30

She always knew that there were two persons living within her mind – a dreamer and a practical girl, she used to call them. The one that knows her duty and realities of life; the one that hopes for more and reaches higher. There never seemed to be any real conflict between them; they respected each other and knew each other's usefulness. They lived in peace, they both helped her to adjust herself to life. Two different girls merged to create a happy whole – her.

Now she is conflicted, divided within herself. Two parts of her mind do not work together – they fight and struggle.

The practical one urges her to face reality: she is alone, he is gone, he is not coming back, she lost him, he is probably dead already, and she needs to get a grip of herself – salvage what's left of her life, move on, try to at least imagine a life separate from him. The practical girl tells her it is pointless and degrading to sit in a dark and closed room, crying or just staring into the wall, she urges her to get up in the morning, dress in bright clothes, go out, open the shop, talk to people and try to eat. 'Time would heal you', she says, with self-righteous conviction. 'Step by step you'll get yourself a life of your own'.

The dreamer, always much less argumentative then her counterpart, doesn't say much. She has no words to support her convictions, she is only glaring stubbornly, and screams silently: 'It is crucial, it is all-important to not let go. The moment I will let go, I really will lose him. I have not lost him yet. He is coming back. He is not dead – if he were dead, I would know it instantly. I don't want a life of my own – I don't need it, for I am his forever, and magic has nothing to do with it. And if I want to sit in the dark room crying, holding on to my pain, I will do so, for this pain is part of my love'.

In the end she still gets up, dresses brightly and goes out, because he'd have wanted it.

And every breath constricts her chest with pain, and every smile tears her face apart, and every word comes out of her throat sore, as if it is full of sand. Holding herself together is a physical effort: when no one is looking, her hands are clenched into fists, and her lips are swollen inside from constant biting. And every time she walks into the back of the shop, every time the door closes behind a customer, she nearly collapses; her head sways, and she needs a moment to compose herself, wandering around the room mindlessly, touching his things, trying to feel his lingering touch on them.

It helps. It would probably even help more if people around her weren't so bloody compassionate and kind. It seems she is well liked, and they obviously pity her, so they never leave her alone. Doctor Hopper practically lives in the shop, droning away about the need to accept your losses and count your blessings and move on with 'a life so young and full of promise'. The practical girl nods; the dreamer gnashes her teeth and wants to scream at him; the polite little princes smiles, saying nothing. Her father makes a visit, shuffling around the shop awkwardly, not really having anything to say, mumbling something about the time 'when I lost your mother'. How quick he – and every one else, for that matter, – was in assuming that the Dark One is not coming back!.. Granny is unusually welcoming, insisting that she'd come to diner every day for a burger – serving her these burgers free, and with pickles, as he loved them, and tut-tutting in a worried way when she doesn't eat them.

Gosh, she cannot eat those stupid burgers – she cannot even look at them; what sort of cruelty do people take for kindness, reminding her of a single happy date they ever had?!

The polite princess in her did try to please, once. She ate the burger, cheerfully, but couldn't hold it down – she rushed to the bathroom, and was sick and, as she walked out, having washed her face, Granny gave her a look, and started fussing around her even harder.

When she realized what that was all about, she nearly fainted – it is a good thing she didn't, it would have made things so much worse. They thought she might be pregnant, these good people around her, and she couldn't blame them, what with her sickness and her mood-changes, which she failed to mask entirely, and general frailty brought on by lack of sleep and constant, gnawing fear for him. And, knowing perfectly well that she is not carrying his child, she was nevertheless suddenly and violently gripped by the wish that she were.

If only it was so – if he'd left her with part of him behind, not really alone; with part of him alive and with a future to look forward to…

Yet, the instant she gave in to this thought, to this passionate wish, she had to stop herself, sternly. It is a weakness to want to depend on something apart from herself in her vigil for his return. It is a weakness to want any… props to support her strength. It is a betrayal of sorts to want to replace him with anything, even with his own child. He needs her, all of her, to believe in him, to love him, to bring him back. She is His, his only; nothing else must intrude.

She feels the truth of this in her bones, and she is crushed by the loneliness of her fate.

She sticks to coffee on all her future visits to Granny's, and smiles politely. It's not as if she needs to explain herself to anybody – it is not as if she needs to talk to them at all.

If only she had anyone to talk to – anyone who'd understand. But there is no one but him who'd understand – there is no one but him for anything, really.

How can she console herself and move on with life if the person she's supposed to leave behind is the only one who could help her to get through?

Why should she move on when there is still hope?

How can she go on hoping when she is so alone and frightened?

