Safety was opalescent, soft fluff pressed between and wrapped around some of the heaviest blocks.

Anticipation felt like tiny steel-pointed wheels that ran up the inside of her ribs and made her neck itch.

Joy was pink and orange, raining down around her and brushing her skin like rose petals born in a sunset.

Love was blue and silver, the surface of a lake at dawn, its mirrored surface giving reflection and promising depth.

Then, she came to the sections that were protecting the things she had tried to forget. All of the warmth and energy she had pulled in began to leach out again in tiny pulses.

Fear was black, chased in a sickly yellow-green, and it shadowed her eyes from behind as she pulled back thin, razor-edged discs that fit in every nook and cranny and were sticking to almost every other section of the wall.

The books turned out to be a combination of avoidance and denial. Some of the books came back whole, but others had to be pulled back page by page; a draining, tedious process. The pages showed her things she had protected herself from, or things that she might have had if she'd been willing to risk it. Zara wasn't sure which were more difficult to accept. Those emotions made her feel the drop and slide of freezing water down her spine, the chill spreading slowly, relentlessly.

She didn't remember exactly when she had sat down on the ground. It didn't matter.

Contempt was thick and hot, with a piercing smell of paving tar that stung the inside of her nose.

Grief and loss. Icy clear.

Shame was dark purple and sticky, collecting under her nails and clogging her eyelashes. The bits that flew into her mouth tasted like bile.

Slowly, the anger built up. Anger at herself for constructing all of these ridiculously layered defenses; anger at Charles for making her take them apart because of something he had done. Anger that she had to call back fear, shame, grief, and a thousand things more that she had wanted to be done with, to forget about, to leave behind.

She focused that anger into a point and flung it at one of the largest bricks she could see, and it exploded with a boom. Satisfaction spread through her body a moment before burning pain rushed over her skin and she convulsed, the ground reaching up and smacking her on the side of her head.

Shortly after Zara collapsed to the ground, Charles let himself drop as well, conserving the rest of energy for the dismantling still to come. Her anger was inevitable, Charles knew, but it still hurt him to see it. "Zara," He called to her, "The anger turns on you. Look at your hands."

She held them up and saw what looked like hundreds of tiny cuts beginning to ooze blood. She choked in fury, and several other bricks exploded in response. The sound rang painfully in his head as he watched her body contort again. More specks of blood started to blossom from her skin. Charles' own pulse roared in his ears as he half-crawled up to where Zara lay and fell alongside her, trying to suppress his own pain.

"Charles," she groaned. "Too tired. Let the rest stay, I don't care what happens."

He pulled her back against him so that he could murmur into her ear. "Zara, please, you have to keep going."

"No. Enough."

"You can do it."

"No. Done."

"They're part of you, you have to let them be part of you."

"Don't want them. They hurt."

"I know they hurt, and I know you're very tired. It's not much longer now."

Tap. Tap. Tap. There was something he needed to remember.

Zara turned her head and looked at him through hazy eyes. Her lips were blue, and a quick glance at her hands showed that the nail beds were gray. Lack of oxygen. He smiled at her as best he could, taking one of her hands between his and rubbing it to bring some warmth back, the drops of blood smearing as he did so. Charles closed his eyes and let his mental energy flow out into Zara, connecting with her mind and syncing her breathing and heartbeat with his own.

Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap...It was something important.

"Charles?" he heard Zara ask, and then white hot pain shot from behind his eye.

Hank had been desperately trying to get Charles' attention, and when the agreed-upon signal failed to work, he resorted to inducing pain by pressing the supraorbital nerve just below the eyebrow. Charles' head snapped up and he tried to strike out, his wrists pulling against the restraints.

"Charles? Charles!" Hank snarled, his hands pressing down on Charles' shoulders to keep him still.

Charles' eyes slivered open, unfocused and with pupils blown. "Hank...?" came the whisper.

"Yes. Charles, listen to me. It's been six hours. You have to finish this soon."

"Right..." he mumbled.

"No." Hank gave him a mild shake. "You have to finish it soon, Charles. Zara is doing all right, but you...you're sliding."

"Sliding."

"Yes, Charles. You're putting more energy into supporting Zara than you're keeping for yourself. It can't last."

