“The eye. It was always the same. Nothing ever changed. That same brilliant, sapphire blue eye staring at him with understanding and sorrow. Why there was so much sorrow and pain there, Alonzo never understood. But it was there.

And always, the dream ended the same. He woke up with that terrible image seared into his mind. He never thrashed or screamed. Not like Hanna did.

Instead, it paralyzed him. He couldn’t move. He would lay there for long hours waiting for sleep to retake him, hoping that he wouldn’t wake again.

Sometimes, she would wake him with her terrified wail before he actually came out of the dream, but lately, she had begun to sleep through the night again. Her nightmares were less and she had told him the other day that she was letting go. That, while the things they had gone through still haunted her, she had found a way to keep living.

He too, in his own way, had found a way to keep living his life. To move on and forget. Mostly. Except at night, anyway.

He sat there listening to his wife’s quiet breathing. Hanna, at least, was getting a good night’s sleep. He sighed inaudibly and nestled back down under the covers next to her. Her closeness soothed him, and he found himself drifting off sooner than usual.

In time. In time he would be able to let go of this and be free from its haunting grasp. And until then, he would live his life one day at a time. And even that… Even that was easier with Hanna beside him because during her imprisonment, the only thing he had worried about at any length had been losing her. Now she was with him, married to him, and he didn’t have to worry about losing her anymore.

With that thought, he slowly drifted off knowing that tomorrow would be kinder.”

Faeraed stopped typing words into her terminal. It was the best ending to the story that she could think of. It ended where it should. Alonzo and Hanna had been married for a year and finally, after two years of work, she could lay down her pen satisfied that, at last, their story was told.

Flipping out the lights, she drifted off into slumber. At last, their story had come to an end and she could rest. Her work was done.