I just stand there, frozen. Staring down at him in blank shock. I don’t even remember walking over to him.

I can barely even recognize him.

Aiden as I know him now is luminous, awake, bright, glowing.

The Aiden curled up on the sleeping bag before me looks like... like a shadow of himself, somehow hollowed out from within.

A man built like Aiden can't ever look small, but he’s way skinnier than I’ve ever seen him. His threadbare black sweater is almost too big on him, hanging loosely from his shoulders. His jeans are spattered with mud and dust and bits of grass, like he’s walked miles and miles in them. His boots are so worn down and sunbleached that they're beginning to crack.

His chestnut hair is cut short, but it's a wild mess. He has the beginnings of a dark, scruffy beard on his face. Even in the silvery moonlight, I can see that he's as pale as his warm complexion will allow, his skin completely without that glow I'm so used to. His eyes are bruised with exhaustion, so dark that you'd think he hadn't slept for weeks.

There’s a hospital admittance band around his wrist. With - teeth marks in it? Like Aiden tried to bite it off, then gave up halfway through.

His flask is loosely grasped in his fingers, upside down but empty. Nothing left to be spilled.

Aiden looks shipwrecked. Torn to pieces on jagged rock. His every breath is fractured, hard-fought. The moonlight is glimmering on the tears on his cheeks. Even something about the way he’s curled up on his sleeping bag screams with loneliness.

But it’s the expression on his face that truly stops my heart.

I’ve never seen Aiden look so completely, totally broken.

I stare down at him with my fingers pressed over my mouth, stunned right out of my body, barely breathing. Overcome with some slow, disbelieving sense of utter horror and indescribable pain at seeing Aiden like this. The sight is an icy, jagged blade stabbing right through my heart, freezing me through and through.

And then something volcanic happens to me.

A massive, red-hot explosion of fiery love erupts from the very core of me, then rushes through my every vein in melting, molten waves like lava. It drives me to my knees before Aiden, reeling and overwhelmed.

My heart is bleeding as I touch my fingertips to his wet cheek.

“Aiden,” I whisper.

No answer. No response of any kind. I look around wildly, not sure what to do, then catch sight of Aiden's phone on the sleeping bag. With trembling fingers, I press the button to light it up so that I can check the date.

I do some quick math, then turn my enormous, disbelieving eyes back to Aiden.

He’s twenty-four. Turning twenty-five, pretty soon.

I choke back a strangled breath, then rush to rip the hospital wristband off of Aiden. The sight of it on his wrist is cutting into me in a way that I can't stand.

It breaks with a quiet snap. I freeze when Aiden flinches sharply at the soft sound. For some reason he suddenly looks absolutely terrified, and his whole body jolted at the little snap as if I just fired a gun right next to his ear. He drops his flask, fumbles his hand over his own heart like he's feeling for something.

He holds his breath for a second, holds perfectly still - then he shudders, almost as if in relief. He goes on breathing, but now he's shivering a little, his whole body trembling.

I fling the hospital wristband aside, then put my fingers to his face.

“Aiden,” I say again, my voice precariously thin.

There’s a silence, and then he very slowly opens his eyes.

My heart plummets a thousand miles when I look into them. They look haunted, starved, desperate. The blue of them isn’t how I remember it. There’s no light shining out from within, no fierce blaze of life. In its place is a deep, heartbroken misery that hits me like a gut-punch.

Aiden breathes out a soft, helpless sob, his clouded eyes struggling to focus as he gazes up into my face.

When he speaks, his words come out slurring and wavering, broken up, half-gasped with dry tears.

“Sometimes it feels like you’re really h-here,” he stammers, his deep voice rough with disuse. “Some - sometimes I think I could reach out and touch you.”

I can only stare at Aiden, at a complete loss for words.

He's breathing strangely. Panting with his whole body in short, swift bursts, then holding very still and holding his breath, then panting very fast again.

“It hurts,” he cries out suddenly, his soft-spoken voice split apart with agony. “It hurts."

“What's happening, what-?” My thin voice is on the verge of breaking, my hands helplessly hovering over Aiden. "What are you doing?"

“Giving up. Trying to - give up.”

My heart takes an instant ice bath at his gasped words. “Giving up on what?”

Aiden lets out another soft sob that sounds torn from someplace deep inside him. A wild, uncontrolled little sound, like a wounded animal. Tears are streaming from his eyes, but he makes no movement to swipe them away.

