A/N:

TW: Domestic Violence - this is a serious issue, and I don't include it simply for shock value, I just feel it's important to mention for the story's sake as it gives some context as to why Valentina is the way she is. As always, if anything's taken in distaste, please tell me and ill endeavour to change it.

REVIEWS:

Crossover Junkie: Yes, I might have backed myself into a corner there, but I wriggled out. To be fair, both back stories are fascinating, why not do both? Good to know, I'll keep my mouth shut :) I should really read Percy Jackson. You should run with that, its sounds like it would have a lot of merit!

EmberBeastie: Your reaction was perfect, I loved getting your review! So glad you enjoyed it.

Skyress1: It really doesn't, and I'm afraid things are about to get worse before they get better. You know the hardest part about this is psychoanalysing everyone. Figuring out motives and objectives for each of them. I guess I'm trying to stay true to something like repressed memories, as much as my limited perspective allows. The psychology behind these characters are why they worked so well in the first place. As for Val and Pitch, I know they keep dancing around it, but patience, it will be worth it :) Thanks once again for your lovely review.

Ambling past the kitchens just offside North's main workshop, Jack had to do a double take when he spied an ominous figure stalking back and forth, clouded by frustration as it searched for something. He stood silently by the doorframe, carefully watching the Boogeyman for any evidence of devious intentions, which were still entirely possible as far as he was concerned.

"What are you doing?" he eventually asked, not bothering to veil his suspicions.

From behind, Jack saw his shoulders tense.

This wasn't the first time he'd caught Pitch in the middle of something unexpectedly mundane. Two days ago he'd gone back to the store cupboard to find some twine to fix the leg of his trousers after snagging it on a tree branch, and was startled to find the Nightmare King already lurking in there.

"Hey! When North said you were welcome here, he didn't mean in his supplies,"Jack had growled, pointing the crook of his staff at the fear spirit.

"Easy," Pitch had ordered, raising his hands in jest and surrendering a borrowed clipboard. "I'm just taking an inventory. That's hardly a crime now is it?"

"If it's done by you? Probably. What do you want with an inventory?"

"It's not for me, it's part of the plan, which I believe is being affectionately referred to as 'Operation Second Chance'. While it's not the most exciting task it is prudent to know exactly what we have at our disposal. Why waste resources when we needn't? Many brilliant military strategies were flawed by shoddy logistics. You only need to look at the British and the length of time it took them to ship supplies to the American colonies; it was a disaster. This on the other hand is hardly war, but the same principle applies. You forget about logistics and you lose. Now if you'll excuse me…"

Jack made no response at the time other than to gawp at the apparent war strategist. Really, he shouldn't have been surprised, Pitch never attacked anything without a plan.

Meanwhile the Nightmare King's prickly demeanour returned. "Didn't anyone ever tell you, Jack? It's rude to stare."

His mouth still hung open with an unintelligent countenance. "You're really just writing a list?"

"YES. Now stop staring!"

Jack had walked away scratching his head, jarred by the ordinariness of it all…

Now Pitch turned to face him with a look that bespoke tired irritation.

"Frost. Just who I wasn't looking for." Far from being in the mood for a verbal joust, he returned to rummaging through draws as Jack looked on in bemusement.

"What are you doing?" he asked again, this time out of genuine curiosity.

Pitch let out a sigh that sounded far more like the growl of a beast. "I'm making coffee."

"Coffee?"

"Must we go through this every time… Yes, Jack, coffee. " By this stage he was close to grinding his teeth blunt.

The winter sprite scrunched his nose and screwed up his lips as he watched the perplexing display of the Nightmare King brewing with a small percolator he'd found over the stove and ground beans from a packet that must have belonged to North. There was nothing to do then but wait as it boiled over an open flame, and not once during those three minutes did the two break their tense appraisals of each other. Only when the little metal jug whistled did Pitch adjourn his scowling. Tending to it, he poured himself a small cup - an espresso shot. He took a sip of the scalding beverage and welcomed the bitter aroma of arabica, leaning into sharp taste and closing his eyes as it temporarily warmed him.

"Since when do you drink coffee?"

His eyes flashed open and he worked his jaw. So many questions from the boy! "Since my residence beneath Venice has provided me with an appreciation for the stuff."

Jack was taken aback by this. "Your lair is in Burgess, not Italy," he argued with a frown.

