He didn`t glance up when she softly walked up to the wall, against which he was leaning his head, and, sitting down beside him , drew up her knees. Placing her chin on her clasped hands, she silently stared into nothingness in the quiet way of a badly scared but trying to be brave child.
He barely acknowledged her presence and yet the silence that he maintained wasn`t estranging.
" The dreams - you see them too?" she all but whispered finally, wistfully gazing sideways at him.
He paused then nodded. She drew her eyes away, wrapped her arms a bit tighter around herself.
" All wounds heal with time," he said gently after a long, long silence. " So will yours. You`ll forget this: whatever you may think now- you will."
She didn`t look up. Calmly, knowingly, she stated "You don`t believe it."
She heard him swallow hard. She could almost picture the way he was making himself smile, making himself appear stronger and more assured than he felt.
"You are much younger than me. You are - much stronger. You have many people around you that you can hold on to and... you have much more to live for."

Chloe lifts her head slowly and looks him straight in the eyes. It slowly dawns on her that while he was enumerating her chances of recovery he was at the same tome cataloguing everything he was so desperately in need of- and everything he would never have.

Slowly she feels drawn out of her own pain and towards his. (And probably that is why he is saying all this) Faint, almost childlike surprise, sombrely colours her eyes as she continues to earnestly gaze at him.

"How do you manage?" she finally breathes out.

He pauses, opens his lips, stops again, a tiny twitching smile tugging nervously at the corners of his mouth.

"Well, I... I work and..."

He is silent again. Now she completely loses sight of her own fear, she is growing- at least for the time being- unaware of her own hurt in the contemplation of his. Probably that is why he does it, probably that is why he owns up to it. And probably because he just has finally to open up a bit or he would shatter. And probably both.

His voice is level, when he finally speaks again, and Chloe understands- this is not a call for pity or understanding. No. This is just a statement, an almost scientific diagnosis, delivered in a completely emotionless way. A summing-up. Full of sincerity which is not directed solely at her.

" I don`t."

He looks away and now sorrowfulness settles in his lowered eyes, his half- averted face, his still hands, sorrowfulness all the more intense and hopeless for its very quietness.

Slowly she pulls closer to him and nestles her head on his shoulder. He doesn`t respond.

It is a full minute before his left hand rests on her arm.

And then there is silence. And stillness.

And time.

Not enough to even start healing. Not for her and - certainly not for him.

And yet just fot this long, fleeting, insecure moment the ache in their hearts, somehow, is- dulled.