Nathaniel.

I closed my eyes.

This was it.

I was really going to do it.

I was really going to see him.

My body ached; I could feel the yearning burning through my veins, could feel it being pumped harder through them with every beat of my heart. I could feel it radiating from my veins to my skin and made it tingle wildly - my hands were vibrating.

I took a ragged deep breath.

I exhaled; slowly, slowly, slowly.

I closed my eyes.

Nathaniel.

This was going to be hard.

I had to picture him, and not want him to be near me.

It would help if I didn't picture all of him, and if I didn't picture him facing me.

But first, I had to disguise myself. If he saw me, he'd want to talk. We were, at least, friends enough that he would want to know where I disappeared to, and how I was back.

And, if he was happy with someone else, it would be that much harder to leave him again.

It would kill me.

I grabbed fistfulls of my hair and yanked them in front of my face. They were an ugly, dull, boring brown. Everyone had brown hair.

I wanted... hmmm. Did I want blonde hair? No, blonde didn't really match the way I was feeling. Black hair seemed more appropriate, but I was so pale, that if I gave myself black hair, I'd look dead.

Unless I changed my skin tone.

But I wasn't really in the mood for black hair.

I wanted something intense, to match the intense desire burning through me.

Red hair.

Wild, crazy, outrageous, intense, coiled, orange hair would be perfect.

Vaguely, some part of my mind remembered that I'd always wanted bright, carrot-top red hair.

Maybe it wasn't the most inconspicuous color, but it felt absolutely perfect.

So my stared burned into the brown.

A speck of red appeared in the middle of the roots of my hair. I couldn't see it, but I could sense it. It grew into a line along my roots and spilled over. It must have looked like someone had dumped some sort of orange paint over my head - only the color stuck to every strand of hair. I watched the red seep into the brown hair in my hands and overtake it quickly. It was a vived, crazy, bright orange.

It was perfect.

I shook it out. It was silky and smooth. It stopped slightly below my armpits.

I let it grow. I watched it lenghten until it was waist level.

I thickened it. Curled it. Gave it more volume. Gave myself some bangs.

My heart was beating faster, faster, faster.

My breathing was speeding too.

My eyes were next.

I didn't want any part of me to be recongnizable, so I had to change everything.

When I blinked again, they were a light, minty-green color.

I let my slightly smaller nose grow just a little - so that it was normal sized. I gave it just a little more point than it had.

My hands felt clammy.

I felt my cheek bones jump up a little so that they were higher and I probably looked older.

I lengthened my face a little more, then I added about two inches to my leg length, and another in my torso. I felt my back arch as it grew. It felt almost like stretching...

I let my arms grow and made my hands slimmer and longer, so that they were more feminine. I lengthened my fingernails too, of course. They were now well-refined, and pretty.

My hands weren't, but they felt like they were shaking and sweaty.

I drained some of the little color there was in my skin.

I sprinkled freckles across my nose and spilled them over onto my cheeks just a little bit.

A gave myself a plain, brown dress with plain, simple shoes.

I was disguised.

Nobody would recognized me.

Now.

Natheniel.

I was still aching with the desire to see him, but now I was also feeling something deeper, seeping into my bones. I want to say that it was delight, elation, exuberance, excstasy, exultance... but none of them began to cover it. It was so much more.

My heart was racing. I could hear it pounding in my ears, crushing my skull.

Relax! Okay, that's not going to happen. At least breathe!

In and out. In and out.

I exhaled and inhaled - but it was more like gulping and gasping, like a shark on a blood-frenzy or a druggie with his stuff... I couldn't get enough. My breath was coming too fast and my heart was threatening to explode.

Breathe!

In and out. In and out.

And then my eyes painted his mop of shaggy hair. I forced myself not to think, not to take in what I was doing, or I'd bring him to myself, not me to him.

I was shaking uncontrollably, but I continued.

The image burst from my mind - I didn't have to think about it.

Suddenly, I saw him.

There he was!

It was his back, but it was him.

He was wearing clothes I'd never seen before.

The scene followed immediatly.

I was standing in a tiny village.

I barely took in my surroundings...

He was leaning against a little cottage.

His hair was rustling in the gentle breeze.

He was talking to someone I couldn't see - the someone was obscured by Nathanilel's tall, muscular body.

He tilted his head to the side.

I was feeling - nothing.

It was like all emotion had exploded in me, and I was now numb.

I stumbled toward him.

My mind may have had no emotion, but it seemed my body did.

Tears poured from my eyes, obscuring my vision.

It was him!

It was really him!

He was really standing right there!

Then, feeling started to kick in again.

It was almost painful.

It felt like my heart was exploding.

I started to choke on my sobs of joy.

There he was!

He turned to see what it was he was hearing, and then, despite my lack of vision from my tears, I could see

who he was talking to.

It was a girl.

It was the girl.

The girl I'd pictured Nathaniel meeting before I'd sent Jemima to New York.

Everything was crushing me, then.

It was overwhelming; something immense pushing against all sides of me, inside and out.

My heart included.

I think I tripped.

The last thing I was dimly aware of was the ground, coming toward me fast.

Then I knew nothing.

Author's Note: Please Review! :D I hope you liked this, and if you didn't like the end of this chapter, then you'll probably like the next! (I hope.)