Alex groaned as he sat up on the wooden frame covered in pine boughs, which served as a bed. The Praelia really needed to get more comfortable mattresses - if the uncomfortable branches could be called a mattress. As far as Alex was concerned, he would have been just as well to sleep on the floor - maybe better.

Vasiliki walked brashly into the little room. She saw that he wasn't wearing his shirt, and she went red. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, and pulled on his shirt hastily.

It had been three months since Alex arrived among the Praelia. During that time, Alex had been learning to speak their language and beginning research with Vasiliki. The language barrier was gone now, but still they discovered little to aid them.

"Vasiliki, we've found nothing for three months. Do you still believe that we can find a way to fix the Way?" He got off the bed and walked over to her.

She flinched slightly as he came near. Even after three months, she wasn't sure bow to deal with him. Her heart fluttered strangely within her breast and her stomach flopped when he came close to her, his broad, hard-muscled chest brushing against her bare, tanned arm. Nervous, she shied away from him, trying to maintain a distance of several feet between them.

Alex gave her a strange look. "What's the matter? I suppose I ought to find someplace to wash my clothes and myself."

His question eased the tension between them. She moved back next to him, but she didn't touch him. She rarely did. On occasion, she'd work up the courage to lean her head on his shoulder, but usually, she felt to shy to initiate much other contact. "It is not you. It is me."

He frowned. "You? What could possibly be wrong with you? Eh?"

She blushed. "Everyone has faults."

He glanced at the rising sun, then back at her. "That's not what you meant though, is it?"

Vasiliki felt her cheeks heat up once more. Alex always did this to her. She felt downright feminine with him - girly even. "I... I... Alex, of course that's what I meant. What else would I mean?" That she couldn't think straight around him and that she was experiencing a set of feelings that she had never experienced before?

No. To say that to him would be to embarrassing. And yet, a part of her longed to tell him what she was feeling. But she didn't know how to express it. It was sort of like the feelings she had for her family and tribe. But it was also completely different. What was the word for such intense longing and desire? She wanted nothing more than to have him smile at her during the day. Or to hear his laugh. Or just be near him and soak in the happy, fuzzy feeling his closeness sent rippling through her.

Alex noted her long silence and the rosy blush that stained her tanned cheeks. "Vasiliki?"

She turned to him, her heart bursting with emotion. But she let none of it fly across her face even in passing. "We should get to work." She strode from his chamber and did not look back, knowing he was following by the warmth beside her right arm as he walked up beside her.

***

Vasiliki sat in the tree's branches, tears trickling down her cheeks. Alex made her so happy, but at the same time, he made her miserable. She could never have him. If he succeeded at returning them to their home, he would leave to go back to a place he called home. And she would be left behind. But if he failed, she would still lose him. Her mother would kill him or enslave him, and he would be considered the lowest of the low. She wouldn't be allowed to see him or speak with him again.

This realization was like a punch to the gut. Vasiliki hated her mother for it then for being the thing standing between her and true happiness. If it weren't for her mother and her ridiculous adherence to rituals that would end in the tribe's extinction, Vasiliki would be able to have what she wanted. Never once did it occur to her that maybe Alex wouldn't have to agree with her. Or that he might not feel the same way.

She wiped at the hot tears trickling down her cheeks and took a deep breath of the stifling, humid air of the jungle, barely even noticing the blossoms' heavy perfume as it wafted through the air.

Tucking her legs up beneath her, she cradled her longbow in her lap as she leaned against the tree trunk and let the pain leak out with her tears.

Alex wasn't hers. And he never would be. Or so the Fates seemed to decree.

 ***

Alex sat on the window sill in his small room. The sky was bleeding out into night. The sun's last dying rays were sinking below the horizon.

He stared out the window, thinking on what would be happening back on Earth. He had just disappeared. They might send search parties. His parents would be mourning and wondering where he was.

If he never came back, they would have his funeral and grieve. He was their only living child, and he'd been very close to his parents. They in turn had loved him dearly. If he "died", they would probably grieve for years. It had been the same for them when his younger sister died. She'd only been two, but had always been a fragile child. When cancer took her from them, his parents had grieved openly for months, and he knew they never fully healed from the loss.

Even before he'd left they had been grieving, their hearts broken by the tragedy. What would it be like if they never saw him again? If they thought their last living child was dead? It would break their hearts.

