A.N. Okay, so I have fallen into the trap of wanting to create a multi chapter fic where Hitomi and Van get their happy ending, and in doing so, have created this 30 plus chapter monster. So, that stated, I hope the story is worth your time and you enjoy this. This was written solely for myself and as such it is straight up Romance. There is no deep dark villain, there are no real love triangles, just two people relearning each other and getting together.

Disclaimer: I do not own "The Vision of Escaflowne" nor any of the characters therein. I am merely writing this for my own enjoyment.

Rating Warning: This story is rated MA for a reason. I have recently been enjoying the romance novels/bodice rippers/penny dread-fuls and have decided that Van and Hitomi need a nice physical relationship since there are so few out there. So if you aren't old enough to read this, sorry, if you are but don't like it, you can skip it or hit the back button. If you like lemons, and lemonade, please proceed!

Four Years

Prologue: Broken Promises

"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise." ~Author Unknown

There was a shaded tree upon a lonely hill, an ocean lay beyond it lined with pastel colors and glimmering with fragmented light. It was a safe place, one he had been to many times before, but this time he could not hear the voices of his playmates nor the laughter that usually echoed around him. Their guardians in silver and gold were also absent, and he felt bereft without their company.

The ocean breeze rustled the leaves and buffeted his clothes and hair about his body. It was warm and pleasant here, and had he been calmer he might have curled up for a nap, but something was missing, no not missing, wrong. Turning about he tried to place it, the cold feeling in his chest that refused to go away. There was no dark shadows, no monsters, no one at all, so the feeling of dread and fear didn't make much sense. Perhaps it was the absence of Eriya, Naria, Ni and Va, but they were not always there so that didn't seem right either.

Then, he heard it; small, indefinite, like a butterfly's song, "… I promise. I'll never forget you… even when I'm old." The words came in clumps, hazing in and out like the dancing light through the dappled leaves and it was hard to focus. Straining his ears he moved closer to the breathy sound. He was certain it was coming from the tree, but when he got to the wide trunk it seemed just on the other side, whispering brokenly to the wind. "In four years… I'll wait…"

"Hello?" He ran to the other side but the voice merely moved beyond him and soon he was running frantic circles round the trunk, fists pumping, heart thrumming, and breath panting. "Wait up, I can't hear you!"

"…too late… it wasn't…"

"Hey! I can't keep up, speak louder!" He was getting dizzy running in circles, but he kept his pace, something inside of him hurting at the muffled words and it sent him into a panic. Something was wrong, something about this was very, very, wrong and he had to fix it, to stop it, to correct it. He didn't know how, but if he could just catch the voice he was certain he'd be able to do just that. "Hey!"

The voice, this time higher pitched, and sad, so very sad it made his eyes sting, was recognizable to him; he knew that tone and the words made him slip, "I guess… this is my answer…"

"No!" He tripped falling toward the long roots and the green grass, but the expected impact never came. Large hands, warm and steady gripped him and pulled him up. Lifting watery eyes he found the face of his savior; soft lines, kind smile, hair like the sky and eyes a cinnamon brown like the Christmas tea his aunt liked to drink. "Folken!"

His joy was well received with a warm smile and a ruffle to his dark messy head. "You should watch where you're going, what if I wasn't here?" Folken was teasing, and usually he basked in the attention, but this time he had to stop the voices.

He had to make things right.

"Folken, hurry, there's something… something wrong! It's breaking, Folken!" He implored holding tight to the long arms that still surrounded him, and that bright smile dimmed, those eyes going solemn.

"Yes, little one, it is falling apart now. It's nearly beyond our grasp." Folken looked out across the ocean, the ripples of the voices still just beyond them, and he looked sad. "A new destiny is forming now…"

He didn't understand the meaning of those words, nor the conflicted look on the older man's face, but when Folken turned, eyes of passionate earth locked upon him, hands strong and compelling, there was no way he couldn't trust that Folken did. "You must go back now. Go back and look. Before this destiny is lost forever, you must act. You must return to Gaea."

