" "It's okay," he said. "We're together." He didn't say you're okay, or we're alive. After all they'd been through over the last year, he knew that the most important thing was that they were together. She loved him for saying that."

The Mark Of Athena, by Rick Riordan.

We were in silence, looking at each other for a while. There were so many things in his eyes, I couldn't pretend to understand everything... but I know what I felt.

My heart was beating faster and I found myself looking for bruises or anything that would let me know he wasn't taking good care of himself... But he looked good. And that made me happy.

I don't know how long we stood there, frozen. It must have been a while, but I only discovered that when a soft click made us jump.

Miss Savannah had left the room – and with her, Hugo and Luc. Apparently, they'd left us alone and I could feel my cheeks burn.

Turning to look back at Dash, I was surprised to see that he was kneeling in front of me – oh, yeah. I was still on the floor, after failing to sit and falling straight through.

I got to my feet and watched as he did the same, slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. "I missed you."

His voice was low, a little more than a whisper. "I missed you too," I replied, and then turned to look at my feet. He lifted a hand, held it close to my hair. I could almost feel his fingertips touching it.

Taking his hands away, Dash sighed in frustration. Then he took another breath and smiled. "I've been worried."

"Sorry." I whispered, unable to meet his eyes. "It hurt."

Apparently, I had no need to explain what had hurt me. Dash was silent and I could see his hand approaching me again from the side of my eye – he hesitated though and dropped his hand again.

"I am... glad that you are better." He whispered, and then silence fell between us again. So much had happened – and, for a while, I thought I was never going to see him again. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I thought he needed to know, that I couldn't say anything. I couldn't think of what to say, or how to say it.

I could feel my heart beating faster in my chest, which was funny because I didn't have a heart anymore. It didn't seem to matter though as it beat, hard, my hands growing sweaty and my whole body shaking inside. I suddenly lifted my head, my eyes meeting his in a moment of sudden clarity.

He knew. He knew, I could see it clearly, he knew - he knew and he... he didn't mind. I found myself closing my eyes, taking deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. He knew and he didn't mind, yes, but he deserved it.

He deserved to hear the words, he deserved it. I took another breath, run my hands through my hair and lifted my eyes to meet his. I was going to say it.

But before I could, I felt it.

His arms. Around me.

He... wasn't touching me, per se. Not for real. But as his hands hovered around my body, I could actually feel his warmth. It was... strange, but the good kind.

Our gazes met, his holding mine with ease.

"It's ok," he said, his voice soothing. "It's ok, Maisie. I'm just happy that you're here, that we're together again. We'll figure this out, I know we will."

His words gave me strength, and as I leaned forward to touch my forehead against his chest, stopping just before we actually touched.

And there we stood, touching without touching, our hearts closer than they'd ever been before.

*

"A rose? We did find a rose." I didn't know how much time had passed, but we eventually found ourselves sitting together on the ground and talking. With our backs to the wall and looking at the door, Dash was playing with his shirt, leaning towards me. "It was in Joanne's room – I think it was a gift from Izak or something. Ingreth got it in her head that it was something important and stole it – I've been keeping it in here until we figured out a way to give it back to Joanne without her losing her mind."

I turned to glance at him. "Well, I need to give it back," I said, biting my lip as my mind went a mile a minute. Izak had given my sister the Sacred Rose. Could he have used it to make her follow him around blindly? Could the Rose be the reason for my death?

"If it's important, maybe we should hold on to it. We could bargain." Dash said, his eyes hardening as he looked at me. "We'll give the Rose if they give you back to us. It's only fair, they get something important and so do we."

I blinked for a moment, confused. It was weird that calm and mature Dash was planning on... bargaining for my life. I almost couldn't believe it.

"Dash that's..." I trailed off, trying to find the right words. I was... glad, he was willing to bargain for me, but at the same time, it scared me. What would those words mean for him? What would the Army do if he stood against them?

But he shook his head and smiled. "Don't worry, May. Leave it to me."

With those words, he got to his feet and went to walk away, but I stopped him. "Hey! No bargaining!" I managed to shout, getting to my feet. "I'll come back, I promise I will, but don't bargain with the Army, it worries me!"

Dash made a long pause, studying me. "Hm, do you really promise?"

I nodded vehemently. "Just give me the Rose so I can give it to them. I'll do everything right, and they'll send me back. I promise it."

His agreement was slow in coming, but it did come, much to my relief. As he left to pick up the Rose, Malach, Natalia, Luc and Hugo walked in.

"Everything alright?" Hugo asked, frowning in worry.

Nat grinned. "Oh, look at her, guys! She's glowing – I'd say things went more than right."

Hugo glared at Nat. "That's not what I'm worried about, Nat! I just want to know if he was nice to her!"

"Of course he was!" She laughed, shaking her head. "He's smitten with her, Hugo! I told you guys there wouldn't be any trouble... and that she would be glad to see him." Smile growing until she was almost beaming, Nat winked at me. "So, you aren't worried anymore about him and Ingreth, are you?"

I felt my cheeks grow red as I remembered that, yup, I didn't even think about Ingy for the last couple of hours. Shoot, I was such an awful friend – I should have at least asked about—

"Ooh, stop that. Maisie, it's fine." Natalia smiled at me, shaking her head. "It's perfectly fine. You see, it's normal for the world to stop when you are with someone you love, in particular when you haven't seen each other for long. The world melts away. It's fine."

There was a wistfulness in Natalia's voice that made me wonder what had happened to her to make her sigh like this, but still, I forced myself to take a deep breath and relax.

