A/N: Okay guys, I've dragged it on for ages, but we're up to the movie now. So things are going to go ahead at last, (again sorry for taking so damned long) so please enjoy.

And remember, I own nothing but my characters and somewhat this story.

I was starting to think that it must have been some kind of mysterious force screwing me over, since I still hadn't told Sandy how I felt.

And it had been more than ten years since I 'allegedly' got the confidence to tell him.

…

Yeah my track record is looking pretty good now right?

How was it even possible that I was the only talker in the relationship, but for some reason I can't say anything?

Standing where I was now, looking in the full length mirror of my small home and glaring at my form that was reflected back to me, I was left to think over how I could have let it get this far, how I could be able to hold back how I felt about him for so long. By this point I knew it was more than just myself being a coward, since even cowards would really look upon this situation with confusion and a mix of pity and shame for me. Not that they would have needed to, since I was running that shame parade well enough by myself. Even now I could feel that small smidgens of self pity grow in the pit of my stomach, that smidgen wanted me to quit though, to give up on telling the Golden Guardian how I felt. And while feeling bad for myself was certainly a good looking prospect, being happy with the man I loved was much, much better. So I was not going to let it win me over, I crushed that smidgen whenever I felt it grow.

It might seem strange that I believed there to be a mysterious force behind me not telling someone my love for them, but then again looking back through the ten years of attempts to do what I wanted, and for some reason, every single time, the attempts failed, it was definitely suspicious. There were many times over the years, times that I tried much harder in the circumstances than probably would usually be necessary for such an occasion, but really things were starting to get a little suspicious by the end of the first year of me, failing to tell Sandy that I loved him.

Actually it might be more than that; it was getting closer to a fact for me that in my opinion alone, something was stopping me, and stopping me good. And the worst part, a part that made me afraid more than anything else, was that I had a good reason to be suspicious of this in the first place. Because it was not the first time that something mysterious had influenced me in my life.

Which lead me back to the reason I was staring myself in the mirror in the first place. I was waiting for a sign on my person that something I didn't want to be true might come back, something I was afraid of naming, in fear that it would come back anyway. What I was looking for in particular were the signs I always carried in me from those times, specifically, the mark on my neck, and the frightening black in my eyes taking over the irises altogether. The signal of my eyes was more important than the long gone mark on my neck, since it was more of a sure sign of what was happening, whether or not I was on to something, or just going crazy.

So far nothing had happened yet, but still I wasn't ready to stop looking, to stop waiting for what I hoped to god was not the inevitable here. I was afraid of moving away from the mirror, since it was possible that because I was not watching myself closely, something might happen. I hadn't moved for some time, rushing up to stare at myself in the mirror the moment these dots connected in my mind, which was a few hours ago. I stared down every aspect of my eyes and face, looking at every flaw and line in hope that I could find something to confirm that I actually was just crazy, since being back in that hell was not something I could take again.

A knocking at my door made me jump out of my skin, and I unintentionally looked away from the mirror to the door, my nerves going crazy as for some reason I wanted nothing more than to run and hide. But I swallowed my fears, joining the large lump of completely different and messed up feelings that I didn't have the time to name at that moment as I walked to the door, my hand shaking so bad that it slipped and missed the doorknob more than once. After the fifth time of failing to open the door, I stopped myself and took a deep breath. I looked back down at my hands, which were now at least shaking a little less, so I managed to open the door at last.

"S-sandy?" The Guardian looked confused at the frayed nerves that I knew he could see in my eyes, and was about to say something but I guess I surprised him by stepping out with him and closing the door. I didn't want to stay in my house for much longer, it felt caged in there, stifling to the point that I didn't want to be on my own just yet. There was a feeling that I was just being ridiculous with my thoughts that something in my head was returning, but all the same I didn't want to be alone, just in case. Locking the door I looked back and smiled at him, hoping it would mislead him for a moment to not being as worried as I was.

He eventually smiled back, and I felt so much better just seeing him happy, even if he was doing it for my benefit, like I was doing for him. We walked together for a little while through the forest, which was a little difficult now than it usually would be since the sun was now setting and turning to night again. After a time I felt his hand slip into mine, feeling the warmth in his hand radiating to my one, taking away any of the nerves that made my hands shake. But of course the nervousness weren't gone altogether as Sandy watched me as I looked practically everywhere while I was walking, which of course ended up with me tripping over a root in the ground.

