Disclaimer: I do not own W.I.T.C.H. or any of its characters in any way, shape or form.

Note: Based on the cartoon, not the comics.

Gees, this chapter was hard to write and I'm not entirely sure about the quality... Also, my apologises for the length of time it took to upload this.

Anyway, this continues on from last chapter with a focus on Caleb's reaction to the need (specifically) for the fight/uprising (because it was an uprising). It probably takes place that night/the following day like really early in the morning…


His heart was thumping and his hands were clenched tight and he was gasping, but whatever it was that was happening, it did not seem as bad as what he had experienced weeks before. He still knew where he was and who was around him, though he doubted their existence greatly. And his hands were not shaking.

They were not shaking.

A familiar touch on his shoulder had the young rebel leader closing his eyes. What would have normally provided great comfort unparalleled by all but the one whom had raised him now sent Caleb further into the throws of his confused despair. How cruel was life to conjure such a tantalising illusion?

Cruel enough.

The girl's long hair brushed against the boy's cheek making him shiver at the silken strands. More accurately he shivered at their near ghostly feeling, just non-existent enough to raise that incessant question once more in his head: was this real? Surely not, for the world made no sense. To claim peace and Paradise where there was fighting was nothing short of lunacy.

(The tears on Caleb's face felt real, even if he had forgotten how to stop shedding them. His shaking hands too felt real. They felt real enough to shake him to pieces.)

O, he had hoped that it was true, the young rebel. He had hoped with all his heart that it was true. No more fighting. No more dying. No more threats or tyrants or snakes or…her. Just Paradise. But the cynical voice in his head would not be appeased by mere hope; there was always something lurking on the edge ready to devour the peace once more it had warned time and time again.

That something now appeared to be his own head.

There was another presence moving about the youth, tugging at his hands here and his coat there, trying to wheedle a response other than tears and fear from the boy. A friend, Caleb knew that much as large hands attached to a small body continued their worrying. It seemed real, but that was the issue. It had all seemed real and now…

Caleb was quite sure that hope had driven him to madness. It had deluded him and now his delusions were beginning to shatter, never mind cracking.

"Caleb, please look at me."

That voice- A delusion too. A cruel and twisted delusion spun from excessive hope and the maintainer of that hope, because perhaps….

He wanted it to be real, this beautiful dream behind him. He was sure he had wanted nothing more, for if she were real than the rest of it- But the only thing the rebel knew for sure was that his hands were shaking and somewhere along the way he had lost the plot of it all.

Real or not? It was like some sadistic guessing game from his childhood. 'Do I have a black rock or a blue rock in my hand? Where would Aldarn hide while I counted? What place is the safest place to sleep? Is that Father returning or an enemy coming to kill me? Is this real or not?'

As helpful as ever, the world (if it was indeed the world) provided no clarifying answer.

"Caleb, please."

"Caleb listen to pretty blonde girl," Blunk pleaded too.

Neither had returned to the reassurances of safety or that ever continuing lie 'it's alright', not after those same words had merely worsened a situation they had thought could not get worse. "Caleb, you're safe. Please, you're safe. There's nothing to fear. It's alright. Please, Caleb, it's alright."

Caleb bowed his head further at the memory. He could not bring himself to believe in those reassurances even now for they told nothing about the true state of reality. The words could merely be bait set by his delusion to keep the seventeen year old within its tangled confines. If that were the truth, then the words would not be the only bait set to accomplish such goals either.

The young rebel knew that the flaxen haired girl had been leaving, had deliberately waited until she was to question everything not wanting to admit the fact that she was merely a good dream when he had dreamed her so close to him. Blunk had been the one to fetch her back when he had overheard a few ragged gasps (sobs) and peeked in to see his best friend knelt on the floor struggling with the idea that Phobos was still King whilst the boy had wasted time living in his own fanciful illusion.

