I was sitting on the roof of Valkyrie's house, Gordon's old mansion. I was facing the west, where two weeks ago we had watched the sunset. The sun was behind me now, and my shadow stretched across the black-tile roof. The sky I was watching was a beautiful egg-shell blue, delicate and thin.

I folded my legs carefully, and leaned my head against a chimney. It had been two days since I had seen Valkyrie. Two days since she had kissed me and then run. Since then, I had been unable to think about anything but her lips, and how soft they had been. Meditation didn't work. The memories wouldn't leave me. So here I was, sitting on her roof, staring at the endlessly blue sky.

She wasn't here. I couldn't find her anywhere. She hadn't talked to any of her friends, hadn't slept in her bed. I hadn't let myself think about 'what if's. Detectives never begin a sentence with the words 'what if'. But there are a hundred synonyms that my mind was all too happy to supply.

Maybe she wasn't coming back. I wonder if she's hurt. Suppose she had gotten herself into trouble. Perhaps she's waiting for me to find her. But how can I find her if she's determined not to be found? I know that she's still in Ireland. She'd never be able to leave. She loves the magic of this place too much. I could search every town, every centimeter of this country. Strangely enough, this idea seemed plausible to me. After all, I had all the time in the world.

I rose, leaning against the red brick chimney. Then I conjured the wind, letting it sweep around me and lift me into the air. I pushed it to bring me higher, far above the Earth. Ireland began to shrink beneath me, and I still was rising. As the air started to thin, so did the support it offered me, and then all the wind was gone, and I was falling. I let go of control and tumbled downwards, holding onto my hat.

The horizon line flipped and spun, as I twisted over and over in the air. Earth and sky mixed together, and it ceased to matter which way was up and which way was down. And then the ground was rising up to meet me, and I snapped my hands downwards. A gust of air sent me spiraling back up, and this time I steadied myself in the air, straightening my suit. I was hovering a hundred feet in the air, over Gordon's mansion. A faint breeze was blowing around me, which I quickly diverted when it threatened to blow off my hat.

The fall had been exhilarating and new. My mind seemed to be working faster, and if I had a heart, it would have been pounding against my ribs. As I drifted slightly, the wind pushing me to the west, I felt all-powerful. Observing my domain, higher than anything else over Ireland. My beautiful country. Beautiful. And through that word, Valkyrie infiltrated my mind once more, sending delicate vines around all of my other thoughts, distracting me from my earlier reflections. I didn't mind.

Beautiful Valkyrie. I missed her. In the last years, we had gone everywhere together. We spent the night at her house or at mine, with only a wall between us as I made phone calls and she slept. During the day we were tracking down villains together, the unstoppable duo. I hadn't realized how much time we had spent together until that time became spent alone. And then I was painfully aware of her missing laughter, insults, advise, concern, and her penchant for raising Cain.

I looked down at the forest below me, the interlocking branches of the trees. The clearings were like spots on the back of a monster or animal, round circles clear of branches and leaves. And in one of them, I could see someone lying down, dressed in blue. Her dark hair was spread over the grass, and her arms were stretched out to her sides as though she were embracing the entire sky.

Valkyrie.

I let the air drop me, and used my arms to control my fall, directing myself towards her. At the last moment before I hit the ground, I softened the air and stepped onto the grass as gently as stepping off a stairway. Valkyrie was lying in the middle of the clearing, eight feet away. She didn't turn her head or acknowledge me. I walked to stand beside her, and looked down at her.

She kept her eyes fixed on the clear sky, and didn't meet my gaze. After a few seconds, I sat down next to her. "Valkyrie," I said. She didn't answer me, or give any indication that she had heard me. I pressed on, not knowing what else to do. "I want you to talk to me. What are you doing?"

She finally turned her head and looked directly at me, but her smile was vague and false. "I'm looking at the sky. Isn't it beautiful?" I tilted my head upwards. This section was darker than the view from the roof.

