AUTHOR'S NOTE: I HAVE RETURNED!!!! I want to apologize to everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) for the extensive and overly long delay. I have been crazy-busy and today is the first chance I got to do a little updating. Thanks to everyone who waited so patiently and to everyone who reviewed. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter. If you do like it, tell me in a review! If you don't, keep it to yourself. J/K, if there's something you don't like, let me know so I can fix it and work on it. THANKS!
It seemed as if a heavy spell was just beginning to lift off him. He struggled to open his heavy lids. Straight above him was a rough block of white. But not the white of clouds he realized. He turned his head slightly and his eyes met with a door and next to that, a simple wooden dresser. He'd seen that dresser and doorway before. His mind was beginning to pick up speed and connect the two ideas together when a drawn and hollow voice spoke from beside him.
"You were asleep for almost two weeks."
His head snapped in the direction of the dry, almost unrecognizable voice. Malon was sitting in a chair beside the bed, slumped low, her hands curled tightly together in her lap. Her knuckles were white and strained from the amount of pressure she was pushing upon herself. Her head was downcast, her eyes fixed on her shoes, locks of fiery orange hair covering half of her face.
Something in the back of his brain bothered him, a nagging sensation of discomfort. He was anxious, uneasy having her near and not being able to look at her face.
Look up, Malon, he pleaded silently. Look at me…
"My father and Ingo carried you into my room. It must have hurt so much…"
She paused, her hands pressing tighter. However, her voice did not change pitch. It was a droll, emotionless monotone that was covering something deeper.
"There was blood. So much blood…"
Please look at me…
"I thought you were dead," she finished softly.
That last gently whispered sentence carried all her inner feeling, a barrage of different emotions lapping at the words. And then she looked up at him and he flinched, pulling back, wishing now that she would look away. But her eyes caught and held his, refusing to let him escape. Her eyes… her eyes were…
Burning. Smoldering blue orbs lashing out with every emotion that was wrapped up in her tiny frame. There, evident in the blue eyes he craved was a disturbing amount of pain. Pain he had personally infused into her. Pain and rage, an unnerving sense of untamable hatred and…
And sorrow. Sorrow so deep rooted and haunting it sung out for relief.
"I thought you were dead," she repeated and this time it was sorrow that ate at the words and the flame in her eyes was extinguished by the tears that began to well up.
Suddenly she broke, no longer the strong monotone she had been before. Grief and, to be truthful, a sense of relief flooding over her, crashing against her forcefully and causing the tears to stream down from her eyes, over her cheeks and into her lap. She turned her face away from him as if ashamed… or perhaps she just couldn't look at him anymore. She was trying to restrain the sobs that threatened to rob her of motion and control, but she couldn't stop the tears flowing in a river from her powder blue eyes.
Link stared at her, grief-ridden and feeling helpless. His lips parted as if to say something, but nothing came to mind. He watched her begin to tremble, begin to crack under the unreleased pressure building inside of her. A pale, white hand came up to cover her mouth as if to stop herself from screaming.
Link closed his mouth, pushing aside the grief. He was never one to give up, even if he believed the task impossible. He reached out with his hand and gently took hold of her arm, pulling her hand away from her mouth. Her eyes closed and she bit her lips, but she allowed him to ease her over to him. She sat on the bed beside him and let him curl her into his side, a side that she knew was covered in bruises and burns and hastily mended broken bones. Still, Malon didn't look up at him.
He softly turned her chin with his hand and looked down at her. She met his gaze for a moment and then cracked. She buried her face in his chest, her arms wrapping around him tightly. Heart-wrenching sobs racked her body and she gave herself away to her grief, letting it consume her.
"I thought you were dead," she whimpered once again into his chest.
He held her tighter against him, letting all the sorrow flood from her. He stroked her hair gently, easing her, comforting her. He placed a soft, tender kiss on the top of her head and laid his cheek against her, his face half hidden in the red, flaming locks. He was consumed by her smell, something about it easing him, making him feel safe. Slowly the sobs died down, slowly the sorrow left her and after a long while, they simply sat there, holding each other because they had both been so afraid that they wouldn't be able to ever again.
Link stayed at the ranch, mending for another week. It had been a long time since he had eaten so consistently, had slept so peacefully and had felt so good. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he was healthy and happy… though, the happiness was tainted by what he knew was coming next. He stayed a week, trying to push from his head what he knew he must do, what he dreaded to do.
There were still many of his wounds that had not healed properly, still many burns that ached terribly when touched… but he had his mission. He knew what must come. So, when a full week had passed, he took his horse from the corral, quietly and without show, and began to ready her quickly.
"You're not even mended yet."
It was the voice he'd been dreading, the voice he knew would come. Malon's words were thick with outrage, disbelief and, once again, that underlying tint of pain that still made him flinch because he knew that he had inflicted it.
He composed himself and glanced back nonchalantly at her. Her eyes were blue fire once again. He gave a quick smile and turned back before he could break under the stare.
"I am more than fine, Malon," he reassured her. "I have to go."
"Why?" she barked angrily.
