(Author's note: Seriously, does anyone even remember this story? I know it's been a long time, but I didn't die or anything. I was just without a computer for several months. I have one again now, though -- a Mac -- so everyone can expect me to be getting out a chapter at least every few weeks or so. Don't lose faith! =( I seem to have lost a great deal of my writing ability in that time, though, so if this chapter is suckier than usual, well, poo on you. =D

So anyway, I suppose we should recap, seeing as everyone's most likely forgotten everything. Even I had. =) So, where'd we leave our characters? Will had just killed Breyman and then had attempted to save Tobias from the next-in-command Sniper, Westing, but the two were too weak to fight and Tobias had gotten captured, right before using his psychic power to blast Will literally out of harm's way and into another world. Then, as everyone might actually remember, Tobias was carried away into a new chamber where he almost beat his dear Aerotsierma to death as a very wry form of self-mutilation, atonement for what he believed to be heinous sins on his part. That's when some of my dear readers started getting slightly freaked out and concerned for the author's sanity. =D Anyway! Then Tobias had been confronted with a new machine that looked suspiciously similar to the old daemon-cutting thing from TGC. So ... The others? Iris and Mary Malone had just used the super-spiffy new machine to blast a hole into Lyra's world, where they were determined to find her and bring her back to help fight Dune. And Lyra? Lyra was alone and depressed, hopping around the school roofs at night to bring back old memories. ... There, that should be all. Happy reading then, folks! Sorry that it's not as long as some of the others are.)


CHAPTER SIXTEEN--Reunion


Will felt himself being hurtled through a million worlds in the blink of a moment, and yet it seemed like an eternity at the same instant. It was bizarre and totally unlike anything Will had ever encountered, and he was confused beyond words. From what had just happened, from what was happening now, from what was about to happen, though he had no idea of it.

Thoughts raced through his mind as he felt his brain, body and soul being tugged inexorably through a blank whiteness that exploded in a million colors, Kirjava silent at his side. What had happened to Tobias? Will knew that he must've given his last ounce of strength into saving his life by transporting him into another world like this. Despair filled his suddenly traversing soul. There was truly no way Tobias could still be alive, even after all this. How many times in the space of what seemed to be a few moments had the two newfound friends saved one another's life? It had to end somewhere. And now, seemingly, it had.

And to where was Will going now? He struggled to comprehend what was happening to his body and to his senses, but he could make neither heads nor tails of it. He figured that he must be going back to his own world ... and yet inexplicably, he hoped that he was not. He had failed, once more. Just as he had failed to keep his father alive, all those years ago; just as he had failed to keep Lyra with him ...

WUMPH.

"Ow. Jeez."

Quite suddenly Will fell out of a dark night sky as his senses returned with startling clarity. Cold, bright stars flashed before his eyes and a chilly wind hit his skin before he landed on a hard, slightly slanted surface, knocking the wind out of him entirely. Kirjava landed lightly on her four delicate paws, but they had fallen from at least ten feet; she tumbled.

"Kirjava? Are you alri-- Ah! I'm slipping!"

The fall had caused gravity to get the better of the shaken pair; Will suddenly found himself to be rolling and sliding down the incline. His handles grappled for purchase upon the rough, grainy surface, but the wind had been knocked out of him and he was sliding too quickly.
"What the hell? Kir! Where are you?!"

Kirjava sprung away as a sudden to the incline reared up like a dark chasm. "I'm right here, Will! Be careful! There's a drop-off! I'm not strong enough to keep you from falling, I don't know what to do!"

"I can't see anything; it's too dark. I'm sliding. Damnit!"

He scrabbled desperately in the darkness as, with a shock of horror, he felt his feet slide off the edge and into the unknown below. Yelling an obscenity, he clutched the rough edge of the plane he was on; his chest and head slid off with such force that the snapback effect left him dazed for a moment. In the almost total darkness he could barely see his fingertips, raw and bloody, holding precariously onto what appeared to be the concrete edge to the platform.

