I don't own the His Dark Materials trilogy.

If anyone asks Marina Tate why she was in the Botanic Gardens on the night of her thirty-second birthday, she'll probably say that she went because it was irrational. Questioned further, she'll explain that it was because she was a little drunk, right, and that's what drunk people do. Irrational things, she'll say; and she'll look a little flustered, and a little irritated, and more than a little confused, because she does remember, after all.

It happened like this:

She was walking home from her friend's house. (The party had been at her friend's house because Marina had what she called One of Those Landlords; and she was walking because she objected to beating up a perfectly good car, because she was drunk; and her apartment was less than a mile away, anyway.) So she walked, a little unsteadily, down familiar streets, until she found the Botanic Gardens looming on her right. Marina got herself over the wall and into them with the agility and single-mindedness of someone who is drunk, but not that drunk, and never thought about why she was doing it.

Only (she would think to herself later) perhaps she was a little drunker than she thought she was, because when she had wandered around for a few minutes she suddenly realised that she was not the only one there. It wasn't so much the discovery of the other person that surprised her, as it was the fact that she had walked right past him, and looked right at him, without realising what she was looking at. What she thought she was looking at was a park bench with a funny sort of lump on one end, but ten feet past it she stopped, because it had occurred to her that the funny sort of lump was more or less exactly the shape of someone hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.

Marina paused, and then walked carefully backwards until she was level with the lump and could pick out the pale round shape of a face exactly where it would be if it really was a person. Then she stared.

When she looked, she could tell that the person was a boy – a teenaged boy, she thought, looking at the way his shirt hung on his shoulders, and the overlarge hands clasping his knees. His hair was cut quite short, and she thought he was looking at her, because the pale blob had moved when she had retraced her steps; but he said nothing, and went on saying it until it occurred to Marina that it was up to her to start the conversation.

But first she hunted about in her pockets and found a cigarette (it smelled foul; she thought she must have gotten it from a friend) and lit it carefully. It stank even worse lit, and she coughed.

Then she said, "Hey, kid, what are you doing here this time of night?"

There was a resigned sort of rustle from the boy. "Waiting," he said.

His tone was polite, but Marina could hear a faint layer of "would-you-please-go-away-and-leave-me-alone" underneath, and it irritated her. She dragged on the cigarette and coughed again.

"Dam' cheap thing," she said, and dropped it to the ground to crush it under her foot. "Waiting for a girl?"

There was no reply, but the boy's shoulders stiffened, and his left hand tightened around his right.

"Bit late, isn't she?"

"No," said the boy.

"No to which?"

"Both," said the boy.

"Then," said Marina, exasperated, "what are you waiting for?"

"Dawn."

Marina looked at her watch, which was not the kind that glows helpfully in the dark; she looked at the sky, which was not black as night, because skies in cities never are; she looked back at the boy.

"Why?" she said.

There was another rustle, and the boy hunched over further. "There's no point in telling you," he said, wearily, "because you won't believe me."

This was more agreeable to Marina that his previous replies. "Actually, you know, I'm just drunk enough that I'm willing to listen to whatever it is you're about to tell me. I probably won't remember it in the morning, though," she added, and then staggered over to a tree and leant on it for support.

"Don't you want to sit down?"

"No," said Marina, firmly, "'cause if I do I'll never-ever manage to get up again. Go on."

The boy had twisted himself around to look at her; now he resumed his original attitude, clasping his hands around his knees, and – his voice was a muted cacophony of surprise, reluctance, and (faint but clear) relief – began: "Suppose I told you that

there are millions of worlds, right, or dimensions, or universes, all layered sort of on top, or between, or inside each other, somehow," said the girl, and her pale hands stilled the restless movements they had been making, stroking her daemon, and tightened in his fur. "Suppose I told you that – then what?"

Marinas tapped his cigarette thoughtfully. "I'd say you'd been reading about the Barnard-Stokes hypothesis."

