Two Years Earlier

"Go on, try harder."

"I am," Will insisted. He was tired of Halt telling him that over and over again, but he was even more tired of losing- too much to take it out on Halt. It wasn't his fault Will was losing. Halt never gave Will anything he didn't know for sure he could handle.

They reset their positions. Will caught his breath.

The second he was ready, he turned the knife over in his hand and rushed at Halt again.

Anybody else would have had to jump clear out of the way to avoid that. Halt didn't. One second the knife was aimed perfectly for him, the next, it was an inch away from his face. He knocked away Will's second attempt at hitting him and countered. The blade came close to Will's stomach before he whisked out of the way.

When the apprentice tried to cut up, Halt's arm met his down low and stopped it in its tracks; they collided again up higher in an x-like formation, this time under Halt's control. Will pushed them away.

They were too far away to fight, now. Neither one panted too hard when they caught their breaths. 'You first,' they seemed to say.

Halt hated how difficult it was to remain immersed in a standoff. Will never took his eyes off his opponent. He didn't just look at him, or through him, he looked straight into him. Like Halt was the center of everything around them, the axis on which it all turned. Like there was nothing else in the world he wanted to think about but him.

Halt got drunk on that kind of look.

Will ran forward. The first attack wasn't meant to hit him, it was to bait Halt into dropping his guard. Halt saw the way Will held himself back just slightly more than usual and didn't fall for it. The real attack went to his head. Halt was able to block it and then drive a punch into his open stomach.

Will grunted and lurched forward. He pushed Halt's arm away and tried thrusting straight at him, but Halt was just waiting for the right chance to catch his arm.

With one hand in Halt's tight grip, Will couldn't fight back. Halt swung to kill. Will ducked, but with one mobile hand, there wasn't much else he could do.

Halt knew he was going to win at this point, and he would've, had Will not used his trapped hand to his advantage. He stepped under Halt's arm and got up close to him, much closer than one should be in a knife fight.

Their bodies brushed together quite intimately.

Halt's mind went blank.

He forgot about being in the perfect position to stab him in the back. He couldn't think of a single thing because he was right there and so close, close enough to touch, and with Will pressed up against him it felt really, really good. The world centered. And if he tilted his head just up a little then- and Will's knee shot up and hit him in the stomach.

Halt didn't grunt because he'd already lost his breath. With every muscle in his body gone lax, Will was able to rip himself from his grasp. His blade brushed against the hair hanging behind Halt's neck. And then he'd won.

"There," he whispered, right next to Halt's ear, unknowingly making Halt's breath catch in his throat.

Will pulled away and was smiling breathlessly.

Halt couldn't meet his eyes. At this point it didn't matter if Will noticed something was wrong when he looked away. "Good," he muttered, no emotion in it.

He asked for Will's report of what he'd done right and what he'd done wrong, and he explained that in the 'wrong' category, at the very top of the list in fact should be that last move.

He could try and forget what'd happened. Obviously, nothing had happened.

Will had used a very risky strategy to buy himself time and, miraculously, it had worked. But Halt couldn't tell him it wouldn't work against anybody else because then would come the question "Well, why did it work on you?" and why did it?

It was like a hand rising out of nowhere and taking him by the throat. Squeezing until he was sick. But he wouldn't choke.


Present Day

That night they had dinner out, just like Will had said. The place where they ate compared more to a common tavern than a nice, sanitary restaurant, but the food was worth it. In the air drifted smells of dust underlying liquor, seeping out of cracks in the walls that'd give them splinters if they ran a finger across them. The walls could be sturdier, but the chairs they sat in were stiff and less than wobbly.

Whenever they found themselves in town too late, this was where they would eat.

Halt thought Will suggested it because he could take the bill and repay Halt for letting him stay. Even though Will claimed he wasn't going to stay overnight, it was getting a little too late to believe him.

The longer they spent there, though, the more Halt couldn't help thinking there was another reason.

"Everybody knows we're here, you know," Will said. "They know who we are, they're just looking the other way." Halt looked up from the slick table top he was reading like a book.

"You think so?" he asked.