"That's where you'd be quite wrong," he snickered. "That little town is just one of many entrances to my domain."

He blinked. "But we found our way to you from there, and there's no way we could have travelled that far in the space of a few minutes."

"You did so because I knew you were coming. I commanded your passage through the labyrinth, and you should be so lucky. I could have had you wandering lost for an eternity." At this he chuckled darkly. "The shadow realm bends to my will, as does anything composed of the dark matter found beneath the Earth's surface. I'd have thought you'd realised that by now, Jack. Don't you remember?"

Pitch's allusion took him back to the night he'd been beckoned by the call of his little sister, only to be taunted by his worst fears, and to have them come true Easter morning. He'd been thrown about relentlessly, tumbling though darkness at the Nightmare King's fancy, never certain where he was going to land.

"Yeah, I do."

There followed a stiff silence between them. Pitch found himself staring into his cup with an unreadable expression, gauging his reflection in the dark Italian brew. With a glance at Jack, who glared fixedly at him with unresolved resentment, he proceeded contrary to his vexation that had first begun with the boy's rejection six years ago.

"Would you like some?"

The offer was abrupt as it was abrasive, and it took Jack longer than it should have to realise what he was referring to.

"Of the… coffee?"

Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself not to roll his eyes, lest he detach a retina. "Yes. The coffee." When the frosty haired sprite narrowed his piercing cerulean eyes in skepticism, he added, "oh please, it's not like I've poisoned it. I'd have to ask Valentina for something like that, and somehow I don't think she'd approve," he said, dispelling the doubt with a dose of black humour. He went ahead and poured another cup.

"I've never tried it," Jack admitted with reservation.

"Then I insist."

Pitch's lips curled as he held out the drink, but his his expression was not unkind. If anything, there was a hint of remorse that disarmed the winter spirit.

Taking it, he eyed the dark beverage dubiously before downing the entire thing with the same voracity that one might rip off a bandaid. His face contorted, at first from the scalding temperature, and then because of the strong kick.

"Careful, it's hot." Pitch looked on with amusement as Jack shuddered and came to terms with the favour.

"You didn't want to mention that before," he complained of a burnt tongue, the heat disagreeing with the iciness that made up his entire being.

"I could have," he shrugged, "but I think a lesson in caution is far more valuable. Besides," he added with a chuckle, "I didn't tell you to throw it back like a shot of tequila. So, what do you think?"

"It's… not so bad… once you get past the bitterness," he reviewed between smacks of his lips.

"It's an acquired taste-"

They heard her before they saw her. Frantic footsteps sprinted toward the kitchen followed by a blur of red and pink that came tumbling through the doorway, nearly knocking Jack off his feet.

"Val?"

She was gasping slightly, having run all over the place trying to find Pitch, who could be incredibly elusive when he wanted.

"Valentina, is everything alright?" he asked, making his way over. She wasn't afraid for her life, he determined, so that wasn't the reason she came hurtling in like a tornado. But simply reading her face wasn't enough, she seemed concerned and definitely rather shaken but… hopeful?

"I've been looking every where for you," she panted.

"My dear, I've been right here. What's the matter with you?"

"I'm fine, just let me… is that coffee?" she deviated, spying the percolator. Talking Pitch's empty cup, she fetched herself some and drank it down.

"It was," Pitch replied with a hint of disappointment.

With her breath having fully restored itself and her thirst sated, Valentina could focus on why she'd come to find him in the first place and put the cup back on the bench. "Pitch, would you mind coming up stairs? I think there's something you need to hear."

It was not, apparently, a request. She took his arm and towed him away from where he'd been leaning against the bench. He shot Jack an astounded glance, and the boy shrugged helplessly in reply. The invitation hadn't explicitly excluded him so he decided to follow.

They made it to the landing in time to see Tooth materialising in the globe room. In her hand she held a little, wooden box.

"Would someone explain to me what the meaning of this is?" Pitch demanded irritably when Valentina neglected to divulge exactly what was so urgent. He abhorred being the one kept in the dark and was getting very close to loosing his temper.

"We will," Valentina assured him, "Tooth, did you find what you were looking for?"

The fairy held up the box and gave it a small shake. Something rattled from within. "I got it."

This did nothing to ease his confusion and being unable to make heads or tails of the situation, Pitch had had enough. "I won't ask again!" he said dangerously.

