If Leonardo Locke had been able to see his life twenty years in the future when he was eighteen years old, he wouldn't have believed it in the least. He would have thought that someone was trying to play a prank on him, or they were just trying to be cruel, playing off of his fears and worries. This was the last scenario he had envisioned for himself, and now that it was true, he kept trying to fight it, thinking that he would wake up one morning and everything would be fine, and they would be a happy family in a spacious house and a dog (How Harvey had survived for twenty years was beyond him; the spell the pet store had put on him must have been really effective).

Of course, all of that went right down the drain around the twins' third birthday, when Douglas was just shy of two years. He had been in his specially constructed cage, which was now located out in the field behind the former hotel that was now their house. Ana and Leonardo had found the house when the twins had been younger, when she had been pregnant with Douglas, and they had both fallen in love with it. It had been an old, crumbling, abandoned hotel, but they had taken it and fixed it up and made it like brand new again. They had only been in the house for a year or so before it turned into a sort of prison for Leonardo.

One of the nights when he was scheduled to change, Ana must have been absentminded or something, and left the cage door unsecured. Fiona, at this point, wasn't prone to the monthly changes that her father went through, so she had been inside, with Aiden and Doug. Long story short, Leonardo had broken free of the cage, managed to make it inside, and had been so close to attacking his own kids that Ana had had to step in and stop him by fighting him. Fiona had shoved Doug under a bed, and then her and Aiden had gone to get Peter and Cal, probably the least qualified people for the job, to help. Aiden had been bitten, and Ana's sanity had trickled away.

Sometimes, she was just like her old self, the old Ana that loved to wrestle around with Harvey, loved to bake and sing and do anything for her husband. Other days, she had no idea what was going on around her, but she was happy, and would go with whatever Leonardo said they were to do. And still, there were days where she was so violently out of it that she would dream that Leonardo was trying to kill her, and she would scream bloody murder and try to escape the house, and would only calm down after Leonardo grabbed her and told her things were okay, and played the guitar for her. Music soothed her.

This, fortunately, was a good day for Ana. She had woken up knowing who he was, but under the impression that the twins were still teenagers, and Doug was a family friend. He only termed it a good day because she was happy and wanted to bake and go out shopping. He had even taken her to go and walk Harvey, and she had been surprisingly good then, not dodging into traffic or stealing anything or letting the dog off the leash. When they had gotten back, she had baked cookies and given them to Aiden, who went off dutifully to give them to his siblings. He had just sat down on the couch to watch TV for a while, when there came a sudden banging noise from the kitchen.

Leonardo was out of his chair in a flash, and in the kitchen. There was no telling what Ana could have been up to, and even though it was one of her good days, he probably should have left her alone. There were knives and forks and things in the kitchen that she could have used to do anything. Thank God they had bought unbreakable dishware, or there would have been many accidents that could have even proved fatal, as evidenced by the time Fiona had come over to visit and Ana had started to throw plastic dishes at her only daughter, under the impression that she was a Death Eater coming to take away her husband and her babies (In her hallucination, Fiona and Aiden were three and Doug was only a year old).

Leonardo knew that both Fiona and Aiden and even Doug, in a small way, blamed themselves for what had happened that night. In all actuality, it had been his fault; or rather, his werewolf ego's fault. When he was in his form, there was nothing that he could do to stop himself from what he was intent on doing. It was like he become the wolf, he was drawn into the mind of a killer animal that was out for blood and only blood. He couldn't distinguish between his wife or his own children; to him, they were prey and they were something to go after to satisfy his bloodlust. After that accident, he had built his cage as strong as strong could be, and one of his kids had to stay over, because Ana was never good at remembering to let him out after that.

When Leonardo entered the kitchen, Ana was in the corner, clutching her shirt, and Harvey was by her side. As soon as he went in, Harvey glanced up at him, before returning his anxious gaze to his mistress. He licked her jeans, in an attempt to get her to say something. Leonardo crossed the kitchen slowly, and bent down to pick up the bowl that had fallen off the counter, replacing it as he stood up. "It's okay," he said, soothingly, before giving Ana a slight smile. "How about we go and watch television and we wait for the kids to come back?" Aiden had said that he was going to go visit Fiona, and that Doug would meet them there, then the three of them would be over for their Saturday night dinner.

