, now that he thought about it.

Then again, he'd known what he was getting into in advance, long before he'd decided that her artist's heart was the one and only match for his watchmaker's mind. That he'd been able to decide that all over again on every day since was really just a bonus, an added reward for the previous day's toil on their relationship. Because each day she didn't leave him was another day he spent convincing her to stay tomorrow, and another day that he didn't have to be alone. It was gaining an extra day to spend in this earthly heaven – or as close to heaven as he suspected he would ever get.

And now this. Now this letter had been left for him, and he wasn't sure why its presence had surprised him so. It was the usual response to an argument on the level of the one the night before. He certainly didn't need to open it to know its contents, to know that she was leaving him.

Again.

He crossed the room and opened the envelope anyway, hands shaking, to find in it a single piece of paper. Heavy, thick paper, the expensive kind, carefully folded in half. Unfolding it gently, he read its contents quickly.

Ellissa Montgomery
cordially invites
Jediah Fontane
to
Gotham Fairgrounds
on Sunday, May 10th at 6pm
for
Haly Bros Circus & Martha Wayne Foundation
Mother's Day Gala Charity Performance

And he stood there, staring at the paper in his hand, at the cursive and flowing script he knew as well as – if not better than – his own blocky handwriting. He could only stare as he struggled to grasp it, to understand the incomprehensible.

She'd left the house, leaving only this note for him. Because she was taking him to the circus. Ostensibly for Mother's Day. Which meant that she was taking him to a circus . . . on a Sunday . . .

The thought suddenly sparked his recollection, bringing back to him casual comments regularly made throughout the recent past. He'd always said that Sundays were for relaxing, unwinding from the weekly stresses, and for preparing to face the new week. But she'd always said that Sundays were for running . . . for change . . . and therefore for leaving. For good.

This was the first time she'd left him on a Sunday.

His heart and mouth twisted in bitterness, and so did the invitation. The invitation ended up in wadded ball in his rubbish bin and his day ended with him in the study, the light off, the phone taken 'off the hook,' with the door closed and shutting out the rest of the world.

Tuesday

He dug out the invitation as soon as he finally left his study in the late afternoon.

He told himself he was only leaving his sanctuary for a rather late lunch, just as he promised himself that he was only digging out the invitation so he could throw it away more properly.

The delusions we tell ourselves.

Not that he had to dig far through the bin's contents, since he couldn't remember eating anything yesterday beyond the mouthful of cold coffee that had been left over from the night before. Just before he'd found The Invitation. And everyone knows there's nothing worse than cold coffee on an empty stomach. Hell, he still felt nauseous and light-headed just thinking about it.

Actually, that was probably just the lack of food talking.

Or the loneliness.

He focused on the paper in his hands that he was unfurling so cautiously, careful not to crumple it further, hands shaking from more than a bit of hunger and dehydration. Crouching in front his bin, he couldn't deny the spark of relief he felt when he found the paper unstained from its sojourn amongst the rubbish, still relatively pristine as long as he ignored the spider-webbing of fold lines marring its surface.

He read the words again, tracing out the flowing letters with the tips of his fingers while his imagination supplied the rest. He saw her hands, writing these words in her fine pen on this special paper, each crafted letter a masterpiece of its own. Then he saw her, with her long hair falling in waves of soft silk around her face, the very tip of her tongue sticking out of her lips and the fine line splitting her smooth brow. He could even sense her intense concentration and determination to make each word shine with enough emotion that even he could pick up on it.

Too bad all he was picking up on was 'goodbye.'

Not that he was any kind of handwriting expert – because he wasn't – nor that he was, heaven forbid, clairvoyant or something – which he definitely was not – but this was his Ellissa. He knew her just as well as he knew himself, for all that their initial meeting was close to a year ago and that they'd only become serious about their relationship a few months ago. In fact, they'd made that decision to commit themselves to each other on the same day as he'd picked up the darn 'reading glasses' now almost permanently perched on his nose. He'd liked to think that his Ellissa had been just as permanently attached to him.

Guess he was wrong about that too, huh? How much else had he missed, had he deluded himself about? How much had the things she'd told him be outright lies? He wondered, now. Wondered as he never had before. And it hurt more than he thought it ever could.

Damn. He really was lost without her.

