A/N: I wanted more imagery out of this story, but I'm not sure I succeeded. *le sigh* Here's hoping it's half as good in black and white as it was in my head.

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"A Thousand Miles"

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He had been surprised not to drown.

He knew he was immortal, but he had still been surprised not to drown.

Chains around his legs, bootstraps tied to the cannon . . . and he'd fallen and fallen and breathed water like air and never, never drowned.

How far had he dropped? A thousand feet? A thousand miles? They'd chosen such a deep place . . . and he'd fallen and fallen and stared up at the escaping sky, aching to breathe the air he could not feel and did not need, knowing that he should be freezing but feeling nothing.

But he had never felt anything, even before the curse. So he had watched the light recede and not even tried to fight it. He deserved this, after all.

They all deserved it, for what they'd done.

Except . . .

He wanted to see them again. His wife. His son.

Even if he did not deserve them . . . but love is such a selfish thing.

So in the cold he could not feel, in the darkness that he could not see through, he started to fight. He did not tire, he did not sleep- these things were lost to him. Time was nothing. Pain was impossible.

And the rope rotted.

And his bootstraps wore through.

And the chains grew slick with algae and weak with rust.

He wondered, idly, what his son looked like now.

The chains broke.

Better start walking.

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. : but i would walk five hundred miles and i would walk five hundred more

just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door : .