A/N: I edited chapter one a little... nothing drastic, but take a look if you want


Halt laid on the couch, reading Gilan's latest letter. Since Gilan had heard Will and Halt were writing each other, he had started doing the same thing as he thought it was only fair. They had become as regular as one or two a week. Gilan would keep him updated on strange things he ran into, or thoughts he had…

Halt couldn't say he didn't like it. Letters were the only way that rangers could have regular contact when they were so spread out.

And it was a good distraction.

Any news from Will? Gilan wrote. I don't know how you'd know anything because he's pretty much on his own now, but I had to ask.

But even distractions couldn't keep his attention forever. People would ask him this once in a while, he suspected because when anybody close to them thought of Will, they also thought of Halt. Their names were grouped together more often than not. That would change once Will made a real name for himself, but for now, every time Halt would answer with the same thing: he'd heard nothing from Will and didn't expect to.

Then hopefully they'd take a hint. No longer did Halt want to talk about Will.

Will was a great ranger. Halt didn't have to hear it from him that he had the mission under control. He told Gilan something like that to assure him everything was fine (leaving out the "great ranger" part, of course).


Alyss and Will had just made it out of the thickest part of the Grimsdell Woods.

After Will cut his way through the tangle of vines and branches, they found a clear, man-made path laid out for them. Will's dog waited for them on the path with a look that said, 'well, it took you long enough'.

Will was tempted to retort back to her with something snappy, but he realized just in time that this was in fact a dog that could not talk and could not understand him. Even worse, Alyss would make fun of him if he did that.

"Well, what do you know?" Alyss smiled. "Here it is."

"We're onto something now." Will walked forward, eager to continue. "We're definitely getting close."

Alyss tried to follow him, but when she went to take a step she found that something was holding her foot back. She wasn't ready for it. Before she could regain her balance, she was tipping over and falling face first towards the ground. Even spreading her arms out to catch herself wasn't going to break her fall much. She cried out quietly to get Will's attention.

Will turned in alarm; he reached his arm out as far as he could to her. Alyss was fast enough to catch it, whether through panic or agility, she didn't know.

Just for now she forgot about dragging him down with her, and held onto his arm as much as she needed to. Will put his arm around her waist, and pulled her up until she was back on her feet.

He chuckled. "Probably not the scariest thing that's going to happen tonight," he said.

Alyss grimaced at him, but it turned into a smile at the end because of what he said. "Thanks," she mumbled. "It's dark out here."

"I could carry you," he offered.

"Tempting, but I'll pass."

He probably would've done it if she said yes, though.

Only after she wasn't in danger did they realize just how close they were. Alyss was mobile again, but neither of them moved. They stayed. They stared at each other. Despite how dark it was, Will could see the color of Alyss's eyes. Were those specks of green in her grey eyes?

In the short time they'd been together on this mission, Will had noticed every light touch Alyss gave him on the arm, and every extra smile she shot him. She had never done this before, and Will had never returned or initiated them until now.

Just a minute ago, they had been riding on Tug and Alyss's arms were around him. Will asked himself 'what does this mean?' but he knew what it meant. Any other time and he would've been too skeptical. He would've thought 'no, she's just being nice' or 'no, we're just really good friends', but he knew. He was hyper-aware, now, thanks to somebody in particular…

Will also noticed how he was reacting to this, to her casual arm touches and extra looks. He was playing right along, and that was the most confusing thing about it.

Had he been any other situation, Will would've had a real crush on her. Alyss was beautiful, and not just in the attractive way. She was more than beautiful- she was interesting. She was strong, and intelligent, and sweet once she let her guard down, but her cool front helped her do her job and she did it well… Will had known her as long as he'd known himself, and yet he never grew bored of her. She was just like that.

Will set her back on her feet, and dropped down to cut the vine off her leg. "Watch your step," he told her.

Alyss nodded. Her answer was delayed; she obviously had a lot on her mind too. "Got it," she said.

Once she had shaken her foot free, she could catch up with him. Their shoulders brushed briefly together when she joined him at his side, and she shot him an unmistakable look. It was more friendly than flirtatious, but it let him know that that shoulder brush wasn't a mistake.

Will smiled right back.

They agreed to keep an eye out for anything unusual, and then were met with silence. Will tried to focus himself completely on the mission, but he couldn't stop thinking.

Again, his mind drifted back to his former mentor and the letters they'd sent each other. Will wondered for the thousandth time how Halt was going to react to his question. What did Halt want to happen? And, similarly, what did Will want to happen?

He bet Halt was thinking 'he's forgetting about me by now', but Will hadn't. Not a day went by when he didn't wonder about what was going to happen when he got back.

When he got back…

Alyss pulled him out of his thoughts with, "I'm glad we're doing this together."

Will turned, looking at her skeptically. "This mission?" he asked.

"Yeah. I mean, we're a good team, and…" Alyss shrugged. It was too hard to meet his eyes now. She felt like a fool. "I dunno."