Wednesday

By this point, he was fairly certain that he was going mad. This had to be what insanity felt like, if it was like feeling as if a part of him were missing. He could sense the gaping hole inside him that he had no idea how to fill, everything he tried to use only vanishing quickly into the emptiness. He could feel it within him, growing, spreading, overwhelming and swallowing his awareness of anything and everything else.

Not that this was such a loss. There was, after all, not much left in his life. There was just him, the house, and the empty air, so there wasn't all that much left for the growing insanity to take from him.

At least if he finally went mad, he wouldn't realize it. Wasn't that how it worked, at least in theory? There was some kind of solace in that, he'd found, that madness would mean he wouldn't know exactly what he'd lost . . . but that would also mean he'd no longer be aware of how much she had meant to him. What would be worse, the relief of not knowing anymore what he'd lost, or the heartbreak of knowing what he'd once had? Both options, he was sure, had their own drawbacks and advantages.

Not that he was seeing many advantages to the current situation. Although there was, of course, plenty of drawbacks.

One of them was that he wasn't sure, any more, what he'd done before Ellissa came into his life. How he'd occupied the empty hours, filled the stretches of times that lay before his minds eye on a dull journey into eternity. Never before had the prospect of another day, another hour, even another minute, seemed to fill him with such dread and awful despair.

That might explain why he was spending most of his time standing over the kitchen bench, staring with numb eyes down at The Invitation laid out before him. Seeing, but not seeing, the words that had carved themselves into his mind. He could see them even when his eyes were closed, even when he did his best to lose himself in the bitter-sweet memories of the past. They haunted him. She haunted him. He knew now that he'd never be free of her.

But he still wasn't sure yet if he was going on Sunday.

Thursday

The message was waiting for him on his answering machine when he arrived home from the local store. It had been the first time he'd mustered enough courage and strength to leave the house since he'd found The Invitation. The red light blinking at him as he walked in the door would have literally stopped him in his tracks if the heavy wooden front door hadn't chosen that moment to smack him on the rear.

It was his sixth and seventh senses that told him the message would be from her, those special senses and feelings that had lead him to her in the first place. At least this time he knew better than to question the place of such things in his once well-ordered world. Being with his Lissa had taught him much about following his heart, he suddenly realized. And of course it would have to take something like this to make him realize that their few months together had changed him, that he was no longer the man he'd once been, who had so quickly fallen head over heels for this particular well-renowned artist and painter of such stunning murals.

He spared a moment to wonder if that had scared her as much as it now did him, if that was why she'd run from him, from them. Well, guess there was only one way to find out for sure, wasn't there?

It still took him well over an hour to work up enough courage to press the button to hear the message, to prepare himself for hearing her voice once more.

The first time through, nothing penetrated but her voice itself, the melodies and harmonies flowing through him and around him, soothing a myriad of rough edges and aches inside him that he hadn't even been aware of until they were gone. The second time was lost in the way he was unashamedly basking in the mere fact that she'd taken the time to get in contact with him, that she still cared enough to tell him what was happening in her life.

It was in the third time of listening to it that he realized there that was something in the message besides her voice, indeed until he could hear any emotions at all in that beloved soft accent. And it was on the fourth time through her message that her true meaning hit him like a proverbial ton of bricks (or two).

She had called him . . . to tell him it was Final. Everything they'd had – or everything he'd thought they had – was now Officially Over.

After that, he could only listen in stunned amazement as her hurried words washed through him once more.

"Jed, it's me."

He had to remind himself to breathe.

"You're not in, or not speaking to me, and I really hate these machines, so I'll make this quick."

A small breathless smile. That was so typical of his girl. She'd always maintained that his answering machination was an abomination, that it was so deeply wrong to speak to a machine in so personal a manner. Gods. No one had told him Breaking Up would be this hard. And they should've, because he knew now that he hated with a passion.

"Don't worry about me, okay? I'm staying with an old friend for the week."

There was, as always, the spurt of relief bursting open inside him, that she had not forgotten him completely, or at least remembered him enough to know he still worried about her well-being. But was that a good sign or not? He didn't know, personally, and somehow that was worse than the heartbreak.

"Just send my things to my place in California, and I'll leave something in your account for them." Click.

The entire message had taken less a minute to run from start to finish.

And in someway, he was glad that it was a recording, that it had come when he was out. He hated to think how he would've reacted, what he would've said, had she actually managed to catch up with him. Hell, he hated to think of how he was going to react now.

