"Nathaniel" she whispered incredulously "it's really you, oh my God."

He was still looking at her without blinking and although he had come for closure, he couldn't think about a reason for that now, couldn't think about why he would want to walk away from her again. If she still believed them over him, he would convince her of the opposite and if it was the last thing he would do.

He watched a single tear running down her cheek to rest just beneath her chin. Slowly he reached out his hand to capture it with his index finger. When he drew back his hand, he lightly caressed her cheek.

"How can you still, after all I've done, look at me like that?"

He thought about her question for a mere second, thought that he would like to give her an elaborate explanation, thought that he wanted to tell her about the fear, the emptiness, the pain, the depression he went through when she wasn't close to him, but it all came down to one feeling, to one word, one sentence.

"Love. I love you."

And then she asked him to forgive her, that she had been stupid to simply believe them, that she couldn't understand now how she could ever have doubted him, that she wanted him back.

He watched her silently, not ready to tell her what he had to say, not ready to really hurt her for the first time, not ready to leave her again. His mind raged, but he knew he had no other choice. He had lived the life she had suspected him off for the last two years, and although he wished he had never gone back to it, now that he had seen that she believed him, he couldn't turn back time.

He had never thought she would welcome him into her arms again when he came back, he had expected hate, anger, a fight, a gun and handcuffs. He would have given in, he was tired of being torn between two personalities, tired of being both Sark and Nathaniel.

He should have expected this though, she had always surprised him with her reactions. But maybe his mind and heart had simply closed down to the possibility that she would take him back, in a pure act of survival instinct. He reckoned it would have killed him if he had known beforehand that this situation could come up.

He wanted to touch her so badly, wanted to feel her in his arms again, to touch her hair again, to smell her unique scent again, to taste her smooth skin again, to hear the sweet nothings, she used to whisper in his ear while they were making love, again, to look into her eyes, deep down into her soul, again. But he wouldn't, not ever again.

And he told her, told her that he had done all that she had accused him off, only he had done it after he had left her. He asked her, how she could want him back after this, she had accepted a criminal once, she couldn't seriously accept him again, not after deliberately doing what she despised, after doing what had destroyed everything in the first place.

And then he realized, he watched as the surprise, the disbelief rushed into her eyes, all over her face; she didn't know he had taken up his old identity again.

Again the tears welled up in her face as he told her what he had done in the past two years, and when he told her at the end, that he had come for closure, that he needed it to get on with his life, that he couldn't live like this, that it had to be either Sark or Nathaniel, and that it could obviously only be Sark, all she did was whisper why this happened to them, why this couldn't happen to someone else.

He only knew a single answer tot hat question.

"No one. It should happen to no one."