Or had Caleb simply imagined the passling fetching her? Had his dream rebelled against its impeding dismemberment by using any means necessary to keep him from accepting the truth a little longer? He could never deny her, real or not, no matter how much he needed to.

And yet denying her was exactly what he was doing now.

"Please, Caleb."

(A mess of blonde hair had flown out from the portal.

"Caleb!" the distraught girl had sobbed as she threw herself at him. "Oh God, Caleb…"

The young commander had stumbled back, arms flailing for a moment before he realised what to do with them. Then it was as simple an action as breathing to follow through. After all, it had always felt that she was the missing piece that fitted exactly against his chest and the piece that fitted inside his chest to make it truly whole.

"Hay Lin told me what happened. I couldn't- I mean you- I had to-"

Caleb smiled at his lover's less than usual eloquence. She sounded more like him trying to defend himself under her baleful stare than the strong and graceful Guardian he had fallen for. If it was at all possible, the boy loved her all the more for it.

"What if the worst had happened?"

He had produced a smirk and cocky words in return. "You won't lose me so easily."

"I don't want to lose you at all," had come her stubborn reply.

Then lip had crashed against lip in a release of anxiety and fear. The kiss was fast and fierce and chaste, each second accumulating into another until both lovers were left breathless and content. Indeed, if it was all a dream, perhaps there would be no harm in never waking…)

"Look at me."

Caleb could not. To look could prove that she was not real, a fact given away by blurry eyes or an outline that blended with her background too well. He did not want to lose his love to such a risky undertaking. He did not want to prove himself mad either. Yet, to look could as easily prove the Guardian and thus the mad world he had thought himself in true. It would mean that the peace he had helped bring would have vanished once again, suffocated under the ceaseless fighting that plagued Meridian. If that were the case, the young rebel would not know what to think or do. For all the duty that screamed within him, he wished that he could just simply lay down his sword and be happy. So his head remained fixed in its wilted place defiant of even her.

"Caleb really worrying Blunk now. Caleb need to come back now."

Large and slightly furry hands shook the boy's shoulders. For a moment the instant lent some kind of perverse humour to him as he realised that now his shoulders matched his hands.

And still a small part of his mind denied that same shaking. Shaking meant loss of control. Loss of control meant death, and if the world were indeed not as he had thought it was then death was as easy as a command dropped from Phobos' tyrannical lips.

(Visions of men with scarves around their lower face assaulted Caleb and his men. There was much shouting and clashing of steel, a warning call before the first pair of fighters met each other with weapons drawn. The attackers had come from nowhere at all. If it were possible, it would have seemed they sprung from the rumours being pursued by each solider at the time. Drake had been speaking to a woman, Caleb keeping a close eye on his passling friend, and then-

It seemed such a recent memory, but then so did his kiss with the blonde girl beside him. Perhaps they were both memories, just not of what he had thought.)

Real or not? The not seemed like a more likely answer to the young rebel leader for it made more sense for him to be mad than broken. Being broken was the antithesis of what he was: strong, capable, in control, fine. Madness though, madness was so far at the other end of the spectrum of who the boy was that it made more sense for him to be mad than for reasonable doubt to slowly be fracturing his mind with nightmares and fears that refused to fade in times of peace. Besides, was it not far better to have made a fake illusion to escape unending war than to slowly lose one's grip on a real Paradise?

A wretched sob wrangled itself free of Caleb's throat once again, breaking the lesson ingrained within to be silent when distressed. He did not know which was better. He did not know which was real.

When she spoke her voice cut through the fog in his mind like always with sharp but gentle precision. "If you won't look at me then tell me what's wrong. Speak to me Caleb. Please."

"I don't know." The words came unbidden from within him, commanded forth by the desperation of the love of his mind if not his real life and his own sorry state of confusion. "I…don't know. I don't know."

Real or not? Real or not? Was he mad or was he broken? Or was he mad whatever the case, for believing that peace could exist at all?

A listening silence had fallen in the room (or the room in his head) save for Caleb's own rapid breaths. His heart lurched painfully in his chest as it had for the past minutes, twisting this way and that more aggressively as his confusion spilt out in involuntary words.

