Somewhere Out There

Chapter Four - Brief Encounters

A/N: Thanks for the reviews. :)

"Will!"

Lyra sat straight up in bed, her face damp with sweat and her chest heaving as she gasped for breath. Pantalaimon was shaking around her neck and she held onto him fiercely, as if afraid she would lose him.

"Lyra?" Collin sat up in bed beside her. He reached over and switched on the lamp standing on his bedside table, then turned to look worriedly at her. "Is everything alright?"

"I-I'm fine," she nodded, closing her eyes tightly. "I, uh… I only had a nightmare, that's all."

"Do you want me to get you a glass of water?"

"No, thank you. R-really, I'm fine, let's just go back to bed." She smiled reassuringly at him and he returned the gesture, kissing her quickly before shutting the light off.

"Oh, by the way," Collin added after they had laid back down, "who is Will?"

Lyra's eyes went wide and Pantalaimon jumped in her arms. Is this the time to tell him the truth? she thought to Pantalaimon. Maybe I should finally tell him.

No, Pan replied, we aren't ready. The wound is still fresh, it would hurt too much to have to repeat the past events.

What should I do?

Lie.

Lyra smiled slightly, relieved she could use a talent she was so familiar and comfortable with. "He was just an old friend of mine from school."

"But you went to an all-girls school."

She hadn't even told him about Jordan and silently cursed herself for not remembering so; but she was a skillful liar, she could fix the damage made. "He worked in the kitchens. Sometimes all the girls were just too overwhelming… I had to escape now and again."

Collin chuckled. "Sounds just like my Lyra." He rubbed her arm affectionately before turning back over and falling asleep.

When she was sure that he wasn't awake, Lyra whispered to her dæmon, "That was such a horrible dream, Pan," and a tear dropped onto his golden fur.

"Let's go for a walk," he said, crawling to her breast; and she held him tightly as she silently slipped out of bed.

Will was crying.

He hadn't cried since he parted with Lyra and it was a shock when he felt the tears streaming down his face, but he couldn't help the dull ache in his heart. It was almost as painful as when he had left his dæmon behind to enter the world of the dead; it was tiring and burning not only mentally, but physically.

Mary gathered her senses first and shook him roughly, causing Kirjava to mew from the table. "Close the window, Will," Mary whispered fervently. "Hurry, close the window!"

"I can't, I can't," Will said, shaking his head and sobbing.

"You have to! You can't leave a single window open, and this one is just as important as the others--"

"I can't…" This time he tried but he was so weak from anguish that his fingers couldn't quite grasp the edges of the window. His hand slipped again and again, and Mary sighed, knowing it wouldn't be closed any time soon.

"Take a seat," she said, helping him onto the sofa. "Just calm down for a little while, and then you can close it."

"I can't calm down," Will responded almost bitterly. "W-when the knife was broken and it didn't work, it wasn't as hard to live w-without… without… L-Lyra."

Mary knew how hard it was for him to say her name; she hadn't heard him say it in so long that aloud it had lost its meaning, but now all the memories, feelings, experiences… they were all flooding back.

"But now that I have the knife working," Will continued, "how do you think I can bare living and knowing that she's in my reach?" He was crying freely again. "So close, so incredibly close…"

"Yet millions of worlds away," Mary reminded him.

"It was so strange, Pan," Lyra was saying. "How could a window have been made? The knife is broken, it can't be mended, and yet I dreamt that there was a window from our world to…"

Lyra and her dæmon were suddenly silent. Her heart was beating ardently, thinking of a certain name she wished but dreaded to speak… Pan swallowed his feelings first.

"Will and Kirjava's," he said, and from then on Lyra's fear of saying their names was no longer existent.

"Yes," Lyra said quietly, nodding and looking sadly at the ground. "Will made a window…"

The thrill of saying Will's name voluntarily was one she hadn't been expecting; she had been with Collin for so long that the feel of it was foreign to her. But both Pantalaimon and Lyra felt the electricity thrive through them and Will's name sat at the tip of her tongue, eager to say it aloud again.

