I love you.

You know that I love you. And I know that I love you. But despite all that, I feel the need to say it, because I can and I do.

I love you so much.

I love him. Not in the same way, but I do. He looks nothing like you, and that's how I know that when I see him in you, it's not just my imagination.

I love her. Not in the same way as I love you or him. I love her because I know her and perhaps I chose her by chance but it was a good choice.

I miss you. I lived an eternity without you and then I spent an eternity watching you. And then I spent an eternity protecting you and what you've made from It. And now I'm in the middle of an eternity that I will spend without you.

Eternity never felt so long. I'm thankful I'm not awake during most of it, when I dream, I am with you. And it's not real, but I can pretend and so I do.

I'm not awake often. She manages to keep him safe most of the time so I don't have to be. This is the first time I've been awake in a while.

She was a great choice even if she was chosen by fate more than anything.

She's brave and she's kind and she's stubborn and they keep her alive which keeps her strong. And she cares about him so much and that is why I am awake.

I have her shoved down to where I rest so she can heal. She is asleep now, the way I am meant to be. It won't be for very long, it can't be for very long because I can't be awake for very long.

It tried to dig into her mind. Not the same It. Not the force that I Hate even though it is a force that I hate for hurting her. But it's not the force that I lie in hiding away from in hopes of keeping you safe, but another one, one that takes your creation and crushes it for the imaginary sin of existing.

Something has buried itself into her neck and I tear it out bracing against the wall with her elbows. Her body is more solid than what I'm used to. And it's smaller. And it only has two arms and ten fingers and their lengths are set. But it works, and it'll be enough. Her blood smears on the paper as I push the sides of the book apart and push her body out.

She is asleep and safe, but he is not and so I need to find him. I need to keep him safe because he keeps your creations safe and by extension you even if he doesn't know it.

I can hear the fake men of metal and energy step heavily in between the stacks of books. They are searching for something. Maybe it's her. Maybe it's him. Maybe it's their companions. I don't know. But I know I need to find him. They are loud, and her senses are not as good as mine, so I cannot pick him out of the sounds of his heartbeats in between the noise, so I have to look for him.

I feel discomfort in her body, and it tells me that I need to find him soon, but I don't know where he is. She might know, but I can't wake her up. Not yet, not while the wounds in her mind are still mending.

I go in the direction the robots are coming from and I hear the sound of the shelves creaking as one of the fake men pushes against them and I hear a terrible shout from where I came from and then her vision spins and goes dark.

It didn't have bones when I tore It apart. I didn't know what the breaking of bones sounded like. I do now.

Her eyes blink and I'm not far away from where I was, but this time I know where to go.

I reach him and I tackle him carefully, one of her arms under his head and the other braced by his side and the rest of her body keeping the shelf held up away from him by her knees. Her bones bend and her muscles bruise but they don't stay like that for long.

He looks nothing like you. His skin is too pale and his hair is too thin and short and flat, but he reminds me so much of you regardless.

They both remind me of you.

And they both remind me of me.

The bookcase is still pressing against her back. I shake her arm a bit and he gets what I'm trying to do and lifts his head so both of her arms are braced in either side of his head and then carefully make my way to my feet, pushing the shelves up. I can hear the other ones falling to the ground, but I don't care. I can feel the bruises deepening and I don't care.

I look at him and he looks back.

He calls her name and it takes me a moment to realize that I'm meant to be the one to answer.

"Yes?" Her voice comes out of her throat and I'm pleasantly surprised that I know how to use it. "Yes."

I grab him by the hand with both of hers and I pull him to his feet. I don't let go.

"Are you alright?" I ask.

"Are you?" he asks. And it seems like an absurd question, even if it's directed at her instead of me.

"Yes, of course I'm fine. I'm always fine."

It's a ridiculous question because whether it was true or not she would never answer another way. She holds things in her heart and lets them fester because she can only be so brave.

I try to help. When she sleeps, I try to show her my memories of me and my memories of you so she doesn't dwell on her own. She doesn't really remember them, but that's alright. She doesn't have to.

He points to the book that she had been trapped in.

"The inside of that book is smeared with blood. Yours. Are you sure that you're alright?"

I lift one of her hands and tap the back of her neck.

"There were wires there. I removed them. But they were deep. So there was blood, and then when I tried to keep the book open, the hand I used had blood on it." He doesn't ask about them, but I think I can predict what he would ask next. "I don't know where to find Jamie and Zoe. We need to find them. They might not be-"

I cut myself off. Something is wrong. I can hear the footsteps of those mechanical men. That he is still looking for him and her and he killed him before. It doesn't matter that he can't remember. He did it and he hurt them and he endangered you and I hate him.

I tilt her head to the side and listen for where they are coming from and how many of them there are. I think there's only one. I turn my head, and I see it just as it came around the corner.

Was it the one who pushed the bookcases? I don't know and I don't care.

I want to destroy it.

The irony to this does not escape me. I love you, and the reason why I love you is because you create. And as much as I love you, I hate It in equal measure because it destroys, and yet, I desire nothing more than to destroy it right back.

I wonder if It could create something like words or speech It would try and throw that back at me in order to cause me to drop my guard.

It wouldn't work, but I wonder if It would try.

I stare at it closely, waiting for it to get closer and closer and closer, until when I jump towards it it falls to the ground. I dig her fingertips around the seam of its arms. The metal cuts at her fingertips and her blood smears before it can go back to where it belongs. I keep going because I don't think that she would stop or care and it tears away. I rip off the other arm and then I pound on the chest until the metal is dented and think and dig in with her fingertips so I reach into its chest and grab fistfulls of its rubber-coated copper veins pull and tear until it stops moving. And then I stop moving too.

I stare down at the machine, it's dead, not that it was ever alive. And when it's done I stand back up and stare at him.

I want to tell him I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for the fact that I needed help to protect you and cost a child her home.

I'm sorry that I trusted that explorer to look after the child, thinking that someone who had seen so much of your creation would want to protect it and her because I could not imagine anyone but It thinking differently.

I'm sorry that I didn't watch the child grow because trusted that they would be safe until they were old enough to explore the universe themselves.

I'm sorry that the child grew up to be used and that he's still being used even if he forget everything because they made him forget.

And I want to apologize to her for using her to protect him as he protects you even if it won't be forever.

But can't be awake for much longer than this. And the damage to her mind has been fixed and so I go to sleep once more.

I get one last look at him, and then I close her eyes.

And she opens them.