"I don't know," the seventeen year old continued. "I-"

"What don't you know, Caleb?" The girl's voice was suddenly calmer, more controlled, almost as if afraid to further spook an already spooked creature.

"I-"

The former rebel glanced around his room (was it his room?), at the papers that littered the floor, at the painting only recently hung on the wall. The sunrise it captured glowed back at him, happy and beautiful and radiating the very peaceful calm he could no longer believe. (Perhaps the painting was what had caused him to break down in the first place, its idealistic scenery clashing too harshly with the cynical thoughts in his head).

Real or not?

He shook his head. "This is wrong."

"Why?" she asked gently, coaxing the answer from him. "Why is this wrong?"

The answer burst from the boy violently.

"Because it's supposed to have ended! There's not supposed to be attacks or fighting or rebels. There's not- It's- Everything just-" Caleb could not form the words, could not give voice to what had driven him to this state of confused madness. Paradise has fallen. "It's supposed to have ended, but it hasn't. There would be no need for rebels if it had ended."

Maybe that was it, the stone thrown against the glass of his surety. He was a rebel. His soul purpose had been to fight for the freedom of his people against a tyrant king. If he had succeed in that purpose what use would there be for other rebels? Yet, it was rebel blood he had been cleaning off his sword mere hours before.

But why? Why? It's supposed to have ended.

It could not be that he supported a vile and evil monarch. That was incomprehensible. It could not be that the people were attempting to violently dethrone a fair and kind Queen. That was wrong. It seemed a paradox or something of the sort, painful and inescapable, and as much as Caleb wanted to stay within this deceivingly safe realm, the only thing that would bring back painless sense was if he were to wake back to the world of his childhood where blood and petty tyrants reigned supreme.

It had to be fake. Horrific reality had to have leaked into a dream of his tainting it with disturbing and grotesque ideas. 'There's no escaping the oppression or the war' a fellow rebel had once told him when he was far younger. This only proved the old man's point. Nothing remained untouched by Phobos' dastardly touch, not even dreams or delusions.

"It was supposed to have ended…" The moan was of the same pitiful sound as child desperately scrabbling to keep some semblance of their naivety.

Paradise, it seemed, had fallen for a second time (if it had ever come into being at all). The need for swords had risen again right under their noses. An ambush – in another state of mind Caleb might have laughed the bitter laugh of those defeated by life who always knew that they would be as everyone always was. He would laugh and point to his father and sweep his arms wide as if saying 'I told you so, I told you so' for he had told them so. Danger! Danger! That incessant voice in his head had been right; there was danger threatening the Paradise they had built. Now that danger would bring their so called 'Paradise' to its feeble knees.

It was like a nightmare he could not wake from and, by everything that he held dear, the young rebel leader hoped that it was simply a nightmare. Paradise was not supposed to fall. He was not supposed to lose control of his own head.

Paradise is not supposed to fall.

Yet, here he was.

It would be better if there never had been a Paradise to begin with. That way he would only have to deal with madness and not the pain of losing when he had so very nearly won his heart's deepest desire.

"Caleb, it has ended." Now the unbridled concern from before was back in the girl's flowing voice.

"And how do you know that we're not just imagining it? That everything is not just wishful thinking?" he bit out with sudden savage and desperate scorn.

"Blunk couldn't imagine this." The voice that dared to speak was as honest as it was serious. "Blunk could only think of it vaguely. No more tyrant or snake-man or bullying of Blunk. Only good and happy things. But Blunk not imagine the festival or streets with playing children or not needing to watch over Blunk's shoulder every minute; Blunk not know how to imagine those things. They must be real for Blunk to know."