"Because I must," he replied, sighing. "I have things pending. Important issues that have to be completed."
"So I've heard before," Malon said, coming around to stand across from him, forcing him to look at her.
He expected her demand that he stay, to threaten him if he didn't. But she was smarter than that, so much smarter. She knew that begging wouldn't work, she knew that threats held no ground. She knew that he had to leave, had to complete what he had begun so long ago. So she asked the one question he had been praying that she didn't ask.
"Where are you going?" she said softly.
He shut his eyes as if she had slapped him, sucking in a sharp breath. She placed both hands against Epona's flank, leaning across her and towards him.
"What is this mission you are on? What drives you so single-mindedly into battle after battle? For what?"
He gave one hard, final yank on Epona's saddle, tightening it and then swung himself brashly onto her back.
"Goodbye, Malon," he said, spurring his horse into a slow walk.
"Is this it then? The final goodbye?" she asked, anger biting into her sweet voice as she walked beside his horse. "Is this the goodbye I dread every time you leave?"
Link just look away from her, continuing on his slow, methodical path. She cut in front of him, Epona halting surprised and backing a few steps with a snort and a shake of her head.
"Is this it? When you leave and you never come back?" she threw at him.
His face was a stone mask. "Move out of my way, Malon."
"Seven years you were gone, Link! Seven years! Seven years of torture wondering what happened to you. Praying, hoping that you were alive and knowing that you couldn't be. Seven years watching my world crumble and fall around me, watching as my life was torn apart, dismembered piece by piece until all that was left was an empty shell of what I used to have! Seven years of holding onto nothing more than this feeling… this indescribable, unreal feeling that somehow, someway you would come back. You would save me, you make things good and whole and right again.
"I have gone through hell and back in seven years. I have seen things that many do not see in ten lifetimes. I have lost everything, everything!, everything I had time and time again, so I have nothing left to lose. If you want to leave this ranch, you will have to trample me. And make sure you do it right the first time, because if I live I will follow you, so help me, I will."
Link slipped off of his horse and took her reins in his hands, and walked past Malon, his face still made of cold, hard ice. She ripped the reins from him, letting them hang loose around Epona's neck, but he didn't stop, didn't meet her gaze, didn't turn. Epona, loyal as she was, didn't miss a beat and followed her master as he continued by. Malon watched as he kept his slow pace.
"You were dead!" she yelled and he halted suddenly, an unmoving statue.
The air suddenly changed. Everything froze, everything was still and silent and the only thing palatable was Malon's rage and hurt.
"You died on my lap," she continued, tears staining her voice. "You stopped breathing, stopped fighting. Do you know what it is to have your hope die in your arms? I don't know how you even made it as far as you did.
"All I wanted was to run away, get away from all of this. Go back in time and try to make everything… right. But the only thing that was real was your blood on my hands. On my hands and my dress and my…" she stopped, unable to keep going. "If it weren't for Navi I would have lost you forever."
She was suddenly angry again. "I think I deserve to know! I think it's only fair! I think I deserve to know where it is that you take my heart every time you leave this place and disappear for God knows how long!"
"I can't," he whispered, still unmoving.
"You can't? Are you that cruel? Will you truly cut me down this way?"
"I can't."
"Do you enjoy this, torturing me by leaving and staying away just long enough for me to convince myself that you're gone forever, only to show up and rethread all my dependence on you?"
"I won't lose you!" he yelled suddenly, wheeling around.
His face had broken through the mask, fire replacing ice. Inside his walls were breaking, cracking, and everything he had held back for so long was seeping through. Words and emotions gushed out of him.
"Of everything I had, I won't lose you," he said through clenched teeth, stepping towards her. It looked as if he was about to grab her, but he didn't, he stopped mere inches away from her. "I've given up all of myself to this, I won't give you too. There is nothing, nothing that can make me. I will die before they take you… I won't…" he sagged suddenly, broken and irreparable and he finished, whispering, "I can't lose you."
There was a thick silence that hung around them and he hung his head, his face contorting in pain.
"You are all I have left," he breathed, unable to make his voice any louder. "The only thing that is keeping me going, keeping me alive… is you. And if they… if they find you… if they know who and what you are, they will take you away from me. They'll take you because…" a small, pain-filled half-sigh half-sob broke through, "…because of me."
He shook his head, his features twisted in anguish and misery. Malon's stared at him yearningly, feeling a surge of remorse and pity. She took and breath, closed her eyes, and made up her mind.
She stepped forward, closing the minimal gap between them and reach a hand out to touch his face. She lifted his eyes to hers, her hand, warm and gentle, softly caressing his cheek and brushing through his hair before resting on the nape of his neck. He touched her forehead to his.
"But if you let me know, if you confide in me, trust in me…" she whispered, looking at him, "…we can do this together."
Link held her gaze for a long moment, understanding the meaning behind the words. Once again, as always, she was providing him an escape, giving him an outlet. He closed his eyes and gave a faint nod.
Malon's hand slipped down his arm and into his big, calloused hand, gently leading him to the small room at the far end of the ranch.