“You,” he gasps, struggling to breathe as he looks up at me. “Us.”

For a moment, this hurts too deeply for me to even speak, to move. Something seems to break in my chest, and suddenly my face breaks, too, and my cheeks are covered with the tears spilling down from my eyes.

“What?” Unable to stop myself, I reach down and slip my fingers beneath Aiden, gather him into my trembling arms, and hold him close to me. No warmth comes from his body, none at all. “No, you - you can’t, Aiden, you can’t…”

“I don't want to, I have to.” Aiden buries his face in my chest, lets out another strangled sob that sounds like it was punched from him. “I have to let you go, Jamie. It’s over.”

I close my eyes, holding him tightly, not totally certain that my heart can bear this.

“I was s-so sure,” Aiden stutters, his voice shattered to pieces. “I was so sure it was supposed to be you and me.”

“You were right,” I tell him fiercely, and he shakes his head, then tips it back to look up at me, his hazy, heartbroken blue eyes full of defeat. “Yes, Aiden, you were, you are-”

“This - this is just me telling myself what I want to hear.” He closes his eyes, takes a tight handful of my flannel. “There’s no way. I lost you. Now I’m losing everything. I don’t know where to turn, I - I don’t know w-what to do…”

I lock him in my arms and press him against me, the fire in my chest running wild.

“You could always come back,” I murmur, fighting hard to keep my voice from breaking. “Come back to Ketterbridge.”

“No, I can't..." His every word is heavy with despair. "Not anymore. I f-fucked up everything there, too. What’s left for me back home?”

“Forgiveness,” I stammer, stroking my fingers through his messy chestnut hair. “Understanding. Love. And - me. I'm there.”

Aiden’s expression screws up, then breaks again. He takes a gasping, shaking breath, closing his arms around me.

“No, you - you won’t want… what would you see in me? Look at me.” His eyes fill up with humiliation and shame, and he hides his face against my chest again. “All I have to offer you is me, and I’m w-worthless. Beneath - below - less than worthless.”

I push Aiden back just enough that I can look into his face, but he tightens his grip on my flannel so sharply that you’d think I was about to fling him into the void.

“You’re not worthless, Aiden!" Another burst of tears spills down my cheeks, my words coming out sharp and urgent. "You're the farthest thing in the world from worthless!”

Aiden pauses, caught off-guard. His eyebrows knit, and he blinks hard at me, trying again to get his eyes to focus.

I guess that didn't sound like something he would say to himself.

"You - you just have to come back to yourself," I stammer. "Find your way back to yourself, and then back to me."

Aiden draws in a slow, unsteady breath, his face tensing up like he’s trying his hardest to believe me - then shakes his head sadly.

“I can’t.” His every word is imbued with deep, deep exhaustion. “Can’t get myself out of this fucking mess. Put - too many fucking obstacles - in my own goddamn way.”

I swipe the sleeve of my flannel over my soaked cheeks, then quickly put my arm around Aiden again.

“What would you do for me, Aiden?” I ask softly, gazing down into his half-open eyes.

“Anything,” he answers, without the slightest beat of hesitation. “Everything.”

“Then can’t you find it in yourself to get over or through all those obstacles? Knowing that I could be on the other side?” I tangle my fingers in his chestnut hair again, then stroke my fingers through it, my voice falling to a whisper. “You have the bravery and the strength, Aiden. I know you do.”

Aiden goes silent for a moment. His breathing is starting to slow down, and he’s not crying anymore, even though his eyes are still filled with tears. I can almost sense him struggling to think through the drunkenness.

“But - I’m a Guardian,” he murmurs, his voice hoarse and raw, filled with bitterness and resignation. “Still a Guardian. Always a Guardian.”

“Then come back and protect me. Don’t you want to do that, anyways?”

Aiden thinks about it, then nods tiredly, closing his eyes again. “Worry about you all the time.”

I stare down at him, caught in complete disbelief, the fire in my chest spiking wildly. Here Aiden is like this, and somehow he’s worried about me.

He lets out a heavy, shaky breath.

“S’too late, though,” he murmurs helplessly, a tear running down his cheek. “Wasted too much time. Fucked everything up beyond repair. That’s the final truth. Should just be - be happy to know that something that perfect can even exist. Grateful to have - gotten to taste it, once.”