There was something familiar in the passling's words. Truly Caleb knew that in his younger years he would not have even comprehended the idea that people could laugh long and loud without suddenly sobering at the grimness of their situation. The ecstasy of a long-awaited freedom, walking instead of sneaking about in shadows, an unshared bedroom, banquets, dances, Earth, her – the young rebel leader could not have imagined her. But were madmen not capable of imagining the most fantastic and fanciful of things?

For a moment brown eyes assailed those of his small friend with a wild pleading. Pleading for what was debatable; Caleb's desire for the world before him to be a mere delusion was as torn as his surety that it was not. The seventeen year old did not want to be mad, but madness was more appealing than going back to that drawn out fight his fellow rebels were most assuredly losing despite their small gains. He was tired of fighting, sick of it to the core. He did not want to fight anymore.

Why did I have to fight rebels?

A flowery scent drifted in front of him and Caleb sobbed. He wanted it all to be real so badly, wanted it with every fiber of his being, but if it was real why had that utopia peace amongst the people been broken?

"Caleb…"

They boy's hands were still shaking, as much from emotion as some inexplicable thing. They shook even harder as more slender ones slid once more over them gently prying fingers from palms before damage could be done. She spoke again cursing him with a want that he knew could not be sated by the waking world. (Which was the waking world? The one he found himself in where good things were subverted by evil over and over? Where Paradises fell even as one was attempting to set the first foundation beneath it? Or the one where no such Paradise had yet been found only to shatter with the next power hungry ruler?)

"Caleb, please." She sounded as though she was crying too. "Please. I'm right here! I'm right here and so is Blunk and we're not going anywhere. I promise. Please, you're scaring me."

The words cut like a knife into his very soul. It also sobered him faster than ice water did a guard made stupid on ale. That he, Caleb, should cause the Earthen beauty against all her stubborn and graceful confidence to admit to being scared–

Such a notion pained the seventeen year old, dream or no.

"Please, Caleb."

Her voice was pleading, begging in such a way that the young rebel leader could scarcely associate with the flaxen haired girl he had conjured up. (And he must have conjured her up for nothing so perfect could exist in the world or his near seventeen years experience of it. It was all fighting and dying and fear and oppression, Paradises falling over and over and over. There was no room for flowers or love other than the familial. They were a dream reserved only for the naïve and mad.) Every beseeching syllable that fell from sweet lips drilled into Caleb's heart, into his very essence. Each sound tore fresh guilt and shame from where those feelings had collected in cesspits of rank and confusing memories until the pits were overflowing with battles and lost friends and slain foes. His hands shook, but they shook within another's trembling slender ones.

He had scared her, this thing of his dreams whom undeniably owned his heart. He was the reason she cried in salt and sound, this creature, this goddess of his mind. He was the reason she was desperately grasping at his hands, alternatively stroking them and squeezing them. It was a horrible realisation and the hidden cowardly depths of him wanted to flee, to wake and break free of this emotionally turbulent thing consuming him even if it meant accepting a tyrant as king. (Or Queen mother. Perhaps they had won the first war, but not the next. There were only so many times that something could fall before it could not rise again.) His braver side wilted beneath the weight of his burden, making it even easier for the coward to clamour for retreat.

Yet, another part of Caleb clamoured too. It was not brave, but more than simple longing, desiring to stay and heal her, sooth her, to hold this blonde dream close. It was selfish reasoning, but if the rebel leader were to wake than the girl would disappear like water vapour in the sun for it was unlikely that he could ever dream a dream so close to perfection again.

(Not for the first time Caleb wondered at how long he had been asleep if he was indeed asleep or else confined in the madness of his head. Was Aldarn worried? Was Drake? Was anyone still alive and free to worry or had Phobos' forces crushed the Rebellion once and for all?)

She was his addiction. Alone in a crumbling something – the world, his psyche, his hopes and dreams of Paradise – the Earthly Guardian gave him breath for all she restricted his chest. Every rise and fall driven by air was driven by his need to feel her presence a moment longer. It made no difference if she was a pretty illusion or a substantial person. The pain that would come from being without her would be as real as Caleb's shaking hands.

