WARNING: This story contains spoilers. Please do not read unless you have watched all of the anime series, as well as the movie, "Conqueror of Shamballa".

Fracture

It is too late now, she knows. It is too late to get him back; too late to change his mind; too late to prevent herself from falling impossibly in love with a person who was not only oblivious and distracted at the time, but who is now most certainly unavailable, in every sense of the word. She ought to have known from the very beginning. She ought to have realised the very moment the two of them burned their old lives and gathered up their courage and vanished into a new life she knew nothing of, that no matter what they said, they were not coming back. But as cruel fate would have it, it was that precise moment that she fell in love with him.

And life had toyed with both of them: allowing him to return and then leave her again; forcing them to think Ed was gone before bringing him suddenly, startlingly back; making her believe then, in that split second, that they were both here now, both back and safe and home- only to snatch them both away again.

And that last time, the final time they left her, she had not reached out and pleaded with them to stay. She was tired, it seemed, of wishing they would listen to her. Wishing makes no difference. Instead, she watched them in silence, unable to deprive herself of the indulgence of that last glance, and then turned on her heel without looking back, and made her heavy but light, full but empty, strange but inevitable way home.

But it still feels so unfair. She barely spent time together with him, barely held him in her arms, barely loved him. And even though they have been friends all their lives, it still feels as though she barely knew him. She only understands now- too late, too late, too late- how close she once was to him, so close that had she held out her hand, he would have taken it.

Now, after she has finally realised all these things, he has gone. And now, even if he reached out his hand and she stretched out hers, there is a fracture between them, a hairline crack in the plane of the world, and it swallows everything.

Author's notes: As you can see, this is a bit different from what I normally write for "Colours". It follows the movie story arc, for one thing. Please review and tell me what you think. :D