Dash would come back. He would bring the Rose and I'd deliver that Rose to the Army. They'd be grateful and I would be a step closer to coming back.

And you know what's the funnier part of all of that?

Remember when I didn't want to come back? I couldn't pinpoint when that changed but...

As I saw the door open and Dash run towards me, the Rose clutched in his fist, I knew.

I never wanted to live more than I did at that moment.

*

I gave the Rose to Malach and he signaled for me to say my goodbyes. A good shove from Natalia assured me some privacy, as Hugo and Luc hurried after them lest she decided they needed some 'incentive' as well.

I was smiling at my friends when Dash hovered his fingertip on my cheek and made me look at him. It was so close, it was almost as if he was touching me.

Almost.

"You are ok." He said, and he smiled. "I'm glad."

I could see peace in his gaze now and I found myself smiling at him. "I made friends," I explained, shaking my head at them. "They are nice."

"I'm glad." He repeated, his eyes drinking me in as if he was never going to see me again. There was a panic, a despair in the way he was looking at me that called to my own.

I knew it would be a while before I was allowed back, if I was. And life here kept going on, and Dash kept living here. And I was living there.

Even if I managed to come back, there was no way to be sure Dash would be here. That he would still be waiting for... for whatever it was that was going to happen between us.

"I will wait." He whispered, almost as if he was reading my thoughts. "I will wait for my whole life if I need to, Maisie. As long as you feel the same, I will wait."

I looked at him, my eyes filling with tears. I didn't want to cry, the tears made it impossible to keep looking at him. I had to close my eyes.

I had to blink them away.

"I'm afraid." I whispered and he nodded, his smile growing fragile in front of my eyes.

"So am I." He admitted, but then shook his head. "But we're here. We're together. And no matter what is coming our way, no matter what we will need to face going on forward, we'll win. And you know why?"

"Because we're together." I whispered and watched as his smile grew bigger.

"Yes." He agreed, giving me a firm nod. "That's it. And together we can beat anything, anyone. Whenever you feel sad or afraid Maisie, think of me. I'll think of you. And before you know it, we'll be together again."

I nodded, and then I smiled. "And you'll tell me what you said? That weekend, to your Aunt?"

His eyes twinkled as if he found my mentioning that funny. "Yes. Then I'll tell you."

*

Days passed on as I, once again, buried myself in books. It was lucky I enjoyed reading, with how much I did of it.

But it was the best way to get knowledge fast, and as such, I read. I read. And I read.

And time passed.

My friends were precious, sure, but it was Dash's words that kept me going more often than not. It was the thought that I wasn't alone, that he was there on his side...

That he was thinking of me.

Silly, of course, especially when you took into account the fact that all of this might not work. That I might never go back.

I should have told him to forget me, to forget we had ever been friends. To make new friends. To live...

And yet, the one thing that gave me strength, that calmed me down when I wanted to cry, was to picture the two of us.

I didn't want anything big, I decided. My dream involved him and me walking together down the street from my house. We were talking and laughing together, and he was holding my hand. We were eating ice cream and enjoying a nice afternoon out.

Silly dream.

Anyway, I was working on my second report for the Army - this one on the reasons why I believed Izak wanted the Rose in the first place -, which was my last task due that day, when I first heard it.

At first, all I heard was a sob. A quiet, single sob. I had just managed to convince myself I had misheard – that nobody was crying, that it was something else entirely. Maybe an animal was making that sound. Or a young child.- when it grew louder. And louder, and louder, and louder...

There was no way to deny what it was anymore.

Someone was crying.

It took me a while to manage to shut it out. It took extra time studying with Clarisse, one of the teachers in the In Between school. It took away more time than I had, even if I didn't know how much time I still had, how much time had passed.

Still, everybody said I learned fast. I think what motivated me the most was that, during most of that time, I could still hear them. Not all the time, you see, not every single moment, but...

But I could hear them cry.

Whenever I was tired, whenever I was distracted, the walls would weaken and inside of me there they were. Crying. Never, ever stopping.

It took me some time, but I started differentiating between their voices. My mother's. My father's. Ingreth's. Jace's. Dash's.

They all cried.

At different times, and I got the sense that they only did it when they were alone. I had a feeling they were sad and mourning me all over again, which drove me insane.

Natalia told me this was probably my first gift manifesting itself. I was to be a telepath.

It would be really cool if I heard something, anything, other than their tears.

I was sure Malach had lied to me. It had been longer than a couple of days since I had seen Dash but how could one be aware of time in such a place? Maybe it was also a skill you acquired in time.

I hadn't acquired it.

I was sure that their constant cries inside my head would slowly drive me into insanity. I liked making other people happy, I lived making other people happy. Working hard to make everyone like me, working hard to disappear when I thought I was bothering someone, working hard not to hurt someone else's feelings...

How could I keep living, or whatever it was that I was doing, while making others so clearly unhappy? All my fears, all my uncertainties were coming back to life... They were like ghosts haunting me, like monsters draining me of all my will to live, all of my joy.

They were those voices, those cursed whispers that kept saying 'maybe Joanne is right. Maybe I should never have been born at all.'

I was slowly winding into turbulent despair when a loud cry reached my ears. A loud, heartbreaking cry that woke me from my trancelike state.

A cry of betrayal.

A cry of pain.

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THERE IS NEW INFORMATION IN THIS CHAPTER - THAT SAID, YOU STILL SHOULD BE ABLE TO FOLLOW THE STORY IF YOU READ THE PREVIOUS VERSION OF IT.

Originally published: January 14th, 2020

Revised: March 24th, 2020

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