The name made his mind reel and he straightened up at the request in shock when the sound and color started to drift away, melting and peeling back until all he could see were the imploring eyes of the angel, and the mission he'd given him.

"Look. Wake up and look, and return to Gaea."

Anil woke up.

September 10, 2003

Earth

"Four years…"

Her feet made a sharp slap-tap upon the asphalt, a percussive cacophony to the harsh hissing breath that twanged through the buzz of the street lights that was a part of the suburban calliope at night. The air she pulled in was bitter with exhaust and sharp with the bite of metal which was so paramount on Earth that she had often wondered if that was how she smelled to Merle. Now that attribute made her eyes burn and her lungs ache as the quickly dropping temperature stung her skin.

Her heart beat rapidly, far faster than the simple exertion of sprinting ever could. Running was second nature to her, and should not tire her, but the fear, the icy fingers of dread that curled faintly in her stomach and poked holes through the flimsy belief that things would be fine if she just had faith in them, urged her on as instincts that she had not relied on in seven years spurred her terror.

She wasn't going to make it.

Hitomi choked on her tears and the cry that tried to work up her throat and pushed herself faster: up the stairs, round the corner her hand clinging to the metal handrail to whip her around, and on toward the school. Her heart chanted her most desperate plea, the tempo accelerated by fear and the intensity of her mental screaming; please no, please no, please no.

The building loomed ahead of her, large and ominous; the embodiment of her internal fear and the premonition she was desperate to keep from coming true. She no longer believed in destiny and fate. Events were created in the moment by the choices made, and so now would be no different.

But it was.

The feeling grew worse, turning the icy doubt into the tinged frigidity of death; cold beyond feeling, when she saw the tiny form squeeze its way through the gates. "No!" She gasped out, her lungs cramping as she put on another burst of speed. For a moment she wished it was nothing more than a trick of the light, or perhaps her mind playing her. Maybe it was nothing more than a passing animal, but as the twin moons glinted down upon the shape that made its way around the back of the school toward the track, she was unable to deny the truth.

The small child was wearing the light blue pinafore top that covered most of his body, his denim shorts were nearly hidden completely beneath its length, proof that he was a bit small for his age, and she knew from mornings spent pulling it over a squirming little head that the patch on the front would have a bright golden star. She knew the boy would be six, that he liked to watch Pokemon in the morning and Power Rangers in the afternoon, and his favorite color was red. Therefore the Red Ranger and Charizard were his favorite characters from each. He liked macaroni and cheese and hated broccoli. His favorite toy was a sad and mangled stuffed toy dragon he had named Balgus after her stories of the brave and legendary swordsman. But most of all, she knew that if she didn't stop him, she would never be able to get him back.

She choked on a scream when she hit the chill metal of the gates, her weight making them groan and screech with the misuse. "No! No! No! Open up, damn it!" She was crying now, her fists slamming uselessly against the barrier. She was panicking. Forcing herself to stop and to take deep breaths, Hitomi focused passed the muffled ringing in her ears and the throb of her heart beat in her softer tissues. She couldn't squeeze through the gate, and she couldn't wait for someone to get a key. Looking up, she eyed the sharp protrusions of the fence.

Up and over it was.

She scrambled up easily enough, her focus making her swift. She balanced at the top and eyed the distance to the ground. Seven feet at best, she could make that. She didn't wait any longer, and didn't much care about the large scratch up her left leg nor the hole on her sweater which the fence made upon her descent. Barefoot she tumbled, rolling a bit as her feet sent signals of pain to her brain and the stone made scuff marks into her flesh.

It hurt, but she had lived through far worse. She was up in seconds and tearing off around the side of the darkened building. Let me make it, I will make, I have to make it! In the moonlight she could see the steps that lead back down to the field and track and running down them brought back familiar memories from before it all. It had been sunny then, and spring, not fall. Her wandering thoughts caused her to slip and she tumbled down the last three, landing sharply on her side and knocking the wind from her lungs. It burned and she tensed curling up a moment coughing to force her lungs to work and for a moment wondered if she could move at all.

"How could you?! What about your promise?!"