California was, after all, so far away. Had he really been so bad a choice that she was soon going to go to a place virtually on the other side of the country to escape him? Well, at least he knew now that it was possible for a few mere words to make this eternal heartbreak worse.

The facts of the matter were clear to him, clearer than they'd ever been before.

There could be no more Ellissa for him.

Never again.

Calmly tearing up the invitation, he deposited it in the bin and walked away. And he never looked back.

Friday

The resolution to Move On was nice. It was freeing, too.

Pity that it didn't last even a full minute into the new day, by which point he was calling every one of her friends again. He told himself it was just to make sure she was still safe with her artist friends. In truth, all his heart knew was that he had to hear her again, that he couldn't sleep the night through until his craving for her sweet voice was sated even for a few more hours.

But she didn't answer him.

He never found her.

By the time there'd been three hours into the day, he was packing his car and frantically running through mental check-lists to try and make sure he had everything.

Damn it all to hell. He was still going after her.

He'd known for a long time that he would follow her anywhere, to the ends of the earth and beyond if necessary, as long as she was beside him. He'd follow her into eternity, if they could manage it. If only she would let him, would listen to him. So perhaps it was time to make her listen, to show her how badly he missed her, and demonstrate precisely how much she was throwing away in such a useless gesture as leaving him.

Because he knew now that he loved her, that he'd never stopped loving her. He didn't think he could stop loving her, not anymore. And that was why he knew that they would be able to work this out, work it through.

Somehow.

They would find their way.

Saturday

A mere twenty-four hours after he left, he returned to his empty house, tired and worn, his joints aching from more than his age. Pulling – dragging – his bags to the front door seemed to take all energy he had left, and that was as far as he went for a long while.

It just seemed so . . . hopeless. Futile and pointless. He should've known he wouldn't find her as long as she wanted to remain hidden. She might be flighty in heart, but she knew how to hide. She'd obviously been hiding all these months, even lying right next to him in bed, so why should it surprise that she was even better at concealing herself when she wasn't at his side?

Then he realized, through his vague thoughts and the haze of despair, that his phone was ringing. Not many people knew his number, or even that he'd had a phone put on at all. Certainly, he'd never intended to have the luxury of his own phone. Even living here in a suburb of Gotham, he'd retired to get away from technology, dammit. But she'd asked him, asked him with her lilting voice, and of course he'd agreed. He couldn't deny her anything. Still couldn't, truth be told.

Except for this. He could never give her the distance for which she was asking him. This was something he couldn't grant. Because if nothing else, he at least deserved to be told why. Surely, the months they'd shared meant just as much for as they did for him. Didn't they? Or was that something else he'd deluded himself about, another case of her concealing something?

Gods, he was such a damn fool.

And his phone was ringing. Still ringing.

He really should answer it.

The decision galvanized him into action. The tiredness dragging at his body and mind, if too much to ever be forgotten, was at least able to be put aside for the moment as he lurched into an almost-run for the phone. Luggage forgotten and left behind him on the porch, he fumbled the keys and came close to dropping them numerous times in his rush just to get through the front door. Truth be told, he wasn't sure how he managed to unlock the door at all, let alone get it open. Certainly, he never remembered precisely how he had managed that feat, and the actual trip to the phone once he was inside was just as hazy as the rest.

Reason, it seemed, only kicked in the moment that he picked up the handset and brought it, hands shaking, to his ear. That is, when he regained enough reason for him to realize that he also should start breathing again. Talking would probably be a good idea, too. "H-Hello?"

The answer, when it came, was tentative, close to drowned out by the crowd in the background. "Jed?"

The sweet voice that came tumbling over the cables and through the speaker and into his ear stilled him, froze him in place even as his heart lifted up a song of rejoicing. He was right. Oh, sweet heaven, he was right. "Lissa," he breathed, not completely sure if his response was relief or a benediction. Or both.

He could almost sense her answering nod. "It's me."

He gripped the phone tightly, grasping hold of it with both hands even as he tucked it under his shoulder, as if holding it closer and harder would mean she wouldn't let go of him again. Never again. "Lissa. How are you? Where are you?"

Her reply was lost in a sudden swell of ambient noise as the crowd in the background became louder . . . or closer. Enough to drown out her precious voice, yes, but not enough to drown out the most telling clue to her location: the female announcer's voice, distorted by static over a PA system, but plenty clear enough for him to hear the boarding call.

Airport. She was from an airport. Calling him to the tune of a plane's boarding call.