"It is beautiful." There was a few seconds of silence, before I decided to just begin the inevitable conversation. "Valkyrie, I know that you don't want to, but we have to talk about what happened. I miss you, and we aren't going to be able to figure things out without talking about them." She turned away from me again, and went back to staring at the sky. Just when I thought she was going to ignore me again, she spoke.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, and now I've messed everything up." She sounded angry, and hopeless. She pushed herself to sitting and wrapped her arms around herself, still not facing me. "I didn't mean to. It was just…you were..." I waited, and when it was clear she wasn't going to elaborate, I spoke.

"Valkyrie, you have nothing to be sorry for. And you haven't messed anything up. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. It was you who ran away." She turned her head towards me. She was surprised, confused, and still angry, although it seemed that it was directed at herself rather than me. Two theories began to separate and form in my mind.

First, that she had kissed me out of curiosity, and then realized I wasn't pushing her away, and ran. Second, she had kissed me on impulse, out of attraction, and then realized the possible implications and ran. Whereas the second theory fit her current emotions, the first theory fit her reaction to the kiss, and was more probable. Infinitely so.

"I just want things to go back to the way they were. Can we just pretend it never happened?" Valkyrie asked. I hesitated. Theory one or theory two? Curiosity or attraction? If it were curiosity, the best thing to say would be yes. But if it were attraction, this would be a good time to tell her how I felt.

"That depends on why you kissed me," I said finally. Valkyrie bit her lip, and looked away for a second.

"Why that moment? I don't know. Because we were already so close, because your arms were around me and... I wanted to." She looked surprised that she had said that. But now that she had, she just continued on. "I wanted to so much, and then I did. And it felt strange, but it felt wonderful, because I was kissing Skulduggery Pleasant. And then I realized what I was doing, what this meant for our friendship. I needed to think. So I ran." She bit her lip, flushing as her mind caught up to her mouth.

I leaned closer to her, making her focus on my face. Or, lack of a face. "The only thing it means for our friendship is what you want it to mean. If you want it to go back to the way things were…" I hesitated, unable to say it, but I had to. "Then they will. And if you want to never see me again, I won't look for you. And if that kiss meant something to both of us, then maybe change isn't a bad thing."

I could see that Valkyrie was still trying to figure out that last line. "Skulduggery."

"Yes."

"Are you saying that you liked the kiss?"

I could have laughed. She was choosing to focus on whether I had enjoyed the kiss. Of course I enjoyed it. It had only made the tingling in my bones burn hotter, but I had liked it anyway. "It was world shattering," I said, and she smiled.

Then she was kissing me, her lips soft and gentle. This time I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her closer. The kiss became more demanding, and I parted my teeth slightly, the only help I could give her. She shifted her weight against me, and I let us fall backwards against the grass.

She rolled off of me, ending the contact, and there was a moment of silence. Valkyrie was breathing unevenly, getting her breath back. She looked over at me and smiled uncertainly. "Wow," she whispered. I had no response.

She shifted her body closer to me, and I wrapped an arm around her so that our sides were touching. She stared up. "Look, Skulduggery. Isn't it beautiful?" She pointed to a single cloud, in the blue sky. A little puff of cotton, it moved slowly across our line of vision.

"It is," I said. And it was. We watched it sink behind the trees, and then kept looking at the light blue of the sky. "Valkyrie?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I know," she said, and kissed me.

A/N: Hello, hello, I'm so sorry about the time gap between chapters! The truth is... that I lost the memory stick that had this story on it! And then I took forever to rewrite it, and...Anyways, I'm sorry. I'm here now. And thank you to the reviewers that reminded me to actually rewrite this. Um, my story kind of took a turn to the fluff here, but who am I to fight the random cuteness of Valduggery?

Ticklethedragon1 is still amazing... Even if she didn't edit this particular chapter.

Coming next-

Indigo- In which roses are random colors, I design an awesome dress, and China freaks out!