Leonardo smiled at Harvey; while the dog had been originally intended mostly for him, and the kids, he seemed to have become Ana's constant companion. He stayed with her even when Ana was screaming at everyone else to get away, and was cowering in the corner. She would hide her face in his thick fur, and he would use his solemn brown eyes to rove the room, ready to fight off the invisible terrors that tried to get his mistress. He was the one thing that always stayed the same with her: even when she thought her own husband was out to get her, she knew that Harvey was safe, that he wouldn't do one bad thing to her, and that he would protect her from anything. The one time that she had gotten mad at him, she had hit him, and he had come right back, even though she kept hitting him. He was that type of a good dog.

Leonardo was smiling at Ana, a bit more, now. "Yeah? You want the kids to come over? You remember Fiona, and Aiden, and Doug, right?" He wasn't talking to her like someone would talk to a five year old, he was just trying to jog her memory, see how much she was remembering today. It was a game they sometimes played when she was in a good mood. How much could Ana remember that day? Early on, when they had first started it, he had been worried that it was like torture to her, not being able to remember anything, but it seemed like she had loved it. When she got something wrong, she strove to remember it, to store it away for later, and when she got something right, she couldn't have been more delighted if she tried.

He put his arms around her, and led her into the living room, Harvey trailing behind them. Leonardo sat Ana down on the couch, before sitting beside her, and catching a glimpse of their old Wii. It was long outdated in the Muggle world, but so was most of their stuff that belonged out there, not in the Wizarding World. An idea came to him. "Hey, Ana, want to try to play some Guitar Hero?" That was her favorite game, he remembered. It was easy for her to play, easy for her to remember the steps and to push the buttons than most of the other games. He got up and set the console up, before offering the guitar to Ana. "What song do you want?" he asked, slinging the other guitar over his shoulders.

Leonardo hated the fact that he had to resort to asking Ana if she even remembered her own kids anymore. It made him feel terrible for not believing that maybe today was the day that she would get better, even just one tiny step. It made Ana feel bad, because she couldn't remember that she couldn't recognize her kids on some days. Whenever Aiden and Fiona and Doug came over, they were always rather cautious at first - not that they would ever want to tell their father - and, depending on what kind of mood Ana was in, they would eventually settle down. If she was in a mood like she was today, they might break out the games, or a photo album, or they would help her to bake something, like Aiden had before.

If she was in a bad mood, then, well, the kids either beat a hasty retreat or they stayed in shifts to help out Leonardo. Fiona absolutely refused to stay alone in their house anymore to watch Ana, even if she was in tip-top shape. She had sat down with Leonardo, explaining how she knew that it hurt him and it hurt Ana that she couldn't do it, but after what had happened, she really felt uncomfortable staying. She was her mother, of course, but God, did she get scared around her. Leonardo figured that any girl would be scared of their own mother after she chased them around the house, fangs out and snarling, only to have their daughter escape through a second story window to save her life. Fiona wouldn't use her werewolf strength against her mother.

Sometimes, Leonardo would have dreams where everything was normal. Ana was normal. They were where they were today, except Ana was the girl that he remembered from twenty-odd years ago, the girl that he had fallen in love with and had children with and lived with. She wasn't the woman in front of him with the empty eyes and the haunted, gaunt look about her face. He tried to get her to eat so that she wouldn't waste away to nothing, but some days she wouldn't even get out of their bed. Their bed. That was funny. They hadn't slept in the same bed in nearly fifteen years now. There was no telling if he would wake up with Ana pressing a pillow to his face or doing something equally vicious.

>> "No, you play. I’ll watch."

Even though he had just set the entire game up, Leonardo put the console back down and took off the one he had. "No. That's okay. We can just sit, and talk. You know." He made a motion, then sat by Ana on the couch - close, but not so much that they were touching. He did that out of pure habit now; there was a time when he wouldn't have taken any amount of money in the world to be apart from Ana by even an inch, but things had changed since they were kids. His eyes flicked to the clock, watching as the minutes dragged slowly by. It was hard to imagine that his life had been like this for the last twenty years, and probably for the next twenty years. Time seemed so slow, but at the same time, it went so fast.

There were a number of times when Leonardo wished that he had let Ana stay at St. Mungo's, and he knew that Fiona and Aiden and Doug thought that most of the time. Maybe not Aiden, since he was incredibly attached to his mother, but Fiona and Doug definitely wished that she was somewhere else, getting help for whatever was wrong with her. The doctors at St. Mungo's couldn't even put a name on what was wrong with her; they just called it a mental illness and loss of memory. He had doubted at first that this was the first case that they had ever seen where something like this had happened, but then it became increasingly obvious over time that they had no idea what they were doing.