Guess he had his answers now.

"Why, Lis?" he whispered, the pieces of his heart breaking further. Thoughts whirled around his head, tormenting him with their ever-changing direction, throwing his spirit from pillar to post, from hope to dread and through everything in between.

It was telling, the silence before her whispered reply: "I-I can't do this anymore, Jed." A drawn-out pause. "Please, don't ask me to."

Swallowing, his mouth dry, he still did his best to understand. "Ask you to do what?"

Another long pause, and the ambient noise of the crowd finally dimmed, enough for him to hear her one-word reply. "Stay."

He clenched his eyes shut, forbidding the gathering wetness to fall so that it would match the falling apart of his world. He would not cry over this. He. Would. Not. "Why?" he gasped out once more, voice hoarse despite his best efforts.

"I'm lying to you, Jed," she told him, her voice broken and miserable, making his own heart ache in pained sympathy. "I've been lying the entire time and I—"

"Do you love me?" he broke in, before she could say too much, could go too far and say What Shouldn't Be Said. He didn't want to hear drawn-out confessions and accusations of blame, not when she was already leaving him. There was little that could be worse than that, than being alone once more, and figuring out the blame of it all wasn't going to make that any easier or harder to deal with. It just was, and that was all there was too it, as far as he was concerned. He was already hurting enough.

"Jed, I—"

"Do. You. Love. Me?" he pressed, once more gripping the phone tight, knowing exactly what he was risking by pushing her on this but knowing too that he couldn't not do this. He wasn't going to let her retreat again, as she oft would whenever he'd pushed her about things in the past, at least not when it was over this. Over them.

Silence for a long moment, muted sniffles as she no doubt tried to gather herself. "I—I don't know," she murmured finally, sounding even more broken than before. If that was possible.

"Then talk to me, Lissa," he entreated as he found himself wishing for what to be the thousandth time this week that he could see her again, could see her react to the words he spoke. At least this time he wouldn't have to also imagine her responses. "Let me help you."

She sighed on the other side of the line, tired and worn down. "I don't know what to say, Jed."

He closed his eyes, then, knowing that this was It. Trump card time. "Then at least let me say goodbye to you properly," he told her quietly, trusting in that quietness to carry all his affection to her. "Let me do that, Lis. Please."

"And then you'll let me go?"

He breathed in hard, and forced himself to let it out slowly, to push it past the thickening lump in his throat. Not that it went away. If anything, it got worse, and he found himself leaning against the wall to keep himself on his feet. "I will . . . . If that's what you need to do, then I'll let you go," he promised, unable to keep the hoarseness and threads of despair out of his voice. He would do it . . . it would kill his heart in the process, but he would do it. For her. But not for himself. Never for himself. For her, for the love of his life. He cared about her too much to cage her to him unwillingly.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," she promised in return, sounding just as miserable about the prospect of leaving to his ears as he had. Or was that his hopeful imagination?

In the end, it didn't matter, and he never got a chance to ask.

She was already gone.

He replaced the handset slowly, his whole body feeling as if lead weights were tied on to every joint and limb. Just perfect to match his heart. Then he simply leaned down on the bench, folding his arms and resting his forehead on his forearms, staring blankly at the bench surface from this new up-close-and-personal distance for a few long moments before finally closing his eyes.

It was the last movement he made for hours.

Sunday

He was a bundle of nerves by dusk. By the time he finished in the bathroom and emerged to dress himself in his tuxedo, the butterflies in his stomach were Olympic level gymnasts. By the time he finished knotting his tie – a process all too similar to tying his own noose, a morbid part of him despaired – he had entire squadrons of stunt planes determined to dogfight in his gut.

Damn, but he was a nervous wreck.

His hands were shaking badly as he picked up the badly crumpled, carefully repaired, invitation that had definitely seen much better days before it came into his possession. Before this last week. But then, so had he, and at least he was still standing. Or at least, he was standing up until the point that he stared at the invitation and re-read the words already etched into his memory, which was precisely the moment that the realization hit – and so did the floor.

Maybe she wasn't leaving him. At least, not yet. Maybe she was simply meeting him.

It meant that he still had hope, at least, he realized as he picked himself up from the floor. Well, maybe a little hope that she would come back, that they could work out their problems so that she could rejoin him again. A little hope, yes, not much, but a little. At least it was enough to see him through the process of getting to the fairgrounds, finding his park, and even through the humiliation of trying to explain to the attendants why his invite was so maltreated whilst still saving face.

