NOTES: I'm sorry it had to be done đź’”

Lizzy used to be jealous of William's kingdom— the expanse of woods and light and a thousand places to hide little rusted treasures from wandering eyes. There were so many trees.. flat rocks breaking the surface, beached like whales beside the brook that gurgled through twisted roots and damp leaves. There was so much out there. Endless forests. It was something out of a childhood dream.

But at night, it was the worst kind of nightmare.

A branch snapped somewhere ahead, and Lizzy jumped backward, her shoulder thumping into William behind her. His hands moved to catch her, but she was still on her feet. He kept them in the air, loose around her arms.

"Spooky," he breathed into the night.

"I'll say," she shivered.

Against the indigo curtain of the sky, broken tree branches stretched and bent upwards like witches' fingers, clawing at the faintly visible remnants of stars. Above them, someone had taken a bite out of the moon.

Lizzy moved unconsciously closer to William, and wondered if going home was really worth all of this.

And then she remembered sitting on the hearth, her feet in the ash, listening to her mother's charmingly off-key singing voice ring out from the kitchen. She remembered wrapping herbs in a bouquet to send to Charlotte Lucas when she had fallen ill, and how, when the angle was just right, the sun winked like airborn gems off the scattered dust mites in the attic no else ever used. She remembered hugs, and kisses, and Christmas dinners with the blood relatives she had never heard of before.

She wasn't ready to lose that. She wasn't ready to leave it all behind and go to.. an orphanage. No. There was just no way.

Lizzy puffed herself up with air, letting her chest expand and her shoulders tilt back. "You can do this," she whispered to herself. "It'll all be alright."

"I hope so," William's voice added, and she quickly hummed in agreement, unwilling to admit that she had been talking to herself. William was scared too. Maybe even more than her. She had to be the strong one, for his sake.

"Alright," Lizzy said, "Let's go. I.. I think I know the way. It's not far— we can find my Aunt Gardiner.. somewhere… somewhere in Lap Town."

"Lambton," he corrected her quietly.

"Lambton," she said, swallowing. "Right."

She started forward, haltingly, and a second later heard William's footsteps crunching along behind her. The ground was out of touch with the moonlight, so it was darker than dark— Lizzy tried not to think about what she might be stepping on. Soon enough, the trees encircled them. They grew bigger, their ebony pillars spanning the entirety of the world around them. She could no longer see the house.

Lizzy found herself giggling nervously, her throat spasming against the sound.

"What is it?" William asked her.

"It's just like MacBeth," she answered, keeping her voice low and reverent as if the forest was a church. "The trees are an advancing army. They keep getting closer."

He frowned. "You're really not helping with the creepy factor, you know."

She shrugged, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. "Yes, but it's accurate, innit?"

William didn't answer. He just trudged on ahead, his hands cautiously reaching out in front of him, twitching, vulnerable. They didn't try talking again until they reached the fence. Lizzy clutched at her companion's arm, and he stopped walking.

She looked up at him with worried eyes. "I can't climb the fence."

Realization dawned on his face, and he grimaced. "You can't climb the fence," he repeated, rubbing his forehead.

"Can you lift me over?" She looked up at the fairy-tale gate, it's bars cutting out sharp-cornered sections of sky beyond. "It's.. not that high…"

"No," William shook his head quickly, "No, it's too tall. You still hurt, we can't get over. Come on— let's go home."

He spun around and started back towards the house— the house that wasn't her home— and Lizzy felt a spark of frustration in her stomach. Why couldn't he see she was scared too?!

"Nuh uh," she whipped her head from side to side, her brow lowered so that it blocked half her line of sight. "We aren't going back. No way."

William stopped with his fists on his hips. He was probably staring at her. "Lizzy," he said, in an exhausted tone, "There's no way over the fence! Let's go back. We— We'll figure it out in the morning.

She ignored him, and turned to gaze up at the formidably high top of the fence.

If she climbed a tree… no, that might reopen her wound. If she… stood on his shoulders… Maybe… No. OH! Wait, if she put her foot right here, and pulled herself halfway up…

Lizzy's feet just made it off the ground when a pair of strong hands grabbed her arms, peeling her off the wall. "Stop it, Lizzy! You're gonna get hurt.."

"You stop it!" Lizzy said angrily, squirming away.

William dropped her, and landed a little wonky on one ankle— thankfully, not the one on her injured leg. Nevertheless, it hurt, and she cursed under her breath.

"See?" She could hear him smirking. "That was stupid. We can't get over— let's just go back."

"YOU go back!" Lizzy snarled, and pushed herself back off the ground.

