Falling in love, that didn't even occur to him?
No. Of course it wouldn't. He traced her face, surrounded by script. He hadn't done her justice, but pencil was such a crude medium. He doubted that anything would do, really. Not watercolours, not oils, not marble or stone. It was her, living, that was the masterpiece. Her expressions, her voice, her smell...her smile.
Who could capture that?
He sat on her bed, the journal spread on his knee. Pressing her jacket to his face, he inhaled, catching the faintest breath of her scent. Soon, even he wouldn't be able to detect it. He didn't need sleep, or not in the desperate, nightly way that humans did. Still, when he did sleep, he took that jacket with him. Scruples and logic set aside, he wished with his whole being that he could trade that jacket for its owner, just for a little while. He hadn't dared, not while he had the chance.
Love. Such a slippery thing. Same as time, just as enduring, just as painful, and just as cruel.
He lay on his side, curling his knees to his chest as if to surround his pain. He'd lost them all, in the end, but she... She was different. Special. He hadn't meant it lightly when he'd told her that he wouldn't leave her. How could he? She'd come back for him, even after he'd sent her away. She would have died for him. She had faith in him. She loved him. And only when she'd been thrown a universe away had he finally found the courage to tell her exactly how much that meant to him.
He had always been a coward, and the loss of those final seconds was enough to punish him for his cowardice for a lifetime.
Now, she was in the one place he couldn't get to. He had time and space at his disposal, and he could roam the universe on a whim, but he couldn't reach her. Fate had a sense of humor, it seemed. He slapped the journal closed, unable to bear its contents any longer. Besides, his memories were so much more vivid; they tortured him all the more.
He closed his eyes, and her face, smiling into his with such trust and adoration, swam into his mind's eye.
Love, indeed.
How could falling in love occur to someone who had already fallen this far?