"We come here a lot," said Will, "so much I'm starting to recognize the servers. And we may disguise ourselves in normal clothes, but at some point they're going to have to start catching on, right?" Most of the time the cloak was what identified rangers, not faces. With Halt and Will, it was a little different.

"Maybe. As long as they give us food and don't mind too much, it shouldn't be a problem."

Will nodded, but there was a faint trace of distress in his eyes. He was looking down at the table, now, just like Halt was before. Halt watched him until he knew Will could trace it, and took another drink from his mug.

Maybe they could've counted this as a date, but having dinner together was something they'd done together every night for the past five years, without a second thought to it. The change was about as natural as forgetting to breathe for a minute or two and not passing out because you're so used to not thinking about it.

Halt wondered if they were eating out because it would prevent them from talking about anything in public.

"I can't believe you haven't mentioned my beard once," Will sighed.

"Your beard?"

"Well…" Will raised a hand to stroke his chin. The growing hairs there were enough to tickle his fingers. "It's more like the first stages of a scruff, really."

"Ah."

"But that's always where it starts." Will brushed his knuckles against his jawline. "Some here, too."

"Good for you."

"It's proof of my departed adolescence. I think it started growing because I worked so hard in Macindaw, and now I've earned it… Can you see it?"

"No."

"Are you blind?"

"No, but I think you're delusional," Halt said.

"Want to feel it?"

"That's fine." Halt did want to, just not there, and not with his hand. He had felt something there before when he was kissing him, now that he thought about it, but it was so slight and he had been distracted by other things.

"You're missing out," Will told him.

"Well, you've got a long ways to go before it's actually a beard. You haven't yet earned the right to call it that."


They had just left the restaurant when Halt's first instinct was to go to the stables to collect their horses. He realized just in time that they hadn't brought them.

Neither of them was sure why they left their horses behind. Walking back to the cabin took no more than twenty minutes without them, not a long time, but it would've been twice as fast with Abelard and Tug. It was an odd thing to do, subconsciously.

"Thank you for dinner," Halt told him.

It made Will smile. "It's the least I can do."

Crickets chirped in the silence, agreeing.

Will looked over his shoulder and around the area for anybody who was near. It was more than the normal checkup rangers were used to when they surveyed the area. So Halt was a little worried.

He was right to be. As Will's head turned back around, his hand shot out of its right place to grab Halt's. He only found empty air. "Don't," Halt said.

"Nobody's here. I checked."

"Which is strange for this time of day."

"No, because they're all having dinner," Will said, no hostility in his voice. "And they're inside."

"Right."

They never picked up that conversation.

Within the next ten minutes, they had crossed the border from the town of Redmont into the woods. Will tried again to take his hand but, again, Halt pulled his out of the way in time and put it in his pocket. He had no excuse that time.


The cabin looked exactly the same as it did when Will left. He let go of a breath as he stepped inside, blowing stress out his mouth, oddly feeling like he'd just seen a ghost of his past coming back to haunt him.

The threshold must've been some kind of portal because the world inside felt nothing like the world they entered from. There was no telling what'd changed. It was as small as a vase that had been moved from one end of the room to the other. If they were careful enough they could catch it and wonder how in the world it got over there.

The door closed without a sound. "As you can see, nothing here is changed," Halt said, his back to Will.

"I expected you to turn my room into a storage closet after I left," he said.

"What? Oh, I did that," said Halt, draping his jacket over a chair. "I meant everything else is the same."

"Oh." Will raised his eyebrows so sarcastically it rivaled even Halt's signature look. "That sucks…" He inched closer to Halt, thinking out loud, "I wonder where I'll sleep…"

Halt stopped what he was doing immediately.

"The couch," he said firmly. "You'll sleep on the couch."

Will was grinning when Halt turned around and looked at him with scorn. "Your room is fine," Halt said.

The mock scorn wasn't all of what he was giving off. It was a small part that Will was wearing down quickly. And their stares were holding well.

It was no surprise. Will wrapped his hand around the back of Halt's neck and pulled him closer until their lips came together, and their bodies followed. There was no resistance to meet this time.

Halt slid his arms around his waist. Will's weight moving forward overpowered him briefly and Halt's hips knocked back against the table. Will broke the kiss just to say "sorry", but Halt held the back of his neck and kissed him before he could finish, hard.

