February Breath

Disclaimer: If I owned Howl's Moving Castle, trust me, you'd know it.

A/N: Picking up where we left off at that wonderful cliffhanger… Warning: some intense emotional crap that may just tear your heart to pieces. (Assuming you have one. Any hot, dark, mysterious boys missing one, just call me!) Sophie is put through a lot of emotional pain; actually something I can write about but can't really enjoy, per say, for obvious reasons. Includes a flashback of Sophie's. Enjoy and comment please :)

You take the breath right out of me

And left a hole where my heart should be

You gotta fight just to make it through

Cause I will be the death of you

Breath – Breaking Benjamin

To recap from the last chapter:

"You will pay for what you did to me!"

The pain got worse. Sophie now clamped down on a scream, feeling like she would break, no, be ripped apart at the seams if she didn't physically hold herself together. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her slightly blurry vision, looked back up at the Witch, and became sure that she was hallucinating. Because standing by the Witch…was him.

And on to Chapter 5:

He looked just like she remembered him—tall and somewhat skinny, with blond, wavy hair and hazel eyes.

He had been her best friend.

They had almost loved each other but had agreed to abandon the idea for the sake of their friendship.

She had tried to save him.

And she had failed.

Failure.

And it had cost him his life.

…Hadn't it?

The pain the Witch was sending her way ebbed to a stop but was replaced by a pain more real than any magic could simulate.

There was a boy who was undoubtedly her best friend, standing there, plain as day, but unlike himself in that he was completely drained of emotion.

The Witch flicked her hand, the motion full of contempt and cruelty, and Sophie's mind was forced to resurrect and watch past events that she had never wanted to think of again.

Flashback: One year ago

"Justin?"

He turned slowly to her voice and smiled faintly. It was for the best, he thought. Assuming he actually died. With any luck, he'd never come back. He knew it would only lead to both of their destructions.

"Justin! What are you doing?" she cried up at him through the wind that was whipping through the cloudless, impossibly blue sky that was nevertheless laced with a few February snowflakes. Her eyes were filled with fear as she considered the unrelenting, unchangeable possibilities of what her friend was about to do.

He took a breath. "Goodbye," he said softly and knew that she had read his lips. I hope this saves you.

And he leaned forward, spreading his arms, falling off the edge of the building.

"Justin, NO!" she screamed again. Without so much as a millisecond's consideration or even a conscious decision, she jumped in his direction off of the shorter building's rooftop where she had been standing. She didn't know what she had been thinking. How could she save someone from the unforgiving ground below, rushing up increasingly fast? It seemed like the fall lasted a year, but at the same time a few seconds. She reached toward him in midair, free falling, before he looked at her with shock and alarm on his face and the ground met them both. But Justin had been falling longer. Farther. Harder. No! She wasn't supposed to follow me. She can't…oh, please live, Sophie.

And that was Justin's last conscious thought, although Sophie never knew that.

She was sure her arm was broken, and she felt like she'd been torched while hit by an eighteen-wheeler, but she dragged herself a few feet to where her best friend lay. The crowd that had gathered to see the spectacle was crying out in alarm but she ignored them, wanting to get to Justin before anyone else did. Just by looking at him, she could instantly tell that all or most of his ribs were broken and he had only seconds left, assuming internal hemorrhaging or lung puncture were his only concerns. Which they weren't. His leg stuck out at an odd angle and he obviously had a severe concussion. Sophie's focus was entirely on him, even though she was barely holding onto her own consciousness.

But the last thing she saw him do was look at her and smile weakly. Relieved she was alive, at least. He was gone. But that was what needed to happen. Much better…than helping her…to…

Goodbye, Sophie. I love you.

And he closed his eyes and sighed his last sigh.

"Wha…no…no…Justin. It's alright, you'll be fine, just stay with me. Justin wake up. You're okay, Justin, please! Justin! NO!" she collapsed into incoherent, screaming sobs and wouldn't speak, wouldn't answer any questions for over a week. Not in the hospital, not from her mother, not from her friends who left her voicemails, not even from Maria.

No one.

Because it was all her fault.

End Flashback

She couldn't believe what—who—why—she was seeing. Justin was…dead. He had died a year ago, and she had almost died herself trying to save him. The only thing that had saved her was her shorter fall. She had seen what he was doing, where he was standing on the roof, and had raced inside to get to him before he did the unthinkable. She had reached a lower point than where he was and wanted a chance to talk him out of his out-of-the-blue and inexplicable actions, but was still too late.

The Witch smiled cruelly.

"Justin" remained expressionless.

A winged creature the size of a man crashed through the window, her pain, and her memories. It scooped her up quickly but gently and shot out another window in the roof of the hall.

Howl looked down anxiously at Sophie. She was clearly delirious and was sobbing and hyperventilating uncontrollably in his arms. What could make her feel like this? he wondered. The Witch couldn't inflict nearly enough physical pain to contract that kind of response from her. Wait. Physical pain. He grew angry and his hold on Sophie tightened. What from the past had the Witch brought up? What could she have shown her, or made her remember? Her deaths? I don't think so. She wouldn't understand them enough to do this in response.

He decided to stop thinking about it, and when he looked down at her again as they approached his castle without being followed, he saw she was asleep but tears continued to carve their way across her ivory skin.

He put her to bed in his own room, feeling a wave of protectiveness—of near-real emotion—as he watched her sleep. It was night anyway. He'd sleep on the couch, he decided as he closed the door gently.

"She's a clear case of survivor's guilt," Howl told Calcifer downstairs. "I could tell that much from her mind but she's in too much pain and turmoil for me to get anything else. Why does she feel guilty, though? Who was it? I doubt it was actually her fault. It never is," he added quietly.

"Her parents are alive, right? And her best friend?" Calcifer asked, to which Howl nodded. "Maybe it was another friend," Calcifer hypothesized. "They can be harder to deal with than losing, for example, older family members. That much I know about humans. But for what purpose would the Witch be torturing her with that? What's the significance?"

Howl sighed. "I just don't know. If—and only if—Sophie can talk about it, maybe she can tell me a little something. Maybe what the Witch did, if nothing else." His fists clenched. How could anyone, anything, hurt Sophie so much, and who would dare to do it?

Upstairs, Sophie began to have a nightmare: it was an exact replica of the last few moments of what had happened on that February day a year ago. Feeling helpless, useless, not quick enough to save her friend.

Howl sensed her fear and discomfort through an empathy spell he'd put on her and he ran back upstairs silently, knowing she was dreaming. She was sobbing again, tossing so much he was afraid she'd fall off the bed.

He cast the spell to see into her dreams, catching the end of her nightmare.

He saw what happened.

Detaching himself slightly from the main events, he looked around and saw himself standing in the crowd, watching Sophie, who had no idea that he even existed yet, muttering words under his breath that worked the spells to keep her alive.

He understood now that she hadn't been attempting suicide along with Justin. She had been trying to save him. He understood it all now.

At least, he thought he did.

Sophie woke up, her mouth open in a silent scream, lurching into a sitting position to see Howl sitting by her. Without thinking about who he was, how selfish, cowardly, and everything else, she unhesitatingly threw her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shirt. His initial surprise wore off in a second and he held her as she cried shamelessly. She hadn't let tears escape her in an entire year.

A/N: A shorter chapter, yes, but I figured enough went on to make up for it. Do you get what happened now? :) You now know who "he" was. I thought it might be interesting to add in a character's name from the actual movie (I confess—the book is still on my to-read list!) so I added my own twist. But it keeps on twisting! *gasp* Rate and review please! (And don't worry: I promise happier thoughts later on.)