A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews.

nativewildmage: thanks. Keep readin'! Anaroriel: I didn't steal, I disclaimed it. Oh well. Thanks for being honest. sunkissed guacamole: I debated for days on whether or not to put Owen's comment in there. I went back and added it last minute, just for you! tortall princess: The cheer wasn't completely mine. Part of it was from Disney's "Cool Runnings" (a very funny movie) and part of it was based on a cheer in "A Knight's Tale." Thanks for your review. .sunkissed guacamole: Thanks. Please keep reading. lala: I found a couple RB stories, but I had to go back to like, page 190, because those were written around the time that 'Squire' came out. I (heart!) RB. Thanks for reading. tortall princess: I wasn't really worried. I knew that our weather man was just over reacting because of what happened in New Orleans. Thanks for R&Ring. Mage of Dragons: Thanks for your review. (sings:) Sprinkle, sprinkle, little hurricane… Alright, that's enough of that. We just got a lot of rain. I'm glad you like the story.

To All: I am using the letter from the movie, and I'm going back with TP's characters and telling the story behind each little line. Neal is next (I think it's kind of angst-ty), and Kel (angst-tier)and Owen (Jolly, of course)are coming up. Thanks for reading and PLEASE (with cherries) review!

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Redeeming Raoul
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Chapter Two: The Broken Heart Still Beats
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Tournament
August 19, 467
Fief Hollyrose
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"That's very good, Sir," Caliran said.

"What next?" Raoul asked.

"Well, why don't you tell her how you feel?"

"'My heart is broken,'" he dictated. "No, that doesn't sound right."

"When Yuki left, it almost killed me," Neal said quietly. "I used to say that the pieces of my broken heart were so small that they could pass through the eye of a needle…'"

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September 10-15
460
Fort Steadfast
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Neal rode into Fort Steadfast with Kel and Tobe. Yuki and Buri had traveled north, tired of waiting for their men. Small weddings were planned at the little fort.

Neal was ecstatic to see Yuki after such a long, difficult time at Haven and New Hope. But something wasn't right. Buri and Raoul greeted the travelers. Neal nodded his greeting, looking for his betrothed.

But when Buri didn't look Neal in the eyes, he knew something was wrong.

Neal went up to the room that had been assigned to Yuki. The air smelled of the Yamani perfume that she liked to wear, but her belongings were gone.

On the stiff, white, army-issue pillow there was an envelope. Neal's name was scrawled across it in Yuki's neat, second-language hand. He sank down, staring at the 'N' that formed his name, knowing what was in the envelope, and trying not to believe it.

"Neal?" a voice asked from the door way. Neal looked up. Kel was standing there, his best friend. How did she always know when he needed to talk? "Are you okay?" she asked, sitting down beside him.

"I can't read it, Kel. I know what it will say, and I still can't open it," Neal said, turning the envelope over and over again in his hands. Suddenly, he handed it over to Kel. "Will you?" Kel looked for a moment like she was going to protest, but her expression changed and she took the envelope.

Pulling the back flap from where it was tucked in, Kel gingerly opened the letter. She read it, face, eyes especially, emotionless. Neal looked over at her when she was through. His eyes pleaded with hers, but all she could do was calmly explain that Yuki had left. She had missed the Islands too much, and wanted to return to them.

Yuki apologized to Neal, but Buri had confided to Kel that during the passage north, they had met a Yamani warrior. Yuki had seemed greatly attracted to him. Reading between the lines, Kel knew what had happened.

"I'm so sorry," she told Neal, putting her hand on his as he read the letter for himself. He brushed her off with a sad smile, and retreated to his own room.

A few days later, Neal was sitting alone in the mess, scribbling on a scrap parchment. Life wasn't fair. Raoul and Buri had married, and Kel seemed to be content to pass her time with Dom. But Neal was alone. Somehow, though, he knew, that in the end he would be okay. First he had to get through the stage of feeling cruddy.

He sighed, frustrated. His poem was not turning out as he had wanted. As he got up to leave, he crumpled one of the papers into a tiny ball and lobbed it towards a trash bin.

Moments later, Kel bent beside the bin, and picked up the paper. Apparently Neal had been trying to write out his emotions in a poem. Several attempts were crossed out, so dark with ink that Kel could not read them. But the last was not.

"My heart has shattered into millions of tiny pieces that are so tiny that they could pass through the eye of a needle."