They had been in the hospital, Ana asleep (Or so he thought) when the doctors, two Healers by the names of Strauss and Caine, had pulled him away from his wife's bed to discuss treatment options with him. They had explained to him in ridiculous doctor terms that he couldn't understand that they wanted to keep Ana at St. Mungo's to run tests on her, and to try and 'rehabilitate' her. They wanted to make a guinea pig out of her, in simple terms, and there was probably no chance that she was actually going to get any better with all of their poking and prodding and spells that would make her even worse than she was at the moment. He had cast one look at Ana's pale face, made even whiter by the sheets around her, and made his decision.

No, he said, he wanted her to stay home and be with him. That would probably make her better than sitting around in a hospital all day. He knew Ana; she liked to be active and move around and do things, even if she had no idea where she was. That had been the stage where she had actually never been violent, but instead was just increasingly forgetful. That had changed when she had suddenly attacked Fiona, making things worse for everyone, and that was the first time Leonardo had thought about bringing her back to St. Mungo's. He still remained firm in his decision. She was his wife, and he had promised to take care of her until death do them part, even if she was completely off her rocker.

Ana was afraid of a lot of things now. Bodies of water bigger than the bathtub (She had a recurring nightmare that someone kept trying to drown her), dogs other than Harvey, small children (She said they reminded her of younger Aiden and Fiona, on her good days, and of when she bit Aiden), and, most of all, mirrors. There was something about looking into them and realizing that she wasn't the Ana of twenty years ago. She was thin, pale, haggard and sick looking. Not to mention all of the scars on her wrists and arms that made her look like a cutter. Leonardo didn't like mirrors much anymore either, since they showed the exact same things about him, minus all of the scars.

"So," he said, racking his brains for any kind of a conversation starter. It normally wasn't this hard to talk to Ana, even when she had no idea what was going on. "When the kids come back later, what do you think they'll be talking about?" A harmless enough question. What the problem was was that he didn't know exactly what they would be talking about (If he really knew, he probably would have let his head explode). The kids were always a safe topic, most of the time, because he would remind Ana things about them, and she would try to remember them for when they actually came over, and they would be pleasantly surprised that she was actually remembering all of this about them - or they would act that way. Fiona had figured out that Leonardo was just giving her information years ago.

Whenever Leonardo was at a loss of what to say, he talked. Normally, before Ana went all crazy on him, he would have let her take the whole conversation the way that she wanted to take it, and he would just listen and nod at the appropriate times, but she never seemed to want to talk anymore. He didn't know if it was him, or if she was just tired of him, or maybe she was just tired of life. He had thought about that many, many times, and it always made his blood run cold. Ana might have been crazy, she might have not known what was going on all of the time, and she might have had the mental capacity of a two year old, but she was his wife, she was his life, and he still loved her, no matter what.

He would spend the rest of his life protecting her from water, strange dogs, small children and mirrors if he had to. He didn't care if it killed him, just as long as he could somehow get Ana to be happy and smile again. It was making him miserable inside that he just couldn't get her to act like her old self. Sometimes, he thought that maybe she would be better off without him, better off without this stupid house that was too big for them both, better off without their kids coming in and making her feel bad because she couldn't remember who they were. Would she really be better off in St. Mungo's, surrounded by doctors and other sick people, rather than with him, who loved her?

>> "It’ll be raining by the time they get here. Maybe the weather."

For a moment, Leonardo wasn't sure what Ana was talking about. The weather? Then it came back to him, and he nodded. "Sure. Maybe." It really never seemed like it was sunny anymore. At least not for him, not since he found out that his mother Charlotte had been killed. Lorcan, too. He had always had a difficult relationship with his parents, even more so after they both got remarried, but finding out that they had both been attacked by Death Eaters in public places and tortured to death (Because of his relations to him, no doubt) was more than he could stand. Their entire life was falling apart at the seams, and Leonardo could do absolutely nothing about it.

Sometimes, he wondered how easy it would be to end his own life. No one really needed him any longer; Fiona, Aiden and Doug were grown up and taking care of themselves, Ana could go to St. Mungo's and get treatment there. He didn't have to worry about his parents or his in-laws, because all four of them had met a tragic end. Couldn't he just take out his wand, point it at himself, and mutter 'Avada Kedavra,' letting the last thing he'd see be a jet of green light? Or maybe he could go the old fashioned way, taking out one of the knives that were specially protected not to cut anyone, take off the charm, and run it over his wrist? It would be more dramatic that way, blood and all, and he didn't want anyone to be looking at him when he was all dead and bloody.

