The cool ceramic floor was beneath her, spreading it's chill all over her body. It was dark, the small stream of moonlight casting shadows all around her. The light glinted off the shards of glass, scattered around the floor.

She was rocking back and forth, compulsively as the actualization began to set in. She had almost lost her second battle. She had almost taken her own life. Then seized her limbs and she couldn't move. Nor did she want to. She just rocked in the darkness, back and forth. They were gone, but the illusions still haunted her. She was cold and tired. Too tired.

The last time she had faced the darkness, the sound of his voice had called her back. The melody had rung in her head for weeks afterwards. And it had been an illusion. A prerecorded song, accidentally left playing. Her life was so full of illusions, it seemed. But this time, there had been nothing to stop her, nothing to call her back. It had been the sheer force of her anger. She looked down at the floor, littered with bits of broken mirror and glass, splashed with vodka, scattered everywhere were the pills she had dropped.

She sighed in the silence. She struggled to stand, painfully extending her stiff limbs. She pushed herself up, her palms cutting on the shards of glass. She stood carefully, and staggered out of her bathroom. She headed for her bed, exhausted. But she knew she would not find sleep. She sat down on the soft mattress, easing her aching body onto it. She lay in the dimly lit room, concentrating on thoughts, longings of sleeps.

A knock came at the door. Lilia was in no state to feign normalcy with her aunt, or Paul and Sandy, or even Daniel, who didn't know her well enough to sense her facades. Groaning, she waited for the intruder to give up. But they persisted.

After a few minutes of persistent knocking, Lilia's patience, sharpened by her emotional state, broke. She walked to the door and flung in open, ready to flay, whoever it was, alive. As she saw her late-night visitor, her angered words died in her throat. She was reeling with the sight of him, longing to slam the door in his face, longing to lunge into his arms.

"Nick," she said simply, finally finding her voice.

"Hi Lilia," he answered. She stood stock still, observing him. And he, observing her.

What had no been apparent to him the night he visited her in Genuine was painfully apparent. She was barely there, her weight had dropped so drastically. Her skin was ashen, her eyes sunk in dark circles underneath. Her eyes, the most alarming, her once-luminescent emerald eyes were now dull and detached. Her fire had gone out. His heart ached at the sight of her.

Lilia, meanwhile, was trying to separate reality from the illusions. He was right before her. There had been so many instances where she had imagined this very scene. But always, they would dissipate, a working of her mind. She stared at him, breathless, stunned.

"What-what are you doing here?" she stammered.

"Well, actually, it's rather a funny story. You disappear one day, and two months later, that little band that I happen to be a part of, comes to your hometown. Then we leave. Then you come to see us. Time and again, we have chance after chance to find one another, to have it out, to leave this excruciating state of limbo that we're in, and we never do. I guess it's not really that funny after all…But Lily, it ends now We are going to have in out," he said, leaning against the doorframe casually. The affectionate nickname cause her a stab of pain. The sound of his voice, saying that name…brought back more than she could handle in her fragile state.

"My name is Lilia," she declared weakly, turning away. Nick followed her as she entered her living room and started pacing around.

"Why did you come to the arena?" he asked.

"Why did you come to the hospital?" she asked in return. A standoff was ensuing.

"Who told you I was there?" he asked, trying to find a strategy to get her to talk. The fact was that he had no plan, no idea how to go about this confrontation. He had just decided that he was going to leave for her place, and had jumped on the first plane he could. He was literally pulling this conversation out of his ass.

"Are you seriously doubting my intelligence? You left a…a lily. No one else would. Why were you there?" she asked quietly. Why wouldn't you let me see you?, she thought, averting his eyes, purposely not noting them.

"Why did you come to see me?" he answered back. Frustration consumed her, and a spark of her old flame returned as her temper kicked in.

"You are assuming that I came to see you. My best friends were your opening act, need I remind you? How uncharacteristically egotistical of you to assume something so...egotistical," she exploded, searching for a word. His anxiety became anger as he listened to her tirade.

"Look, I made the first real move. I came to see you and I've actually shown my face-"

"That is so unfair Nick. You have no idea the circumstances-"

"You are right, Lily. I don't know. You pushed me right out of your life, with out a reason, without a goodbye, with only a god damned note! So I'm sorry if I'm the one being unfair here, but what goes around comes around," he yelled, the pain that he had tried to bury for so long suddenly resurfacing with a force that was overwhelming his reason. He forced himself to stay calm, realizing that it would get him no where.

"Why didn't you stay, why didn't you see me?" he asked, his tone softening as he saw her face, so full of emotion. After it all, he couldn't bare to hurt her.

"I saw that you were otherwise occupied. I didn't want to create any complications, so I left," she said, her voice trembling.

"This from the girl who loves complications," his voice soft, affectionate.

"Why are you here?" she yelled, finally meeting his eyes. He saw that her red-rimmed eyes were shining with unshed tears. "Are you here to gloat? To brag? To rub in the fact that you have everything and now I have nothing? That the day I walked away from you was the day I lost it all? Okay, I'll admit it now for you. I have nothing! It's so painfully apparent every single time I look in the god damned mirror! Are you here to be smug about the fact that you have moved on? Well, congratulations Nick, you've moved on. But I can't. Is this why you came?"

She turned away from him, and covered her face with her hands, her eyes burning with the need to sob. Nick was frozen from the verbal assault he'd received.

"I came because we need to talk. I need answers, and I'm quite willing to camp outside you door for the rest of my life, but I am not leaving until I get them," he said, finding his voice. He had moved in front of her, and he reached out to touch her shoulder. She swung away from him. He persisted, until he managed to silence her protests the minute his fingertips brushed her skin. Despite her conflicting emotions, the merest contact with him had her body positively singing. He cupped her face with his hands and forced her to look up at him.

His eyes were the same as they always had been. Beautifully blue, the center of his feeling. So readable, you could feel what he was just by looking at them. Desperate, full of conflict, they were mirroring exactly what she was feeling.

She tore away from his grip, backing away.

"I-I don't want to fight anymore. I can't fight. I-I c-can't," she yelled, her tears overflowing, weariness consuming her. She collapsed, falling to her knees. He was in front of her in a second, arms around her, desperate to soothe her.

She fought against him, beating him off sobbing.

"I can't go on fighting," she was crying as she turned her face away. But he persisted and finally she could fight no longer. She collapsed into his arms. He gathered her broken form into his lap, encircling his arms tightly against her heaving chest. He held her tightly, rocking her back and forth as she sobbed, one hand running up and down her back. She cried; giving into the need to totally break down that had been burning within for so long. And he held her in his arms, afraid to let go, afraid to have her leave again. As she sobbed, he gave her his shoulder to cry on and in return, he got to hold her again.