Will ran his hand over the side of Halt his arm had been hiding, hand tugging at his shirt and then sliding under as Halt tightened his arms across his bare back.

There was something on Will's jaw, like he'd said, Halt felt scratching against his face when he brushed past Will's cheek to lay his lips on his neck. A breath escaped Will when his mouth was freed, perhaps a groan- they couldn't tell.

Will's mind was racing, but he was able to keep up with it. Eventually he tugged Halt over again by his hair and kissed him again on the lips, slowing, but not letting up any. It was even deeper than before, because no matter how hard he could kiss him, it never seemed to be enough. They would always keep coming back for more.

If one more second had gone by, and Will hadn't stopped, it all may have gone a lot differently.

But Will did stop. He held them apart at an elbow's length, but just the neck and below. He did so quickly so he couldn't change his mind, no matter how disappointed Halt looked.

As he whispered, his words fell against Halt's lips: "Let's go sit. I still need to tell you something."

Halt nodded, and stepped back. Will wished immediately he had just not said anything. There was no going back now, though. It was time to do what he'd come here for.


There was a kind of strength in being off balance, Halt realized. When he was ready to jump off of whatever beam he had been trying desperately not to fall off, with no safety net to catch him… Something about Will made him want to fall.

They took a seat next to each other on the couch. Three cushions covered it from one arm to another; Will sat on the edge of the second not too far away from Halt, by the left arm. He thought, any closer and it would cause an issue. Too far away and he was already dividing them in two.

Will made himself a glass of water, something to distract him from talking and an excuse to take his time in case he needed it. If things went like he hoped, though, he wouldn't need it.

He sat down, Halt next to him, legs crossed and waiting for Will to say something first. It was like one minute ago had never happened.

Will opened his mouth… then immediately retrieved the glass from the table top and took a drink.

"This is that thing you mentioned in the letter?" Halt asked.

The word "yeah" echoed inside the glass. Will set it back down on the coaster and leaned back. Against popular belief, breathing in and out always increased his anxiety instead of settling it.

"I want you to know that I meant everything I said in that letter," he told him. "Every word."

"I can say the same." His tone told him to hurry up. Maybe he was angry at him already.

So this was really happening.

"Okay…" But Will still didn't know what to say. "And before I begin I hope you-"

"Will."

Will sighed. Halt had had enough of him buying his time, and now he was even more suspicious than before. Will's only hope was that he was overreacting and it wasn't nearly as bad as he thought. It was only a weak hope, but the only one he could cling to.

"At the beginning of the mission, Alyss and I were looking for this sorcerer. We didn't think he was a real sorcerer, just a very talented illusionist, but he didn't have proof so we went into the Grimsdell forest looking for clues. We did find something, but this was before that.

"At one point we had a… I guess you could say it was a moment. We stopped for a minute because we thought we saw a clue, and we were talking about how well we work together, and… she kissed me."

This didn't seem to surprise Halt at all. Maybe he had suspected it before Will even said anything. "She kissed you?" he asked.

Will corrected himself, "We kissed each other. It was mutual."

That was what shut him up.

And he couldn't look him in the eyes. At least Alyss showed how shocked he was on the outside. Halt just shut up and looked away.

Otherwise, he looked exactly the same, and not one word came out of him. That was what was so scary.

"She… she went in to kiss me again," Will went on, pulling what may be his only chance at a redemption, "and that time I pulled away, and we didn't talk about it again." Will paused. "Sort of. Th- There's more to the story, should I tell you the whole thing and then let you hate me or just, let you hate me now?"

"No, please, go on."

Will inhaled. "Okay. When we were taking back Macindaw, Alyss had been captured by Orman's cousin Keren. At first he was the guy we thought was good, and Orman was the evil one, but we were wrong. He had her locked in a tower, princess-style, which was part of why we were targeting Macindaw.

"He had this magic stone and whoever looked into it would fall immediately under his spell and do whatever he wanted. He used it on Alyss to extrapolate information from her, but then Malcolm got to her another stone that would break the spell when she touched it. That was how she got information to us.