But nothing, none of it, none of the week's previous events, not his nerves, not even his earlier epiphany . . . nothing could ever have prepared him for seeing her again. Not that he would ever remember what she was wearing that fateful night. All he could see was her.

His first thought was that it was . . . it was like heaven on a stick, like walking out of a cloying thick fog into clear sunshine, like waking from a deathlike deep sleep to a gorgeously sunny day. He felt renewed, reborn; like a newborn might feel the first time it gazed upon its mother.

It was . . . it was falling in love all over again.

Love at first sight, and at every glimpse since.

He knew no other way to describe it, no other way to force this clumsy language his lips and mind spoke to encompass all she was and all that she seemed to him in that first moment he saw her after their long week apart. But then she was the poet, not him, and he knew himself inadequate to this massive task. But . . . damn, he had to at least try.

He swallowed heavily as they finally neared each other enough to talk, his mind flying with everything he wanted to say and all the things he wished he had the nerve to yell. But all he managed was a small whisper of awe. "Wow . . . You look radiant, Lissa," he managed to croak out, though barely, secretly wondering that he'd found his voice at all.

The smile he got in return, though, was worth every word, and then some. It was tremulous, tender, touched, and a hundred other things all once. He saw in it her nervous wonder that she could still feel the undercurrent of pure attraction and desire and love flowing between them. As she should sense it, seeing as that was what had been driving him mad these last few days. And if he could sense it when he was the first to admit he wasn't as sensitive to others as she was, then it had to something so tangible and strong that not even his Lissa could deny it. Hopefully.

"Thank you," she murmured softly, blushing slightly even as she adjusted the dress that needed no adjusting to show her off any better than it already did.

He smiled, thinking privately that maybe 'radiant' was too pale a word. He sought now to reassure, to soothe, and to subtly take charge. "Ever been to a circus before?"

She nodded, her stance and he hands visibly easing now that they were on more impartial territory than their reaction to each other. "Yes. Once, before, when I was young, about five I suspect. You?"

He shook his head, wondering absently why he hadn't gone to a circus before now. None of what he'd been told could ever live up to this. "No," he admitted quietly, "and I never realized how much I was missing until now." Which was true, and not just about the carnival atmosphere.

Her only reply was to nod absently and look around, the reaction telling him that she'd missed his point entirely.

He smiled anyway and lent a hint of his wonder into his voice. "Care to show me around?" he offered hopefully, knowing it was safe now to let his amazement show now that he knew she'd mistake its cause as being anything other than herself.

She smiled back at him, suddenly nervous again but doing her best not to let it show, to let it conquer this. "Of course."

And then they strolled, hand in hand, determined to enjoy the night and this temporary unspoken truce between them. For as long as it lasted.

As it turned out, their unspoken truce lasted into the intermission and no further.

And its failure caught him entirely off guard.

He'd been relaxed at the time, his worries soothed by the apparent peace that was between them and the ease that they'd returned to in words, almost but not quite the same as before. His guard had been lowered to the point that he had been thinking, not about their troubles, but the headline act promised to come as soon as the intermission was over. About the world-class Grayson fliers, on their trapeze, their son with the death-defying talent and the even bigger smile. A lady-killer, that one, if he ever he saw one.

What he definitely wasn't thinking about – quite deliberately, in his more honest moments – was the chaos and emotional upset of the last week. And why not spare himself that? The endless loneliness and despair had pushed him very close to insanity this last week, leaving him determined to simply enjoy this night, dammit! He was entitled, more than entitled, to let himself enjoy this moment, this night, and whatever might come in between them.

But he could be single-minded in focus sometimes – a trait which had been only of advantage when bending over the numerous broken watches that littered each working day, let alone his career, and something he was only now starting to realize could also be a flaw. That was probably why he never noticed how she had become uncharacteristically silent once the show had begun earlier that evening. Certainly, she had had never before been one of few words, unless he was in one of his brooding moods – then she was perfectly happy for him to work it all out of his system and be the first to start talking.

Perhaps that was why he was so startled when it was she who broke their mutual silence . . . by bringing up the very thing he was avoiding.

"It was nothing you did," she told him suddenly, face averted, focusing on the other side of the fairgrounds as she spoke to him. And, somehow, that refusal to face him hurt worse than anything she might have – and indeed had – said to him. It took him a while to get himself to focus on what she'd actually told him.