"So I have," said the girl, "but they don't tell me anything I didn't know already, and there's nothing there that I want. I en't reading them for fun. But suppose it was real – suppose there were all these other worlds, right, with bits and pieces of 'em the same as here, only almost everything just a little different, because they come into being when someone makes a choice. So maybe you're wearing a different suit in another world, right, and talking to me – only not really me, but someone who was me up to a point – maybe in another world you're not a smoker – "

"Hardly likely," said Marinas.

" – because in the other worlds it's like looking at your own world through a wavy glass, distorted but the same, somehow, and different and

same, all at once," said the boy. "Maybe in another world you were born a boy, or not born at all because your parents never met. Or in another world Guy Fawkes did blow up Parliament, and in another Julius Caesar never invaded Britain the second time."

"I see," said Marina, and hunted about in her pockets for a cigarette. "So you're sitting here watching the world split while millions of other yous decide to call it a night and go home?"

"No," said the boy.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because," said the boy – and there was a note in his voice that made Marina think, rather doubtfully, of hunger – "because once there were two children who crossed worlds to meet, and then went back into their own worlds and shut the doors behind them. Because in another world there's a bench and a tree like this one, and Lyra – Lyra – "

Love, thought Marina, and he drunken satisfaction she should have felt at identifying that sharp note was jarred and buffeted away from her by the turmoil of pity the same note of raw longing elicited in her.

" – Lyra is sitting there – here – because we promised ... we promised to meet

just once a year, just for one hour on one day in the year," said the girl, "but I know he's still there, so I'm not leaving. Not until dawn. He'll have to go then – he's got school – so I'll go, too..."

Marinas chewed on his cigarette and looked down at her; at her small hands, pressing her pine marten daemon to her breast; at her bowed head and tense shoulders.

"How do you know he's still there?"

"Because I'm still here," said the girl, simply. "Because – we're the same, somehow, and I know that since I can't bear to leave him, he can't bear to leave me – we can't either of us initiate the parting, so we won't. We'll go together

together," said the boy, "or never.."

"Is it – " began Marina, and stopped herself abruptly.

The boy said, without emphasis, "Once I thought that my very heart was being torn out of my body, that my soul was being pulled in two, and I bore it. I can bear this, too."

"I'm sorry," said Marina.

She fumbled the cigarette out of her mouth and crushed it under her foot like the first; she could hear the boy's ragged breathing, and it tore at as if it was her own pain. "I'm sorry – I ... if you're pulling my leg, you're doing a dam' good job of it. No – " (the boy's breathing had quickened in unspoken protest) "I do believe you. Damned if I know why, but – I'm sorry. Maybe – I mean ... will you..."

"We'll go on," said the boy.

"We have to," said the girl.

There was a silence, and then she spoke again, her quiet voice trembling on the edge of tears.

"Please go away."

It was by chance that Marina saw him again the very next day, as she walked to her friend's house to retrieve her car. He was lined up with fifty other schoolchildren, and of course she'd not seen his face in the dark – not to recognise – but she was looking at the boy with the straight eyebrows simply because his face was so unobtrusive, so very unostentatious, that it had a look of deliberately trying to fade into the background. He was staring with perfect disinterest at a small potted tree, and then –

A bird dropped from the sky; a dark, dove-like bird; it settled onto a branch and furled its wings – and across the boy's face there flashed such a look of blind, hopeless pain – it was only there for a moment, no more than a second, and then it was gone, and Marina stepped backwards and knocked someone over –

By the time she had finished picking the someone up and dusting them off and apologising, the line of children had moved off, and she did not follow them.

But for a long time afterwards, little things – a bird, or an expression, or a word, or a tone – would bring the boy's ragged, strained voice into her mind; and (she would think) she must have been more drunk than she thought she was, because she still believes every word of it. And (sometimes) she wonders about the two children, worlds apart and yet together, who go on, because they must...

Finis

A/N: ...So anyway, now you see what kind of fanfiction Elai writes when she's cross and confused. And I'd like to make it clear, incidentally, that I'm not actually a fan of HDM (particularly the ending – hence the crossness) because they seem oddly contradictory (hence the confusion). I am a bit of a fan of the main pairing, though (hence the fic).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. The next chapter of The Empty House it a little more than half-done and should be up within a week, for anyone interested. Thanks for reading!