"No more dead bodies for daddy tonight."
-- Grindhouse

* * *

The one thing of which you're certain in the aftermath of war is the inescapable and inevitable -- inevitable -- uncertainty. You suppose everyone must be feeling that uneasy sense of anticipation, drifting around the castle like one of its phantasmic former tenants who are unable to move on, chilling the air and distracting thoughts. But in this deserted corridor, forgotten by the world, illuminated by sunlight pouring onto the ragged edges of centuries-old stones, you've had enough of ghostly anticipation. You've had enough.

"We have regrets."

Do you even know how to ask a real question anymore? Everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like a demand; your words are sharp at the edges and you wonder: for defence? or attack?

"I thought I wasn't allowed to have regrets."

You're surprised to hear your laugh permeate the open spaces of the corridor, your old laugh, your real laugh. An entire lifetime separates you from that laugh, but amazingly it makes you feel so normal. Maybe, someday, you will be all right again. The world will be all right. And you'll be allowed to be just another girl living an ordinary life.

He is still a smart-ass. He is still a prat.

So, there is still some predictability, some certainty in your world.

"If you had a time-turner right now and you could go back to any one moment, any one you wanted, to change it, which one would you choose?"

And you watch his eyes as they grow more and more distant from you, removed to some moment days or months or perhaps even years ago when he does something he is ashamed of. That moment, that is so vivid in his mind in this one, will never be revealed to you; he will never share it with you over a private and quiet dinner or between the sheets after you've made love. You will wonder for the rest of your life, even after he's married to a woman who is not you and you to a man who is not him, what he is thinking right now.

"Do you have a time-turner?"

No. Of course you don't.

"Then it doesn't matter, does it?" His eyes return to the present, and he looks at you, ice-grey eyes burning an impression of them into your memory. "I'm through living in the past. I've more regrets than I can count, but I'd rather forget them in the future than relive them in the past. It comes down to this moment."

He stands slowly, steadies himself against the wall, offers you his hand.

"We either break down or break away. And, frankly, I don't think I'm strong enough to break away alone."

The implications swell in your chest and make you want to choose the first option. In so many words, he is telling you he needs you. But what if you're not strong enough? What if, even together, you can't break away, break through? And then through to where? You're terrified of the merciless abyss that is dependence.

Co-dependence, a second version of your voice corrects. And you inhale deeply. And grasp his hand.