"I know," he finally replied, just as quietly, and even more truthful than she had been. Because it was the truth. His truth. It was a truth he'd known and always would, that his Lissa was always going to leave him at some point.

Because she was a free spirit, never to be tamed, something that couldn't be broken, not without loosing that quintessential spark that made him love her so. She was truly an eagle in her heart, possessing a spirit that longed to soar while he . . . he was merely the tree she nested in. Occasionally. Strong, firm, stable, he knew he was all these things, just as he knew he could never match the heights she could reach. In his heart of hearts, he knew he could never have her, could never hold her close and make sure she'd never leave him without losing something far more valuable . . . but he was content to enjoy the warmth she gave off, from a distance if need be, and always for as long as she let him. For as long as she endured his presence and stayed near to him, if not always in his arms. Just one of the things this last week had bourne home to him.

"I just . . . " she continued wearily, still looking away, as if she hadn't heard him – and maybe she really hadn't, "I needed room to . . . to breathe, to be myself for a while and not merely part-of-us."

"I understand," he repeated, as gently as before. Because he really did. He was starting to realize exactly how much it had cost her to stay as long as she already had. Truth be told, a part of him had expected this months ago, he now realized, perhaps even during their more explosive moments during that intense first week. Perhaps that was why he now could only find himself grateful that the 'stay of execution' had been as long as it had.

She turned to face him, letting him see the depth of sadness in her chocolate eyes that stole his breath and all coherent thought away from him, letting him see how deeply she was feeling even as she was searching his own hazel eyes for something only she knew and only she could see. He could only hope she found whatever she was looking for. Maybe she had, for she began to speak once more. "You see, it's me and my stupid needs that caused all this," she murmured, waving a hand expansively in the air. And there was pain, too, in those deep eyes, a soul-deep pain he had no idea how to touch. "Because if it was up to me," she continued, confessing quietly, with a gentleness belying what her eyes were telling him, "you know that I would never want to consciously do anything to hurt you. Never you."

"I know."

It was as simple as that, he suddenly realized. After all, how could he not know, when he felt the same?

She smiled then, sadder still, something shining in her eyes as she was reaching up to cup his cheek tenderly. "I'm sorry, Jed. I really am. But you deserve someone better, better than anything I can offer, than us being destroyed by something I can never give you."

And, with that, she snapped her purse shut and walked away.

He blinked. Twice. Once more again to make sure. And all the while, those final words ran through his mind like a litany. You deserve someone better . . . better than anything I can offer . . . than being destroyed by something I can never give . . . It repeated at least four times before he realized it was just that: final.

Then reason descended and, surging to his feat, he hurried after her, heart crying out in mute denial. This wasn't fair. She couldn't be allowed to walk away and end this marvelous thing between them that easily – but had anything this last week been easy? Suddenly, he wasn't so sure that this was easy at all, for either of them – certainly not if he had anything to say about it – which he rather thought he did, seeing as he was half of the couple they'd once been.

Because he realized now that he did have something to say about all this. Plenty to say, in fact.

He caught up with her half-way to the car-park, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her round to face him. Crude, primitive, not exactly conducive to calm, yes, but it was the only thing he was capable of at that moment. When he didn't quite trust his own voice not to start yelling at her. All he knew was this burning whisper inside him that said that her words were just that: words. It wasn't enough to convince him, and would never be enough. She would have to physically push him away first, before he could even begin to think she meant this to be It.

Just as he'd thought, as he'd feared, she had barely finished turning around before she was already in his arms, wrapping herself around him and gripping him as tight as a lifeline. He realized then with undeniable clarity that she was sobbing quietly on his chest, had been sobbing harder and harder with every step away from him. And all the words, harsh and otherwise, that he'd planned to tell her – yell at her too, if necessary, anything to get her to listen – all died in this throat like so much green grass must speedily wither under the Sahara's sun.

As he gripped her tight and murmured soothing nothings in her ear, it took him a while to realize that he was crying himself.

It was only when her shaking stopped and her breathing eased that he pulled back and finally found his voice once more. "How are you planning on getting home?" he ventured carefully, gently, just a shade below lovingly. He'd already decided not to mention their mutual outpouring of emotion, despite knowing that not discussing it would make it easier for them – for her to pretend it was what they both wanted, for him to pretend he was accepting it, when obviously they were feeling and doing neither.