"That night we attacked the castle, she didn't have it. When I got to her she was under his spell, and he ordered her to kill me. Being, not herself, she said she would. I knew I couldn't hurt her. I was able to bargain with Keren for a while, but he, of course betrayed it, and Alyss raised the sword to kill me. Because… of how she kissed me before, I could only think of one thing that would break the spell."

"You told her you loved her?"

Will blinked once, twice. Did Halt really know him that well? Perhaps it was what he would've done if he were Will. "Yes," he said, voice quiet.

Halt nodded. "I see," he said; he sounded a little too polite.

Will leaned forward and took a drink of water.

"So does she remember?" Halt asked, in his window of opportunity.

When his mouth was free, Will answered, "I found out later that she was having dreams about what happened that night. At the time she didn't know for sure. Anyway, after all that, that's when I sent you the first letter. I gave it to Horace and he promised he'd get it to you, and then we were about to go our different ways. Then… she kissed me goodbye," Will told him. "That time I didn't have anything to do with it. But it happened."

"You could've pushed her away."

Will opened his mouth-

"Did Alyss talk to you about it after that?" he said. There were clues of hostility in his tone.

"She wrote me, saying she loved me too… I went to her personally, apologized, and let her know I didn't feel the same. That was the other business I had to come to Redmont for I mentioned."

"And I take it she didn't react too horribly."

"She didn't yell at me, no… She was upset. And confused. And probably still is, but I did it."

Halt nodded. "I understand how she feels."

The guilt Will felt after telling Alyss he didn't mean what he said was somehow so, so much worse with Halt. He wasn't expecting Alyss to forgive him, but he was praying that Halt would before the night was over.

Nobody was yelling at him that day when he deserved it. Saying nothing was so much worse; Will would've done anything for the right words that could fix everything. He would give a year of his life to go back and undo everything. Just how much would he undo?

"Halt, I'm really sorry."

"You've nothing to be sorry for." Halt turned his stare to the wall in front of him. "You made me no promises. You said, 'I think it's safe to put all this on hold until I'm done'. You didn't say anything would happen when you were."

"It was implied."

"It's not like you were cheating on me. You're free to do whatever you want, and I've no right to hold you back." Halt stood up from the couch, and like a string connecting them together, Will jerked to the front of his seat. "You have a choice, regardless of what you may or may not have promised me."

"Then I choose you," he said. Halt stopped walking.

Will thought back to when they had just gotten home, and Halt kissed him without restraint. Why would Halt do that, when he had pulled his hand back just minutes prior?

"Actions speak louder than words, Will," Halt said.

He could remember the way he held him, vividly, a place Will could lose himself in, and would if he had just one more chance, even if in such shallow water. It felt like a million years ago now.

Will sighed. "Should I leave?" He prayed Halt would say no.

"It's dark out there. You'd be better off if you got some sleep." Halt resumed his walk, hands in his pockets again, from the kitchen where he was taking his jacket off the chair and briskly back to his room. "Leave in the morning."

"I told you I'm sorry. I don't want-"

"You're forgiven." He shut the door.

A tear rolled down his face, and Will wanted to yell at it to go back to where it came from, because he didn't ask to cry. He wasn't supposed to be the one crying. He wasn't supposed to be the one hurting everybody, and Halt and Alyss weren't the ones who had to suck it up and act like it was okay.

Halt went into his room and found himself drained of all his will to throw something. He was aching to, at first, but when he shut the door suddenly he didn't feel like doing anything but keeping it shut.

And to think he ever had a chance.

It was all for the best, after all. If Will wasn't too late, he could apologize to Alyss and make up some dumb excuse for her to take him back, like he was sorry, and he had made a mistake- three big mistakes, actually, and he was different now.

Halt never went to bed as early as that. His body was still running on two more hours of energy. As tired as he was of everything, he never figured out how to fall asleep, so he was stuck just lying down, under the covers; eyes closed and wishing himself a very, very long sleep. The oil lamp was unlit when he came in, and he didn't bother to light it to get dressed.

The candles in the other room went out about twenty minutes after Halt left. That was it, then. No going back.

Come morning, this'll all be over and it'll be fine again. It's for the best. For his sake.

