And Again

She'd been touched by the darkness, and she wouldn't let him closer. He watched instead--I worry for you, he had said, to which she uttered nothing in reply--and he held her when he could, but she'd faded and flickered until she was almost consumed by shadows.

*

Bella, she'd whispered once, in a voice so soft it had been hushed by the enveloping silence of the night and stolen away by the rustle of sheets, and if he hadn't been looking at her he wouldn't have read it from the shape of her mouth. And so there it was, glazed eyes and soft pink lips wrapped around a name that wasn't his.

*

He walked through her thoughts when she wasn't looking--she never looked though, so it didn't matter anyway--and the shifting illusions of her mind danced around him in jumbles of images and flashes of nightmares. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of her shadow, and he followed it to where it twisted and bent and came alive under the touch of long, elegant fingers and teasing red lips, and she wasn't a shadow anymore.

*

Unlike the rest of them, she didn't tremble in fear and she didn't cry herself to sleep, because she'd been there, and she knew what to expect, and it couldn't be more terrible than the last time, but he knew that secretly, she'd wanted it all along too. She smiled calmly at him and held his hand and whispered soothing things, but he saw the anticipation in her eyes searching through every hooded figure that passed by, saw her starving brown eyes trying to catch glimpses of long fingers beneath black robes, because he looked for them as well.

*

They were called for, when it was just the two of them left in the dank and quiet place, and she stood up from where he'd been holding her and he knew he'd lost her again, but he stood beside her still and there she was, red lips full and cruel, a cascade of black hair falling over pale skin from under her hood. She dragged a finger down the side of her face and her brown eyes almost begged, and he knew the darkness had come again.

*

Bella, she whispered again, but there was no silence to smother it and no rustle of sheets to steal it away and he heard it drawn out from her soft pink lips, even though he hadn't been looking at her mouth. And he heard more--a throaty murmur of silken voice, a delicate, desperate gasp of breath--but her name echoed the loudest through the stone walls of his head.

*

She grew brighter with the darkness as it touched her, and she moved and breathed and could not be swallowed by the shadows. He watched, and when long pale fingers beckoned, he heeded, because it was the only way she'd let him closer, if he was touched by the darkness too.