Carly wasn't having the best of days. First, she overslept, she spilled coffee all over herself during her lecture, then, when she finally got to go home to change, she just missed her bus and because today couldn't get any worse, it started raining. Because it always seemed to be raining here in England.

She decided to take a shortcut through the woods. Whenever she got here, she could feel the hairs in the back of her neck rise. There was something about this place which made her feel uneasy. She normally tried to avoid them, but the rain was pouring down on her, so she told herself to grow up. 'It's just a forest, Carly. You have been in them before.' And, of course, she got lost. 'This is so not my day', she sighted after noticing she had no signal and no way of using Google Maps.

After walking around for a while, she arrived at a clearing. In the middle of it lay a guy; he appeared to be unconscious. Carly ran over to him and tried to wake him up. She stretched out her hand, but at that moment the stranger opened his eyes. He sat up and looked around. This was when she took a good look at him for the first time. He appeared to be in his early twenties, just like her, he was clean-shaven and he was wearing some sort of strange cloak that made it hard to focus on him, even though she was sitting right next to him. That's when she recognised him. She had never seen him, but he looked exactly like she imagined he would. 'You're Gilan.' She couldn't believe this. Gilan was her favourite character and fictional crush.

'How do you know my name? Where am I?' Gilan stood up and searched for his weapons, but didn't find them. Suddenly he seemed to notice Carly. 'You! Tell me how I got here. Are you a witch?'

The idea was so absurd it made her laugh. 'Me, a witch? Yeah, right. Look, I don't know how you got here, I just found you, but it appears you've time travelled.

He looked at her like she was crazy and she explained. She explained it all: how he was a fictional character from a book, that she knew everything there was to know about him and that he was in the 21th century. She only left out the fact that she wrote fanfiction in which she got together with Gilan. None of her friends knew that, and her online followers didn't know her real name, and she preferred to keep this a secret. Especially since her crush was standing here in front of her, breathing and all.

Gilan didn't seem to believe her, so she decided to take him with her and show him the books. Thanks to Gilan good sense of direction and general skills, they got out of the forest and a while later they arrived at her house.

Carly was relieved to see no one was home, because how could she have explained Gilan's appearance? She couldn't just walk up to her parents and introduce him. 'Mom, dad, I found this guy in the woods and he's a fictional character from my favourite book series, but he's also real and standing here.' No, they would probably think she was being delusional.

They went up to her room and she showed him the Ranger's Apprentice series. He seemed shocked and Carly left him alone to get some towels and clean clothes.

When she came back it looked like Gilan hadn't moved at all. He seemed to be in some existential crisis. Carly got that. She already had trouble finding her place in the world, let alone find out she didn't even exist. At least, not in this world.

'I got you some clothes.' She handed them over and Gilan studied them. She had to admit he had been taking it pretty well so far. He hadn't even freaked out when he saw a car.

Gilan's voice brought her back to reality. 'Are these your lover's clothes?'

'What? Oh no, god, no. They're my brother's.' She felt her cheeks burning up and turned around. 'Bathroom's that way.'

After he left the room, she let go of the breath she hadn't realised she was holding. She sat down on her bed and tried to gather her thoughts.

An idea hit her and she wondered why she hadn't thought of it earlier.

'I know where we should go', she told Gilan when he came back.

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The waiter placed two steaming cups of coffee and a piece of plum tart on their table. Carly smiled at him and then turned her attention to Gilan. 'This place has the best coffee in the whole town.'

He nodded and looked at the tart 'How did you...' He stopped himself and sighs. 'Of course, the books.' Gilan took a sip of the coffee and seems pleasantly surprised by the taste.

The rest of the evening seems to go by in a daze. For some reason, Carly felt like she has known Gilan for years, and in some weird way she actually did, which is probably what made it so easy to talk to him.

They talked about everything. How guilty Gilan felt after he left Will, who then got kidnapped by Skandians and Carly told him about her anxiety and how she always feels like a failure. Finally saying these things out loud, seemed to help both of them. Carly had always felt bad for Gilan while reading 'The Burning Bridge' and since she had written a lot of stories about it, she could help him feel better. But Gilan helped her too. When he just got accepted as a Ranger, he had a bit of a hard time adjusting. Especially since he was the son of the Battle master and a lot of Rangers remembered the time Morgarath was in charge quite vividly. This made them a bit hostile towards him and it didn't help that he was the apprentice of the famous Halt. She had never thought about it like that, but it made sense.

But they didn't only talk about the bad things, on the contrary. Gilan told her all kinds of funny stories, pranks he had played on Halt and all the chores he had to do because of them. Or that one night Halt had forced him and Will to sleep in a tree because they had been singing 'Greybeard Halt'. These stories made her laugh so hard there was coffee coming out of her nose. He looked at her and started to laugh so hard he almost couldn't breathe. She started laughing again too and it took a few minutes before they were able to stop. Only then did they make the mistake of looking at one another and they started again. And before they knew it, it's time to head back home.

Carly didn't know how it happened: one moment they were talking and the next they were kissing. She didn't know who started it, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered in this moment. It was just him and her and it was perfect. She tried to make the moment last as long as possible, but eventually she had to pull away to catch her breath. They didn't kiss anymore afterwards, but Gilan did hold her hand all the way home.

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Carly woke up when her alarm started beeping. Turning it off, she looked around for Gilan, but didn't find him. For a moment she feared it was all a dream, but then she spotted a letter on her desk on top of a pile of neatly folded clothes. She got up and picked up the paper.

Dear Carly,

I want to thank you for your kindness. I wish I could stay, but I have to go home. If you read this, it means I got home safe.

Love,

Gilan

PS: enclosed is a drawing I made so you can always look at me ;)

Carly picked up the other paper she hadn't noticed before. On it was a beautiful drawing of Gilan. He must have made this while she was asleep. She thought she had done pretty well keeping her feeling hidden, but Gilan was a Ranger and Rangers knew and noticed everything.

He must have waited till she was sounds asleep till he got up and left. She did remember his lips softly pressing to her forehead, but she had waved it aside; she regularly dreamed stuff like that. She knew he didn't belong in this world, but it still hurt. At least she had a drawing to remember him by.

She was glad he made this, because she hadn't dared to pull out her phone to take a picture. She didn't want to freak him out even more. But she was glad he made the drawing. It looked so real, it almost made her cry. She grinned through her tears; Tumblr would go crazy when she posted this.