I bet he's relieved.

Halt looked down and realized he was shaking awfully hard as he strangled his pillow with one hand. So this was happening again. Great. He cursed, sat straight up and sighed because he wasn't going to let this get to him. He wasn't going to cry about this.

But it was too late for that now that his eyes were burning and flaming tears were already going down his face. Their trails became cracks in his skin. They broke him in plates.

He remembered losing sleep over what Will could possibly have to tell him that was more important than an 'I love you', even a guilt-ridden one. If it were possible, he would take back all of that, all of wanting to know everything he was curious about.

He didn't want to know anymore.

Halt was thinking and sobbing so hard some of his thoughts may have escaped out of his lips. He covered his mouth with his hand so his cries were muffled, while everything he never lost rained down on him in the form of tears and swears.

He's gone and I hope he never comes back.

No matter how many times he repeated those words in his head, or out loud, they never hurt any less.

Words became just sounds and they quickly stopped mattering to him.

He's gone and I hope he never comes back. He thought this pain would never stop. He'd thought this before but now he knew it would never go away.

The only thing that had ever made it stop was the one he was crying over.


Eventually he got tired of his mental breakdown and laid his head back down and closed his eyes. Even after he had finished crying, he wasn't allowed to go to sleep.

He hadn't had a good night's sleep in two years.

Hours drifted by at the speed of clouds, slow and timeless. Will lay in his bed, in his old room, taking in the smell of wood, fresh air and old memories, though now they were distant blurs of color in his 20/20 vision.

The reigning idea in his mind was of sneaking into Halt's room, lying next to him, and trying to explain himself. That seemed to be a better way to get pushed off a bed rather than rekindle their relationship, though. If Halt really did hate him now, why would he let him stay?

Then Will heard Halt's door open. He knew he was awake for something, and that may have been it.

Besides, Will couldn't get up the courage to do it before he heard the door open.

He waited until he was sure Halt wasn't coming in his room. When he slid out of bed, that's when his heart started pounding and crying for him to retreat back to where it was safe. In the end he never overcame it. The most he could do was ignore it until he felt a little better.

He opened the door a crack to see into the other room. Halt was in the kitchen, taking a glass out of the cabinet.

Will took a deep breath and stepped in the room. He could see the lines in the floorboards beneath his feet, which never creaked and gave away his dream-like presence, and the rug patterns which were light enough to see, circles inside of similarly colored circles, and find his way around. Tree branches scraped against the walls of the cabin and the kitchen window, like anxieties scratching at their door, begging to be let in.

"Hey," Will greeted him, quiet like there was something outside that would hear them if he was too loud.

He thought he heard a 'hey' come from around Halt's turned back.

Will crossed his arms over his chest. "What're you doing?"

"Getting water."

He didn't know what to say to that.

They kept a big container of water on the counter so they wouldn't have to refill their water supply every day. It would last two of them a week at least, and one person even longer. Halt was pouring from it into his glass and barely a fourth of the way through.

He arrived by Halt's side, just on the verge of giving up searching for his eyes because Halt wasn't letting him in.

"I can't sleep," Will said. He used the counter like a cane and bent over on his elbows. "Not without talking to you."

"We already talked. You told me what you needed to say, and I'm grateful you did." Halt's voice was low and scratchy, more than it usually was. It hardly sounded like him. Everything felt like one of those dreams where Will would "wake up" in the middle of the night and everything was the same, except the air was wrong, and everyone had been replaced by an imposture.

Either that, or Halt had been crying. Will felt an odd sense of relief when he realized that it was probably the latter. This was much too real to be a dream, and now at least Will wasn't the only one crying that night.

"So you're okay with it?" Will asked.

"Yes. After all, we weren't a couple back then. You had made no promises to me, so you broke no promises. We still aren't together, anyway, so it doesn't mean anything."

"Then we can leave the past as it is and move on with each other."

"We can leave the past as it is, but whatever is between us right now isn't going to continue," he said, with such a bite that Will actually flinched. "And that's okay."

"Obviously it isn't."

"And why do you think so?"

"Because the water is spilling."

