Thunder crashed overhead as lightning created static patterns across the blackest skies, rain fell in a heavy torrent, its drops stinging the bare skin of Reese's arms as the vicious sea air whipped about her, crashing waves and tremors from the waters below making her feel utterly insignificant amidst it all. There was no light glimmering on the horizon, the night was endless and time felt like eons though mere minutes passed as Reese's heart tore asunder, her rain soaked clothes and sorrow weighing deeply on her heart. It was hard to tell when her tears ended and the rain began, the sadness unending and the pain in her chest unbearable. Reese slumped to her knees as sobs escaped her lips, the sound dying as thunder cracked across the sky and the thumping of the waves against the cliffs below exploded in her ears. She saw the distant glow of orbs, saw his face as lightning flickered again overhead and when he approached her she looked up into his face and there he saw her shattered resolve, there he saw the light he had seen in her eyes for so long splutter and go out.
"How long was I gone?" Reese choked out, getting to her feet again and staring out over the black shadow of the sea, its ferocious pounding mirroring the emotions exploding inside of her.
"Just over a year." Wyatt answered simply, knowing there was no way to make this any easier on her. Reese would find out the truth one way or another and he felt it should at least come from him, someone she loved and cared about. She turned to him then, wet hair plastered across her face and her eyes dark and ghostly, her voice low and vacant as she said, "It felt like eons had passed by in the blink of an eye. I was trapped in fire, in pain, there were screams and they filled my dreams to the brim with things no one should ever have to see. I have the scars and the memories but everything before that was so hazy, so vague. The only thing I could remember as clear as day was him. I thought maybe the time that had passed in that place was different, warped somehow. That it had only been weeks... a few months at most. That when I came back, everything would be as it should be." Reese bowed her head momentarily before her eyes met Wyatt's again and he saw bitter resignation and knew she had finally given up. She had done enough, sacrificed her life and survived a fiery afterlife for over a year and now she had had all that she could take.
"I can't do this without him." Reese finished with a shake of her head as fresh tears glistened in her eyes. She gazed up at Wyatt again, saw the concern and love in his eyes as rain plastered his usually curly hair against his head, his clothes just as saturated as her own, his face lighting up every now and then with bright flashes of lightning from the storm raging around them.
"You can, Ree. You have to." Wyatt said, his belief in her so strong that Reese almost smiled.
"Come home. Please?" He begged, looking up at the threatening sky and shivered in his rain soaked clothes.
"I can't be there right now, Wyatt. It's too hard." Reese explained with a shake of her head, crossing her arms over her chest, trying desperately to eliminate the bone chilling cold that have begun to defeat her.
"Then let me take you someplace safe." Wyatt said, his tone reassuring and when Reese nodded he wrapped her in his arms and orbed them to the place he knew Reese would be able to try and heal.