Leonardo liked to go back to old times, before the twins were even born, when Ana was sane, and when they still had their friends and his parents were still around. Sometimes, he even envisioned times before he had met Ana, when everything was roses and rainbows and he was a kid. He hadn't been a kid since he was eighteen years old, when he had a family and a wife. He felt like his whole childhood, hell, his whole life, had been taken away from him by some forces of fate that hated him and wished him nothing but horrible times from the day he was born until the day that he died. He had only a handful of bright spots in his life, all of which he could name on one hand, and in less than ten seconds.

Ana.

Fiona.

Aiden.

Doug.

That was his list, and that was as long as it got. Even those came with little dark spots, like Ana's going crazy, Fiona's inability to stay around her mother, his lack of connection with Aiden, and just Doug's general Dougness. It sucked to have a broken family like that, and all before he was forty years old. People were supposed to be in the prime of their lives when they were less than forty years old, but he felt like he had been beaten and broken down at this point, and he felt a hundred years old. He felt like one of those old racing horses that didn't quite make its owner's expectations, and now it was being punished, and eventually, it would be killed to make glue or dog food or something.

He instantly regretted just answer Ana with two words, mostly from the expression on her face. This wasn't how things were supposed to be, and words tripped off of his tongue before he could stop them. "Ana, this isn't how things are supposed to be. We're supposed to be happy and in love and you're supposed to know what's going on, and Fiona and Aiden and Doug are supposed to like visiting us; they're not supposed to be scared of us, both of us, not just you...and we're supposed to be old together and be in nursing homes and do it even when we're ninety years old, but look at us! We can't even talk! I don't know what's wrong, we're broken and I can't fix it and you can't fix it and...it's scary."

Everything that he had just said was only a fraction of how he was really feeling, and Leonardo took off his glasses, roughly swiping a hand over his eyes. He wasn't going to cry in front of Ana, no matter what. He wasn't supposed to cry. He was supposed to comfort her when she was crying over not being able to remember things. He wasn't supposed to be telling her all of this, making it seem like it was her fault that all of this happened. He was supposed to be telling her that things were okay, and that it was nobody's fault, and everything happened for a reason. What kind of reason was there for something like this to happen? People weren't supposed to be miserable all of the time.

>> "Do you think it’ll ever be sunny again?"

A simple question, but it was one that had so many meanings, and so many answers. He pondered the question for a moment, running through as many things in his mind as he could, then finally came up with an answer that he probably had never said to Ana before. "No." Yes seemed far too old, far too broken for him to say anymore. Saying yes to Ana was like lying to a child, and worst of all, it was lying to himself at this point. Things weren't going to get better, they were probably going to get worse. And not just with him and Ana, but with the entire Wizarding World. He wouldn't be surprised if at some point, he found out that his children were dead. That was the kind of place they lived in.

A constant state of misery and fear.

Leonardo could still remember their wedding, down to every single detail, even though it was sixteen years later. Fiona and Aiden had been five years old (Physically, although in actual age, they were three), and Doug had only been four (They counted his age just like his siblings, although he had really been two). Leonardo had been twenty three, and Ana had been twenty one. It was before her mental state had really started to go incredibly downhill, when she was just forgetful, but still her normal, bubbly Ana self. She had been having an excellent day, and knew exactly what was going on, and who everyone was - even more so than Leonardo had, and that was saying something. She knew his great grandmother on his mother's side, and he hadn't recognized her.

Their wedding had been kind of casual, but it had been set in Hawaii. Ana had always said that she would have loved to visit there, he remembered that, but whenever they had planned to go something always came up that prevented them from going. They had been on a beach, near night time, with the waves crashing. Only their closest friends, like Jean and Aiya and Peter and Cal and Bella had been there, and Ana didn't even have any bridesmaids, nor did he have any groomsmen. It had just been Aiden bringing up the rings and Fiona being the flower girl, along with Doug just toddling along for the hell of it. Peter had been his best man and Bella had been Ana's maid of Honor.

Afterwards, they had pawned off their kids on Cal and Bella, who were wrestling with their own, Noah and Lily, and left to go be by themselves. They had gone to a famous field of flowers that was hidden from Muggle eyes, and had just lain there for most of the night, counting the stars and holding hands and making little promises to each other. "I promise that even when you get old and fat, I'll still love you," Ana would say, only to have Leonardo shake his head and say that he most certainly was not going to get old and fat, he was going to stay young and handsome for the rest of his life, even if he had to take a potion to do it. Then he would crack a joke about when Ana got old and fat, and they continued like that for most of the night.