The Guardian quickly caught me before the rest of me could make acquaintance with the ground again, but alas, that didn't do much for my ankle, which was now making painful spikes up and down my leg and creating pained tears in my eyes. I tried to hide how much I was hurt, since I didn't want to worry Sandy anymore than I had. Though of course I couldn't hide the pain for long as when the golden Guardian tried to get me to stand up again, the result was of me falling down and getting caught by his waiting arms once more, except this time with a pained cry as I grabbed my injured leg.

Clover let me look at it; I need to see how bad it is so I can help you. Sandy messaged as he sighed after I had refused again to let him see my foot, which I had no doubt had been swelling under the leather of my boot. The Guardian then lifted me bridal style, and we shot up into the air until the sunlight was clearer for the both of us, and the forest was far below us. A sand cloud was created for us to sit (and me to lie down) on. After he was sure I was lying down comfortably (after asking me several hundred times) his small hand slowly touched the heel of the boot, attempting to take it off, but stopped immediately after I yelled in pain following the first tug against the boot to take it off.

Are you okay? He asked for the umpteenth time, and I tried to nod my head but it truly hurt too much to lie, even for his benefit. I know I must have looked so silly and childish, over a twisted ankle of all things, but it really did hurt. But in spite of that, I tried to keep the tears in so as to not look so foolish, biting my bottom lip and looking away as Sandy tugged at the boot again, and eventually got it too come off. I sniffled and whined still like a baby as he was gently touching the skin, feeling for any broken bones or anything like that. Eventually I turned back and looked at the ankle, taking a deep breath as I saw the blue hue surrounding and swelling on my ankle and slightly upwards.

Not long after I had looked back at my foot, Sandy had stopped feeling around for any extra injuries, then moved his hand so some sand from the cloud surrounded the injured foot, burying it in the soft yellow texture. I gasped slightly as the sand started to vibrate and create a strange feeling of warmth that spread from around my foot to up my leg. The feeling of pain was passing away with every feeling of the vibration to the injury, and eventually I lied down on the golden surface as I relaxed. Sandy lied down next to me after some time as well, and I held his hand again, my thumb brushing small circles on his palm.

We laid there for some time, watching the sky above us as it went from the colors of the setting sun, to full and completely dark night. After some time though, Sandy had to sit up and guide the cloud to a nearby town, creating a message over his head that I guessed was the explanation that he needed to do his job right now, but I didn't really see it, and even then I didn't care. I was still lying down, looking up at him as he sent golden strands from inside the cloud and towards the town below, his head swaying from one side to another in harmony of his work, when I suddenly had a thought of what a good time it was now to tell him what I felt. Or at least the suspicion that I had that was stopping me from doing so.

"Sandy, I need to tell you something," I felt a small flush on my face as he suddenly gave me his full attention, looking away from the town below us and directly at me. Words stumbled in my mouth, and I felt that small twinge of self pity and the strange need to not say anything growing in my stomach again. But I did my best to ignore it, instead attempting to sit upright so I could somehow clear my thoughts, and at the same time give me time to think over what I was going to say. Of course the Guardian tried to stop me, but instead of fighting his hands away, I reached my hand out to pull his head forward so I could reach, and kissed his forehead. Again, so tempted to kiss him fully, but again I guess that was something I still chickened out over.

"I need you to listen okay, I just… I need to find the words to explain…" His liquid golden orbs peered up at me as my forehead was touching his, seeing the sudden look in his eyes, a look that was hard to place a name to, but was creating a really good feeling in my stomach that was giving me courage to say whatever I needed to say. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, while I wrapped mine around his shoulders. I wanted to say it now, shout it even if I had to, since it was so hard to keep it in, it had been difficult enough to keep it in all this time and was certainly difficult to do it now.

"Just… I…" Another deep breath, finding the words was so hard, but then again there were only three words I had to say. There was nothing that was going to distract me now, not even the lower tones of pain in my foot, or anything else. No, nothing distracted me, but of course something distracted him to looking away from me, and I felt coldness in me when his arms let go of me. And though the warmth of his golden sand shifted only a few centimeters away, to me, and my heart, it felt like he was on the other side of the world to me at that moment.

He was looking up to the sky, or at least I noticed that when I managed to summon enough in me to look up at him through my red fringe. So I looked as well, and sure enough there was the Aurora Borealis, searing its way across the sky and rudely interrupting what I refused to think as my last attempt to tell Sandy how I felt. Though of course that feeling of this being the last chance when Sandy gave me a small apologetic look, and said with the figures over his head, that he had to leave now. I wasn't sure what was with me, but all of a sudden I got this feeling that I had to hold on to him like I was before, and not let him leave. So I did.

Clover, please let go.

