Cookies for the people who guess what Sadalsuud was! For those who wanna know it is a star in Aquarius and translates roughly into "Luck of lucks".

Great job you guys! Thanks for the reviews! Here's part 2!

Dastan retired to his chambers that night, determined to stay awake.

He had heard from the palace servants that, as per tradition, Tamina would spend the night in contemplation and prayer. He was allowed to sleep. Even though weariness pulled at him he tried to fight it. She knew of his nightmares and even if she had shown she was prepared to go through with the wedding in the morning, he could at least try to make sure her night was peaceful. If that meant being sleepless than so be it. He had gone nights without sleep before.

But before he knew it he had fallen asleep and found himself clinging to the edge of the rock face.

His mind played the deaths of Bis, Gustiv and Tus and his father. Of the helplessness he had felt as each died. As he screamed for help or tried to fix it and found that nothing worked. They died. In perfect turn they died. His father burned, his brother shot through, his other brother slit from ear to ear. And the only thing that united the three deaths was that his Uncle orchestrated them and he bore witness. He remembered everything about them and yet it the one he always relived was Tamina's death.

His hand slipped on the stone as he gripped it, staring down at the Princess grasping his wrist. Even with her blood and sweat and dirt streaking her face she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She down at the chasm below and when she raised her eyes, he already knew what she was planning to do. All her words about destiny, about making sure the world was safe-he had thought he could protect her from making the final sacrifice, like he had in the Temple. But as she looked up at him he realized that he could not do it. He knew she had told him of his destiny, just as he knew what would happen next. But he knew all of it in the back of his mind and he wondered, as he always did, if he held tighter, if he chose to save her over the world, would that be such a bad thing?

"I'm not letting you go!" he shouted to her.

"I wish we could have been together," she told him, honesty in her eyes.

"No," his teeth gritted together, denial coursing through him as blood and sweat made his palm slick.

Even as she opened her hand there was fear in her eyes. Not peace or love or anything. She was scared. He felt sick. She was going to die even as she wept and fought against the instinct to hold onto him. In all his years he was sure it would be the single most selfless act he would ever see. Her eyes locked on his, the fear in her eyes raw and powerful as his fingers tried desperately to tighten on hers. But her hand slipped down his, her fingers sliding through his grip even as he tried to will strength into his hand.

"No-" he protested blindly, as if words could keep her there but her fingers slipped free and suddenly she was falling.

"Dastan!"

"Tamina!"

He bolted upright in bed, the blade of his knife pressing into someone's throat. He could fee the sweat coursing over his body as his heart pounded in his ears, chest struggling to draw a proper breath. His knife usually pressed into air when he woke, as if he could fight away the invisible demons that plagued him. But tonight of all nights, the blade found someone's throat. Someone real and soft and cloaked in gauzy white with crystals braided through their dark locks. Someone who looked at him calmly through kohl lined eyes, as if it was every day that hysterical Prince's pressed blades to their throat. Shaking the sweat out of his eyes, he looked at the woman sitting calmly at his bedside, unable to force words through his fear-clogged throat.

"You really are loud, you know," she told him, making no move towards the dagger on her throat, "really, its a wonder you managed to breach the Walls at all without alerting the entire city."

He stared at her. Gone was the woman who had fled the gardens with tears shining in her eyes. She looked perfectly calm and composed, if not a little angry at him for what he had done. Slowly he forced his muscles to relax as he lowered the knife from her throat, dropping it down to the bed. The smell of incense that clung to her was suddenly overpowering. Without any thought to modesty or rudeness, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and struggled to his feet. He felt as if he was going to be sick. It was too much, too much to relieve that moment when she had died and too much to wake and see her sitting there as if nothing had happened. To know that while he dreamed of loosing her-of loosing everything-ever night, she did not know anything past what he had told her.

Something came at him out of the corner of his eye. Instantly his hand streaked out as he caught the length of fabric she threw at him.

"Get dressed, follow me," she told him.

Dastan looked at the length of fabric before looking up at her.

"I think its a little late for modesty, don't you?" she asked, arching an eyebrow pointedly.

Fighting the urge to grumble about Princesses who didn't know when to leave rooms, Dastan wound the white fabric around his waist. When he turned around she was standing beside the bed, her hands by her sides and no shame on her face at looking at him. She held his gaze for a moment, her eyes unreadable before she turned on her heel and walked over to the door, pulling her hood over her hair as she did. Dastan followed her as she stepped out into the hall, looking both ways before hurrying out into the hallway. Dastan quickly followed her into the deserted hallway.