"I promise that, no matter what, I'll love you. Whether it's sunny or rainy, or good times or bad times, I'll take care of you and I'll love you just as much as the first time I saw you and now. I'll always be there for you, and I'll always protect you from the bad things, even if it means I have to die for you. I love you, Ana."

Leonardo felt a sharp pain in his heart as he realized how much he had let Ana down. He had tried to protect her, he had tried to make all of the bad things go away, and he just couldn't. He had let Ana grow farther and farther away from him, to the point where they couldn't even have a normal conversation anymore, and they slept in separate beds. If he could go back in time, he would probably find some way to stop everything from ever happening (Although Aiden seemed perfectly happy with the fact that he was a vampire, because now it made Doug the odd one out in their family), and then they would live happily ever after, and he would be able to make good on all of his promises.

>> "I know. I know that. And I’m sorry…I’d fix it if I could."

A cold hand covering his abnormally warm one made his blue eyes jump up from the carpet to Ana's brown ones, which were studying his face with such an intensity that he thought she was going to bore a hole through him. "I...it's not your fault, Ana. None of it's your fault, okay? You just have to remember that, alright? It's not your fault. It's my fault. If only...if I could go back and fix it, I would." Leonardo didn't want to start crying again, when he had only just gotten his tears under control, but when Ana leaned back into the couch, he let them fall, not caring if she saw him now. This was as close as they had gotten in nearly fourteen years, and goddamn it, he wasn't going to let anything ruin it.

Leonardo bit his lip; he didn't quite know where to go from there with them. They were having one of the most normal conversations that they had had since the twins were five or six years old, and Doug was four or five. It was something that he wanted to keep alive, and something he wanted to be able to keep locked away in his head for the days when Ana was growling at him, swatting him away, trying to get him to leave her alone. He didn't have many moments like that anymore, not counting the ones from when Ana was normal. But he didn't want memories of Ana from what she used to be. He wanted memories of Ana from now, from this very moment, from where they were in time.

Now that Ana was more independent from him (On the days that she wasn't sure who he was, she would just putter around, not really hurting herself since the whole apartment was now baby-and-Ana-proofed), he had had a bit more time to be himself. He had quit his job, because Ana was so far that she could be alone by herself, but he had just enough time to work on his music. It was his new thing; he could remember when he taught Aiden how to play the guitar, and Fiona the drums; their faces had been so delighted when they had finally been able to play songs and not just things he had run through with them. He had been working on one song in particular, and now was the perfect time for it.

"Can you hear me screaming?
Coming to find you,
It's not that I want to,
Make it another night alone,
This feeling is lonely,
Sending me slowly,
Hits me so deep,
It cuts my bone,
Fills my heart,
Burns me up,
For way too long,
For way too long,
Here's my hand,
Pull me up."
The song was a melancholy one, one that evoked memories of long ago lifetimes and places that may or may not have existed. Ancient times, where things were different, things were simple. People who had been so close to them in the past who were now just hazy memories; people who were sleeping peacefully after hard lifetimes of toiling and labor. Paintings and stories and faces were swimming around, making theirselves known, and only a fool would ignore them. Leonardo couldn't separate fact from fiction at this point, truth from lies, love from lust. All he knew was that he was acutely aware of Ana's icy cold hand on his own warm one, that there were tears spilling down his face, and things were okay, even if just for a moment.

>> "Wha-? What are you doing? What’s wrong?"

His song was stopped mid-sentence as Ana took her hand away from his. Leonardo's eyes glanced up into hers, scared, as though she might hit him. When he saw what she was thinking, he shook his head. "I - no, Ana! No, that's not it at all! You've done nothing, you know that!" There were too many emotions in him right now to contain; they were swirling around him, making his chest ache, and he was desperate for something, anything, any touch or words or motion that would prove that things would be okay, really, truly, okay someday. His eyes searched Ana's, knowing that somewhere, deep inside of the shell in front of him, was the girl that he knew, the girl that he loved, and not...whoever this was.

>> "I'm sorry."

In a sudden movement, he jerked forward, his hand on the back of Ana's neck, and pulled her to him, crashing their lips together, desperately, his tears running into the kiss.

This. This was what he needed.