Halt looked down. His glass was more than full, and water was going everywhere, dripping onto the floor. He swore under his breath, something Will could barely hear and may not have wanted to, and set both the container and the cup down.

"Talk to me…" Will whispered. He turned around and leaned his back against the counter, where the edge pressed into his spine. "I've been thinking about it a lot, and I know what'll happen if you don't talk to me. If I leave in the morning, I'll say I'll write you but I never will because I'm waiting for you to write to me first. You never do so I don't, either.

"Then we'll see each other at the next Gathering and we won't speak to each other unless we have to, thinking we'll get over it someday, and things will go back to normal if we just give it time… They never will, though. Before we know it we'll have been avoiding each other for years, for reasons nobody knows.

"We'll try to forget about it, but I never will. It'll haunt me forever… So much could've happened between us, but it never did because we were too scared. …I'm terrified, Halt, of what could happen if go down a different road. I have no idea what'll happen. But it's a one-way road."

Halt looked at him for the first time that night. His hair hung over his face, willow branches casting shadows over his eyes. "I'm terrified of losing you," Will whispered.

Tears were breaking his voice into fragments, as he choked out those words. "You know what I said is true, about ignoring what there is between us. You may say you're okay with it, but nothing you say to me can change your own feelings."

"How do you know what I feel?"

"Because I've seen it. And you told me… once."

Will's head dropped, and he bit his lip to keep it from trembling. His eyes looked rounder than they usually did with the bags that circled them. Halt saw the tint of red around the edges; his hair tousled from his pillow and pushed up in a wave around his forehead, like the way a wave forms over the sea.

Halt reached out and brushed it back against his head. He'd always loved Will's hair. Nobody could understand why.

His touch was so subtle, and gentle, it was enough to push Will over the edge and make him sob.

"Don't cry," Halt mumbled. "Don't."

"Why don't you believe me?" Will asked, bringing a hand to his mouth to cover his crying. "What's stopping you now?"

"You don't really know what you're saying," Halt said. "You're doing this out of guilt."

Will looked up at him. "Guilt?"

"Of course. You may not have made a commitment to me, but you made one to yourself, and you broke it when you kissed Alyss. You turned her down because you have an obligation to. And you love me because you're sorry that you went against your word."

"That's not true at all."

"Isn't it true you told me you loved me right after you told Alyss?" Halt asked. "Did you realize that before you felt badly, or after?"

Will spent a second searching for an answer. He had never thought of it that way… the scariest part was, Halt wasn't completely wrong. But of course Will wasn't doing this out of guilt… At least, not all of it, right?

"It's true that I didn't decide that before everything that happened with Alyss," Will said. "I was scared that'd I'd missed my chance with you. Looking back, now, maybe I did. I realized back then when I kissed her that I wanted her to be you instead. That's why I knew I lov-"

"Stop saying that," Halt snapped. "Don't throw the word around love, as if you're old enough to know what it means."

"And you're old enough to know love, but you're too scared to show it. Don't make me look like I'm the stupid one."

Halt noticeably backed off at that, but he still replied, "I'm not scared. I'm thinking clearly."

"If you can look me in the eyes," he said, somewhat firm, "and honestly tell me that you don't want me, and that every part of you doesn't want me, then you can go, and we can forget about this forever."

Of course, that was the one thing Halt couldn't do. He tried; he looked him in the eyes, like Will said, but he couldn't get the words out of his mouth. He looked dead when he was quiet, that night.

Then he whispered, "A few months ago, that would've been the furthest thing from my mind. But then I took a step back, and I thought about everything I've done in my life.. and I realized that I've done enough. No, I can't tell you what you asked, but I don't have to. This is much more than just what I want… and honestly, I'm just tired of it. Of everything, like this conversation, guessing… I just want it to be over."

Will couldn't explain it, but he clearly heard Halt's throat tighten up, because the words that were coming out of it were constrained as if they were writhing in pain. "I'm so, fucking tired of it all and I know you're new to this job, and I know you've been through too much for somebody your age-"

"Stop bringing age into this, it's sickening."

