Another one shot from me. Wheeee! I just felt like posting something on my birthday…so here's some food for thought…only it's not anymore, cos I've just corrected a few errors I've just noticed...enough to make Gibson crack up at least.

Mismatched eyes meet a pair of reproached ones that bleed with the pinkness of pain. And there is silence.

She breaks it.

"Why?"

The blue eye stares at her down with a mixture of overwhelming sadness and regret as though the soul trapped beneath colour is swimming in his own misery.

"I had to. You know why. So why must you persist in this unhealthy quest to find the man I was?"

She shivers under his pained tone as she feels her heart skip out of rhythm with her brave nature.

"I can't…"

"Why? I hate to see you put yourself through this unnecessary pain!"

"…let go…I can't let go…"

The silence settles once more over their festering wounds.

The red eye glares at her through a haze of hate and steel bondage.

"You must go now, dearest Nova…nothing can change the past. You must destroy what I have become. You know this. I know this. And it will happen. And you will live. Time heals all wounds."

She shakes her head furiously, refusing to acknowledge the icy tears swallowing up her face into rivers of despair. She will never cry.

"Not this wound! Time can't heal something like this!" she yells, through a desperate plead echoes within her tear-streaked words.

The begging falls onto withered ears that should have existed. Should but do not. And how she wishes they would hear her!

"I am truly sorry Nova…but you must go…"

She gazes at him, the gold within her glaring at him solidly.

"But I don't want to…"

Oh how he wishes there was an easy way to do this, no father should ever have to cling to their child's memories as though they are the only thing keeping him alive…but there is no such thing as a beautiful goodbye.

He picks her up…and places her in the tube. And the wound flowers, another jagged crack surfaces in her heart.

"No! Don't leave me! How can you do this to me!"

She pounds against the glass that isn't there, yet feels so real that she can taste the cruelty of it's smoothness as it stands strong and unpretending against her fists. She strikes and curses even as the memories are drained away from her, even as she wonders who on earth that strange man is, standing outside the tube with the silent tears escaping from his eyes…why is he so sad?

And so everything fades to blankness.

Her eyes flash open and Nova gasps, pulling in the oxygen that keeps her sane. She relaxes as she familiarises herself with the realm of reality.

"Just a dream…just a bad dream…"

Her eyebrow furrows for a brief moment as she fruitlessly tries to recall the blurry sequence flashing through her mind…but then it is gone and she is left with unexplainable loss. So she shrugs and settles down again, wondering why her pillow is so wet…

And so she goes back to save the man who does not want to be saved because when push comes to shove…a father will always sacrifice himself for his daughter even against her wishes.

We cannot always have what we want…even in dreams when wishes are supposed to come true…