"What's a soulmate?"
"It's a…well, it's like a best friend but more."
Jack hated this. He hated the fact that he couldn't come near Jamie, now a lanky seventeen year old boy with a firm faith in the Guardians, without nearly freezing him to death. He hated the fact that he could not kiss him, much less touch him, for prolonged amounts of time without giving him frostbite. He hated the fact that it restricted them to talking. But then, sometimes he didn't mind lying awake and talking about everything and nothing at all. He liked hearing Jamie's thoughts and about his day, and likewise Jamie enjoyed Jack's tales that he'd gained from his 300 years of existence. Tonight was just like all the others: Jamie was rambling on, nearly stumbling over his own words as he hurried to get them all out and into Jack's ears.
"..And then he got caught in the face with a snowball, just like that!" The boys snickered like children as they talked, lying beside each other on a bed that was too small for two people. They were like best friends, despite the unfortunate circumstances. One day Jamie would age, and Jack would be forever young. One day Jamie would stop believing, and Jack would be left alone. But despite all of it, they were closer than any pair of friends could be, both physically and mentally.
Because of all of this, Jamie had thought that despite their closeness, they'd established their boundaries. They'd established that since one of the pair was the embodiment of the cold that physical contact was beyond their reach. It was torture, but Jamie was able to withstand it despite being sullen over it.
Jack, apparently though, could not, because one minute they were talking and Jack was looking at him funny and the next a pair of freezing lips were on his, silencing him.
Despite the coldness of it all, Jamie had never felt warmer.
"It's the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else."
As she entered the Tardis, she saw him. His outer appearance gave nothing away; his face was free of tears, and his face was free of the emotion that it had showed earlier, but River knew. She'd always known. He was her Doctor, after all. Her mad man in the blue box, with all his tendencies and flaws…yes, she knew her mad man, and she knew that his hearts were like shattered glass inside his chest.
Sitting down beside him, they sat in silence for a moment, nothing but the whir of the Tardis to disturb them. Her head slipped on to his shoulder, and his own used hers as support.
"River…"
She shushed him, knowing what he would say. He would deny his own pain, pretend everything was dandy and fine and that it was just like the old days, but she didn't want to hear it. She didn't want him to lie to her, at least, not today.
She was tired, her parents were both dead, and her only support beam was breaking. Right now, the simple task of comforting her husband was the only thing she felt like dealing with.
"It's someone who makes you a better person…well, actually, they don't make you a better person. You do that yourself, because they INSPIRE you."
It was all wrong. The aesthetics had been put in place, the victim remained unsuspecting, and yet something was off. She surveyed the girl on the table, blissfully unaware of her imminent death. No, that wasn't it. She surveyed her instruments, scalpels and syringes and other sinister things, looking for a flaw and finding none. And last of all, she surveyed her mindset, and there she found the flaw. There, she found constant thoughts of the blond who had died for her, who had burned in the house when she was a young girl. The boy who had blessed her with all he had, only to have it go to waste.
Aya didn't know what had gotten into her. She was never merciful, never hesitant with her victims on most days. It was always a quick cut, and then the poor thing was dead and she could carry on with her work. Simplicity at its best.
But today was not like most days. Most days she did not have his face on her mind, and most days she did not fantasize about the kiss he'd given her and having it given other places. Most days, she did not have Dio on her mind the whole time she spoke to a patient, or the promise that she had made him constantly ringing in her head. So when it came time to make that cut, clean and swift, she couldn't. She just couldn't. Not with him in her mind.
With a frustrated sigh, she called in Maria to do the job, leaving a confused assistant behind to go drown her sorrows. And as she left, she could not help wondering what had gotten into her and why it felt like she'd been carrying a weight on her shoulders, and that it had suddenly been lifted.
"A soulmate is someone you carry with you forever."
They'd thought they could rid themselves of each other. N had traveled regions on Zekrom's back, purging his memory with the sky, and Hilda had defeated trainer upon trainer, purging her memory with the adrenaline of battle. They each had their own methods of forgetting what could have, no, what should have been, yet despite that they could not fight the ghosts of the feelings that haunted them.
'This is ridiculous,' Hilda thought, pacing back in forth in the room that was her workplace. Not many trainers visited, as so rarely did anyone defeat the Elite Four, so it gave her plenty of time to think. Unwanted time, really. Thinking usually led to memories of N, as much as she tried to fight it, so when a trainer entered the room, she was immediately grateful.
That was, until she saw the flash of green hair underneath his cap as he approached.
She froze in her spot, unable to move as he drew closer and closer, until he was right in her face. He towered over her like a skyscraper, but she did not wither under his gaze. She instead stared straight back, silent and unmoving, waiting on him to do something, anything. Waiting for him to tell her that he'd returned from Hoenn for her, that he loved her, that he hated her…anything would have been better than the silence.
When he leaned in, she expected a kiss, but he instead made a detour for her ear. His breath was not labored, but slow and relaxed as he spoke.
"I couldn't forget you."
For someone so innocent and carefree, he sure was a skilled kisser.
"It's the one person who knew you and accepted you and believed in your before anyone else did…or when no one else would."
Lucrezia did not sigh as Cesare spoke of their father. She did not complain, or change the subject as he talked of his despised position as cardinal, or his longing to be a general. She instead twirled his dark locks around her finger, his head in her lap as they lay on her bed. The curtains were drawn and the door was locked, and Cesare had threatened to kill anyone who disturbed them before he began his ranting and raving. It should have bothered her, no, disturbed her that she and her brother shared such intimacy, that their lives were so twisted. It should have annoyed her that he used her as his outlet to speak.
But it didn't. In fact, she enjoyed it.
"I simply wish to see the battlefield one day, 'Crezia. Chapels and confessionals are not the place for me. Perhaps one day, Holy Father will see my potential." He spat the name like a curse.
Lucrezia's finger, once curled in his hair, slowed its twirling, and she touched his face so he was looking at her.
"Not perhaps, sweet brother. For certes. Your ambition spreads far beyond the robes of a cardinal." She assured, speaking with such vigor that for a moment she sounded like a Borgia.
And Cesare, so deeply in love with his own sister that he could cry, felt his own hope swell.
"And no matter what happens…"
Jack tapped on the window, but it was like Jamie was oblivious to his presence, almost as if he couldn't see him anymore-
And the Doctor helplessly watched, screaming her name as River Song disappeared from the world forever-
Aya stared at the disintegrating house as it was engulfed by flames, an ache in her chest as she pictured the boy with one eye burning to death-
N could feel her eyes on him as he took his leave, and as he stepped onto Zekrom's back he was almost certain he heard a sob-
Lucrezia nearly choked when the page told her the news, and her mind raced with images of Cesare dying on that battlefield that he so loved-
"…you'll always love them."