A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing :)

…-…

So, I was swinging my blades at the target dummy, trying to be more precise—I'd marked a few places I wanted to aim for so that I could see how good my accuracy was…it's not great—when suddenly two hands clamped down on mine. It hurt, because it kind of crushed my hands into the daggers I was holding.

When I realized they were human hands, I glared up, thinking this was one of Brath's latest ideas to help me learn combat readiness. Like, the gloves should have tipped me off that it wasn't Brath, but…yeah. I'm not the best with details.

Instead of my dragon, I found Nicolas. This man…he would never make it in polite society. No clue how to give a casual greeting or anything. He's straight to business. Well, as he kept my hands in his vice grips, he had this expression…total incredulity.

So…apparently mages and rogues hold daggers differently. When Nicolas found out that I'd asked a mage for tips, he'd ranted that he was going to have to re-teach me and that I'd be harder to train since I'd already learned a wrong way.

I mean, he was gone for over a month—and left when I was all catatonic—and the first thing he does when he gets back is yell at me? I was not having that. It was week five since I'd sent my message and my hopes were getting pretty bleak. And on top of worrying about my world, there was Brath who's future was linked to it, and then Fizz. I mean, what if he does something to screw up and shows his allegiances to the Horde? If we recruit them for saving my world, then maybe we can stage something to make it look like he's just picking a side instead of, you know, spying on the Exodar. Because, I mean, come on. He has to be. Every walkway he memorizes could be used against the Alliance, even if he doesn't mean for it to now.

And then, I mean, I was worried about them. Clara and the others. I guess, maybe even Nicolas. I tried pestering people about how long these raids generally took and all I got was a lecture about how long it might take to get to the place and then what sort of enemy it was. Like, I guess there are evil dwarves? And when their city was infiltrated and their leaders killed, the people who did it were in there for two weeks.

Well, I'd asked if they were off defeating Deathwing—I'm getting really good with names—but nobody really knew. I think they tried to keep quiet about it for security reasons, you know? Like, so that their enemies wouldn't know who to look for.

Anyway, no one knew how long they'd take or if they'd all make it back and so I was kind of worried that something would happen.

And I was kind of thinking that I might hug a few people when they got back.

Nicolas made sure that I forgot about that. He practically broke one of my fingers as he jerked my daggers from me and held them up, an irritated tick in one of his eyebrows as he spoke. "What in the nether are you doing?"

"Training?" I glared at him, devising a witty comeback to follow my comment with, but he spoke before I could.

"And why are you holding your daggers like you're a damned mage?" I think the look on my face explained everything to him because in a second he had both daggers tucked under one arm and he was pinching the bridge of his nose with his other arm crossed horizontally in front of him, his hand balled into a fist. Like he was trying to keep from throwing my daggers at me. "How long have you been practicing like this?"

I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling like one of my teaches had called on me to explain some book we were supposed to read, but I forgot to. "Um…maybe a week?"

His next question kind of threw me.

"And you're getting a feel for it?" When I just blinked, he shrugged, his face creepishly calm. "You're getting the hang of it? Your weapons fit into your hands more easily now that you've been practicing?"

I shrugged and then nodded. I was getting used to using them, after all.

He smacked me on the side of the head.

Even as I cried out and dodged back a few steps away from him—he was not impressed with my evasion skills, either, I could tell—he threw my daggers on the ground and let out a string of curses. "Do you have any idea how far back you've set yourself?" When I tried to reply, he shook his head and clapped a hand over my mouth to make sure I wouldn't talk back. "I'm going to have to re-teach you to hold them. Unlearning your idiocy is going to take far longer than simply learning them."

I shoved his hand away and…if I could take back my next words, I totally would. But, yeah. I can't.

"Well you took your sweet time getting back!"

He looked like I'd run him through with something. And then he looked away and ran his hands down his face, stopping to cover his mouth for a moment before finally looking back at me. Suddenly, I was terrified that he was going to ask about my world. That he would try to inflict the same pain that I'd somehow done to him.

Instead, he let his hand fall down to his side and looked at the target dummy I'd been beating on, frowning as he inspected the scratches on it. And my markers. "Don't mention the raid to Clara or Eric, alright?" TJ's name is Eric. I don't know how I got that so wrong. Even as I made my mental note, he took in a deep breath and stooped down to pick up my daggers, flipping them in his hands as he looked at their poor quality. "If they bring it up, then fine. But I don't want you to."

"Why? What happened?" Maybe he'd been hinting that he didn't want to talk about it either, but… The subject had already been breached, you know? "It was to kill Deathwing, right? Brath's dad?"

He looked me over for a moment. "It was."

"Then you won," I said it matter-of-factly. After all, he was standing in front of me, and Brath had said that his dad was dead already.

"Randall's dead."