"Aren't you supposed to be in contemplation and prayer?" he asked.

"As if I could properly contemplate anything after what you said to me," she told him, leading him into a staircase and starting up it. He followed her, his lips silent, "oh stop looking like I killed your puppy," she snapped back at him, "its not as if I've called off the wedding."

She led him high up the stairs, to the very top of the palace and into the room where the Dagger was housed. She walked easily into the room but Dastan lingered in the doorway, his eyes taking in the ornate room. Everything was polished to such a high shine that even when all the torches were out, everything from the white of the floor to the gild on the lamps glimmered bright in the moonlight. The gold and bronze of the room was impossibly bright, the mere wealth in the room enough to send the poor market boy buried somewhere deep inside him reeling. The tabernacle holding the Dagger was closed as well, its contents hidden and a part of him wanted to check to see if the Dagger was actually in there.

"Its in there," Tamina said calmly, as if she could sense what he was about to ask.

Dastan looked at her as she walked to the side of the tabernacle, disappearing behind it. His foot moved forward into the temple, the long fabric he wore sweeping against the ground.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked, looking around, trying to catch sight of her.

"My Aunt, the last guardian, used to bring me here," Tamina said to him, stepping out from the shadows of the column, "it is a great honor to be the Guardian of the Dagger," she said, "but the very last thing an eight year old Princess with a penchant for exploring wants to hear is that she there are more reasons to keep her in Alamut."

She had shed the outer cloak she wore, leaving her in a dress of white, edged in deep gold embroidery. The fabric draped her form, leaving one shoulder completely bare of fabric. Her dark hair had been pulled to the side, the ebony locks stark against the warm skin. Dastan looked down. The henna on her hands and feet was much more ornate than he had previously seen, though his eyes picked out the familiar star that lay at the heart of the design. She was silent through his inspection. Belately he dragged his eyes back to her face.

"This is the heart of Alamut," she said, "the first structure built after the Gods placed the Sands under the city. The rest of the city came to be around this place."

Dastan looked at her and Tamina returned his gaze, waiting patiently for him to move. Slowly he stepped fully into the temple, his gaze moving around the room. Sadness filled his gaze and she wondered who had died here. When he moved fully into the room the lines of his body were hard, tense even and she knew that if he had a weapon it would be drawn. He entered the room as if he expected the shadows to come alive and attack him. Hands folded in front of her, Tamina waited in front of the tabernacle, looking every inch the Princess and Guardian she was. Slowly Dastan walked forward until he stood in front of her.

"Why did you come into my room?" he asked, "and why did you bring me to this place?"

Tamina looked down.

She had been prepared to walk by his room without a second thought. After what he told her the least he deserved was a night filled with nightmares. She was supposed to be in prayer and contemplation but she had slipped out. It was impossible to have a blank mind or even a semi-organized one when all she could think of was what Dastan had told her. She was troubled by it, by the fact that she had died, by the fact that in all that had happened he was the only one who remembered anything about it. She hated that even though she had heard him scream for her before, when he cried out for her in the gardens it had been the one time she had almost wept at the tone of his voice.

When she had walked by his room she had listened in. She heard him thrashing and muttering names. The name of his friend, his brothers names, his father's names-all full of sadness and loss. She had opened the door when she had heard him deny something, his tone full of anger. When she entered the room he was no longer thrashing on his bed but she imagined if he gripped the pillows a little tighter they would tear apart in his fingers. He looked so tortured as he turned his head from side to side, caught in a vision of a time that no longer even existed that her plan to leave him to the nightmares stopped. She had barely been in his room for a minute when he bolted upright in bed, screaming her name. She had been too shocked to react when his knife found her throat.

But it was the way he looked that made up her mind.

The man who had sat before her then and stood before her now was a man who had lost everything he had ever loved and found the strength to go on. A man who had saved the world twice. A man who had done so much and yet was the only one who remembered what had happened. It was a great honor to use the Dagger, Guardians and Priests trained for its burdens and yet a Prince had managed to escape the madness that followed. He had opened the hourglass and lived to tell the tale-a tale that no-one would believe. Tamina knew that if it had been another man-if it had been any other man-she would do everything in her power to make sure that he was alright. But because Dastan had been her future husband, because the time he remembered included her, she had turned her back on him. It was not right, nor was it fair. Not to him and, strangely, not to her.