Kirjava appeared a split-second later, her luminous green eyes the only visible objects to Will. "Oh! Will! Can you climb up?"

He attempted to scramble and heave himself up, but due to the inclination of the platform he was dangling from, he could not do so successfully. He strained his arms until he grunted from the pain and exertion of it.

"No, Kir. I can't. Where are we? Do you know how far it is to the ground?"

On delicate, sure-footed silk paws, the daemon peered over the edge. "We appear to be on some sort of very large building. I'd say that there are at least five or six stories, Will. And we're on the top."

Will felt a cold thrill of fear, harsh contrast to the adrenaline he had been feeling a moment before. His heart beat hard against his ribcage; his muscles twitched in utter exhaustion. He was immensely tired from the ordeal he had just endured in Tobias's world, which had been, after all, just a few brief moment ago. He was still covered in slightly drying blood, not much of it his own. He entire upper body ached from the fall from the sky onto the roof of the building, and his hands and arms were raw and bloody from his desperate and useless scramble. "Kir," he said, his breath labored and heavy, "I'll not make it."

The cat daemon perched up on the very edge, desperately licking her human's bloody arms. "No, Will, you can't. I know you can pull yourself up. Try, Will, try!"

Will closed his eyes, dangling forty feet above the ground, his fingers bloody and split as they strained. "I did. I ... can't. So tired. Just want to go to sleep ..."

And Kirjava knew it was true; he was spent, he had no strength left. Tobias's brilliant save of his life ... and not for the first time ... would have been in vain. But it was not the job of the daemon to be rational in such an irrational chain of situations, and so she urged him still.

"There might be someone who can help you! There must be people in this building. There has to be someone ... we are back in our own world, right? This looks enough like London to me. Feels like it, too. I can run for help ... someone will ..." She trailed off, her voice reaching a note of almost spastic desperation there at the end. Will said what she knew all along, but had been trying to promote hope anyway.

"You can't, Kir. We can only part a few feet, and there's obviously no one within ... a few ... feet ..."

Kirjava lunged forward, grabbing Will's collar with her teeth and pulling with all her might. But it was, of course, merely an act of desperation; she weighed perhaps a tenth of what her human did. "Will, no," she pleaded. "You can't. You can't."

Will could not hold on any longer. "Kir," he said, a tiny tremble in his usually strong and steady voice. "I'm -- I'm going to let go now--"

Kirjava placed her paws on his head and closed her luminous eyes, prepared to fall with him. She could feel his weakness and knew that it was true.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

A new voice cut through the enveloping darkness. Kirjava's head shot up and Will cried out, his voice hoarse from pain and exertion.

"Yes! Help me, please! I can't hold on much longer!"

Against the pale starlight, he could just barely make out the figure of another human emerging from the shadows of the ledges and turrets. With almost catlike sure-footedness it made its way down the sharp incline of the shingled roof as quickly as it dared. "Don't worry, I'm going to help you. Just hold on."

Suddenly, like a miracle, Will felt a cool, strong touch to his ravaged hands. Kirjava stayed back, wary of this human's d¾mon, which seemed to stay in the shadows.

With a great deal of pulling and straining, Will's unlikely savior heaved him, gasping, up and over onto the roof. He was hurled up with such force that he knocked into his shadowy rescuer, and the two of them tumbled backwards together. The rescuer righted itself quickly and pulled Will to his feet. Clouds had rolled across most of the stars, and there were no streetlights anywhere that Will could see, so the two were basically in almost total darkness. Will coughed, so tired that he could hardly think; his voice was hoarse with fatigue. "Thank you so much; you saved my life. I wish I could find some way to repay you, but I've got nothing of value with me at the moment. I'm sorry, I --"

The sharply distinctive voice cut the darkness once more. "You sound hurt, and I'm certain I felt blood on you when I heaved you up. Be aware that I could get in a lot of trouble for this, but you better come inside and we'll see if we can get you fixed up a bit. What the hell are you doing out on the school roof in the middle of the night, anyway? You a burglar or something?" Will didn't want to have to explain himself, especially to a total stranger, but he heard his rescuer draw a sharp intake of breath and say, "You haven't come for the--"

"I'm not here for anything. I'm not even supposed to be here. Trust me, it's a really long story. I assure you, you don't want to hear it."

