A/N: Yeah, I realize how depressing those last few chapters were. And I knew when I wrote them two years ago that the ending wouldn't be liked very well by some readers. That ending is continued through it's sequel (not finished yet) Once Upon A Nightmare. But for those who would rather a different ending, I wrote Ending B. This takes place back when Kerstin was still hanging around the Underground, married to Atticus.

Paradox Ending B

Epilogue:

Atticus :

I couldn’t blame her, I really couldn’t. But if someone came to rip me slowly from limb to limb while I’m awake and very much aware, it still wouldn’t have hurt near as much as it did to see her quickly pack her bags and walk out of the Under Ground. My life, my love, my complete heart... I was watching them all walk away from the shadows. The only thing that made it worse was the fact that I had done it again - I had once again failed the woman I loved so much. And again, I would pay one last time, but now...this time...it was for good. I’d have no second chance, no word in it. She left, and I was never to see her again. I didn’t even get to apologize. I woke up the next morning, ready to spill out my soul, just to find an empty bed. All her things were there, everything in tact. No one had seen her. She simply vanished for a while. One day, that day, she was suddenly just...gone.

As I suffered in silence in either of our rooms, many things changed outside of them. Alaiah though, changed the most. For who knew? The perfect man was out there, so close. A man that would rather slit his own throat then to see a single tear fall upon her cheek, a man that would never let her down even once. A man who understood just how much she was worth, and knew just how lucky he was to have her. This man: Erik Smith; Claire’s own brother. Though he fell madly in love with her at first sight, it took Alaiah a lot longer. Two or three years passed, each day with Erik’s constant devotion, until she finally started to crumble. I wish I could say that she made a stupid decision, that it wasn’t wise of her and she made mistakes too, but I couldn’t. For she made no mistake - he was a very honorable and good man. Straight forward, hard worker, yet no too hard working. He loved Alaiah and made her first in his life. She was his queen, and he wanted only for her love.

I wondered if Alaiah had forgotten that I was a scout. I would watch her each day as she went from here to there. I couldnt help myself - I was curious to see what my heart was doing throughout the day, despite how much it hurt. And then, there came the day when I no longer followed her, when I lost all desire to do so. The day she finally married. It was that ripping sensation all over again, except even worse because now her love for this man was permanent. It meant that she must have forgotten all about me, no longer cared.

But she wasn’t the only one that was changing in to a new person. Gideon ended up leaving the Under Ground, but with no girl. Instead, he actually grew up. His maturity level was amazing. Mature enough, that he went to train as a preacher, following Fran’s footsteps, then went off to be a missionary and travel the world, far away from his nightmares of New York. He sent letters to the Under Ground, thanks to Fran’s address. And within three years, he announced that he had found the real woman of his dreams. I was overjoyed for him, of course, but inside it killed another piece of my soul, to the point where I wondered if I’d soon have any left.

Fran opened up his own church down the road, and he informed me that Alaiah went every Sunday without fail with her family, often staying hours later to talk with him or pray for the people that she once knew. Did she pray for me? I doubted it.

Alaiah went to every one of the Under Ground’s weddings, and of course made it to a very special one - Avee and Kiadameek’s, two that she had brought together, and whom I brought together again. Fran always told her what was going on, and she’d always show, despite her busy schedule. But never did I allow us to be in the same room at the same time. I’d hide, not trusting myself to see her. Not trusting myself that I wouldnt throw myself down at her feet and beg for forgiveness and implore if she still had any feelings for me. Sometimes it took me to the point that I’d have to lock myself in my own room to try and control my emotions.

And then...then the fateful day came. The death of my own father. He died eleven years after Alaiah left the Under Ground, near to the day. At seventy-eight, I’d say he lead a very full life. But I felt inadequate to fill his shoes. Now I was Head...a hard thing to take up.

Fran had made sure he told Alaiah about the funeral. Ada was to be put to rest the same way Ma’awa had. His files had been swiped long ago to avoid anyone tracing him from North Carolina. Now he only existed in our hearts and memories.

Everyone in the Under Ground came to pay their respects. Now the people living there numbered close to three hundred. I stood next to Fran, and wished Gideon was by my side too. And then I saw her, for the first time in over a decade. Because of eavesdropping on Fran’s conversations with the girls, I knew that Alaiah had five children, all ranging in years. But she brought only one, a newborn that couldn’t have been more then two months. With curly bright red hair and eyes so blue you could see Heaven in them, she was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, in all truth.

Between talking to the girls that flocked to her and her baby and paying her respects, she had no time to even notice me standing in plain sight. I tried to focus on my own father, yet I am shamed to say I could not get my eyes off of her. The years that passed had only shaped Alaiah in to even more of a beauty. Now she had looks that made her look more than just mature, but also near regal. She quite literally took my breath away, and jealousy quickly consumed me that it was not I that could share in her great beauty and charm, or that she had not bore my own children.

Alaiah didnt look at me once through the ceremony. Had she forgotten who I was? Had forgotten all we went through and all we did? I was sure she had, until the funeral was over and everyone was walking back to the Under Ground. I felt a hand delicately placed upon my shoulder. When I turned around, I saw her look boldly in to my eyes. A flood of too many emotions quickly filled her, too many for me to dissect as they went in to me.

“Can you...can you still feel me?” She asked, biting her lip. Her eyes were watering, but inside she was hurting badly. She looked at me now in fear, making it obvious what answer she wanted.