Slowly she looked up and met his gaze with her own, doing her best to convey calmness and serenity in the way her Aunt had taught her. The man in front of her did not look like the kind of King Alamut needed. Nor did he even look like the type of man who could save the world and bear the burdens of the Dagger.

And it was her fault.

Partially from what she could understand, totally from what he had hinted at. She had used him to get the Dagger to safety-as any good Guardian would. But from the way he looked at her she had done much more than that. They had done much more than that. There had been a them, a pair, and it was broken. She knew she could not take all the credit for that. Even if the idea of her dying in the name of the world was unsettling, it was something she had been trained to do. But for whatever reason, Dastan had held his silence of what happened. Perhaps because he thought it would protect her. Perhaps for some other reason she did not understand. Like everything else to do with the Dagger, things were not simple, they were chaotic and messy.

"Why didn't you tell me what happened between us?" Tamina asked. He looked away, "Dastan-"

"What was I supposed to say?" he demanded, turning to look at her, "I was so relieved that everyone was safe-that you were alive-that I didn't think anything else mattered. I though-" he shook his head, "i thought that would be enough."

"You've been having nightmares from the first night you spent in the palace."

"I'm a warrior of Persia, I was a street rat before that. Nightmares are something I can deal with," he said.

"Then what can you not deal with?" she demanded, pushing past the defensiveness in his tone, "because from the looks of it you aren't dealing with it very well."

"I'm dealing with it fine," he said taking a step back.

"Oh really? Is that why you look as though you can barely stand?" she questioned, walking forward.

"You woke me in the middle of the night!"

"You woke yourself," she said, coming to a halt when she was right in front of him, almost toe to toe. Looking up at him, she continued, "I am the Dagger's guardian, I can help you."

"I don't need help," he said, looking at her stubbornly.

Tamina opened her mouth to tell him just how wrong he was when she realized just how close they were standing. He had leaned forward and she had as well. Now they were close enough for her to see each individual eyelash that lined his eyes. To feel his breath touch her cheek as he looked at her. In spite of everything she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. They had kissed before, he had implied as much, but she could not remember. What would it be like now, to close the distance between them and touch her lips to his? His eyes searched her face, looking for something unknown to her.

She was not sure if she moved first or if he did. If it was longing on his part or curiosity on hers. All she knew was that when his lips touched hers, it felt as if lightening raced across her skin. In the first breath he was gentle, hesitant even, as if he could not believe what was happening and she found that it was a confusion she shared. But in the next his lips were desperate against hers. She was surprised at how easily her lips parted, her mouth joining his as his hands pulled her tighter against his chest. He kissed her like a drowning man searching for oxygen, like a dead man clinging to life-like one who had once lost everything only to have it all returned. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and in spite of everything that had transpired between them she felt her knees weaken at his touch.

And just as quickly as the kiss had stared, it stopped.

Dastan tore his lips away from hers, leaving her feeling weak and cold as the heat of his body vanished.

"No-" he staggered back, one hand moving up as if to defend himself, "Gods, I never should have-" the words were staggered, harsh, "I'm so sorry."

Tamina slowly opened her eyes, looking up at him. He looked half mad in the light of the moon. She could see the red skin where her fingers had dug into his arms, just as she could feel the throb of her lips from where he had kissed her. And now he was apologizing for what he had done. Tamina blinked, fighting the urge to reach up and press a hand to her lips or straiten her hair. Instead she forced herself to look at him.

"Sorry for what?" she demanded, finding her voice at last, "if you're going to be sorry every time you kiss me, this is going to be a very strange marriage don't you think?"

"How can you even think about marrying me?" he demanded, staring at her, "knowing what you know-"

"I know that you saved the world, save all the people in Alamut-you saved your father, your friend, your brothers-you saved me Dastan," she shoved any doubt she had aside, "if I am to marry, why would I not want to marry a man as Noble as that?"

He stared at her. Even in complimenting him her voice held the same edge that he had become accustom to hearing in her tone. She said Nobility as if Persian Nobility was something not to be taken seriously. That was Tamina. It was so confusing it made his head spin. Everything was all muddled. It was not as if the woman who he had lost was somehow different than the woman standing in front of him, it was not two sides of the same coin. It was not as simple as that. She was Tamina. And when her lips had touched his, it had been as if nothing had changed between them. The heat that raced through him was the same, the feeling of needing her to be closer, tighter, totally against him-all that was the same. He did not know what to think.