Will smiled. "We are," he replied. It occurred to him that Alyss wasn't trying to create a weird moment between them, but she just wanted to start some kind of a conversation. A grand effort, he thought. Better than saying nothing.

He wanted to help out, too, but something shiny caught his eye before he could go on. He pulled over to a tree trunk to check it out.

"What is it?" she asked, watching him look closer at the bark.

Will thought he'd seen something glimmer, but as he looked harder, he found it was just a piece of glass. He looked down, and saw the remnants of more smashed glass at his feet. "Stand back," he said. "There's glass over here."

Alyss walked closer. "Think it's important?" she asked.

"Not really. You can find this sort of thing in the woods a lot." Alyss moved to his side so she could see for herself, and Will didn't hold her back. Maybe she could find something he couldn't.

"There's some chipped bark, too," she said, tracing her finger around the area. "Somebody probably smashed a bottle in this area, probably not on accident. How could that happen, though? Nobody comes in this area anymore."

"Could be from a while ago… Could be a number of things," said Will. "Who knows what happened?"

"Yeah. Probably nothing having to do with the sorcerer. Let's just keep it in mind." With the problem resolved, she stood up straight, looking somewhat refreshed. She really did enjoy this.

She looked even prettier when she was excited about something. Not just in the physically attractive way… in another he couldn't understand.

Will smiled down at her. There was only an inch of difference between their heights, but he remembered how he used to tease her about being shorter than him.

When they became apprentices, Alyss was taller, but during Will's third or fourth year of training he surpassed her. Not to mention Will still had a few more inches to grow. Alyss was done. He'd be even taller than her in no time; then he could pat her head, or rest his chin on the top of her head… Probably not that much taller, but he could try and it would piss her off.

Will almost laughed when he realized that he'd had these exact same thoughts about somebody else, who was also shorter than him.

It came out of nowhere that Will suddenly said, "I'm happy we're doing this, too, by the way." He hadn't even thought about saying it. It suddenly burst out of him, just like that. If he had a little more time to think it through, maybe he wouldn't have done it.

Alyss tried to contain her smile, hoping it wouldn't get too big, but Will knew how happy she was. And he guessed he was kind of happy, too.

"You're good at this," he said.

"I'm even better with you."

Realization dawned on them both.

It took a while, because they had to be careful with these things. Everything happened at half speed. She leaned in. He leaned in. And somehow, like they'd both agreed on it, they slowly came together until their lips met in the middle. There was no awkwardness to it. They just clicked together.

They kissed like they had never kissed before.

Girls' lips were much softer than a guy's, Will noticed. Whether this was good or bad, in his opinion, he didn't know, but the sensation that came from kissing Alyss was much different than anything he'd felt before, from kissing Halt or kissing a younger Alyss. They were different people when they were younger. They fit much nicer now.

Her lips were soft, and he could feel the heat radiating off her cheeks. Her lips tasted as sweet as she was.

They pulled away and were still close enough to kiss… but following every first kiss was a few seconds of nothing where it was do or die. What happened in that small span of time could change their entire relationship forever, no matter what path they went down next. There were two routes: kiss them again, or walk away.

Alyss leaned in again, but instead she found empty space where his body had been. She opened her eyes.

Will was walking away, his back to her. "Keep an eye out for anything weird, and don't forget to look up," he said. "That's where people never look." He got that tip from Halt.

Will kept walking, not watching to see when she followed or not.


"Everything alright?" Crowley asked, one afternoon. They were sitting in his office, for a meeting that turned out to be more like a lunch date.

Halt feigned confusion. "Same as always," he said.

"Yes, but is that alright?" Crowley had a serious look on him, and it didn't suit him very well, Halt thought.

"Everything's fine," he told him. "I don't know why you're getting on about it, but-"

"You've been different lately, Halt." The commandant leaned back in his chair.

"Go on."

"Grimmer."

"Am I not always grim?"

"Well, yeah," Crowley admitted, "but it's different. I don't know how to describe it, but it feels like something happened… And you're not talking about it, but you're thinking about it a lot. And it's making you sadder." He cocked his head to the side, like looking at Halt at a different angle would help him understand him better. "Know what I mean?"

Halt did. That was exactly it. But he'd never tell him, because that would mean having to tell Crowley about Will, and everything that happened… which, worst case, could result in getting released from the Corps, and best case, would end in an immense loss of respect for him. Still, Halt found it surprisingly hard to deny it directly.

"You're not my therapist, Crowley," Halt said.

"You're right." He paused. "I'm your friend."

Halt was two feet from the edge, and when he jumped off, he would tell Crowley everything. Maybe he could trust him… No, he told himself. No, he couldn't trust anyone. Especially not the head of the Ranger Corps. They'd take away his Oakleaf, or worse.