I felt like my heart would stop. Not because I could remember Randall, because he'd been the responsible one or because he'd been almost as nice as TJ. The look on Nicolas face when he said it… I didn't have to know either of them to know that they'd been like family to one another. Or Nicolas had at least viewed him that way.

"What do you think you're doing?"

His voice had that harsh edge to it that I loathed, but I ignored it and kept hugging him. The way he felt…it's how I feel when I think about Greg or my parents and how I've failed them.

When he finally managed to get me to let him go, he started to head back toward the inn, though I kind of pointed out that I couldn't go there. Well, he said that we needed to get Clara and TJ—Eric, anyway, so we headed over. At first it was in silence and I figured that was as good as we'd get. I was trying to think of how to greet Clara and Eric without pretending I didn't know or, you know, harping on the fact that they'd just lost a friend. Like, just waving and saying 'hi' seemed pretty callous.

But then Nicolas started talking.

It wasn't just Randall. Like half their raid died.

They were doing really well until right at the end when Deathwing did this last ditch attempt to take them down with him. I guess he lunged at some other important dragon? But Derres shot in front and took the brunt of the damage, and when he and Deathwing collapsed onto where the heroes were, that's what killed them. From what I gathered, they were on this tiny, tiny rock in the middle of the ocean, which was super choppy and unpleasant, and Deathwing's head hit the rock at an angle and splintered it, crushing some people right away and sending others into the waters, where they drowned.

I don't know how Randall died exactly and I…I don't want to. I don't want to ask Nicolas to relive those memories, even if he already is.

Derres is gone, too. I…don't think he's dead? I was kind of amazed that Nicolas would even confide in me, even if it was just telling me simple facts about what had happened. And I didn't want to press him when he was obviously hurting. I think Derres went off with some other dragons because his wings were damaged really badly from his fall, but I don't know if they expected him to make a recovery or not and Nicolas didn't really hint one way or the other.

I feel like asking to clarify would be too morbid.

And I also feel bad because it never occurred to me that they were facing their own apocalypse. Even when Brath talked about wiping out all life, it didn't really dawn on me, you know? It must have sucked, spending some of their last free time down in Booty Bay and then having some strange person try to talk them into rallying the armies, when they were already rallied for something else. I mean, until I'd come along, Deathwing was pretty much their last main threat, right? Now they know they have a whole other world to deal with.

Oh, and Eric lost an eye. Apparently healing magics still need all the pieces to repair them, so like, if you cut your thumb off, it can be healed back on, but if it gets blown to pieces, you're down an appendage. Eric's eye was taken out by some sort of shrapnel near the end of the fight, so they were lucky to heal him up as well as they did. Nicolas told me he was only saying anything so that I'd know and try not to stare. I guess Eric's kind of self-conscious?

Well, even as Nicolas was starting to turn the conversation toward my training—I couldn't be mad at him anymore for being so mean, given the circumstances—we heard this fierce clopping noise. I'd never really seen any draenei run before, much less heard them. So…it was a little disconcerting.

I followed Nicolas' gaze, as he figured out the direction of the sound before I did, and my eyes widened as I saw Neesera tear around a corner, her brilliant gaze sweeping across the open area, only to hone in and lock on me. A giant grin stretched her lips as she tore toward us, barely skidding to a stop long enough to grab my hand before turning around and heading back the way she'd come from.

As Nicolas easily kept pace with us and I felt like my arm would jerk out of its socket, I managed to ask what was going on and Neesera glanced over her shoulder at me, her hair flailing around her face and those odd tentacles—did I ever mention the draenei have tentacles?—slipping over her shoulder.

"You must see to believe!"

Well, I was not in the mood for enigmatic answers, and neither was Nicolas. He mirrored my frown as he asked, "What do we have to see?"

Even as Neesera laughed, she turned a corner, nearly sending me stumbling into Nicolas—he was agile enough to dodge me—and I realized that we were heading toward the room that had housed the window. "Your message has been answered!"

Well.

I don't think either of them realized I could move so fast, but in a breath, I was dragging Neesera the last few yards, slipping into that enclosed space where I'd spent days and days staring at images of gore and death.

To say my message was answered was a bit of an understatement.

I barely managed to tumble to a stop as I saw the young boy standing in front of Maevlen and Fizz, clutching a backpack—a mass produced backpack—in front of him like a shield as he stared around him in bewilderment. I heard Fizz mumble something about his translation spell having trouble sticking and Maevlen rattling off about having to finish the connection to my world from this side for some sort of portal, but it didn't register.

What did register was the band logo on the sleeve of the frayed and dirt-stained t-shirt the boy was wearing, the sneakers poking out from under his ripped jeans, their laces undone, and the glasses resting on his nose, definitely made using some sort of machine that was used to mass production.

My knees gave out and I found myself on the floor staring up at the kid in front of me. He couldn't have been more than twelve, but that hardly mattered. He was from my world, without a doubt.

We weren't too late.