"Because I-I-" he began.

She drew herself up.

"I-I-" she repeated in an imitation of him, "tell me this, Dastan, were you kissing me or the woman you lost?" she asked.

He was silent, his hands falling to his sides and she slowly moved forward, closing the distance between them. He watched her but for once he made no move to put space between them. He stood as she approached and only when she was within an arm's reach did he speak.

"I don't know," he told her, his voice barely more than a whisper, "half the time I can't tell the difference."

"Thats because we're the same, Dastan," she said, "the people you saw-the place you saw-all of it is the same. Your Uncle was still a traitor, your brother a King-and I am still the Guardian of the Dagger. Your burden is a terrible one but I can help you, Dastan," she reached forward, grasping his hand, "let me help you."

His eyes went to their joined hands. She looked down, following his gaze with her own. The hand that held hers was rough, it was the hand of a warrior-of a great man. Her hand was soft, ornate with the Henna that marked her as a bride. And yet she was acutely aware of just how perfectly his hand fit with hers. She was the Guardian, she had to help him. Even if she still, somewhere, had her own doubts they did not matter. Not now. Not when the man in front of her seemed moments from breaking apart. He had told no-one else of what happened, of that she was sure. But he could not keep holding it inside.

"It wouldn't matter," he said, his eyes remaining on their hands, his voice still soft, "I'd still see it-" he trailed off into silence.

"See what?" she prodded gently.

"I keep seeing it," he repeated, his hand moving away from hers, "over and over again and there's nothing I can do," he stopped, furious, "there's nothing i can do to save any of them."

"You already saved them Dastan," she said, "your brothers, your father, your kingdom-even me. We are all here because of you."

"Then why do I keep seeing all of you die?" he shouted, his voice echoing off the stone.

Angrily he looked away, his lip catching between his teeth as if he had admitted some great secret. Slowly she reached out, cupping his cheek in her hand. For a moment his entire body tensed, as if instead of a light touch she had stuck him. But the moment passed and his body seemed to relax. His eyes closed as he inhaled raggedly. It looked as if he was breaking apart in front of her. Tamina did not force his gaze to her, rather she simply prevented him from looking further away. Almost on instinct his face turned into her palm, his hot breath sending chills up her wrist.

"Let it go, Dastan," she whispered, her thumb gently rubbing his cheekbone, "there is no future in the time you saw."

As if her words had somehow freed him, he collapsed to his knees in front of her. Her hand dropped to her side as his pulled her tightly against him-as though she was the only real thing in all the world. After a moment, Tamina wrapped her arms around his shoulders as his body shook with emotion, his tears soaking the front of her gown. His fingers dug into her skin through the fabric of her gown but she gave no thought to the bruises they would leave. All her other questions that she still wanted to ask were pushed aside as she held him the best she could. Nothing mattered but the man who held onto her as he wept- who clung to her as if she was the breath of life itself.

As she held him Tamina realized that this was probably the first time he had let his emotions show. In the short time she had known him she had seen how much his family had meant to him. The loss he had suffered was unimaginable and yet he had been determined to bear the burden alone. Every night for a month he had watched the people he loved die and not breathed a word to any of them. She hated that he had held it inside for so long-that he had said nothing for so long. But her anger did not change anything. Not now. Not on the eve of her wedding to the man who wept in her arms. Tamina closed her eyes and bowed her head, focusing only on the Prince who had saved the world, only to shattered in her arms.

"Its alright, Dastan," she told him, her voice soft, "I'm here. Its alright."

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, her mind wondering if that would be enough.

"I'm here."

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Okay so yeah, lemme explain.

There seems to be some tentative interest in a longer Prince of Persia fic. At first I was like "oh hell no, last thing i need is another epic" but then I realized that I not only liked the movie, but I liked the couple.

Then I was talking to a friend who pointed out that if there's one thing Disney can do its make some damn good bad guys.

So here's what we're gonna do.

Go to my profile, there's a poll that's up there that ask if you want a longer, elaborate PoP fic or if you want it shorter. VOTE guys. If you want a longer fic let me know. You're opinion will influence my decision! You have until monday or tuesday when I update this fic because as of the next chapter its gonna have to branch out. So vote!

Now its up to you to review! I know I know I should be like-well, whatever. I want reviews. And you want an update. So this becomes a mutually beneficial relationship! You review, I update and everyone's happy! Oh and if you're super lazy (like me) you can gimme your vote in your review.

So please review!