Perhaps it would be better to remain asleep…

Still, still there was one thing that spoke against beautiful flowers. Duty, his duty as leader of the Rebellion to free his oppressed people, his duty as a commander of the Queen's guard to ensure his people would never be oppressed again. Love was addictive but duty had molded him, had made him before he had made delusions. Through the bewildering sea the boy could feel it calling to him, demanding that he wake if it proved a dream, that he accept if it proved a reality. 'Answer the question' was its steadfast mantra. 'Answer and be done with it.'

Real or not? You must answer and do your duty.

The call caused through his churning blood as though it were his life-force itself. But flowers called him too as did fear of slow growing madness. They tugged him this way and that, towards one answer and than the other never letting Caleb realise the truth whatever it might be. Then there were the rebels of the recent (maybe) memory, the rebels that contradicted his intrinsic beliefs in one reality. The other battled with his desire for peaceful endings to foolish, petty kings.

Real or not? Real or not?

Surely a dream would not be so confusing.

A tiny shoot of hope pushed its green head valiantly through the swirling muck of bewilderment atop it. It was a bold little thing. Resilient, defiant, nothing else could be so clearly determined not to be crushed like the grand but fragile trees that had gone before. There was an answer, perhaps even one that allowed Caleb's lover to be more than a mere dream. There was an answer if only he had the courage to seek it.

It was on this notion that the shoot's roots delved into the matter of his consciousness. They grew rapidly and longer with every passing moment that the hope was allowed to fester, moving deeper and deeper until they tapped into a well that seemed to be the very core of the boy's confusion and all the emotions it had invoked. There was longing, fear and cowardice, anguish and wild desperation – each and every one rolled into a hard ball that had stuck in his chest. Now it stuck no more. Hope had pulled it free.

The ball rushed up Caleb's sternum, bubbling all the while as it lost its shape to a wave that engulfed him. He was caught by the magnitude of it all, paralysed and left bereft of tears as the wave expanded further and further until it covered everything in the world that the seventeen year old had questioned. For a moment it threatened to tear him excruciatingly apart.

Real or not, the three words the youth's world had been reduced to. Now it would be condensed further as it all rushed forth from his mouth, the shoot, the roots, the confusion, the coward and the longing – everything squashed into three more tentative words:

"Is this real?"

Then Caleb sagged, utterly spent. He could do no more, offer no more. So he waited for an answer be it bad or good, even if he did not know which was bad or which good – that he was mad or that there were rebels he had fought.

A hand came up to cup his weary, tear stained face.

"Yes. This is real, Caleb."

Yet it was the little green passling beside him that finally convinced the former rebel leader, him and his string of frantic affirmatives. The blonde girl would not lie to him in reality, but if this reality were a dream than she was the spell that kept him under. Blunk, Blunk had no reason to lie. The seventeen year old was not focused on him. In correspondence with the law of dreams (and not the vivid nature of nightmares, for anything with her so reassuringly close could hardly be a nightmare) his good friend should have blurred a little, faded even, but he had not.

"Blunk's smell is real," the passling continued earnestly. He even offered a lifted arm as proof. "Can't fake Blunk's smell."

Just as the undesirable odour had woken Caleb from a catatonic state before, so it woke him from the crippling confusion. No dream of his would contain, could contain such a terrible imagined stench.

The former rebel doubled further from where he knelt hazardously on the ground. So far did he bow beneath the shock of snapping back into himself that his head almost brushed the familiar floor of his room. The air suddenly felt indisputably cold on his face. The floor was indisputably hard against his legs. It was real, all of it, the victory, the peace, the rebels, the blonde girl beside him. It was all very much real.

"Caleb?"

"I'm sorry." Automatic words, as sincere as they could be from one who had very nearly lost his mind.

"Don't be."

"I-" It was all real and so, in that moment, was his blatant vulnerability. "How will I know this is real if I doubt it again? What if I forget? What if I forget you, both of you?"

