So my second One-Shot (though this one I'm thinking about expanding on...) Would really appreciate some feedback so please review and I'll return the favour.

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"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

----H. L. Mencken

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She skipped along, her mahogany hair whipping around her face in the wind, the stones in her path kicked aside. Her normally dull brown eyes were bright today – brighter than the sun. The grin she wore covering the majority of her face; her cheeks almost unable to contain it: her happiness.

The reason was one only she knew.

No one else understood.

“Not real,” They told her. “Imaginary.”

What was real anyway? Who had the power to define reality?

Was it the ability to be seen?

...She saw him – even if they didn’t.

The ability to be heard?

...She heard him – even if they couldn’t.

The ability to be loved?

...She loved him, too – even if they wouldn’t.

He was real to her, and that was enough. Enough.

He was there, of course, in her room. Waiting.

The sight that met her, however, was not what she had expected. Not at all.

His normally soft chestnut hair that fell in his eyes in the way she loved so much, was dirty and haphazardly strewn about his head.

His normally strong, assured figure was small and seemingly insignificant. His shoulders slouched, head bent low.

His eyes. The green that shone brightly, melting, penetrating her soul, were bloodshot.

Time stopped for an immeasurable moment. She stood, staring.

This wasn’t their kind of silence. The kind where it didn’t matter if anyone spoke or not because you knew what the other was thinking without the need for words.

The kind that you experienced just to feel, to know, that there was someone in the wide world you didn’t need words from. Someone you knew would always be there anyway.

This was not that kind of silence.

This silence settled over them like a storm cloud full of the unsaid words that needed to be spoken aloud for their reality to exist.

And just before it all disappeared, she looked directly into his hooded eyes and said the two words that would shatter everything.

“You’re leaving.”

The flicker of surprise that passed across his face lasted less than a second.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew. She always knew.

He nodded once curtly, but she didn’t need his confirmation to know she’d been right. But what she didn’t know was

“Why?” Fighting to keep the quiver out of her voice, she watched him.

“I cannot exist like this anymore. My strength is waning. I must go back.”

Go back. He’d never mentioned where he’d come from, and she’d never asked. She knew his past haunted him; he’d said it before: “You’re the only thing I care about, Callie. Only you. You saved me.”

Callie. He was the only one who called her that. Everyone else shortened her name to Cal or Lise, even though Callie was the obvious nickname for Callisto, no one used it. It was his name for her.

She knew there was no point to arguing. She could see what was happening to him; the light leaving his eyes. She couldn’t let him die. She wouldn’t.

“Will I ever see you again?” She kept her gaze trained on the floor, blinking back the twinging sensation in her eyes that told of the tears threatening to fall.

He winced, seeing the pain reflected on her face. What he would give to stay, not matter how impossible. He would do it for her.

He crossed the room quickly, reaching down to take her face in his hands and lifting it to look into her eyes.

“When has fate failed us before?” He wiped away the lone tear that had slipped from her eye. He hated her pain…and he was causing it.

She looked up at his face, memorizing every detail. Swearing to herself that she would never forget.

Unknown to her, he was doing the same.

After a few moments the time arrived…and they both knew it.

Dipping his head slightly he pressed his lips to her forehead as she shut her eyes against the oncoming tears.

“I love you, Callie,” he whispered, his words ghosting across her skin.

A sob escaped her lips as she flung her arms around him, clutching her body to his so he couldn’t leave her side. Not now. Not ever.

But as the first few tears broke through her barriers, he disappeared. Vanished into thin air.

She sank to the floor in the last place he’d ever stood, and cried.

And cried.

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Callisto trudged along behind her two friends as they chattered happily amongst themselves.

She felt no need to contribute, and they didn’t expect her to. It had been a long time since she’d cared, and she figured she was lucky they’d stuck by her so long. A long time for someone to not care. A year, to be exact.

A year since that day. A year today since she’d bothered with anything.

She dug her hands further into her hoodie’s pockets as the cold wind bit at her skin.

She didn’t look up as she walked, watching the ground, counting the number of cracks in the pavement.

So she didn’t see the person in front of her until she’d bumped into them.

The sudden hindrance of a solid form caused her to stumble her step and the victim of her absentmindedness reached out quickly, catching her around the waist before she fell. When she was finally steady, the arms didn’t recede.

“Sorry, I –”

“Still as clumsy as ever I see, Callie.” The sound of the stranger’s voice had her cutting her own apology short as if all the oxygen had been knocked from her body.

She knew that voice.

Head snapping up, eyes widening, she looked into his face.

“Callum,” She breathed the name of the boy who’d occupied her dreams for an entire year, praying that he wasn’t just a figment of her imagination: a delusion her mind conjured up just to take away again and leave her crippled with pain.

“I told you fate had never failed us,” he said, putting his forehead against hers and watching the light slowly return to her eyes and a smile break out across her face.

“Hey Cal! Who’s your friend?” Her friend, Sophie, called from where she now stood, staring at the two of them with a silly grin on her face.

Callisto looked at Callum, confused.

“She can see you?” She asked in disbelief.

He smiled at her, a truly happy smile that lit up her world.

“I told you, Callie. Only you matter to me, and this time…” He moved forward, pushing his lips to hers softly. Her eyes slid shut as she reveled in the very real feeling of his lips against her own, but he broke the kiss too quickly for her liking. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever.” He finished, his words echoing in her mind for a moment before the wave of elation took over.

No words were needed now.

Wrapping his arms tighter around her waist as her arms wound easily around his neck, he brought his head down again to claim her lips with his.

As the rest of the world fell away, they wrapped themselves up in the only paradise they would ever need.