Even in the deep darkness Will could feel the eyes of his rescuer penetrating the inky blackness where he stood. Will was not the type of person to trust strangers, but he had the immediate feeling that this nameless person could be trusted. They had, after all, saved his life. Maybe it's easy for anyone to trust someone who had just saved their life.

Will could hear his rescuer stepping lightly across the roof, although he could not see the figure. Quite suddenly he felt the presence of a person mere inches away. It made him extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable, yet at the same time, there was something terribly lulling and provocative about this person. His heart beat in shock and he flinched noticeably as he felt the cool, smooth touch of a slender hand upon his cheek.

"The way you said 'Trust me' just then ..." The nameless, faceless rescuer trailed off, voice heavy with nostalgia. When it spoke again, its voice was lowered almost to a whisper. "A long time ago, someone said those very words to me, just as you had. Someone I lost long ago." Will had no time or energy to bring himself to deeply involve himself in his savior's personal issues, nor did he want to surface the thoughts of someone he lost long ago, too. "I'm sorry," he said noncommittingly.

He could still feel his rescuer's eyes boring into the place he stood in the darkness, and it made him feel extremely strange and uncomfortable. He was so tired, though ... all he wanted was to lay down for a while. Just a little while. But at least being saved by this strange person who just so happened to be in the right place at the right time took his mind off the depressing issues that had been occurring. Everything going wrong, Tobias taken, Iris and Mary gone, no one to save the Chosen One ... nothing right.

His head suddenly hurt terribly, and he swayed on his feet. "I need ... to rest. I'm terribly fatigued. Is there some way you can help me get to the ground?"

The cool, soft hand fumbled in the dark for Will's own, and the rescuer began to lead him carefully up the incline of the roof and toward the side of the building that went further up from the roof. "We'll have to go through the window, but that's all right. Just be really quiet, okay? Don't make a sound, and you'll be fine."

Finally they made their way to a large, stony window ledge, and the rescuer quietly pulled Will forward by his hand. "You first," it whispered, "You'll have to--" it stopped. The person was grappling with Will's famously injured hand.

"Your hand," it said breathlessly. "You're missing two fingers. Did that happen in the fight you must've just been in?"

Will pulled his hand away, suddenly very uncomfortable. "No," he said guardedly, "It's a very old wound. Happened a long time ago."

Kirjava leapt onto the windowsill beside Will, and both could feel one another's perplexity and curiosity. The rescuer leaned over Will's shoulder to pull open the window, and their faces were just centimeters apart even though it was far too dark for either of them to see.

Will breathed in the clean, sweet smell of his rescuer's hair, and something strange formed in his throat. Confusing thoughts muddled his already rather grey brain, the scent stirring some tiny, insignificant memory from long ago. Without knowing what he was doing or why, Will found himself pressing his face into his rescuer's hair as it leaned over his shoulder.

He expected his rescuer to draw away in shock, but it did not. "Yes," it murmured. "I do believe I'm dreaming. It always turns out like this. How many times have I dreamt of this? Of course it's impossible; of course there'd be no way. False hope is a truly painful thing ..."

Will had no idea what his rescuer was talking about, and yet at the same time was hanging onto and understanding every word.

"Of course, it can't be. What am I thinking? Pan, I do believe I'm going insane."

Will's head whipped around. "Pan? Who's Pan?" He reached out blindly in the dark, his heart palpitating almost uncomfortably. His rescuer did not reply. Something strange came over Will and he sunk to his haunches, leaning his back against the stone wall of the building beneath the window. Kirjava, her shimmering coat dark in the blackness, curled into his arms and lap. He reached out, wondering what had happened to this aptly titled stranger, and his hand came in contact with incredibly soft, smooth fur. It was not Kirjava.