At this, Valentina turned to face him and placed a soothing hand on his arm. "I'm sorry I've been so cryptic but we need you keep a level head. Will you please do that? For me?" she appealed with tentative smile.

He released an exasperated sigh. "Yes, if it will speed things up, then fine. But be warned," he directed to the others, "my patience has a limit."

"And a short one at that," Tooth agreed. Without ceremony, she proceeded to open the box, and from it she retrieved a small object - a single tooth.

"Is that what I think it is?" Jack moved closer to examine it.

The tooth was no child's, it was an adult molar extracted some time ago, and although it wasn't rotten it's owner had apparently never placed a high level of value on orthodontia.

"Yes, it is." She held it out to the Nightmare King. "Look familiar, Pitch?"

Realising it was is very own, he snatched it from the fairy's possession and eyed it closely, absentmindedly rubbing his jaw from where the molar had come. His eyes snapped back up to her. "Are you here to gloat, Toothiana?" he challenged.

Feeling as though she must have missed something, Valentina interjected, "gloat about what exactly?"

Tooth returned his lour in defiance. "I might have punched him some time ago. In the face."

The Guardian of Love gave a tetchy groan. "And you knocked out a tooth? Was that really necessary?

Tooth hardened her resolve. "He had it coming," she sniffed and Pitch's eyes narrowed to slits as considered the plethora of ways he could repay her.

"Ok, enough," Valentina adjudicated quickly, sensing that old grievances were about to make themselves known, which would leave her the one ending up worse for wear. "Can we get to the part where this is supposed to be helpful?" She shot an arched look at her friend.

"Right," Tooth grimaced. "Well, after that happened I decided to keep the tooth with me, because honestly I thought it would be fascinating to study. I know all the memory properties of baby teeth, but don't tend to get a lot of adult teeth my way, least of all ones that have seen as much history as this one, or ones that belonged to someone in the possession of magic. I had to take it, the doors it could open up, it was like a gold mine-"

"It thrills me to know my pain brought you hours of entertainment," Pitch interrupted sharply, "but would you mind getting to the point?"

"The point, Pitch, is that it's been brought to my attention that you only know select details about your daughter, Emily Jane, and have forgotten everything else. But we are very fortunate as I've found adult teeth do contain some memories, even if they aren't as pure. Yours were something else entirely," she suppressed a shudder, "but they're there."

"You told her?" he hissed to Valentina, "why would you bring her into this?"

"Because I thought she could help," she retaliated sternly.

"I don't need help with anything, I know my daughter." he retorted indignantly.

"Not as well as you think. You've convinced yourself of such a lie that you've completely warped your own sense of reality. What you know, I'm told, is not the whole story. And this hurt, this pain you feel won't heal itself until you figure that out. You need to remember what really happened, Pitch, you need to be brave."

It was the conclusion of her appeal that most resonated with him, and her words melded with those of the Woman's soul.

"To be brave…" he muttered and said to Valentina gently, almost pleadingly, "what could be so important that you can't just tell me yourself?"

She glanced at Tooth, hesitating briefly. "If those memories are going to show you what we think they will, it might be best to hear it from them."

He sensed her fear growing stronger by the second and yet she was encouraging him onward, with this endeavour providing her no end of dread. Did she think it would tell him something about his wife? Whatever it may be, she was trying to hold her ground, to be his rock in a tumultuous sea, doing so, he discerned, because this really was for his sake. Or so she thought. He was struck by her selflessness, having never stopped to think that someone might endure self-sacrifice for him the way she so willingly seemed to. It had to be something pivotal. With a deep breath he complied.

"Alright," he said.

Valentina had never seen Pitch look frightened before, and if the eyes were the windows to the soul, then the fear she saw in them was very real. So recognising that the prospect of finally knowing the truth terrified him, she reached for his hand and clasped it tightly in hers..

Tooth flew over and gestured to have the molar, which he gave languidly to her.

"I know we've been at odds forever, and I really don't know how Val can stand you…"

"Rest assured, the feeling is mutual."

"…but it's my job to help people remember what's important, and I'm not about to make an exception."

Pitch didn't respond, but his silence was one of appreciation. He couldn't be sure how to express gratitude, let alone to someone who had made it her mission to bring him down as far as he would stoop. He settled for a curt nod.