The Guardian often found himself saying this recently as we had gotten together, and just like every other time, I was not going to relent to his polite request. But this time I was not kidding around or anything like that, there was a genuine sentiment of needing to stay and stick by him, and not let him leave my sight. His hands grasped, as they always did, to my arms that were wrapped around his chest, my head on his back instead of usually on his shoulder. I guess my silence must have given some kind of sign to him that no, I was not joking around with him again, and he let go of my hands, turning instead to look at me. His question of what was bothering me was written all over his face, so asking it aloud wasn't needed.

"There's… I don't know, but I feel like I shouldn't let you go, at least on your own… Can I come with you?"

You know you can't, it's a-

"Yes I know, a Guardian situation. But still… I just." Words were leaving me again, and I was really starting to hate it. Sandy tried to move again, but had to stop as I made a small noise of disagreement and gave him what was probably one of my best weapons that I had discovered recently, the bid sad eyes. His shoulders slumped, and for a moment I thought that I had won, but of course I was wrong, since as soon as he saw me smile and coincidentally my grip to slip, he escaped. He lifted up a bit in the sky, looking down at me as I tried to continue my plea for him to stay.

"Wait… I still haven't told you… what I wanted to tell you,"

Something was telling me that Sandy might have already known what it was I wanted to tell him, that he knew I cared more than just liking him. What told me this was when he went back down to my level, (when had I started standing again? Well whenever that happened was apparently after my ankle had been healed,) looking me directly in the eyes, then made a quick move that really he had never done before. But at the same time I had to give him credit and thanks for making that step when I was so busy thinking and worrying over when I should do that myself, not ever thinking that he could do that himself.

He kissed me.

It was small and quick, just like a light peck since nothing more went into it (damn him), but at the same time a little longer than that. At least, it felt like an eternity to me, an eternity of the warmth and light returning all over again where the slight of cold had been when he moved away from me before. Since I wasn't seeing this coming, I suddenly gripped his shoulders and tried to deepen it, but of course he didn't let that happen, (damn him again) and moved back up and away, probably because the night was better at hiding the orange blush, though of course I saw it. It was hard to miss, since use to I loved making him blush so that the darker shade would reach the tips of his ears, meaning that I knew the sight when I saw it. But then again there really wasn't room for me to talk, since I was redder than a tomato. (Damn, damn, damn him.)

I will be, right back. And we can talk more then, okay?

"...okay…"

There was a good chance I would have been falling out of the sky if it weren't for the golden cloud I was standing on, that Sandy no doubt still kept in place as it was obvious that I would have done just that. And I hated to admit it, but there was a feeling of dissatisfaction in me from the kiss, as I saw it as only a small peck, and while I felt the same sparks of fire in me that I had always thought would get from the act, I wanted more. Such a feeling and want was seen to me as the wants that only a silly lovesick teenager would pine after, but then again that was exactly what I was feeling like right now, silly and lovesick, but over 600 years old. Immaturity it seems, knows no number.

I'm going now Clover,

"Wait, Sandy!" He turns back and I wonder for a short moment why I shouted like I did, but instead of letting words choke me, I fight it and talk. He seemed a little surprised at what I had told him last, sine I had never really said it before, even when I was worried in the past about being away from him. And while I was feeling confused on why I was saying this myself, I knew, just as well as I loved him, that it needed saying. It was just easier to get out in the open is all.

"Be careful, okay?"

Okay.

The Golden Guardian had left some time ago, but Clover was still staying where she was, the golden sand cloud she had been standing on having dissipated some time ago, so she was standing on her rainbow path by this point. The night had passed some time ago, the dawn stretching the yellow light of the sun across the sky, the moon making its last appearance over the forest behind her. Clover knew well enough that Manny would be grinning from ear to ear if he had a mouth to smile, since she could still feel his approval in her, even though he was disappearing over the horizon.

Clover herself was grinning though, and it wasn't until after that long time of just watching him leave until his golden sand plane was nothing but a yellow speck in the morning sky, did she finally move. The first thing she did was shouting up to the high heavens on how happy she was, even though she knew she was a little disappointed with how short the kiss was. It was still a kiss, so the reaction was still warranted. The second thing she did was get going to the town not that far away, since there was a job she needed to do. She had never felt so light and free for such a long time, like this huge weight was off from her shoulders. Well not all of the weight, but at least a little bit.

In fact while she did feel weightless at the short, small kiss that the short, small Guardian had given her, she was still wanting to slam her head on a wall repeatedly for still not saying what needed to be said, for the umpteenth time in a row no less. But still, she got on with her task, fulfilling every coin that needed to be dropped, person that needed to be tripped up or other such things that resulted with good and bad luck. It was while she was causing the wallet to slip out of a man's pocket that she was left once again to ponder on the bad luck she had been distributing for a while now.

