They always asked her what was wrong. She always answered that she didn't know. There was always a vague feeling of sadness, a kind of bleakness that weighed on her every time she tried to breathe. Sometimes it was suddenly in between a laugh that she remembered.
She couldn't tell them about the boy she met either. The boy inside the man. When everyone else had told her that she was unreasonable and impossible and playing with her life... He hadn't said anything. They were right of course. She was playing. But when she wasn't dreaming...
He hadn't stopped her from dreaming either. Every new face that she threw at him, he met with a smile. He wanted to know about her day. He wanted to share her bed, share warmth in those cold nights without any other expectations. He didn't ask her anything she didn't want to say.
Somehow his boyish optimism and faith in her had healed the empty spaces inside her. Her dreams were still vague. Not like how it used to be before that day she took on the blame. All the responsibility. The day she cut her own wings and weeped.
The scars ran deeper than she showed. Smiling and laughing had become so easy with him. It was the first time after a long series of firsts. The series of heartbreaking and wallowing in her own heart breaking at the sound of the other hearts...or maybe minds. She didn't know anymore.
She was well and truly blank. She missed the quiet giggles...the wracking laughters which ripped up her chest with pain and panicked breathlessness...the soft sighs of smiles...the sudden grins that only he knew to bring out.
He was really and truly home.
Now she didn't even have a piece of him left. She had burnt everything... their house, their land, their life...to the ground. Then she had run. She didn't even know where he was or where she was. She didn't even know if he'd look for her or even if he'd want to look for her. She didn't even know if she wanted to be found.
It was that bleakness again. She could work with it but the moment the dreams stopped, the moment the control was lost... Fire was always something that she had hated. Considered it an enemy and it still had been even when she thought it was a friend. A wrong matchstick, a wrong moment of numbing silence in her mind and she'd set it all aflame.
The last of her sobs faded into the afternoon sunlight as she whispered, I don't know what I'm running from or where I'm running to... I don't know the way. I'm lost.
I'm still here, the words made her catch her breath. She didn't dare to speak.
It's you and me for all time and nothing's going to break us... Remember?, the line from the song wanted to make her weep again. She didn't dare hope. She turned slowly, scared to hope. It couldn't be.
He was standing there and he was glowing,
It's you and me for all time, he was smiling, And nothing's gonna break us... When nothing seems to stay together, I still know that we're forever..., the vision disappeared. She was just hallucinating.
The numbness started weighing down again and she couldn't do anything. Thirsty. She could only process that she was thirsty and water was in the well ahead of her. She got up, moved mechanically and drew water out. She drank and then stared down the depth of the well. It looked just like her mind right now. Stones, smooth stones and dark, sweet water deep down below.
DON'T!!!, she didn't turn. It was just a hallucination again. He wouldn't come. Not after this. But calloused hands caught her shoulders firmly and pulled her away from the well wall. Those same hands turned her.
A fresh set of tears ran down her face as she took in the visage in front of her. It couldn't be but it was. He held her close, Don't even think about running off again without telling me.
The tears ran down profusely, she sobbed, grasping for breath, I thought you were g-g-gone...th-that you wouldn't c-c-come
But I always come for you...and I always will. I'll find you, don't worry. You're safe.
Maybe those were the words she'd wanted to here the most, that she was safe. Selfish, selfish need maybe but she just wanted to be held and told that she was safe.
She had known only one home anyway, even after all this time. And that was with him.