She shrugged in his arms and drew back herself, misery written in every line in her reddened eyes. "I don't know," she murmured, eyes downcast, hugging herself tightly against more than the cold in the night air. "By car, maybe. A taxi."

He found himself smiling gently and making a reply, still without any heat in his body or voice. But then he'd never been able to stay mad at her for very long. "How do you intend to do that?" he asked gently. "None of the taxis or buses will be here until after the show's official end." There was a spike of pain that stabbed through his heart when he saw anew how miserable she was over all this. "Seeing as I refuse to let you wait out here alone, let alone have you travel home on some drafty, old bus, why don't you let me take you home?"

She stepped back further and looked up at him, confusion warring with desire in the depths of her eyes. "But I—"

"Shh," he interrupted, smiling again, placing a gentle finger on her lips to silence her protests. "I know. No pressure," he agreed, conceding to the unspoken demand with an inward flash of irony that he was careful to keep hidden. "I'll stay somewhere else tonight. I'll drop you at my door, and I'll drive away. I promise."

That, it seemed, was enough for her reason to descend and for those eyes of hers to clear. She shook her head. "No. It's not fair to you, Jed, to do that for me right after we've broken up."

What? Was this what people did to do that? Had they really broken up? It sure didn't feel like that to him. Mentally shrugging, he left that thought alone and decided to play along. Anything for her. His finger returned to her lips once more, and this time he added his best disarming smile to the mix. "Hush, Lissa. Let it be. I don't care," he replied with gentle but unwavering determination. "Whether you stay with me or not, whether you decide you have to fly free or not, at least let me do this for you, my Lissa. Please, in the name of what we've had, let me take care of you this one last time."

It didn't take anything more than that. She was still too much of a romantic to refuse to indulge him this once. Thus it was that, finally, she nodded her acquiescence.

He breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and pulled out his disarming smile again. "Now, how about we go back inside, where it's warm?" The smile shifted as his good humor reasserted itself. "After all, now that we're here, we should at least catch the headline act before I take you home."

She nodded again, this time offering up a tremulous smile that was far warmer than its cousin from when she'd first met him this night. Then, linking arm with arm, they walked back under the big top right in time for the end of the intermission.

Right on time to see . . .

It was over so quickly, so fast, that Jediah blinked in the middle of it and almost missed the entire thing.

Whoever could've thought that two people could fall so far so quickly? Or so silently?

Well, almost silently. Somewhere nearby, someone – a child? – was screaming.

He found himself wishing he could do the same.

It had certainly taken everyone by surprise.

Everyone, it seemed, but the two fliers themselves.

It was precisely that which focused Jediah's and Ellissa's gaze, and held it all the way down until it was all over. It was . . . chilling, almost eerie, to see the calm acceptance on the couple's faces as the ground brutally rushed up to meet them, and then see it remain once all life had fled.

Perhaps it hadn't been such a shock to them. The family was legendary, after all, for not using a safety net. Courting death – or, at least, the possibility of it – had obviously been a part of their daily lives. And didn't repeated exposure desensitize someone? He vaguely remembered hearing that, some where, some time.

But it was still a death that had come far too early for this two.

It certainly hadn't come early enough for another, for the young boy thrusting his way into the ring and also clad in the Grayson uniform, so desperate to reach the fallen. The boy was screaming, hysterical, almost incoherent in shock and grief. Of course. The boy. The young Grayson flyer, one of the immortal few to actually pull off a quadruple somersault and survive to talk about the experience.

But who, Jed found himself wondering numbly even as everyone was herded away from the scene by the police that had almost magically appeared around them, who would the poor kid talk to now?

Numbness was bliss.

It lasted until much later that night – the early morning kind of later – well into the dark hours before the dawn.

They'd somehow ended up at his place, on his couch, sitting side-by-side on the tattered piece of furniture. Holding hands, touching bodies, seeking life, seeking comfort from one another to wipe away the horrors of the night.

Then silence.

This time, it was he who broke it first.

"You okay now?" he asked softly, squeezing her hand gently, as if talking any louder about this would shatter something precious.

A moment. "Yeah," she answered finally, absently, for all the pressure in her grip as she returned the heartfelt squeeze on fingers. "You?"

Another moment. "I'll be okay." He hoped.