"Blunk will remind Caleb," Bunk swore solemnly. "Caleb can count on Blunk."

"But what if that's not enough next time?"

The silence was heavy, crushing all three present with thoughts that none of them wanted to think. Yet, they could not help but think it.

Caleb gripped his knees then released them, fisting his hands before forcing them to hang loosely against his legs. He was scared, he could admit that even if it was just for the immediate present, scared that he would be dragged back into the same confusion he had only just escaped. He was scared that the fracturing he had anguished over would happen, was already happening to the one thing he had learned to rely on above all else – his mind. What good was he to the kingdom, to Elyon, to anyone who needed him if he could not control his own head? What good would he be in defending against those who would see peace ended like the so-called rebels he had only so recently face?

It was almost enough to send him back into hysterics, only now he was more sober than ever. Even if his head felt weirdly light, the boy was all too aware of the consequences of such a loss of control. And yet, and yet…

I am fine. I have to be.

He just had to ensure that he never toed the line of madness again.

But how?

His hands kept up their shaking.

Then she spoke, the familiar problem-solving confidence back now that her lover was. "You're afraid that you'll forget what's real again?"

Caleb swallowed and nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"I think I've figured out a way to help you remember this is real if you do." There was a pregnant pause. "Look, please."

Caleb lifted his head.

The usually bare window which had held a variety of large and vibrant blooms so many days before was now filled with a thick bush of dainty, faint purple flowers on the ends of leafy sprigs.

"Rosemary," their maker said in his ear. "They are for you to remember."

"Pretty flowers," Blunk agreed. He patted Caleb's hand again.

"This is real," the scented flowers spoke softly.

Caleb hesitantly touched one, shivering at the velvety leaves contrasted with the silken feel of the tiny petals beneath his fingertips.

"You are real," the flowery fragrance continued. "We are real."

Blunk nodded in agreement off to the side. "Caleb real. Pretty blonde girl real. Blunk very real."

The young commander reached out a steadied hand to touch the plants again. He closed his eyes and smelt the sharp twang as the small leaves were bent by his fingers. He traced their delicate veins, imagining that he could sense the life throbbing within in them just as she could. Yes. This was real.

"See," the voice breathed. Lips pressed against his fervently. He kissed her back just as hard.

The two pulled apart, breaths intoxicated with something far more potent than any substance. Here they stayed, their foreheads pressed together with the only touch they needed, tear tracks still evident on their faces. A skinnier pair of arms with large hands wrapped themselves almost unnoticed around the boy's waist, adding their own physical reassurance to the mix. The boy merely stared into the girl's vibrant eyes and tentatively smiled.

Yes, this was real. For it to be anything else, for the glow in his chest that grew the longer he held her gaze with his friend's arms around him to be anything else, was impossible.

If anyone noticed Caleb twirling a sprig of rosemary between his fingers for the rest of the day, stopping every so often to trace the leaves and sniff his fingers with a ghostly smile on his lips, no one said anything about it. If fathers noticed a lessening of broken edges in their sons' eyes, they stayed silent too.


IN TERMS OF PLANT MEANING: rosemary = remembrance. It also has a distinct smell and strong smell that can't really be dismissed as fake (well, it could, but the idea in my head is that the smell/feel could cut through a panic attack or memory and bring him back somewhat). Thus I chose it for Cornelia to give to Caleb to help remind him that the world he is in now is real. Plus it links him further with her.

This is a partial fill for ZikkiLightwoodShadowhunters' request that Cornelia see Caleb in a less than favourable state. I worked it in with an idea I already had going and twisted it a little bit so it was more Caleb's perspective of her seeing it, so hopefully it turned out well. It was a LOT harder than I thought it would be to write this chapter in full from Caleb's perspective, so if it's confusing or badly written I do apologise. The next few chapters will also be stemming from prompts and suggestions.