Assuredly, it was much, much tamer than what… it… had made her do, but all the same she would always feel so guilty about it, that she would try her best to do more good luck than bad, and that still didn't seem right. More than once she had consulted the moon on these thoughts when she was off doing her job on her own, but of course she was always met with a silent reply, so she just shrugged it off, and tried to deal with it the best she could. Trying to keep a happy outlook on life was sort of hard though, since the only that made her happy, she was holding back from. Which really all lead back to the issue of Sandy again, hooray.

Following her luck bringing to that town, she moved on to the next one, then the one after that and so on. Until eventually she was done with the whole continent, and the day was ending again into night. It wasn't until she was yawning tiredly while tripping up a rich, nosy woman that frankly she felt deserved it, that she noticed what the time was, and that Sandy still wasn't back yet. Clover decided to just shake it off at first, feeling that he must have just lost track of time or something like that. Even though she knew much better than that, Sandy was never one to be late, she just wanted to hope is all.

A few hours into the night later on was when she started to worry, and again tried to calm herself with whatever rational thoughts she could come up with to explain the golden man's absence and why he hadn't found her yet. Since Sandy would always turn up after a Guardian meeting to whoever she happened to be, (actually she still figured out how he managed to find her so easily,) take her back to her Patch House or to his home instead. Perhaps, he had just gotten tired and went home? Again that thought was shot down as reality told her otherwise. Even if the Guardian was tired, he certainly wouldn't go to bed at this hour, since this was usually the time he worked, and then there was the obvious fact that he barely slept at all, even when Clover would nag him to no end for it.

But still, Clover felt that she should go and see his home, just to make sure he was there and for some reason, perhaps sleeping. So she shot up into the sky and rainbow pathed her way to the Sand Island, but of course had to stop every so often to disperse coins or give some cases of bad luck, so when she did reach his home again, it was dawn once more. Of course Clover was tired, but refused to let herself sleep just yet, pinching her arm to make herself stay awake. As her boot covered feet touched the sand of the Island's beach, she instantly got a strange feeling that something was wrong. It was a full on in the face screaming feeling, more of one that is felt only subtlety, therefore is easy to ignore.

So she continued on, walking across the beach to the hut waiting on the other side. Already she noted to herself that it was likely he wasn't here, after all, the sand animals in the forest had stopped making their usual noise when he as either here or awake. But still she continued on to the hut, again for some strange reasoning, and the subtle feeling she was getting before was starting to make her teeth itch and toenails ache. Still she continued on, seemingly not caring that her nervousness was back with full force, but this time her anxiety had nothing to do with telling a certain Guardian how she felt. This time it was a feeling of danger, somewhere around her. As if there was an invisible danger that was watching her here, waiting for her to slip up. She hadn't felt this kind of nervousness in quite some time.

In fact the last time she felt it was with the…. El Chupracobra.

Clover stopped walking, her boots scuffing some sand forwards. Instantly she saw the difference in the sand at that moment, as usually when she unintentionally scuffed it with her boot, it would shine a vibrant gold before dying down to its usual yellow-orange, it hadn't done that this time. Slowly, looking about her before she did it of course, Clover knelt to the ground, and gently picked up the sand with the intention of scooping it up, then letting it fall through her finger like she usually did. However, when she did scoop up the suddenly lifeless sand in her hands and looked at it closely with her green orbs, scanning it, something strange happened.

The sand turned black.

Gasping in sudden surprise and fear, Clover immediately let the sand fall out of her hand, and watched fearful as the black sand spread with the rest of the gold, turning it all to black. It was a horrifying sight to her, as the normal and lively yellow and golds, turned quickly to a terrifying shade of black, a black darker than night and shade. It swarmed and shivered, then started moving towards her. Frightened, Clover tried to jump into the air on a rainbow path, but instead the path never appeared and she fell to the ground. Reminded of a scenario from years ago, the luck spirit chose to run like she did then, the black sand following after her, turning everything else in its path to the same shade of darkness.

Thinking quickly on what she should do, Clover had tried again and again to create a rainbow path for her to escape on, only to find that it still wasn't working. The luck spirit knew well enough that running wasn't going to work for long, so she had to think of something else. Her black pot was still dangling on her arm while she ran, and as soon as she remembered that fact, she suddenly got an idea. She hoped however, that this plan wasn't going to fail her, since if it did, then that meant that there was no hope, but to stand and wait for the sand to get her.