I shook my head. “No.” I replied simply. “They stopped a few months after you left.”

But when I said this, I felt like I’d drown in her great relief. She didnt want me to know about her new love and how happy I really knew she was, though the product of that love laid sleeping in her arms.

My eyes fell upon that baby again. "That’s the most beautiful baby I ever saw. She’ll be the spitting image of you.”

I went and did it again. I watched as a lone tear fell down Alaiah’s cheek. I had made her cry. She shook her head lightly, as if replying to something in her mind, then simply turned and walked away. I was sorely tempted to run after her, tell her just how much I loved her, even still, but I didnt. I had to remember that I was an honorable man - I don’t go chasing married women...

It was the last time I saw her. I made Fran tell me every detail that he knew about her, her family, what she did, where she went. I wanted to know everything...but I never saw her. Not even as a scout...she was just too clever for that. But I still had a part of her that would never go away, even if I wished it. I still held her every emotion and feeling inside of my heart. I knew those nights of the first year when she cried herself to sleep each night. I felt her agony when Erik wanted to date her. I felt everything, and it was torture to me, yet I welcomed it.

As for what happened to me from that fateful day? Kerstin and I sat down and discussed what was going on - I had an Under Ground to run. With so many people, it had to be my first priority. There was no choice in the matter. If she wanted a divorce, I’d give it to her. But she didnt. I couldn’t handle another relationship, most of all, not right then. I knew she wasnt the love of my life. But she refused to hear this. She’d come running whenever she saw me scouting, and she’d stay the entire, long day. No matter the weather. After four years of staying only like this, she finally was accepted to move in to the Under Ground - at the most inconvenient time. Up to that time, I had kept Alaiah’s room like a shrine. Never did I step inside of it anymore, but I could rest in peace knowing that nothing in her room had been touched since she was last there. It calmed me, for some reason. Perhaps because it meant that she still had a little part of her there.

When Kerstin had to move in it though...it was like a death sentence to me. I fought with Head, begging him to open another room, but rooms had become scarce, and he didnt like the fact that a full length room was going completely unused, just because I refused it to be any more. I lost the fight. The night before Kerstin came, I cleared out Alaiah’s room. Slowly, carefully, as if things, even blankets, would simply break. I took it all up to my own room, and packed her things away in a trunk that I had. That trunk stayed by the foot of my bed through all the years I had power over it. And as for the rocking chair...that stayed in my room for just as long. It was that rocking chair that sent daggers in to my heart each time I saw it, remembering when I had given it to her, remembering her once happy face...happy to be with me. It reminded me that there was such a time, whenever I’d start to believe that perhaps it was all nothing more than a dream.

Kerstin never moved in my bedroom, knowing the lines I had drawn. And I never visited Alaiah’s room, which I still called it even after Kerstin moved in. We never bore any children, never went far in our relationship. I treated her with a relationship more like a student of mine rather than a wife, but she never minded. She knew what all had happened with me, she was willing to get whatever she could.

All this is what happened over the years. Nothing terribly exciting on my part, just carrying on the tradition of my father, right down to the woman part. To this day, I have not seen Alaiah. Perhaps she finally moved out of New York, maybe she finally moved up to Maine, claiming her family’s home. Perhaps she made up with her sister, and has some one to really show off her family to, now that her father had passed. Some mysteries in my mind just arent meant to be answered. For knowing and seeing...wouldn’t that kill me the more?

I eagerly tell this tale of our lives to any one whom wishes to listen. I honestly don’t know why I do. The pain is often unbearable when I speak of the romance I once shared, the happiness I once possessed. I used to wonder why I’d put myself through so much torture...but then, I think I now know. Even though it hurts, even though my story is filled with ‘what ifs’, even though it might look pitiful that I hang on all this while, I go back and relive it over and over again, because every now and then, it’s good to take a trip back in joyous times and look upon just how good I once had it. Every now and then, it’s good to bask in the memories.

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Atticus capped his pen, shut his leather bound book, and put both in to his satchel. Finally, his tale was written, as if someone would really want to hear of it.

Alaiah’s face filled his head, memories still flowing strong before his eyes as he started walking back home to the Under Ground. Perhaps because he was blind with these thoughts that made him smack right in to a woman with bright red hair. She started to fall to the ground, losing her balance, when he quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her back up. She looked in to his eyes, and his heart lurched. After all, it had been years since he last had a view of Heaven.

He quickly grabbed out his book and handed it to her. “Uh...Here. It’s...it's the heritage poetry book. Will you pass this down to your oldest son?” He asked her.

Alaiah looked up at him, puzzled, which hurt him all the more to see a peek in to her younger years when she made such a face.

“I have no children.” He said to answer her unspoken question.

With her eyes now swimming in tears, she took the leather book that she used to love so much. Pressing it close against her chest, she nodded and then walked away.

Was it the wind, or did he really hear someone whisper “I still miss you.” ? He quickly turned around, but the redhead had disappeared. Knowing he would never know, he tried to wipe it from his mind, though knowing that he would fail at that too.

He smiled as he reached in to his satchel and pulled out his poetry book that Alaiah thought she carried. He grinned as he imagined her opening the first page to perhaps read a line of poetry, and find their story written before her eyes instead.

No, he had kept the poetry book. It was the one last material thing he had left of their times together, and he’d be buried with it in his arms. He had complete trust in Alaiah. He bore no children, but that book would be what served him to be remembered and his tales to be passed on down the years.

OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

The End