Authors Note: This is a warm-up short fiction piece for my NaNo novel. No, you aren't supposed to know the names of the two characters. I know them, and their names will be revealed in the novel.

This takes place at the end of a novel, bear in mind. .

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"Oh God, let me go home before I die!" White hands pressing on black cloth- she's hysterical. But it's a soft, silky-sweet hysteria, not like what you read about, not like crazy people. And she's sobbing now - he's trying not to look at her - not like this. Because, you see, he's never known her, never needed to, either.

But now she's all alone, she can't turn to anyone else. And she's pressing her face into his chest - thinks he's someone else. The name brings a tightness into him, makes him want to run away as far as possible. But instead he's clutching her to him, trying to tell her it hurt him too, (Oh God it still does), but he just can't find the words.

And her breaths come in short gasps- she can speak to him now. "Ruel, Ruel, why won't you wake up?" He wants, oh so badly, to tell her that Minerve and Ruel are dead, buried on an unknown field- no one wants those bodies, what was left, anyhow. But he can't, because he's asking himself the same question. Min and Ruel were so strong- why aren't they still alive? Were they simply better at hiding weakness?

"Ruel, please, for the love of God, take me home!" She's begging, tearful grey eyes obviously seeing another in his place. But she frightens him- black hair lanky and unkempt, face (oh so white) smudged with dirt and blood and too many tears- too many even for her.

But he can't answer her; he's too lost in himself, trying to go back to that day. It wasn't supposed to be like that. It was routine- no danger. Ruel and Min would go out- ha and the wreck of a woman in his arms would guard the area.

And then there was the accident. No one could identify the source of the explosion- and no one wanted to think about it much anyway. Minerve, the most incredible woman he had ever, and would ever, know, gone in a garbled scream of pain. All that was left of her was, oddly, a lock of her unnatural hair. And then there was Ruel.

Oh God. Ruel. On the outside of the blast perimeter, he had enough time to form a coherent word before he died. Died screaming his name. He bites his lip hard, tries to forget that moment, the bloody wreckage of Ruel's body.

And how she cried afterwards. How she cried and screamed until her voice was gone and her face shone in the light. How he had sat there, numb, watching the mutilated body be carted away and dumped where he had died.

Two lives had ended that day, without a doubt. Two beings had been obliterated form the face of the World. But how many had truly died out there on that lonely field, in that sudden, violent explosion? As he looks at himself and the woman in his arms, he begins to think that maybe four people had died that day. Four souls broken, four people lost the world.

"Please, take me home," she's pulling his sleeve, reminding him that at least the two of them are still breathing. "And take me to Synevre's grave. I," she falters, "I need to tell her what happened to her daughter." He nods, trying to placate her. "And then I can go home. Min always said she wanted to go there with me..." She trails off, voice splintering into a thousand could-have-beens.

And finally he realizes how much she needs him, how much he needs her. So he reaches down and brushes that dark hair out of her eyes, gives her his strongest smile, and grips her pale hand in his. "I'll take you home."

And she smiles.