He heard a gasp.

And then a very pained voice. "And this is where I always awaken ..."

Suddenly he felt like his heart would explode. For another touch had been made upon fur, this time by the stranger. Upon his own daemon.

Will's insides shifted, and the touch that should have made him nauseous felt so familiar and so painfully, painfully wonderful that he gasped out in shear wonder at the feeling. And then, all at once, he knew.

"Oh, Lyra. Lyra. Lyra."

"Will. My Will. My love."

Will's head was spinning; his heart was thumping like it never had before. He, truly, expected himself to awaken at any moment, to awaken from this impossible scenario that they had both dreamt of countless times but had never truly expected. And yet, here it was. It was happening.

His arms enveloped her thin frame, hugging her tightly to him; he pressed his face into her sweet hair and smooth neck, breathing in her scent.

"How-- you've got to tell me, how--"

There were sobs of pure joy in her voice, joy and something less definable. Will felt tears squeeze from his own eyes, indeed, but of course did not let it show. "I'll explain everything. I promise."

And then the heavens opened up and huge grey clouds rolled away, leaving the two blissfully reunited under a full, beautiful sky of stars. And there they lay, oblivious once more from the world that had so cruelly ripped them apart, two young creatures of fate finally at peace in one another's arms, together at last beneath the heavens from which all their problems had come.

*


When Will awoke, sunlight was streaming through the open dormitory window. Warm blankets enveloped him, Kirjava curled upon his chest, and his wounds had been properly dressed earlier. For a moment upon waking, Will thought once more that he had been dreaming, but as the previous night's events came flooding back, he knew that even no dream could've possibly been half as beautiful. And as he looked over and saw Lyra's sleeping face inches away, Pan's golden form curled into the crook of her neck, he felt as if his heart would burst. He knew that there were no words in any language to describe what he was feeling.

As he savored the utter, simple wonderfulness of the moment, his rationality began to alert him that he needed to be gone before Lyra's dorm-mates awoke. He knew something else, too. Tobias had sent him here for a reason. He needed Lyra's help in bringing down the undeniable evil that permeated Tobias's home world. Lyra had a gift that no one else possessed: she had the alethiometer. Tobias might be able to read minds, but only Lyra could grasp the future before it came.

Before it destroyed everyone.

Will knew that a terrible battle was to come. He knew that their side had to have every possible asset they could or they'd not have a chance. They'd probably still not have a chance.

Tobias might even be already dead.

Will hated himself for even thinking about thinking about it, but at that moment, all he wanted was to be here with Lyra for all eternity. To hell with everything else.

But he had explained the entire situation to Lyra the best he could the night before, lying out on the roof beneath the stars. She had agreed with him: that awful evil had to be stopped somehow. She was slowly but surely learning how to use the alethiometer again. It would most definitely give their side a big advantage. They needed her.

Lyra awoke, they rejoiced silently at their reunion once more, and ten minutes later were gone from the school grounds entirely. Not long after, they encountered Mary Malone and Iris. It could've been an incredible coincidence, but everyone suspected that it was no such thing at all.

And with the revolutionary machine that Dr. Malone had created with Tobias's help, the three of them and their daemons were drawn back into Will and Mary's world. Much rejoicing and reunion took place, particularly between Mary and Lyra, and Will told Iris and the physicist what had happened with Breyman and Tobias in perfect detail, not leaving anything out, even the most disturbing things. He had, of course, no idea of what had gone on in Dune's chambers after Tobias's capture.

And then, plans were to be made.

Dr. Malone would enter the correct coordinates for Tobias and Iris's world, given by Tobias's equations, and she would create a new edgeless window into a new world. And they would, somehow, rescue Tobias and then bring down Sidney Dune and Dunestone itself.

It wasn't going to be easy.