Just wanted to try a more artsy style of writing. Here goes. :)
Her face flashes in his vision a thousand times, leaving the imprint of the sun on his mind.
A single moment in time, the one that, if you grabbed it, took control, made destiny your own, could bring the stars down from the heavens and place them in your hand. You can never reach too high. Like the spokes of a wheel, it repeats and repeats, the whir of the mechanisms beating a tempo in his head.
She smiles and he smile back, trying to ignore the spark.
He's teetering on the brink of madness and obsession, craning to see the last glimpses of that smile on her face before she becomes stone again, hardened by them. Somewhere in between is peace, but he keeps bypassing it, like a pendulum in full-swing. He knows he should stop, but he can't. Every second he can keep that smile on her face is another second he can keep himself in line. He would do anything to make her happy.
"Jack-" he shivers-just the way she says him name makes him catch his breath, "Will this ever end?"
He knows she means the war, but sometimes he wishes she meant the feelings between them. At least then she'd be acknowledging it, even thought it was better left alone. He pretends to not even think about it, or give it a passing glance, but he pretends a lot of things now.
But there is no end in sight, not for them.
"It will, Erica. We'll win this war."
He's the optimist, always, and a certain mercenary had helped to improve his lying skills, but he knows they haven't got a chance. And Erica's no fool, but he wanted her to at least believe. The moment whirs before his eyes again, but he knows he'd never take it. As the turtle sticks its head back into its shell, he finds that he must become content with simply being there for her.
Somewhere, there's a garden that no one else can enter, innocent and protected and pure. No danger, no repercussion, no hatred. But it has been long neglected, and when he finds it, he'll make it the most beautiful garden ever cultivated, with elegant iron-wrought benches and flowers exotic and lush. It's paved in marble and surrounded by verdant foliage that begs for the touch of a hand and the sunlight is so transparent, it seems to only be golden light shining from Heaven. This is the only place worthy of her. And there, they will meet, much later, once the world is at peace again and their cares have melted away. And it will just be them, dancing in the sunlight, and marveling at the beauty of the world. And she'll finally laugh, loudly and carefree, and he'll stop fighting that urge to kiss her that he is told is a sin in itself, although he can't think of anything that he'd regret less.
But, for now, he raises his chin and smiles at her. "We'll beat them, Erica. We will."
For a moment, he actually convinces himself. But then, the garden disappears, a fragmented idea of his delirious mind, and he wonders how he even got that idea in the first place. Like a dream, he doesn't see the fallacy until he breaks out of it.
Snapshots of the past, imprints of the sun, blink your eyes and they might pass you right by. But the memory of what it could-have-been will never break.