Green eyes flew open and she pushed herself up, gasping and dizzy. She didn't have time to be injured. Air was secondary to this, and she could collapse only after she had that tiny child back in her arms. Her first few steps were slow, her stumbling a direct result of the dizziness lack of air had on her equilibrium, but as her breathing returned to a semi-normal pattern she picked up her jog.

Concrete gave way to rubber and she looked up at the sky on instinct.

Gaea was full tonight, embracing the silvery moon like a guardian, like a mother and where this once would have given her peace of mind, it only made her shiver, and that mocking certainty swelled inside her chest. Ripping her eyes away and down the track; the same one that she'd had her fateful vision on, where she had first met Van Slanzar de Fanel, the one she ran on throughout her time in high school, the same one she taught on now, and saw the child.

He stood in the very place Van had arrived on all those years ago, dark hair gleaming under the moon, face raised to the sky and one hand out stretched toward the perfect orb; like he was calling to it.

Like it was calling to him.

It was too late.

"Anil!" The name burst from her lips and she took off at a sprint, desperate to stop it, and watched as the child whipped back to her. Large hazel eyes, still wet with tears, and red-rimmed from his anger looked back at her, large and so very expressive in his pale face. His dark wiry hair flopped into his eyes and stood up in a perpetual rat's nest that nothing short of glue could tame, and his words returned to her mind, the words that would haunt her for the rest of her life and beyond if she didn't make it.

"I hate you! I wish I wasn't here! I wish I could go away!"

The air felt different, thick, and charged, and Hitomi stopped breathing knowing before it appeared what was coming. Those narrowed eyes and that tense, angry form was suddenly engulfed in a beam of bright blue, and she watched as hazel widened it shock, then fear as slowly he lifted from the ground, floating upward at a sedate pace that she knew from experience would not last.

"Anil!" She was in the light now reaching up, half expecting to be lifted as well, and it took a while to realize that she was not when those eyes met hers and Anil was suddenly reaching back, but he was just out of reach.

Anil was sobbing and wiggling and stretching out toward her, his fearful, hiccupping cry more painful than anything else. "I—I didn't mean it! I take it back, help me! Save me, I—I didn't mean it!" His pleas broke her heart in two and she redoubled her efforts to rescue him.

Jumping Hitomi tried to snag that small, so very small, hand but her fingers closed on air. "No!" Her scream fell on deaf ears as the light pulled upward and yanked the child up and away from her entirely, the light flickering and receding leaving her behind, arm outstretched, scraped and bloodied.

The light wasn't for her.

It didn't want her.

"… no…" Her eyes prickled like a thousand needles and then the tears spilled, hot, and thick and important. "No!" Her words dissolved into an inhuman scream and her legs gave out sending her crashing to the ground. Her nerves sent shockwaves of her numerous injuries to her brain, but they paled in comparison to the guilt that ripped through her chest. Bile crawled up her throat and she hacked, feeling the urge to vomit but she was unable to do so.

Her arms curled around her waist cinching tight and trembling as though through will alone and that single strained embrace, she could recall the tiny child. The child not yet old enough to make his own meals, who still needed a night light and couldn't see over table tops. She wasn't sure when she started rocking, but the motion was continuous as the angry words repeated through her mind, rolling like a curse.

Her curse.

Her thoughts and beliefs.

The stain upon Gaea.

"No. No. No. No." She whimpered, while her mind continued its paralyzing scream into the abyss where at one time she knew she would be heard, but Van had stopped contacting her long ago. She'd already received her answer on that, which only made this ordeal so much worse. "Give him back…" It was a pitiful whimper that hardly made a sound, and it caused the pain to rear up and she threw her head back and screamed until her throat burned and she was certain the softer tissues had torn, and she could taste the copper-tang of her own blood in her mouth, and still it could not dampen the pain in her heart.

"Give him back to me!"

A.N. Well here is the prologue. I'm trying out a new writing style. I really hope it works, though I fear this means that the chapters are going to get long… really long. My usual fanfic chapters are between 28-44 pages long on average. I had hoped to keep them short for this story but it is doubtful to work. Please review if you have the time.s