it's a damn cold night
trying to figure out this life
won't you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
i don't know who you are
but i... i'm with you
i'm with you

:avrillavigne:

She needs to be saved. The demons torment her to no end, taunting her with fantasies of what can never be.

And he knows. He can save her. When no one sees the temptations Lucy sees, Louis can. He sees them, too.

She has nightmares (heart-wrenching, painful, waking up screaming, crying, and scared nightmares). No one mentions them (god forbid she's different ), but Louis can tell. Her eyes are sleepless and bloodshot and it's ruining the beautiful blue she had…before.

The others don't ask, don't see she's any different.

Louis comforts her and lets her cry.

("Everyone's gone, they don't understand." "You get it, don't you, Louis?" "I just wish you really saw!"

"I'm trying. I…think I'm beginning to see, Lucy."

You're lying. You don't understand.)

/

Louis has never believed in God. But from that moment, he spends his sleepless nights praying to anyone (anything) out there that he might someday understand.

/

He just wants to help her.

When they get back to school, he doesn't know how to help her. They're in the same year and house, but at night? What is he supposed to do then?

She sends him an owl from the train, and he gets it by the time he's on the carriages.

Meet me at midnight at the Black Lake.

/

He goes, and when he sees her face reflected in the moonlight he know it's going to be a year of sleepless nights and if he gets any sleep, it'll be on the banks of the Black Lake. He will be woken up by screams piecing the night sky.

"What are they about, Lucy?"

They're walking around the lake, and he's trying to calm her down from her latest night terror.

"Louis, I can't. I want to tell you, I do. But I just…can't."

He grabs her hand and laces his fingers through hers. "I'm here, Luc. I'll always be here for you."

(She wants to scream at him. "That's all I've ever needed.")

/

Lucy is raced into the Hospital Wing one day during a period of double Potions. She'd collapsed from exhaustion.

She wakes up screaming, tears streaming down her face. Madame Bones gives her a calming draught and she sleeps peacefully for the first time in months.

Louis watches her sleep and he can't help a tear slip down his face.

/

He kisses her one night by the Black Lake. She's in the middle of one of her nightmares, crying and calling his name. ("Louis! Louis! Where are you?")

"I'm right here, Lucy. I'll always be here."

The kiss wakes her up. "Louis, what…?"

"Lucy, you were calling my name."

"They're about losing you. Always you." She doesn't tell him that it's like walking on broken glass, falling from twenty cliffs, and her heart, breaking into one million pieces.

"I'm with you. Always."