Halt's heart was pounding, now. His hand flinched, he couldn't tell from anxiety or wanting to move. He needed to leave the room so this conversation couldn't go any further, or make up some kind of excuse… Crowley wasn't going to admit he was wrong very easily.

"I understand, though," Crowley said. "It's hard having somebody leave who you're so used to being around. You were writing him for a while, though, right?"

Realization dawned on him. Crowley was definitely getting at something else than what Halt had thought. If he could muster any kind of feeling inside him, he'd be relieved.

Halt answered without a moment of hesitation, "Not since he left for Norgate, but yes."

"Well at least for that. That makes things a little less lonely."

"I'm not lonely."

"Mhm."

Halt rolled his eyes. "I'm not. Why are we talking about this?"

"Losing an apprentice is hard. Last time it happened, you were on edge for a while. Irritable. This time it's worse. Now you're just sadder…" Crowley said. "You can't hide everything, y'know. But there's no reason you can't talk about it."

There was every reason why he couldn't talk about it. Even losing Will as an apprentice- just that, without the kissing part- he couldn't talk about that, either.

"I'm worried," Crowley said. "I'm worried about you."

"Don't be. There's no need."

"There's every need."

Halt stood up from his chair. If Crowley wasn't going to let this go, then he had to leave before it went any farther. "If this is all we're going to talk about, then I might as well go," Halt said.

"Halt-"

"There's nothing wrong with me."

"Stop lying to me-!"

"Shut up! There's nothing wrong with me, just drop it already!" he snapped. Even in saying it the way he did, he knew he was contradicting himself.

He waited for Crowley to say something back, but it never happened. Crowley stared, blank, then suspicious, like he'd caught him red-handed. He knew he was lying, and so did Halt. He may as well have admitted it.

Halt hated the silence between them. In that moment, he hated everything: that conversation, the atmosphere, Crowley, Will, and most of all, himself. He left the room and had enough self-control not to slam the door behind him.

Next time he ran into him, Crowley didn't bring it up. He never brought it up again, but Halt always felt like he was being watched more carefully than before. From then on he made a bigger effort to act normal. That was the least he could do for the Ranger Corps, and for everybody else.

But he had lied. There was everything wrong with him.


At first answering Will's question was easy. Halt knew what he wanted to happen: he wanted to tell Will he loved him more than the world itself- more than anybody else he'd known, more than an apprentice and way more than a friend. He wanted to kiss him again, but deeper and slower than last time. He wanted to make him understand just how he felt, and he wanted Will to kiss him back even harder. It was love right from the start, and if it was ever less than that it was too subtle for him to notice. Falling in love with Will was a slow crescendo, too slow for him to notice, then suddenly a cannon so loud it made his ears ring. His ears were still ringing from the shock.

But he had some time to figure out what he was going to tell him, which was probably not that.

As much as Halt excused it as something else, he was lonely without Will to talk to, in letters or in person. And then grew to be more than just loneliness. It was like the crash after a caffeine rush. He didn't know he had gotten his hopes so high until he found a reason to lose them.

The more Halt tried not to think about him, the more he thought about him, and the more he

strained to avoid it, the sadder it made him when he did think about it. Suddenly he wasn't eager for Will to come back.

Because suddenly he hated the person he was before Will left for Norgate.

And he hated the person he was now even more.

Maybe that was all for the best.

It had always been wrong, after all. The only surprising part was how Halt had managed to forget about it for a few months.

He reread Will's letters constantly, trying to cheer himself up and tell himself this was proof it was okay. If Will was just as into it as he was, then it was okay, wasn't it? But he knew better.

And then it was more than guilt.

It had grown from a little bit of a headache to a tidal wave of hatred and incessant unhappiness, so big it knocked him over again and again until he couldn't get up. Sometimes it suffocated him. It felt like it, when he was shaking so hard he could hardly get up, and his entire body crumbled... It drove him mad. He hated it.

When he looked down at his hands, especially on the nights when they shook extra hard, he could see the blood of all the men he'd killed. All the arrows he shot that ended people's lives. He could see the hands that gripped his apprentice's shoulders and brought him in to kiss him, and he wanted to cut them off.

There were just a few nights where he cried, but every other night it was the exact opposite. He was devoid of tears, and that was worse. Halt wondered if, when people looked at him, that was what they saw: a man devoid of tears. A man devoid of reason, and incapable of real love.

Knowing everything he'd done, they were probably right.


Miles away, Will was sleeping on the forest floor, staring up at the sky like there was something to look at. It was cloudy that night, but he couldn't see the clouds. They were so many, and they blended in so well that it didn't look cloudy. The sky was one, dark, empty color, after all the stars had fallen out.

Will closed his eyes. He pushed his eyelids down so far that he could feel the tickle of his eyelashes on his cheeks. No matter how many times he rubbed his lips together that day, he couldn't get the prints Alyss's lips had left on him off his mouth.

For a fleeting moment, just before he went to sleep that night, he wished Halt was there with him.