Tooth enclosed the molar in her hands and muttered something inaudible. She then returned it to him.

"You know what to do?" she asked.

"If I recall correctly," he confirmed. With the tooth hidden in the palm of his fist, he placed it against his forehead and shut his eyes tight.

Darkness enveloped his senses. All he had to orientate himself was the sensation of motion, and he was moving quickly. Coming to a sudden, but gentle, stop, it was only when the world was revealed to him, as though being unveiled by the whip of a cloak, that he understood he'd landed in the midst of a woodland clearing. The ground beneath him was a combination of earth and water, though curiously the two never mixed. The trees around him were dense and seemed to be preempting his every move as they swayed in the wind. To his surprise they brought forward, with their winding, wandering vines, a girl. A prisoner. She struggled and fought, and when she laid eyes on him there was both fear and pity in her appraisal. They'd met before. Her gaze shifted to something over his shoulder and he turned to behold a willowy young woman who held herself with a regal dignity. Her raven hair and cloaking melded together, making her appear all the more intimidating as they billowed majestically in the breeze. Her regard was what ensnared him though, cold as ice with nothing but scornful betrayal.

"You saved me," he heard himself say.

"No," she rejected venomously, "it was the girl who saved you. The one you would make your darkling princess."

He glanced over to the prisoner, who appeared to have given up the struggle. That girl? He failed to recall who she was supposed to be to him, let alone what was so special about her, but at least the name 'Katherine' came to mind.

"Had you forgotten me?" The woman demanded angrily when his attention wandered. "Your own daughter!"

Emily Jane. She was alive! But his little girl, once so wild and joyful, had grown up cold and bitter. How could this be?

"No! I never for a moment forgot you," he cried. Though the words had been true once, they now tasted acrid as he realised, to his great shame, that he'd since done exactly that.

"Then why did you not come for me?"

She had been missing. That's right, she didn't perish with her mother, she'd escaped somehow, only to be lost in the eternity of space for the ten years that followed. He'd left no stone unturned in his quest to bring her home, relentless in his search. Until…

"I tried! I tried… For so long I tried -" his voice broke off in anguish. She had to understand. He'd never given up hope. But space was expansive and she could have been anywhere in the deepest reaches of the galaxy. He'd been fruitless in finding her, not until he'd heard her dreams, a plea to be rescued, thinking that a Dream Master had only sent them to taunt him. As the newly awakened Nightmare King he'd sought out their source with harmful intent. If only he'd known she'd been there all along, hiding with The Sandman from the monstrosity he'd been reduced to.

"You failed me, Father."

These words cut him deeper than a knife, yet he knew they were true. He felt his heart shatter, just as it had the first time he'd heard her say them.

She stood stoically, exceedingly calm as around them a gentle snow fall strengthened into a blizzard. "I was lost. I had nothing but my rage at you to feed me." She started towards him and he cowered away from the force of nature she'd become. "I came to your aid only out of… curiosity. To see how a once-great man could become so fallen and low. You will receive only indifference from me Father. I will neither help nor hinder you. I demand only one thing for my neutrality: You cannot make this girl yours. Not ever. Leave her be, or I will destroy you. I am your only daughter, for good or ill."

He would have done anything to have her back in that moment, thrown himself at her feet and begged for forgiveness, proclaimed that she could never be replaced, and promised to love her as the doting Father he'd once been. But he felt his facial features twist into a malicious, spiteful sneer beyond his control as he eyed the girl still held captive.

"Yes, my daughter. I will not touch her."

...

He tried to free himself, but he was trapped, sinking in quicksand that held fast to his legs, unrelenting in its grip. The more he struggled, the quicker he lost the battle. Before him stood Emily Jane once again, enraged, wrathful, and looking daggers at him. He could only guess at this stage what he might have done to anger her.

"I had only one condition, just one, and still you failed to meet it," she accused scathingly, somewhat amazed at how despicable he'd become.

"I did as you asked," he heard himself justify desperately, "I never made her mine. How could I? You were - you are - my daughter. The only one there ever will be. True to my word, I did not lay a finger on her."

"But you still thought it wise to damn her to an eternity of nightmares? To encase her in a tomb of her own fear? I told you to leave her alone. I made myself clear that you were to have nothing to do with her."