ON CALEB'S FEAR THAT THE WORLD ISN'T REAL, JUST A DREAM/DELUSION:

As established in previous chapters Caleb as I've written him is afraid that the bottom is going to drop on the peaceful 'Paradise' they are in. It's already happened once (with Nerissa) so in hi mind his thoughts revolve around what is to say it won't happen again? Given he was raised (bar two years he doesn't really remember) in a civil war situation under Phobos' tyranny his entire life until 15/16 when Phobos was defeated, which reverted back to Nerissa than Phobos, and then 17 which is the now, I think he would also have a fear deep inside him that everything is just a dream/not real. In other words, as fighting and war and oppression is what he mostly knows he fears that things will not just revert back to the old, but that they never left. Which brings in the question of him going mad. This fear, I believe, would kind of be something he a) doesn't truly realise he has and/or b) doesn't really address. It kind of just exists there in the crevices of his mind. Until this chapter. ;)

This chapter I decided to explore this fear of his and thus have him question whether everything around him in this 'new' life (including from when the Guardians first entered his life) to now is real or a dream or a nightmare. WHY I feel he would delve into this so blatantly now and not before is because of the fact he fought rebels last chapter. There would have been rumours of unrest and possibly some riots, etc. before last chapter (and I think Caleb was investigating said rumours), but to actually be attacked by an organised group puts another question into Caleb's head that questions what he knows and plays on this fear. As I said before he has lived under oppression for most of his 17 year long life and all of his childhood (excluding 2 years before when he was first born and a few instances of peace from 16-17). AS WELL AS THIS he also grew up amongst rebels dedicated to putting an end to Phobos' tyrannical reign for the good of the land and people. Thus his knowledge of rebels is skewed to his experience: they fight against oppression for good. He himself was a rebel who fought for this cause. Now the original Rebel group he led have disbanded under Queen Elyon whom many, including himself, guard and help maintain her reign. So when rebels attack to get rid of the new Queen his knowledge is flipped - either the rebels are opposing a tyrant which he is supporting, or the rebels who are supposed to - in his head - help the people against a bad ruler are attacking a good Queen. Neither fits in with his mind view (at this point; don't worry, he'll expand it later) and thus makes him question whether things are real because it doesn't make sense otherwise (he can't be supporting a bad ruler, but his experience with rebels say that they can't be attacking a good one). Thus the rebels become something that he thinks could be 'reality' (i.e. still fighting Phobos or whatnot) leaking into his delusion/dream.

The icing on the cake that pushed him off the edge though, is the fighting itself. Note that this fight is the first I envision of people actually working against other people - not so much a riot or a monster needing to be taken care of. Also note that this is the first major fight I envision Caleb in after they defeated Nerissa and took down Phobos again (bar any fights at the very beginning that required Phobos supporters being taken down). These facts alone would probably affect him a) proving him right about his fears that they are still threatened and not safe (Gees, definitely going to be a backlash there) and b) makes him wonder whether they had succeeded at all because if they had everything was supposed to have ended. This paves the way for a good session of doubting the existence of everything and reality itself. But alone I doubt it would be enough to cause him to doubt everything including Cornelia, but with his own experience of life being mainly fighting/oppression/tyrants and the rebel thing above I feel that it would be.

Alright, I'm losing the plot here... Simply put, the rebels + the fighting + Caleb's life experience = major fear and thus doubting of everything including Cornelia. If that makes sense.

And Cornelia isn't the one to pull him from his funk because she would be so deeply ingrained in his version of 'Paradise' which he is doubting. Blunk's stench, on the other hand, I figured is kind of hard to deny. ;)

A FINAL NOTE ON LENGTH OF UPDATES - I know I said I would try fortnightly, but that's clearly not going to happen due to life. :-/ I'll try my best, but as of now this is shifting down in priority list to my own writing and life in general. That said it will most assuredly not be abandoned. Feel free to nag politely for an update though. ;)

Please review if you feel so inclined, I would appreciate it very much.

Also, if you have any suggestions for situations regarding this series they would like to see feel free to PM me or leave a review.