Pan interrupted her thoughts by saying, "But it was only a dream."

"Only a dream," Lyra echoed. "It just felt so real…"

Pantalaimon and Lyra looked up and found themselves in front of Jordan College. They had been walking for nearly twenty minutes and this is where their walk had inadvertently brought them…

The college was as tall and grand as ever, and Lyra remembered every little nook and cranny of the elaborate building that she had explored as a child. It was late and all the occupants were asleep, but she felt she needed the warmth and comfort of her old home, so she slipped around Jordan and towards the garden, dæmon in hand.

Drawing in a long, deep breath, Will stood and faced the window. It was invisible to him, and only if he moved slightly to the side could he see a dark building against an even darker side; but he felt the atoms of the window active and living, and he reached his hand forward to shut the last way into Lyra's world.

His finger's slipped. He couldn't tell if it was because he was scared or nervous or because his love for Lyra had never been stronger… but he couldn't concentrate, couldn't grasp the infinitesimal edges of the window.

That's when he heard someone talking, though he could barely make out what was being said, and he wouldn't have listened if he hadn't heard his own name amidst the quiet chatting.

Lyra sat down on a bench beside a fountain behind Jordan College. She heard the running water of the fountain and the rhythmic chirruping of insects in the grass, and her mind was so calmed that all her worries and regrets left in a second.

"Where d'you think we would be right now, Pan, if we hadn't stayed hidden in the Retiring Room?" she asked nonchalantly.

"Probably still at Jordan," he answered sleepily. "So many things would be different…"

"We wouldn't have met Iorek or Serafina Pekkala or Lee Scoresby or--"

"Or Will."

"Mmm hmm," Lyra said quietly, looking down at the grass. "Pan?"

"Mm?"

"Do you think we would have been better off if we hadn't met Will?"

Lyra waited for an answer but when none came, she looked around and realized that Pan was no longer resting on the bench. He was running across the grass towards something invisible to her, and she felt the urgency and longing as he sped faster and faster…

"Pan, wait! Wait!"

Lyra jumped up and darted after him, eager to see what was luring him in.

Kirjava strained her ears to hear who was speaking, but the sound was too far off. "Close the window, Will," she said, feeling a rush of peril.

"I'm trying," said Will, and once again his fingers closed on nothing.

Mary was pacing beside him. She felt it too. It was something nauseating and fearful and full of pain, almost like the feel of a Specter feeding on one's dæmon.

And that's when Will saw it: someone was fleeing across the lawn towards the window, and yet unaware of what was hanging in midair.

"Someone's coming," Will said quietly and hurriedly. "If they find the window…"

He tried again but the window didn't close.

"Oh, hurry Will," Mary sobbed.

A deep breath and an encouraging look from Kirjava pushed him to try once again. He reached forward slowly, the runner only a few yards away, and this time he felt his fingertips connect with the atoms; steadily, he slid his fingers gradually along the window, and just as it closed completely, he heard a heart-wrenchingly familiar voice scream, "WILL!"

Lyra was following Pantalaimon hurriedly, because now a new feeling was upon them both. It was the deepest, strongest feeling either of them had ever felt, and they had experienced it only once before: it was love.

"Pan, Pan!" she was calling, and she saw him suddenly halt in shock. He was so shaken that he couldn't move at all, except for the trembling of his astonishment and the slow formation as he prepared to spring.

Lyra looked up at what Pantalaimon was about to jump into, and she found herself becoming as still as her dæmon. She rubbed her eyes, but there was no mistaking it. She saw Will and Mary and Kirjava… there was a window into Will's world, just a few feet away!

That's when she noticed it was closing. She couldn't tell if Will saw her or not, but obviously he couldn't if he was closing the window, she thought.

The window was almost closed, only a small gleam of light shone through a whole the size of Lyra's thumb. And with every last instinct she had, she screamed as loud as she could, "WILL!"

The sound was anguished and full of love, but the window was closed and the way into another world was gone, and the cry was left to echo off into the night.

A/N: That didn't turn out too well. Oh well. I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'm not sure how soon I'm going to be able to get the next part out.