"What does it matter? She is nothing to me," he stressed as the quicksand crept up past his waist. "I only did it to get back at Tzar Lunar's new henchmen, the cossack man and the rabbit. And to survive! I needed her fear, you don't know what I have to do just for mere subsistence."

"You dare lie to me, Father?" Her voice dropped dangerously low. "I heard your intentions. The girl is without her parents, without family of her own, and you offered her the one thing she longs for the most. But it was not her desire that drove you to this, it was yours. I know it was not just a ploy. As long as you think she might be able fill that void of many years ago, she will never just be nothing."

"No! That's not true-"

"Know that you have wronged me!" she shrieked. With her unforgiving gaze fixed on his shrunken form slipping beneath the sand, Emily Jane conveyed the finality of her decision. "From this day onward we are no longer allied and my neutrality will cease. My greatest friend, my father, you are no more and I will ensure you live out the rest of your days in isolation. If I find you look with even a hint of kindness upon another, or they you, there will be a price to pay and that I promise…"

Pitch wrenched the memories away emitting a short but terrible noise that was somewhere between a sob and a scream. He held his fist out in front of him, staring at it affronted and devastated. It was so tightly clenched that he could feel the tooth inside it begin to cut through his skin. When spoke, his voice was horse, strangled by the lump in his throat.

"Why would you show me this? WHY!?"

The others had not been privy to what was disclosed, and his outcry had startled them into a collective stupor. Although she moved her lips, words failed Valentina. She stood there, opening and closing her mouth, looking every bit the fish out of water she felt.

"Pitch, I'm sorry," Tooth eventually managed, but if he heard her apology it was blatantly ignored.

"How could you…" He'd cast aside Valentina's hand and was clawing at his scalp. "How could you?"

"Pitch," Valentina coaxed in her naivety, "she's alive, isn't that all that matters?"

"She is alive," he said heaving a ragged breath, "but I would be better off dead."

They could have been forgiven in thinking Pitch was about to inflict untold damage upon anything within thirty feet as his face grew utterly expressionless, save for a darkness that crossed his features like an eclipse. But he was exhausted, and in admitting defeat for the second time in recent memory, he disappeared from the space like a wisp of smoke.

Jack was the first to break their stunned silence. "Is it just me," he muttered, "or is Pitch acting really weird?"

"Wouldn't you?" Tooth asked him incredulously, having since imparted to Jack what Pitch was supposed to have seen.

"Of course. I just mean he's different. It almost like he's, I dunno, more human than what he used to be."

"Yes," Valentina agreed, though she spoke more to herself than anyone else as the idea solidified, "that's exactly what he's like."

It was another hour before she found him again. Valentina combed through the entire North Pole, leaving no room unchecked, no cupboard unopened and no shadow undisturbed. In doing so she discovered numerous secret passages connecting some rooms to others, and it was in one of these that Pitch had tucked himself away, hiding from the light in its dreary gloom.

When she saw him slumped listlessly on the floor up against the wall, she concluded with a sigh that pushing him to remember Emily Jane had been her worst of many bad ideas. He stared blankly through mien of weeping's aftermath, that dour expression left when no more tears can be mustered. Going to sit beside him, she slipped her arm around him and pulled him close. He had not the energy to protest, instead curling into her comforting embrace and burying his head in the crook of her neck.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, "I thought if you knew... I thought it had to be better than thinking she was gone forever," to which he answered with a single, jarring shudder. A silent sob. "But I was wrong." It went without saying that she was to never speak of his vulnerability, which would be the last nail in the coffin of his pride. As she held him, she ran her fingers gently through his hair, just as he'd once done for her, and his breathing slowed. He was calming down. Though he would have detested it had he known, she pitied him all the same. Sensitive, fallible, this was not the Pitch Black she'd first met, but it was the one she'd come to know, and she the more she pondered it, the more she was convinced Jack may have been on to something.

"I've never told you about who I was before this, have I?" she asked softly. It wasn't that she expected him to respond, nor that she thought he'd care at the minute. Rather, she supposed talking about anything else might provide some distraction for him.

With his head still resting against her shoulder, he shook it the tiniest bit.