That realization hurt. Alex had done all he could since his sister's death to be a good son. To be the replacement child for his sweet, lively little sister. He could never fully replace her in their hearts, of course, and he hadn't really wanted to, but he'd tried to alleviate their grief.

Now he was no longer there for them.

He tasted a bit of salt and realized he was crying. He was shaking as the understanding that he might never go home again set in.

He didn't really want to leave this place in some ways. After all, he was good friends with Vasiliki now - on his side, there was more than just the feelings of friendship but on her side, he doubted there was anything but friendship. He didn't want to leave Vasiliki behind, regardless of how she felt.

But on the other hand, he couldn't stand the thought that he might never see his parents again.

Why did life have to be so torn? Why did it have to be so hard to choose?

Well, it wouldn't matter if he didn't get a choice, would it?

He and Vasiliki had been unable to turn up anything about the Way out.

All they knew was that the Way required magic to work and only one side had the magic necessary. There were hints in the texts that Vasiliki's ancestors had left this side devoid of magic on purpose. But neither of them could figure out why it was done. It still seemed a foolish thing to do. Leaving themselves with no way out?

Apparently, the Praelian ancestors had decided they were in it for the long haul - no matter what. That still didn't explain why they didn't leave a way back out if everything went horribly wrong, but perhaps in time they would find that too.

All of this gave him no comfort though.

It eliminated the choice of leaving - at least for now - but it didn't eliminate the guilt and pain he felt over leaving his parents childless and comfortless. They didn't deserve such pain after all they'd already gone through.

For the second time since he'd come here, he found himself praying to God. Praying that God would comfort his parents through this if there was any comfort at all for them. Because he was starting to believe that his first inkling of doubt had been right. He was starting to think there was no way out of this dimension.

And if that was true, he was stuck.

He wandered away from the window to sit on his uncomfortable, knobby bed of pine branches. Looking at the bleeding sky wasn't in the least comforting, and he felt like sobbing at this point. He wasn't a little child anymore, but this situation was pushing him beyond endurance. Everything was terrible, and he saw little joy anywhere.

Vasiliki.

Her name and face popped into his mind.

Through his tears, he had to smile softly.

Yes. Vasiliki. He had her. She was the one bright spot in this whole problem. But she didn't reciprocate his feelings, did she? And even if she did, it was too dangerous for them. He didn't want to end up dead, but even more than that, he didn't want her to end up dead or punished for loving him.

It was better to remain just friends.

Even that presented issues. Because being friends with a man in her tribe was scandalous. Not that no one in the tribe was friends with one of the men, but it wasn't done openly. Vasiliki had been blunt and open about her friendship with him with no effort to hide it.

That made many of the women despise him further than normal, and many of the women also viewed Vasiliki with something bordering on disgust. They never openly said anything. That would be treason against her, but it was in their eyes and faces as well as their clipped responses that were only barely respectful.

He knew she felt the alienation too. She was hurt by it. He could see it in her eyes when the women she had previously been on good terms with suddenly hated her.  But she hid it well.

The difference was, he was used to the alienation because they had treated him poorly from the start. She, on the other hand, was used to no such thing. She had grown up among this people and she had never been alienated so completely from the tribe's women. She had always led them. But she had never been shunned by them.

He knew that was hard for her. But there was little he could do. He tried to keep his distance, but she had wheedled his reasons out of him and soundly rebuked him for it, saying that she had a right to be friends with him if she pleased. She had responded that the women could keep their mouths shut and deal with it. She wanted to be friends with him, and she wasn't going to let a little alienation or dislike stop her.

So he honored her wishes. He had stayed her close friend, knowing that with the current silent treatment she was getting from her former friends she would need him.

He cradled his head in his hands. This whole situation was too difficult, too impossible. Everything was going wrong.

I wish I had never walked up into that stupid mountain! If I hadn't gone into that cave or been curious and pressed those levers, I wouldn't be in this upside down, twisted reality. I would be home in my warm, comfortable house by now, sleeping on a comfortable bed or watching the sunset from the balcony instead of watching the sun set on yet another horrid day in this place.

But there was nothing he could do to change it now, so he curled into a ball on the hard branches of his bed and closed his eyes, attempting to sleep and eventually falling into an uneasy slumber.