AN: Apologies, this wait was longer than I anticipated, but the past few weeks have been so full of work I just didn't have any time.

I was in the Theatre from 9am - 9pm for an entire week, while also trying to finish a set design... So, yeah I didn't have time for fun...

But I'm back now!

I have also started a Wordpress blog over at: mysticpuma. wordpress .com ! Here I'm going to be rambling about various fandoms, as well as posting updates on Fanfiction progress, so go give it a follow if you want!

Also, I have a youtube channel (which is currently on hiatus because of work lol) which is linked over there, and I was considering making this fanfiction a sort of audio series eventually. What do you guys think? Also, if I did it would people rather I spoke in my normal accent (British) or an American accent?

Okay, enough with the Author notes, I swear these get longer every damn time!

How to reach her… It was a mystery he couldn't fathom. She had always reached out for him. But today he had seen her forget him… Distant, just another student in the crowd, sat talking and laughing with her friends. Was he so easily forgotten?

Why should he care? It was foolish to think he ought to chase her. Let it go and there would be less pain for the both of them.

But she'd become such a constant.

Her company was like breathing, natural and always there. Something he'd relied on. His meals had felt wrong, sat alone with a book, nobody to tease him about the neglected food. Nobody to convince him to eat it. No mindless chatter about the days events.

With a sigh, he stood from his chair, ignoring the paperwork he had yet to start. Since when had she become so important? Had he missed something? Was he not paying enough attention?

He looked at his hands, splayed across the white wood, his hands nearly as pale, just one shade darker than the polished surface. The skin was dry, faint cracks piercing the thin film, pale veins prominent against the stark, practically translucent background. He clenched them into fists, the sparse muscles rippling slightly as he pushed himself away from the sturdy surface. His head turned to the cabinet, unopened for a long while.

He rarely drank, it wasn't his style. But sometimes, it was just what he needed to push past a particularly difficult problem, to give a new perspective to a problem he'd been stuck on for far too long.

If anything deserved it, this did.

As the cool liquid burned down his throat, he walked towards the window and pulled the gauze away to gaze out over the darkened school, up into the starless night sky as the ball of thoughts in his mind began to loosen more with each sip, untangling slowly, one strand at a time as he stood and wondered what his wife was doing…

Faint and loud snores mixed with heavy breathing as the three teens slept. In the bed by the window, Arianna was curled under her covers, breathing quickly, panic flaring through her as vivid memories mixed together in her dreams. Guns and churches, red eyes and angry yells swirled through her mind.

She ran, up the hill away from the church, but at the top she came face to face with the barrel of a gun and tumbled desperately back down, curling up in a corner of the church until a booming voice echoed through the church and red eyes shone from the shadows and the cycle began again. It was endless, she'd forgotten how many times she had run up the hill, how long had this cycle continued?

But suddenly it changed. She was curled up in the church again, waiting fearfully for the booming voice to accuse her again. But it didn't come. The red eyes glowed in the darkness, but they were silent as they began to advance on her. That hadn't happened before. They never moved. She felt sick as a face began to materialise, pale with sharp angles, his long, dark hair hanging limp around his face and blending into the darkness. He looked furious, ashamed, a deep frown set into his expression as he advanced out of the shadows, never taking his eyes off her.

She couldn't stop staring at him, fear gripping her heart and beating on it like a drum. It was only when the light filtering in through the empty window of the church glinted off something silver that she tore her eyes away from his face to see the gun.

His finger was on the trigger, and he was so close to her now that the gun was mere inches from her chest, too close for her to hope to escape and run up the hill again. Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked back at his face, anger and the distant look of a stranger in his eyes. She heard his finger move minutely on the trigger, preparing to pull it, and she wanted to close her eyes, but couldn't.

As the bang shattered through the church, pain flared through her chest and flecks of red splashed onto his pale skin.

She bolted up in bed, cold sweat dripping down her face and mixing with her tears. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, her heart-rate impossibly quick and she felt sick. For a long moment, she stared at the wall in the darkness, trying to figure out what had just happened to her. The room felt too warm all of a sudden, too small, too dark.

A glance at her clock told her it was 2 am… She hadn't been asleep long then, since she remembered seeing half twelve when she was still awake.

Shakily, she stood from her bed, taking a moment to steady herself as much as she was able. She was shaking violently, still in shock from the nightmare. The image of his eyes, glowing menacingly from the darkness, was burned into her mind. She took careful, trembling steps towards the door and pushed it open, desperate for air. The hall wasn't much cooler, so she began to slowly make her way down the corridor, bare-footed and shivering though she still felt incredibly stifled.

Clamouring across the walls, she headed towards the doors. It was late, she shouldn't be out of bed but she needed air, clean air.

Screw the rules. She thought venomously. She was already in trouble anyway.

After what felt like years of staggering down halls, she finally reached the door to the courtyard and, as she flung it open and fell out into the cold night, the desperate girl filled her lungs with as much cold air as she could, crawling across the rough path since her legs had given out entirely.

Tears still streamed from her eyes, but they cooled in the night wind, leaving frozen trails of salt water on her already wet cheeks. She didn't have the energy or conviction to wipe them away, and instead chose to continue pulling herself along the pathway until she was able to lean against one of the flower beds, her head bent back to stare up at the sky as clouds slowly drifted across it, blocking out the stars and the moon and plunging the courtyard into a deep darkness.

Arianna could feel herself shaking from the cold, but her body was radiating heat, and she couldn't feel the sharp wind as it battered her and sent her hair flying.

She felt tired, exhausted even. She'd barely had any sleep and she'd just dragged herself into the frozen night in sweat-soaked pyjamas. The violent shivers now wracking her body did nothing to stave off the chill that had begun to seep into her bones. She didn't even acknowledge them, too fearful to return to her bed and sleep, lest the dream repeat itself…

After an unknown amount of time, the clouds finally began to let thin beams of moonlight trickle down to the ground. Pale tendrils of white light illuminated the darkness around her so she could begin to make out the windows of the school again as they cast reflections in her direction.

Up above, Hieronymous was still staring out at the black night, slowly unravelling his own mind in an attempt to decipher how he could possibly mend the rift he'd caused between them. He sighed, taking another gulp of his drink and shivering as the liquid burned down his throat. He watched the sky as the moon slowly reappeared and cast his eyes downward.

I should at least try and sleep. He thought to himself. Fatigue will in no way aid me to resolve this…

But just as he was about to turn from the window, he saw the hunched figure of a girl, her hair catching the moonlight as it billowed in the wind. Even in the pale moonlight, he'd recognise her anywhere.

"Arianna." He breathed, and the glass slipped from his hand as he span around and dashed to the door.

I hope you liked this chapter, the next one will hopefully be a bit longer :) See you soon!