Leonardo smiled at Ana as she began the song. He could remember back to the day, when he had sang it for the first time. He had been dating Maryjane Turner at the time, and while he had claimed that it was for her, and her only, everyone in the room at the time (Maryjane, himself, Ana and Peter) could tell that he was totally crazy about the spunky brunette in front of him, whose cheeks were so red it seemed like she might spontaneously combust. His relationship with Maryjane hadn't been right for a long time, something he knew when he found out that she had been streaking around with his enemy, Mick, and they had broken up. He had found Ana, asked her out, and the rest was history.

"Your hand on mine, I hear the words
If only love had found us first,
Our lives, they would be different, oh,"

He sang lightly, finishing up Ana's first verse. He knew that she probably didn't remember all of the lyrics, and he made a mental note to write down the song for her, and give it to her later. Who knew, it might be the thing that jogged her memory and got Ana back to normal. That was all he was wishing for, at the moment. The rest of the world could take care of itself, the people who were dying every day where in the back of his mind, and even his friends and family who were suffering didn't matter as much as trying to get Ana back. It sounded like a corny movie, or something, but it was true. 'Getting Ana Back' was all he could think about, as though it were a mission he had embarked on.

And he had; embarked on a mission, he meant. It was an inadvertent mission, that much was true, but he was on it nonetheless. He wasn't going to rest until he died, or he managed to fix his wife's broken mind. Or, God forbid, Ana died. The Healers at St. Mungo's said that with her altered state of mind, she might go earlier than she would if she were alright, and Leonardo had nearly fainted thinking about that. Crazy Ana or not, he just couldn't see life without her anymore. It had been twenty one years that they had been together, twenty one glorious, beautiful, brilliant years, and if they came to an end abruptly because of her passing, well, then, he was going to have to go along with her.

Leonardo Locke would die of a broken heart.

There was still something a little off about Ana. Here he was, bawling his eyes out like a little baby, and she wasn't even tearing up in the least. Was it not okay for him to be crying? He could stop, he would, but he wanted to know why Ana wasn't crying. He reached forward, tentatively, and put his hand on her cheek, mystified at the lack of tears. Had he done something wrong by crying? Had he showed a moment of weakness, and now Ana was disgusted with him? He knew that men weren't supposed to be so emotional, but this was fourteen years of pent up feelings that had just burst through as though a dam had been cracked inside of him and the water came rushing out.

>> "Of course I did! It’s always me!"

Leonardo was firm this time, as he did, indeed, feel hot tears on his hand. "It was not your fault, Ana. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, along with the kids, and nothing you do could ever hurt me. I'm sick, and I'm tired of all of this nonsense about everyone feeling bad because it was their fault - it wasn't their fault. I'm placing all of the blame squarely on me, because that's where it belongs. I didn't check the cage, I couldn't keep myself from breaking out, I couldn't tell the difference between Fiona and Aiden and a piece of steak! You just tried to protect them, and because of that, you're...you're different. It's not fair. I should be the one like that, I'm the wicked one..."

This was the first time that he and Ana had ever really spoken about that night. It was an unwritten rule in the house never to mention what had happened, not in front of Ana. Sometimes, at night, when it was past eleven, Fiona would come over, and she would discuss her fears about not being able to handle herself when she changed around people. Aiden would come over and talk about how he wanted to be able to help, but he didn't know how, and he was scared for Ana's very life. Even Doug would pop over every once in a while after work, and he and his father would sit there, silently, sipping coffee and just staring at the floor while Ana slept on in the next room, the two of them alert for any sounds that meant that she was having a nightmare.

>> "I’m sorry."

"DON'T BE BLOODY SORRY!" Leonardo had even surprised himself, his exclamation coming out in a guttural snarl. There had been enough apologizing for the last eighteen years, enough of it. No more. He was putting an end to this damn charade, where everyone pretended that things were alright, when they clearly weren't. He was going to get things cleared up, and he was going to get them cleared up fast. "Ana, don't ever apologize to me again. If anyone should be apologizing, it's me. Not you, not Fiona, not Aiden, not Doug. No one but me. Okay? It's my fault that all of this happened, and I have to live with it every day, knowing that you're broken and you're not coming back because of something I did..."

Leonardo trailed off, shaking his head, and pressing his lips against Ana's again, a more primitive desire overtaking him. He didn't want to talk, he was through with talking now, he was done with it. He was done with all of the barriers that he and Ana had up between them, and instead of trying to carefully take it down, brick by brick, as he had done in the past, he was just plowing through, taking out entire sections of it, and demolishing it into the ground. He stood up, not breaking contact with Ana, and picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and his arms supporting her so she didn't fall. Forget the last eighteen years, his mind was telling him, and just be with Ana.