"Well," she began "I was born in 1767 to a family of the French aristocracy and I was lucky enough to grow up in a relatively happy home. My parents let me do as I pleased, which was mostly to study. I had a passion for chemistry and the science that it was at the time, I thought it was fascinating. Though really any subject could have taken my fancy. I had a great tutor too, a bright young man two years my senior, and a scholar himself. There was even a time I thought we would marry," she said rather wistfully, "but I digress. I was very fortunate, most girls my age had been sent to sweatshops by the time they could hold a needle and thread.

"Unfortunately, my good luck didn't last long. I became a burden to my family and when I turned eighteen my parents had to find me a suitor - their fortune was being drained by societal upheaval and families like mine were being targeted by the masses."

"French Revolution?" he mumbled.

She hummed an affirmative "It was the only way for us to survive. Suddenly my studies were too improper for a young woman. You can imagine how I panicked when I realised marriage would mean throwing away everything I'd worked for to become some pompous prick's demure little housewife.

Pitch gave a silent chuckle this, not able to picture her being reduced to such a thing.

"I never saw my tutor again, but that was the least of my worries." As she continued, Valentina's voice had became wooden and betrayed something sinister had overshadowed her happy childhood. "The man I was supposed to call my husband was my worst nightmare come to life. I would gladly face a hundred of your nightmares than face him again. He treated me, and anyone who crossed him with such cruelty that there were some days that I thought would be my last, but he was the only one fit to pay the dowery. So I endured, because in the end it wasn't just about me. He had a younger sister who was being raised by her father, however he died unexpectedly and she had no one to care for her, so we were forced to take her in. I tried so hard to protect her, but he resented having another mouth to feed, and I don't even want to think what it would have been like with our own children. Because of him I became nervous, distrusting, and there were night terrors like you wouldn't believe - or perhaps you would. Still, I refused to let this girl grow up without knowing the same love my family had given me and we became each other's greatest companions.

"One night he came home from the local tavern, reeking of rum to the point that his hot breath made my head spin. He started to grab me, the way he usually did when he was drunk, but Amelie was there and I didn't want her to see. So I pushed him off me, and he didn't like that one bit. He yelled at me, invoking his right to me as his wife and became quite violent, and that's when I knew I had to leave. In that moment I decided I'd find my family and take Amelie with me. We should have had his drunkenness on our side which rendered him too clumsy to do much, but in the end it became a weapon. He… he threw a knife, not aiming, it was just supposed to be a warning. I saw it go straight for her. Somehow I managed to push her out of the way in time.

Pitch's attention was well and truly captivated by this point. His anger flared, absolutely livid at this disgraceful scum that had ruined her early life and been the cause of the fear she now struggled to control. He removed himself from her shoulder to better look at her. "And?" he urged.

"And it came for me instead," she finished evenly. "After that I must have died, because there's a period where I remember nothing. But when I was well and truly aware of myself, the Man in the Moon spoke to me. He told me my name, that he'd saved me for the unconditional love I'd shown to Amelie. I didn't realise at first that I'd become part of the spirit world, not until someone walked straight through me, and I don't think I need to tell you what that feels like."

"No," he agreed.

"Pitch," she said, intertwining her fingers in his, "I suppose what I'm trying to tell you is that I once knew a family too, and I was denied love by a wicked man and circumstances beyond my control. But I knew I still had to try and give that poor girl the faith that love always exists somewhere. And in a way that saved us both. So that's what I try and put into to the world as best I can, that's why I do the things that I do. It's the most enduring thing I know and since then I've seen all kinds of love, but family has always been the strongest. Regardless of whether they're related by blood or chosen, like I chose Amelie. You would have chosen Emily Jane every time if you could, and as long as you love her there's still a chance."

"You can't know that, the things she said-"

"Came from a very hateful place. I do know. I know what she said because I know you wish they weren't true. But if she's still out there, there's always a chance. Family bonds might strain, but they never truly break," she promised him.

For the first time that entire week, Valentina saw hope reemerge into into the Nightmare King's eyes.

"What would I do without you?" he asked, shaking his head.

"I often ask myself the same thing about you."

"Valentina, I'm sorry. Really I am. That night we met and I grabbed you... I know fear, but I can't imagine what that must have been like for you."

"All's fair in love and war," she reassured him, "at least now you know why I went with the punches." She turned him by the cheek with a gentle hand to face her and when he met her eyes, she saw something unmistakably human within. "I forgave you a long time ago, I just hope you can now do the same for me."

"If can I trust that you'll stay?"

She smiled at him. "For as long as you want me."