Oh yes, their bond still exists – it still glows, really visible when she closes her eyes and opens her heart to thoughts of him. Yet something is wrong with it – it flickers and twists, reshaping itself, going from bright to weak, struggling. And her heart fills with dark, dark forebodings. She doesn't doubt his love for her, not for an instant. The disturbance of the bond must mean that something is wrong with him. Something troubles him, plays tricks with his soul, twisting right and wrong, light and shadow; something torments him, tearing at his heart, making him doubt himself. When she closes her eyes, she can almost see him – dark and resigned, such as she never saw him, eyelids shut, brow calm, lost in shadow; his heart closing on itself, shutting her out, not because he doesn't want her, but because she'd distract him from what needs to be done.

When she dreams at night, it is of him – there in the darkness, silent, alone yet hunted, reaching for her and letting her go all at once. Wishing to speak to her, yet forcing himself to be silent. Wanting to touch her, yet staying away. Needing her help, yet refusing it. Listening to her, but not taking in the words; it is almost as if it is not her talking. In vain she tries to reach him, to calm him, to help – he just shakes his head, ever so slightly, and smiles a mirthless smile. She wants to help him, all her being wishes to be there, with him, to install into him part of her painfully nursed belief in the future. 'Leave this place. Come back to me. You don't have to die – there must be another way', she says, and she reaches to caress his face. And he suddenly opens his eyes, and there is such pain and longing in them. 'Take my hand, and all will be well', she says, and there is such hope, such desperate hope in his gaze. He reaches to take her hand, she feels his warm clasp, and instantly his eyes turn into dark, bottomless pits, all light gone from them, and she feels cold wind on her face, and cold fingers grip her heart, and their bond is snapped, lost, extinguished, and she is in darkness, and she wakes with a scream, staring at the pale square of moonlight on the ceiling of the shop.

'Just a dream', she tells herself. 'It is just a dream'. Calming her breath, looking around the room, finding comfort in familiar things, she takes her time before looking into her heart, checking on their bond, which snapped so vividly in this horrible dream she just had. For a moment she believed – she felt – it was gone; that he was gone. But no, there it is – still here, still glowing and suddenly, with no apparent reason at all, she feels that glow grow stronger and brighter, almost blinding, almost as strong as on the pier when she kissed him and charmed him to come back to her.

'Something must have happened to him tonight – something must have made him despair, but then believe in us again, stronger then before', the dreamer thinks.

'You are insane. Your wistful thinking got the better of you. None of these things you are talking about – these bonds, these spells, these promises – none of them are real, you know. These things are just emotions, snippets of your imagination. You will go mad if you believe in them so blindly', the practical girl says.

And Belle, real Belle, a very lonely and frightened girl curling on the camp-bed in the back room of antique shop in a small and strange town in a cold and windy country, knows that they are both right, these girls talking inside her head. And she doesn't really know how to live with that – how to go on living at all.

She stays awake for a long time, trying to clear her mind. She falls into a dreamless sleep not long before dawn, and wakes with a heavy head and a sunken heart. Today it is a great effort to get up from the bed – a great effort to dress and go out. Yet still she makes herself move – she goes into Granny's for a morning coffee, and faces all the well-wishers, and smiles, and thinks she will probably die today; nothing dramatic or self-inflicted, she'd just fall apart.

And then a mermaid walks in, and gives her a message she never hoped for, and a magical shell to decode. And, rushing into the shop, instinctively making magic necessary to bid his wishes, she feels reborn – remade – stronger then she ever felt.

The shell comes to life and she sees his face, she hears his voice, she reaches out to touch his image and, despite all the importance of the message, despite the tricky instructions she struggles to remember, the only thing that matters to her is the change she sees in him. His face, his voice – they are different; not pained and wasted, as they were when they were saying good-bye on the pier, not dead and resigned as in her dreams. He is full of life, strong, cunning, resourceful – he is not dying as he speaks to her, he is living and hoping and building his life.

She takes in his dry, wry features, she sees his twisted smile and she feels, suddenly, that all will be, indeed, well. He will come back, really and truly. He has that in him, now.

And that knowledge is enough to defeat the enemies that try to hinder her in the task he gave her – to lure them on her side. That knowledge is enough to get through the day full of frenzied action – through the night full of troubled dreams, where darkness chases upon him, yet again, and he seems to disappear in it completely, yet again.

This time she is not frightened, this time she doesn't doubt herself and doesn't despair. She knows now she is not alone in her faith – she is not alone in her hopes. He believes in them, too – he hopes to come back to her, too. Let the darkness come, let it try to take them – it will not succeed. Were there's darkness, must be light, that's how the world works.

She'd give him the light. She'd flood the road he travels by with light from her heart.

For once, the practical girl is silent – she has nothing to say against such tortured, ravaged hope. The dreamer rules, today.

Come the morning, the dreamer stands on the pier, where they said good-bye such an impossibly long week ago, and stares into the clear blue sky, stares there to the point of blindness, wishing to see through space and time, wishing to see him coming, knowing that, when he comes, she would not need her eyes to see him – her heart would tell her that he is, finally, back.