TITLE: "The World in a Kiss"

AUTHOR: DesertDragon

RATING: PG

SUMMARY: V4V fic. Short vignette/drabble on 'the kiss', and those moments of pause it affords him...

A/N: Been wanting to get this short vignette out ever since I saw the movie. First V4V fic & hopefully it melds well with the scene that inspired it, and hopefully it will warm me up for more... Thanks to my wonderful beta, Amanda.

DISCLAIMER: No profit being made. Belongs to Moore/DC/WB.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible, is music." --Aldous Huxley

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It was quiet now, in the Underground. No more music from the Shadow Gallery. No more breakfasts or movies or Shakespeare. Just a sudden, soft silence as I give her the last of my words, my hopes.

This train.

Evey stands before me, expectant. But I have no more gifts. She has everything she needs to continue on. And she'll do it without me.

For me, there is only a dark tunnel and the inevitable conclusion. I touch the knives at my waist to separate myself. This was the plan. I have to tear myself away. NOW. Or I never will.

Yet, as I move away, I allow her voice to stop me. There is pleading there underneath her words. I turn and I see the wondrous expression she wore not more than an hour ago when she first returned to the Shadow Gallery:

Conflicted affection.

She's speaking of some far-off fictional place where we can escape together.

Despite the touch of her hands on my cloak and on my arms, I cannot put faith in that. Since meeting her, I have spent a year telling myself similar fantasies. But such tales are made for celluloid. Our names will not be found carved together on some long-lost tree.

Then she does something that I've only allow myself in dreams, now and again:

She kisses me.

Suddenly reality isn't a cold, dark stretch of silent tunnel. My world is on fire once again - but this time, with music! The kiss is so simple a gesture, it matters not that her lips touch only the mask. She unknowingly gives me a key with which to unlock myself and, for the first time since I've had a memory, an identity.

For that brief moment, I take my freedom where I can get it. In this sanctuary of her making there exists possibilities without time and place. A symphony of moments spill together through my mind that could only belong to a simple mortal man. After all, an 'Idea' cannot touch the woman he loves, nor cry with her or laugh with her.

But a man can.

The mask continues to crumble at the soft press of her mouth, and this man behind it revels in the humility and the nakedness of it. I know now that there is such a thing as solitude without loneliness. And had there been a future for us, there'd be no need for masks; I would endeavor to pluck it free and hand it to her myself.

You could say that we danced to all 872 songs in this one kiss.

But it's a happiness that comes too late... Too late...

My hands clutch her to me as her lips slip away, keeping her against me for longer than I deserve. I can only hope she can hear my thoughts in this last embrace. 'Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.'

She waits, without agenda, as if she can rewrite history.

But I can only allow myself to look at her briefly, lest the rest of the man crumbles, too.

I'll always remember...

I tear myself away from the sanctuary she offers, and move towards the darkness at my back, giving her only two words as my final penance:

"I can't."

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quote: Shakespeare; "As You Like It" Act I/Sc.2