"I know it is…" Halt took a deep breath, and picked up with his last sentence, "And I know you understand a lot of things about being a ranger, but you have no, no idea what it's like… It wears you down. I used to say 'it's okay, because I'm doing the right thing, I'm on the right side', but at some point that just stops cutting it and when that stops mattering- suddenly nothing matters. This is all I've ever had, and I know that, and I don't want to leave- but I'm sick of it, fucking sick of it all." Halt's words broke and his breath hitched; his head fell and he brought up a hand to his forehead… or his face, to cover it.

"And you just make it so much worse," he snapped. "Because I love you so damned much, and that's the worst part of it all. Because you're the only thing I haven't gotten sick of after all of this time, and you're the one thing I know I can't have. Now I can, and it's harder than ever to resist you. It's never been about what I want, Will, because I know what I want. And it's you, it's always been you and it's always going to be you."

Will took one side of Halt's face in his hand. He smeared tears on his cheek. "Halt…" he mumbled, as their foreheads touched.

"So no, I'm not okay with it. But it doesn't matter."

"It does matter," said Will, holding him close. "It matters so much."

"Not enough." Halt took his wrists and gently guided his hands away.

Their eyes met. And all it took was one second of eye contact. The kiss was carefully placed, so it wouldn't miss in the lack of light. Will took his time with the kiss and made sure to get it just right.

The world centered. The hands caught around his wrists relaxed. He clearly felt Halt pushing back; he was kissing back.

Which didn't make sense at all. It didn't, and then Will understood perfectly.

First Halt had kissed him, that afternoon, then pulled his hand away at dinner; he wrapped his arms around him and held him closer than ever before, and then he told him to leave; he promised that nothing would ever happen between them, then he loved him.

When Will thought about it, it was wrong to hold that against him. Will had gone against his word, too, and why? Not because he was caught in the moment. Alyss hadn't accidentally pressured him into anything. Deep down, Will knew it.

There was a reason why he had never thought of Halt once in Grimsdell. Rather, why he had put a barricade between himself and those thoughts and then ignored it ever happened when he tore it down.

He couldn't ignore that anymore.

"I was scared," Will muttered. "That's why I did it. And I'm sorry."

Halt knew what he was talking about, and didn't need anybody to explain it to him. He just nodded.

"I love you."

Crickets sang outside the window in tiny, out-of-sync voices.

"I love you too."

Will whispered, "I don't want you to be in pain."

"It's not your problem," said Halt. "And my answer is still no. I won't change my mind."

Will turned his eyes down.

"If that's really what you think…" he mumbled.

"Yes."

"Then I'll leave in the morning."

"Okay," Halt said, so low they were barely words out of his throat. He wanted to take them back already.

"But that's not until the morning."

Halt's head revived from where it was bent down in mourning. He opened his mouth, to say whatever he thought he had in mind, and then closed it because Will had, yet again, left him speechless.

"We don't have to do anything," Will said. "Not if you don't want to."

"We shouldn't."

"That's okay. If the next day comes and you still don't think it's worth it, I can go and we don't ever have to talk about this again. If we don't let ourselves have this one chance, at least, we'll never forgive ourselves. Can't get over something that never happened."

That was the only compromise Will was going to make. Luckily, Halt was open to compromise if it would get him out of it afterwards.

"Then you can decide... are you mine forever, or just tonight?"

"Okay," Halt said. "I think you're right."

"On what part?"

Halt didn't answer him. He cupped Will's face with one hand, brought him in and kissed him.


And hopefully, after that, he could forget. At the very least he could pretend to forget until he really did.

It was their last hurrah.

In doing that, Halt found he loved Will a lot more than he thought he did. It turns out while he restrained himself, he was still holding onto a little bit of that feeling he wasn't allowed to let go of. Thoughts like that poured out of him, too, all in the open now for him to see.

And if Will meant everything he said and did that night, then he probably loved him, too. Maybe that was what made the difference- the decision to trust Will in what he said. Will had never let him down before.

Halt ended with a lot more than what he'd let go of.

He thought a lot about how Will had finally decided to let everything else slide and fall for him. He wondered how Will could not care so much and let the flame turn into a fire without burning with it. And he wanted that, he wanted it so badly.