“It’s not too late!” I blurt out, suddenly struggling desperately to breathe. “Don’t even say that, don't you - it’s not too late, it's not!”

“It is,” he sobs softly. “S’been so long. And I don’t even remember how to be happy.”

“But don’t you think you could be happy?” My voice is trembling, despite my best efforts. “With me?”

Aiden falls silent for a handful of seconds before he answers.

“I think… I think if I could have even five minutes with you, spent the way I wanted them… I’d be the happiest man in the whole fucking world.”

I go very still, sniffling as another wave of tears spills down my cheeks.

“Then come home,” I whisper, half-begging, holding Aiden tightly to my chest. “Just get better and come home, don’t give up, please don’t give up on us…”

Aiden curls up against me, holding onto me like letting go would be fatal. I struggle to catch my breath for a moment, then ease him back.

“Kiss me, Aiden.”

He opens his hazy blue eyes and looks up at me, blinking hard.

“Kiss me,” I ask again, pleading with my eyes.

Aiden holds perfectly still, then shakily puts a hand down to brace himself on the grass. He sits up, hesitates, then slowly leans into me, brings his face to mine. I shut my eyes when he gets close, waiting, my heart pounding against my ribs.

Aiden brushes the softest, gentlest, most tender little kiss onto my temple. His lips linger there for a second before he slowly collapses back down into my arms.

And then, very swiftly, his fingers dart up to twist around the strand of red hair falling over my forehead. He twines it around his fingertips, then hastily takes his hand back and blinks his blue eyes at me guiltily, like he just did something he didn't have permission for.

I close my eyes, exhale out a slow rush of breath. White heat is blazing in my chest, melting me from within.

I can only hope that kiss moved something in Aiden’s heart. I know that it moved something major in mine.

I open my tear-filled eyes and look down into his, then stop still.

I think I see something in Aiden's eyes. The tiniest glint of wild, desperate hope.

He closes them again, suddenly breathing hard, and I startle a little, feeling something move in the air. A sweep of magic just brushed me. A swift, sparkling rush over my skin, like a warning signal.

I’m running out of time. I bite my lip, suppressing an agonized little noise, then swiftly bend to press a kiss onto the top of Aiden's head.

He breathes out a rough, broken sound almost like a laugh.

"Shower down... on you," he mumbles softly. "Thousands of kisses... send from my dreams..."

I let out that agonized noise I'd been fighting back, then take a staggering breath when the magic pulls at me again.

“Aiden,” I say desperately, all in a rush, my pulse racing. “I need you to listen to me, okay?”

“I’m always listening to you.”

“To my words, I mean! I know you won’t remember any of this, and that's okay, that's how it has to be, but-” I press my trembling hand over Aiden's heart. “I need you to remember it in here. If not with your head, then with your heart. Whenever you're giving up hope, I need your heart to remember this. Can you do that for me?”

He swallows, then nods, his eyes still closed, waterlogged lashes brushing his cheekbones. I think he's close to passing out.

“Promise me, Aiden!” I sink some pressure into the hand I have spread over Aiden’s heart. “Please, Aiden - promise me that you’ll remember it in here!”

“I promise,” he mumbles, his words melting together. He presses his hand over mine, keeping it against his chest. "Got it right here, Keane."

I kind of half-smile, half-sob at him, and the Guardian magic pulls at me again. More powerfully this time, like a strong gust of wind that only I can feel, one that doesn't rustle the autumn trees all around us. The growing intensity of the pull tells me that any second now the conduit is going to take me away, bring me back to the present.

I press a kiss onto twenty-four year old Aiden’s forehead, tightening my arms around him.

“Just hold on a little longer, Aiden,” I whisper desperately, squeezing my eyes shut. “I’m begging you to hold on for just a little longer... It’ll be okay, I promise, everything’s going to be okay…”

Aiden must somehow sense that I’m slipping out of his grasp, being pulled away. I feel him stiffen up in my arms, and suddenly he’s clutching at me so tightly that it hurts.

“Don’t leave me,” he sobs, burying his face in my chest, locking his arms around me. “No, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me-”

“I’m going back to you,” I answer, my voice breaking. A tear falls from my cheek, disappears into his chestnut hair. “And you’re coming back to me - you’re coming back to me!”

“No, please don’t go - Jamie!”

I kiss the top of his head one more time before the magic pulls me away.