She attacked the fence, pushing and pulling at the bars, kicking with her good foot. She threw her whole body weight against the fence— and thought she felt a little give from the bars!— before William's scent encircled her, and his arms held her back. She kept struggling like a worm on the paved road.

"Let go of me!" She cried.

"No!" William yelled back, gripping tighter. "Not until you promise me we're going home!"

Lizzy went limp. His knees buckled under her sudden weight, and he managed to just catch her before Lizzy collided with the forest floor. She lay with her back on dry leaves, looking up at the chasm of sky above her. Hot tickles threatened to overwhelm her eyes; she brushed them away with the back of her hand.

"I am going home," she spat out through gasping breaths. "Just because YOU'RE being a coward doesn't mean I'M not gonna try."

There was a moment of silence, where all Lizzy could hear was William's labored breath, heaving, groaning, grinding through his throat, and the humid wind that crackled through the leaves. Eventually, he spoke.

"Lizzy?"

She let a little air out through her nose. "Yes?"

She could hear him lick his lips. "Lizzy.. I don't think running away is a good idea. Please. Let's just… Lizzy, I'm tired."

"I am too," she said. A headache was creeping in between her temples. "But… If I don't go now… I don't know.. I ever will."

His voice was fragile, cracking a little, as he responded. "And.. would that be such a bad thing?"

Lizzy didn't answer for a long, long time. Neither of them moved; the ground was soft under the leaves, and something about the humid night air made everything feel unreal. When Lizzy answered him, it felt like the sound was coming from someone else.

"You can hardly see the stars tonight. If you squint… There's only faint spots, lighter gray on darker blue. You can't see the stars."

William didn't say anything back, for which she was grateful. It gave her time to collect her thoughts and continue:

"At home.. in the summer, especially… it feels like you can see hundreds of millions of meters up into the sky… The stars are everywhere. Like someone split salt on velvet. Glowing, massing… I know, you're probably used to not seeing them. Maybe it might scare you to see all those blinking lights, everywhere you look… That's how I feel here. This sky isn't my sky. I…"

She turned to him. He was already looking at her. The night had drained all the color from his eyes, leaving behind pools of pure obsidian. "William," she said, "I want to see the stars again."

He pursed his lips, and moved his head up and down. A nod.

Lizzy sat up— trying her best to avoid the hot tickles behind her eyes, which were growing stronger by the minute— and turned her gaze to the fence. She half smiled.

Where she had been kicking (where William had used all his might to pull her off the bars) there was a gap of bent metal. Just big enough for a scrawny 10 year old to squeeze through.

A smile wandered its way onto Lizzy's face. She didn't dare look back at her friend, for fear that she would change her mind. She got to her feet, and pushed off the ground. As she walked to the gate, she could hear the rustle of leaves behind her: William was getting up too.

Then she slipped through the bars, and she was on the other side.

Lizzy looked back to where the fence cut black lines through William's worried face. "We'll see each other again," she said, and found that she actually believed it. "This isn't goodbye."

"Then why does it feel like it?" William softly asked in a broken voice.

Something inside Lizzy's chest cracked. Tears began to flow down her cheeks, silently slipping away down her neck, and she didn't try to stop them. She just held her hands out through the gap in the bars, towards her best friend.

"Come here."

He obeyed, trudging as if by moving like a turtle, he could delay the inevitable. He couldn't.

William still reached the fence, and Lizzy cupped his face through the gap. He placed his hands over hers, and they shared a moment of silence, where neither of them were thinking anything, and neither of them felt anything but a thrumming and painful anticipation. It was time to go. They both knew it. Both of them wished they also knew how to end the moment without letting go of each other.

William was the first to pull away, and Lizzy hiccuped like a sobbing child.

She kissed him then, in the darkness; fumbling, sloppy, pressing herself as close as she could to him through the bars.

"This isn't the last time," came the last whisper. "I love you. I promise."

Then Lizzy was gone, darting off into the night. One hand was pressed to her mouth, and the other swung hard, back and forth, by her side. William watched her go until there was nothing left to watch, and his nose had stopped running. His heart was being torn from his chest— he was sure of it.

Seized by the sudden impulse, William threw himself at the bars, pounding the metal with his fists like he was ringing mourning bells. He kept hitting the fence until his knuckles were bruised and he couldn't breathe, at which point he crumpled to the ground, and cried.

From that day on, he knew things would never be the same. He had been forced to choose between his home and his only friend. Something was bound to break inside him.

William Darcy swore— that from that night on— he would never care about anything more than her. Never.

He turned around, wiped his face with his palms, and walked back to the house he had always known. He kept his eyes on the ground. Above him— just visible for the briefest of moments through the gloom.. there was a single comet that passed by.

And then it was gone, disappeared into the infinite navy darkness.