If Will could just be anybody else…

But he wasn't. Will was still a guy, and still much younger than him, and still used to be like a son to him, but some of that could change. Situations changed, and all that didn't made Will who he was. And Halt didn't want anything else.

Could it be that the answer wasn't even an answer? Could it be that it was a lot simpler than he thought?

When everything else faded out of vision, and only Will remained, he came to a realization. It was a lot simpler than he assumed it was: instead of a web, it was a switch. On, or off. Yes or no. Happy, or not- because happiness shouldn't be any less, not once he knew exactly what he wanted.

And that was it.

And his answer was no… but that night, something changed. He lost the question.

When he lost track of everything, just for a night, he slept much better. And when he woke up, he found the switch was nothing more than a veil.

This was what he wanted.

Somewhere he knew it made sense. Not here; somewhere. He wanted to find that place, the place where everything made sense and happiness was not a 'should or should not' question… Will was the key to that place.

Halt was first to wake up. Will was holding his hand in the morning, nose in the crook of his collarbone, breathing life into his skin, and Halt had the strangest feeling that perhaps this was the way it was supposed to be.

For half a decade they had lived together, and every day Will was the first thing he saw in the morning. He knew what he looked like when he woke up, but never like this.

This was raw. It was perfect.

Like watching a building collapse in slow motion. Hectic, yet shockingly beautiful.

Halt tightened the arm he had around Will's body and pulled him in, eyes still closed. Against his nose he felt the soft, silky brush of Will's hair.

"Good morning," he whispered.

"'Morning…"

It was bliss for the whole time until Will's other senses came back to him. Halt could've sworn he felt Will's body grow heavier as he remembered everything.

Will pushed on his chest and tried rolling over, but Halt caught him and kept him where he laid. He wasn't quite ready yet.

"I love you," Will mumbled. Halt looked down at him and didn't see him looking back.

It took probably too long for him to reply. "I love you too."

Will waited for the next part. Maybe he was taking too long to say that, too. But it never came.

"Yeah?" Will asked.

"And that's all there is to it."


Will didn't plan to convince him if he hadn't said yes. There was only so much he could do. He could kiss him, he could say he loved him, he could sleep with him, but at the end of it all, Halt was the only one who could decide if he wanted to bow to the fear or go on despite it.

"So what changed your mind?" Will asked, half naked, sitting across from Halt on the bed. He held his mug with both hands and took a drink of coffee. Halt had a strict rule about food and drinks on the bed, but he didn't really seem to care about anything now.

Halt shrugged. "The realization that nothing else could change it but me. There was nothing more you could say that I hadn't already heard. I had the privilege of deciding my entire future with just one decision, which isn't usually something I can control. I decided to control it this time."

Will smiled lopsided. "That's kind of lame."

Halt grinned. "It may be."

Will laughed, but he understood it. He remembered deciding the same thing that afternoon they spent in the forest.


Will still left late that morning. He stayed as long as he could, but the truth was, he'd still left Seacliff ranger-less without much of a warning. He had to go.

They had come full circle. Will was right where he was all that time ago, when everything had begun. The first time Halt kissed him.

Only a few things had changed.

"It feels like we should say something else," Halt said.

Will grinned; he was standing next to a saddled Tug and studying every trace of difference in Halt from the night before. There was a lot. "It does," he said.

"Nothing more to say, though."

"Why are you so boring today?"

"It's your fault, you know." Halt smiled unwittingly. That was three times that morning. Will was counting.

Will walked around and gave Halt a small peck on the lips, something Halt was about to resist due their lack of privacy outside, and then realized that it was going against the point of everything they had just gone through.


Halt went back in and looked at everything he didn't have time to while Will had distracted him. It didn't stress him out, what he'd missed. He didn't feel like anything could stress him out for a while.

There was still so much he had to sort out.. but until all of that figured itself out, he could survive on just this.

Part of him wished he'd done more when Will left. The last time he left ended with a life-changing accident- what, he realized, was anything but an accident. There was a weird feeling that this should end with something much bigger. And yet, it did. It really did. So why didn't it feel like anything had ended?

Then Halt realized it shouldn't be like that at all.

This wasn't the end of anything. It was only the beginning.

Halt took out a pen and paper, and began composing his next letter.