The 'eventually' that was mentally tacked onto the end of both replies went unspoken, but was no less understood. Sometimes, on days like this, time truly was the only healer.

More silence.

Ellissa broke the silence this time around. "What do you suppose will happen to the boy?" she ventured quietly, resting her head on his shoulder and staring into the distance.

He shrugged his other shoulder and stared at the fire he'd vaguely remembered starting when they'd gotten home. Once again, the logic of thinking soothed his watchmaker soul, and he took his peace in that. "I'm not sure," he replied after close to thirty seconds of thought. "Child Services will no doubt take care of him for a while, till a place can be found for him." If they can.

Another unspoken thought they both heard, but chose not to comment on. After all, it was hard to imagine a foster home in the welfare system that would be both willing and able to take on such traumatized young kid. No kid that age should have to see his parents die right in front of his eyes – hell, no kid should. Period.

She nodded against his shoulder, was quiet a little longer. Then, "Jed? Do you think we . . . ?"

He shook his head slowly. "We can't, love," he replied gently, regretfully, the endearment slipping off his lips without thought as he tightened his grip on her fingers once more. "We can't offer him the stable home he'll need to even start to heal from this." Because they weren't stable, he saw now. How could they be, when he'd been always subconsciously waiting for her to leave him?

"Yeah," she agreed listlessly. "You're right. We can't." She sighed a sigh that came from the depths of her heart. "Besides, I doubt that there'll be any out there who'll be able to measure up to the calibre of his parents in the boy's eyes." Another deep sigh, something between sympathy and muted grief. "Not to mention help him with his grief and direct him through it."

He murmured his agreement, his thoughts again returning to the late Grayson couple and their calm acceptance of their final fate, an acceptance that had shone on their faces so clearly in those last few seconds. He'd never seen anyone so alive as those two had been at that moment. At least they had died doing what they loved, he thought to himself as he wrapped an arm around his girl and held her closer. We can all take comfort in that, I suppose.

And silence again, this time of contemplation.

"Did you see their hands as they fell?" she asked suddenly, craning her head up to meet his gaze.

Jediah blinked. "Not really." Like everyone else, he'd been too busy being startled by the Grayson's facial expression to take in much of anything else. Trust his Lissa, with her artist's eye, to pick up on things other people – himself including – so frequently missed. It was comforting to him, after such a night, to realize that that had not changed, and hopefully never would. "Why?"

"They were holding hands the entire time."

As if one cue, their gazes fell on their intertwined hands and bodies, all of it meshed together into one seamless body. Suddenly, neither was sure where one ended and the other began.

Maybe that was all that mattered. Maybe it really was that simple.

It was a realization they came to together, virtually simultaneously in fact, but it was still he who gathered his voice to speak first. "Just like us," he whispered hoarsely. He swallowed, hard. "Do you think we . . . we can pull it off?"

She smiled then, her features brighter than anything else she'd shown this fateful night. "Of course we can. If two Rom can hold to such an everlasting love in their line of work, I don't see why we can't at least try to do the same." She reached up to cradle his cheek with her hand, stroking it lovingly. "I promise, no more running, hon."

He smiled down at her and returned the gesture. "And I promise I'll always be waiting for you," he swore in return as he rested their foreheads together.

"Always," they repeated, in unwitting unison, and laughed.

And so ends the tale of this first night of the rest of their lives.

THE END

And the lyrics this whole thing is based on are...

TELL ME ON A SUNDAY

Don't write a letter when you want to leave
Don't call me at 3am from a friend's apartment
I'd like to choose how I hear the news
Take me to a park that's covered with trees
Tell me on a Sunday, please.

Let me down easy, no big song and dance
No long faces, no long looks
No deep conversation
I know the way we should spend that day
Take me to a zoo
That's got chimpanzees
Tell me on a Sunday please

Don't wanna know who's to blame
It won't help knowing
Don't wanna fight day and night
Bad enough you're going

Don't leave in silence
With no word at all
Don't get mad and slam the door
That's no way to end this
I know how I want you to say goodbye
Find a circus ring
With a flying trapeze
Tell me on a Sunday please

I don't want to fight day and night
Bad enough you're going
Don't leave in silence
With no word at all
Don't get mad and slam the door
That's no way to end this

I know how I want you to say goodbye
Don't run off in the pouring rain
Don't call me as they call your plane
Take the hurt out of all the pain
Take me to a park that's covered in trees
Tell me on a Sunday please