Thursday: Pulling Her Under

"I let her go." And his capacity for the highest most selfless love was confirmed. "The Source wanted you to suffer." And her own intrinsic empathy for the innocent was reasserted. "I was thinking of you." Her secret fears and hopes were realized at his words. "I was trying to remind myself that he wasn't you. You were actually dealing with me, all of me." Through the pain, difficult truth. "After Troxa, I remembered the story of you on that dock, and I realized that I understood you." And she knew what else he had realized around that time.

"I'm not falling, Cole," she finally said. "I'm drowning, in emotion." She couldn't soften this shot even if she wanted to. "Just like Vinceres described it." A hand on one hip. "Nothing I can't handle. You can just wash your hands of it and look away."

"I can't," he murmured. She gazed at him, skeptical. Gently, he reached out and nudged a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm in up to my neck."