"S'okay, Hank. Almost done." His eyes started to close, and Hank ruthlessly pressed on the nerve again, causing Charles to yell and thrash in response. "Charles..." Hank trailed off, his mind racing to come up with the right thing to say. "Charles," he started again. "Please, stop while you can. Your pulse is getting erratic, your blood pressure is dropping. I don't have life-support equipment here. If you slip farther...I don't know if I can pull you back."

Charles' eyes were distant, but a half-smile lit his face before the blue eyes closed again. Hank swore in frustration and snatched up a syringe, his large paw handling the thin tube with care. He plunged the needle into Charles' IV and pushed the liquid in, slowly and steadily. Atropine. In small doses, a cerebral excitant. It might help.

"Charles? Are you all right? What's happening?" Zara gave him a shake and Charles' eyes focused on her again. "M'fine, Zara..." he said, attempting a smile.

"Charles, I don't know how to finish this. There are too many. I don't know what to do."

"Zara...told you..." Charles' voice was softer. "You built this wall...out of love."

"It's gone, Charles, that's gone! All of the good things are gone. There's only bad things left."

"You can find it, Zara...you've got to find it."

"I can't find love in all the things I hate about myself!"

"There's much, much more to you than hate."

"No, Charles! I won't do this, do you hear me? I won't take these things back, I will not do it. They're the worst things about me, they shouldn't have to be part of me, I hate all of them!" There was another explosion, Zara cried out in pain and blood started to drip from her nose.

His hands gripped her arms so tightly that her skin burned. "That's it, Zara, that's exactly it. You think by hating them, you'll get rid of them. All you've done by hating them is to make them stronger. By hating them, you've created this—" and he turned her face so the wall filled her vision.

She was holding closest the things that hurt her the most.

"Have you thought..." he whispered to her, "that if you're afraid of what's on the other side of this wall, it will never come down?"

"The other side?"

"Yes. Your energy is in motion, trying to get out, beyond the wall. What's it trying to get to, Zara?"

She knew immediately. "My stars."

He turned her face to him gently, his eyes looking into hers with compassion. "Sometimes, Zara, we love things so much, we think we don't deserve to be a part of them."

In that moment, she finally understood.

Inside her anger, there was love. Betrayal, grief, shame, fear, everything. Love was at the core of them all. She gasped with the knowledge and looked at the wall again.

The bricks were changing, blocks of pain and contempt wrapped in steel and obsidian flickering as silvery-blue threads lit up within each of them, running through all of them, tiny bits of love that had remained hidden until this moment. She inhaled and her breath hitched a few times before it became a laugh, joy pulsing through her, her strength finally returning.

"Charles, look!" She turned back once more and an icy hand clutched her stomach as she saw Charles, lying ghostly pale with his eyes closed. Zara dragged herself upright and reached out towards the wall, commanding the threads with an ownership she had never felt before. Silver-blue crackled through the wall like lightning and shot towards her, through her, and on a wild impulse she grabbed on to Charles so that the light shot through him as well.

The wall disappeared.

Zara had one split second to marvel at the sight before the light crashed in on her and Charles both, flowing into her as though feeling was returning to her limbs after a lifetime of numbness. She tried to wrap her arms around Charles, but it felt like she couldn't get close to him again, her hands were grasping at air—

"Zara, you're okay, do you understand? Just relax, nothing's wrong, you're all right."

"Charles?" she managed to gasp, Hank's blue form blurry in her sight.

"He'll be all right. Very tired, just like you. But you did it, Zara. You did it."

Zara tugged on the restraints holding her wrists. "Hank..." she said hoarsely.

Hank moved over and began gently unwinding the fabric. "Zara, take it easy, please."

"Yes...will. Just need...see."

She reached out as soon as her first wrist was free, and once the second was released she turned towards Charles, pulling herself towards him, sighing with relief as she felt his warmth. A bit further, and she could rest her head on his shoulder, taking comfort in the sound of his breathing.

"It's all right," he whispered, barely audible. "I'm here." He reached up and rested his hand on her head.

"I'm here too," she whispered back, holding him tighter and smiling through tears. "Charles, it's wonderful."