Lyra lay very still, barely breathing and not daring to open her eyes. Please. She said silently. I swear I'll never eat another pastry again if it's just a nightmare. Please...

"Lyra, open your eyes." Krystal's voice said.

Lyra groaned. Pan nipped comfortingly and her fingers. With a sigh the girl sat up, opening her eyes slowly. They were on a cliff overlooking the sea. The fangirl was nowhere in sight.

"Where are we?" Lyra asked.

Krystal gave her a wise look and didn't say anything. Her unicorn daemon was standing regally beside her looking equally wise.

"Someone better tell me what's going on." Lyra mumbled. "Where's that f***ing fangirl?" she sighed. "Well she's around here somewhere, anyway."

"Where fangirls are, asterisks follow." Krystal agreed.

"And where's Will?" The two girls looked around in confusion for a moment before Lyra gasped in horror and profound fear. Will was standing precariously at the edge of the cliff, looking down. She scrambled dramatically to her feet and raced toward him, though it took much longer than it would in real life. She had time to inner monologue two whole pages about how much she loved him and could never lose him and forgave him for falling in love with Krystal and she would be very happy for him either way- you get the idea-before she actually reached him.

"Wiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllll!!!!" She cried.

He looked at her. "What?"

"Don't jump." she said breathlessly.

His expression was one of confusion. "Um, I wasn't going to. I was just trying to figure out where we were." he paused. "But now that you mention it-" His eyes filled with years of unshed tears as the sounds of Mariah Carey's 'Never too far' floated around them"Lyra," he said, his voice choked. "I love you too much to ever live without you."

She frowned. "Um, hi? Right here. Where is that music coming from?"

"Over there." he pointed. A few yards away Mariah gyrated to the music and lip-synched unconvincingly as a speaker played behind her and a band pretended to actually play the music. They waved. She waved back. "But anyway, back to the subject." Will continued, his voice once again choking up. "I love you too much to live without you. Every single day I die a little more. And I...I just can't take it anymore, I-"

"I won't let time erase..." Mariah sang "One bit of yesterday..."

"Well, I get that." Lyra said. "But Will, we promised Xaphania that we'd work to make the world a better place so that the window for the world of the dead could stay open."

"I know." He said, tears running down his face. "But I just can't. I'm sorry Lyra. I...I love you. Goodbye." He took out a knife.

"Where did you get that?" Lyra's eyes widened dramatically in fear.

"Oh, just, you know, lying around."

"Will, don't. This isn't you. This is the fanfic. I can't believe you're going to slit your wrists, Will, listen to me-"

"Oh not just that." he corrected her. "I'm going to jump off the cliff too."

"What? What good would that do you? You're going to die anyway."

"Though we can never be..." Mariah crooned louder, obviously annoyed that they were ignoring her diva-ness "I'll keep you close to me..."

"Not necessarily." he said. "Actually, you won't kill yourself slitting your wrists most of the time unless you cut an artery. Most people don't know that."

"Hm." Lyra said speculatively. "But still-"

"And besides, inner-monologues are a lot more exciting when you're 30 seconds from death, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't really know..."

"Yeah. Well. Anyway. Like I said, Goodbye forever Lyra, I love you..."

She sighed exasperatedly and snatched the knife away from him. "Will, snap out of it!"

"In my mind...In the memories I'll find solace..." Mariah's voice had gone into irritatingly squeaky pitches and Lyra turned on her furiously.

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP!" she yelled. "I'm kind of having a situation right now!"

"It's mood music." the popstar pouted.

"Whatever." Lyra snarled. "Just keep it down. And stop doing that squeaky thing, the fanwriter seems to think it gives me a headache." Will smiled sadly. "I love you." he said.

"I KNOW." Lyra replied exasperatedly. "You've said it a million times. Look, Will, I love you too and I don't want you to die, okay? So come on, just...step away from the cliff."

He shook his head slowly and with great effect. Slowly, more slowly than normal, he jumped off the cliff. The scream that escaped Lyra's lips was cut short as Kyrstal on her unicorn daemon swooped down out of nowhere (apparently the unicorn was a Pegasus too) and caught Will before he hit the ground. Slowly the horse flew back upwards and landed gracefully in front of a shocked Lyra.

"Oh my god." Will said as he slid shakily off of the unicorn daemon. Krystal looked slightly flushed. There was that whole not-touching other people's daemons thing, Lyra mused, but she had assumed Mary-Sues, loving everyone and everything had no issue with it.

Lyra threw her arms around Will, feeling the irritating urge to cry again. "Don't ever do that again!" she said angrily.

He nodded against her shoulder. "Yeah. Yeah I definitely won't"

"Let's go find that god**** fangirl." Lyra growled. "She is sooooooo dead."

"Um, excuse me?"

They all turned. Mariah was smiling fakely at them. "It seems y'all have some issues." she said sympathetically. "I totally get that. Let me give you my therapists phone number, he's really great."

Lyra felt another headache coming on.