Stopping and turning back around, Clover lifted her pot and quickly thought of it turning into a full body shield. The sand, while chasing her across the beach and usurping all the gold in its path, had formed upwards, higher and higher until it was a large tidal wave of darkness, even the shadow it was casting was covering over her, already blocking the sun as it was just about to bear down on her and swallow her whole. The luck spirit closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth as she waited. Since the sight of complete shadows crashing down on one's self is usually not something that one would want to see, so all she could do was keep her eyes squeezed shut, and hope that the pot would no fail her like the rainbow path as she held it out in front of her.

Thankfully, it worked. At least she guessed it must have, since Clover did stay standing, but felt a force shove against something in front of her. Her eyes were forced open at the feeling of almost being shoved backwards, and got to see that yes, the shield had apparently worked. It was a strange sight, seeing the black sand surrounding her from all sides, the only break of that black tidal wave being the shield pulled in front of her. However, Clover knew well enough that she had to get out of the island somehow, since if the sand was surrounding her from all sides; it would be only a matter of time before she was caught.

Her legs felt like they were made of lead, stuck in place from fear and confusion on what she could do if she managed to move anywhere. Though of course she started to feel a sensation of something grasping at her legs, and didn't need to look down to know that it was the black sand. After that thought kicked in, her legs seemed to break away from the feeling of being frozen as she moved quickly, breaking away from the sand trying to climb up her legs and stick her in place. The shield was still held to her side to block any on-coming sand from the side as she moved quickly, hoping that she was going the right way to the ocean where she could at least swim away and be safe.

Every step seemed to weight her down though, since of course the sand was not going to let her go so easily, and was now trying to drag her down, through the ground of sand itself. Despite how much her heart rate was rising at the thought of being buried under the black sand, Clover tried to push past it, continuing to move herself the best she could to the only escape left for her. It was latching onto her shoulders and forearms, trying to shove her back so she would fall over, and be finally caught. Still she tried to fight, clawing her way through, the shield now raised over her head as her lower half was slowly getting sucked in.

But it was getting harder, as it was rising to her hips, her legs now gone from her sight and surrounded in black sand. It was frightening her, but no amount of swearing and screaming for help was going to get her anywhere, she knew well enough that this island was far away from where any spirit would notice her distress, if they could see her through the sand anyway. Clover had to help herself now, and do her damned best to get herself out of this. The sand kept creeping up, and was now past her navel and reaching up her chest towards her arms, that were clawing faster and faster as the sand and length of the beach never seemed to end.

Finally however, Clover felt the familiar dampness of the ocean water on the very tips of her fingers. It was that small sensation of touch, of hope in her that forced her to push that one last time for the sea water. The black sand knew, and attached itself to her shoulders and elbows, trying to shove her back with more force than she was using to drag herself out. Thankfully, that didn't work as that one last push of hers got Clover out of the smothering sand surrounding her as she almost leapt out of the sinkhole of black sand, and into the familiar blue waters not that far away. She kept dragging even after she felt the sand beginning to loosen, the laps of water against her hands eventually turning to full body submersion in the cool liquid.

The luck spirit swam for a few more moments, away from the island; before she looked back to the place she once called a home. It was completely covered in darkness, from top to bottom. It didn't even look the slightest like the island she was use to seeing. It was while she was turning back to continue doggy paddling to wherever she could go that was further enough away to be safe from whatever was causing the island to react the way it did, when she swore she saw a figure on the beach. It was just for a moment, in the corner of her eye, and when Clover turned back again to make sure that she had seen what she thought she saw, there was nothing but darkness there again.

Shaking her head as her hair strands flipped up and stuck to her throat thanks to the water, Clover wondered if she had just been seeing things when it came to that figure, but all the same she couldn't take out the thought of the figure and just let it go, she had to hold onto it as soon as she found someone to tell about her discovery and possible near death/capture experience. As she continued to paddle away, she thought about how she was going to explain this in the first place, since it was obvious that Sandy was not going to like what she had to tell him.

Obviously she knew that the people she was going to have to see would be the Guardians as a whole, since this recent discovery was reminding her far too much of her past experiences. So she continued to swim for a while until she had managed to slow her heart rate enough to be calm and create a rainbow path for herself at last, she quickly started making her way to the skies, far above the sea that today was less likely to drown her than the sand island she use to live on nearly did. As Clover looked back down to the island below, she felt her heart sink even further into her stomach as she saw not one part of the island that was left with the familiar golden shine of the sand.

It was all darkness, shadows and overall absence of anything she remembered. With that last look, she finally turned away for the last time and ran quickly in the right direction of Santoff Claussen.

Hopefully the Guardians would know what to do, they had to.

Please review, constructive criticism always welcome.