The story continues-my apologies for being gone so long. I dealt with something a fair bit harsh, and couldn't bring myself to continue writing, but, for now, I'm back.

Disclaimer: No matter how hard I try, I'm not Ray Bradbury.

Flashback

"Well, Montag, you've been doing better than I," Faber smiled, "My friend and I, we've been helping with the resistance and all, but in our own little old man ways. We've been releasing a newspaper of sorts, more of a leaflet I guess, for people of restrictive views. Been throwing them on the streets in hopes that someone will find them and change their minds. Its slow going, but Rome wasn't built in a day."

"All I've been doing is hiding. You're doing so much more than I," Montag groaned at the problems of being dead.

"Perhaps. But you live on in the peoples imagination. A martyr for the ages," Faber grinned, "Especially since all they know of you is what I say."

"Faber, what have you been telling the people?"

"Mythology, my dear friend, reverse propaganda," Faber smiled again, "You are no longer Montag the firemen, but Montag the hero."

"You've told the people lies, how could you Faber?"

"I have told no such lies. I have told the truth. I told of a man, once a burner of books, who so moved by the truth of one girl, picked up a book and found that all he had known was lies," Faber looked a little chastened, "I tell no lies. My pen has no fancy for fiction."

"I am no hero."

"Was Cincinnatus? Was Cesar? Was anyone of the hero's of old truly a hero except in the tales of the people that loved them?" Faber smiled again, then groaned, "But enough of this, you must return to the wilderness Montag, before they find you, dead though you are, and whomever has accompanied you on this trek."

"Are you sure you will not join us, Faber?" Montag wished he would.

"And leave my printer to continue on the good fight without a pen? No, he would be lost. The man couldn't string together an obituary. No, Montag, you must flee the city and fight a home in the country, among the others," Faber looked around suspiciously, "hurry, before someone finds out you are here. And never return here, Montag, never."

End Flashback

Traveling had become stranger when his group had joined with more of the dead. Clarice, for one, had returned. In his dreams, in his mind, she had become something she was not. She had stopped being a girl whose company he subconsciously hoped for every day, and started being a myth, a legend, a girl who inspired him to change his life. How could anyone live up to that?

The two groups had ultimately decided to stay together, since seeing only three people for a very long time had a tendency to get old rather quickly. Maybe one day they would be the beginnings of an intellectual community, ripe with the knowledge of old philosophy greats. Every night, the two groups would swap segments of their knowledge, a little bit of Luke intermingled with a little bit of Frank Herbert. Not your typical scholarly session, but one that was enough to bite back the ravenous cold and the pain of memory.

The bookish one was named Tobias, and would constantly prop up his glasses in an effort to stop them from sliding off his too skinny nose. He looked like a caricature, and was indeed full of useless knowledge. Back in the 'real' world, he had been a engineer of sorts, lost in a world of nozzles and tubes, until a man he had known since birth had started to convince him that there was more to the world than sitting at home in front of the view screen, or being infatuated with the lives of inanimate objects. Unfortunately, he still was a tedious bore, who once you knew him for long enough, had a voice like a drone. He was, however, a man of a lighthearted spirit, and that made up for his propensity towards talking.

Ah, but to see Clarice again. She was still a pretty girl, and Montag far her senior. Attractive yes, but now far out of his range, both by age and by experience. Since he had escaped a life of lies, he had realized that before he had been only a child, and that now he was truly an adult, after years of pretending to be one. How could he return to being a child, by falling into the arms of a child? It wasn't that she wasn't pretty, intellectually stimulating, or anything like that. In the days he had spent with her after her death, he had discovered that he did not love her, like what he thought before. He was infatuated with the idea of her, the beauty of her, and the fact that she had been his savior.

The Reverend had decided on the camp site, and declared that today would be his day to speak, and so he spoke. 'Lies,' the other world would say, 'ugly, hideous, sad, traitorous. Why not hide from it, hide from it all?' Here though, here in the wild, they all heard the truth and as if with one mind, Montag spoke, 'Beautiful.'

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