This piece has a very poetic feel to it, although it is not poetry. Beautifully written and believable, but I'm not sure of the time.

I really, really loved this, except for... arg. The end. The end killed my because it confused me and kind of threw an otherwise very beautiful, very honest, very realistic story off balance. So now I'm curious and I have to ask: Where in the series is this supposed to have taken place? Going into it I thought it might have been a post-series thing (which I was wary of, because I haven't finished watching it yet and don't want ANY spoilers), but towards the end I realized it was probably pre-series (not too pre-series, mind you).

The other thing that bugs me is that this doesn't feel like more than a one-shot. It makes a good one-shot, it makes sense as a one-shot, so why leave off at the end what comes next? Unless, of course, it is in fact pre-series because then I guess that blank fills itself in.

Other than that (and hardly counting that), I really, really liked this. It was short, but it was sweet and it was very easy to picture. Great job and thanks for posting this!

I'm so very glad to hear that you're back! This piece is a perfect one to comeback with too. I have no words for how I really feel about it (this is a good thing), but I'm going to try. I love the use of metaphors, the sentence structure . . . Just the whole thing was perfect and lovely.