Will dreams of burning.

In his mind he runs into that fire with Alyss. He catches her hand in his and feels the lick of fire against his legs, feels his clothes burning, but all he can see is her eyes. They rescue the little girl, together, together like they should be, and when it's over and the building is falling around them and the heat is choking and unbearable he holds her to him and whispers, "I love you," into her hair. He doesn't cry, because the tears melt off his cheeks and he's falling and falling, and the last thing he sees is a wall of flames.

Some nights he dreams the opposite.

He dreams the night like he was there. Alyss, running back into that burning building and Will, powerless to stop her, watching as his life crumbled before his eyes.

His life is burning around him, everything is on fire, everything hurts and no matter how loudly he screams, no tears come and Alyss does not return to comfort him.

Halt does not expect Will to be overly happy, but he does not expect him to be quite so broken either.

Will is slumped against Tug's stable door, his head in his hands. He only looks up when his horse neighs a greeting to Abelard.

His eyes are red rimmed with tears, face pale and drawn. To Halt eyes, he has seemed to age at least ten years. His wild brown hair is tangled and hanging limply about his face. His clothes are rumpled and unwashed. Halt blinks and for a moment he remembers Will as that bright-eyed, inquisitive apprentice who never stopped asking questions, who laughed so easily and loved freely. The boy who was like his son. He blinks again and the image is gone. Will is a man now, broken and destroyed by grief and the terrible cruelty of the world. He looks exhausted and a little mad. He clenches his hands into fists and Halt sees that they are shaking. He takes a step forward. 'Will-"

But then his former apprentice is running to him, throwing his arms around him, and it is like the rescue with Evelyn except so much worse now, so much worse because Will is not sobbing with relief.

His sobs are torn from his chest, raw screams of anguish and a pain so bone deep that Halt feels a shiver run up his spine. He wraps his arms around Will and holds him tightly, fists one hand into the man's cloak and presses his head close with the other, cradling his former apprentice in his arms. "I'm so sorry, Will," He says, over and over, because Halt is not a sentimental man, but he does not know what else he can possibly say,"I'm so very sorry..."

Will's knees give out and they fall to the stable floor together, Halt supporting Will, now. All the tension and fight has gone out of the man, and he is limp in his former mentor's arms, head still buried in the old man's cloak.

"Will?" Halt asks cautiously, holding him a bit tighter. "Will?"

"Why?" Will whispers, lifting his head to meet Halt's gaze with red eyes, "Why?" It's hoarse and raw and barely audible, "Why, why, Why?"

Halt has no answer.

Out of all the questions Will has asked over the years, this one is the most heartbreaking.

"I'm sorry," Halt says again. Will does not respond. He starts to shake.

Halt shifts a bit so Will is half in his lap and holds the Ranger in a tight embrace until the tremors stop.

Will never cries after that day.

His inability to cry is unbearable.

The anguish eats at him, day after day, pain so deep and extreme that he wants to fall to his knees and die. But he can't. He doesn't even know why he can't, but something is preventing him. He's grim faced and hollow, burning up on the inside with wild anger and grief.

But he can't cry. He misses Alyss so much that the ache is a physical pain, tearing knots in his stomach and pounding behind his eyes. He's sick with the pain of it, vomiting one night behind the stables after feeding Tug and turning around to laugh at a joke with her and finding no one there.

Tug snorts softly and lips at Will's hair as Will empties his stomach in a terrible, wrenching choke.

You alright?

Will wipes his mouth and glares at his horse. "You know I'm not, Tug."

The Ranger horse flicks his ears. Just thought I'd ask. I'm worried about you.

Sighing, Will layed his forehead against his horse's neck, breathing in his horse's familiar, comforting scent. "I know you are. Good boy."

It hurts, to leave the little horse there. It hurts to walk back to an empty house.

He goes on wild hunts to track down Alyss's killers, because he doesn't know what else to do.

It's bloody and horrible and doesn't really satisfy him because he only wants her. Maybe if he kills them all, he'll be able to cry. He wants to cry. He knows he needs to. Killing has always made him tear up before, but now he feels absolutely nothing.

Gilan tries to discourage him, distract him, give him missions. Will refuses them all. He can think of nothing but Alyss, and that last image of her, running towards the burning building with her hair streaming out behind her, desperate and beautiful and so very brave is forever seared into his mind.

Gilan looks at him with sad eyes. "I'm sorry she's gone, Will. I truly am, but you know that if you refuse one more mission I will have to expel you from the Corps."

Will feels the words like a jolt through him, a dull one compared to the terrible, throbbing ache of Alyss's absence.

"I know," he tells Gillan and turns his back.

Finally, as some part of Will always had known they would, his friends come to find him.

Halt is angry, is the first thing Will notices, but more than angry he's worried. His mouth is set in a hard line and the eyes he turns to Will are despairing and full of concern. Will tries to brush them away with words but knows he's gone to far when Halt's eyes blaze.

Will has not felt like an apprentice in many years, but when Halt rises to his full height, jabs an accusatory finger, and hisses words that could be shouts but are so much worse in that sharp whisper, he feels like a boy again.

Halt's sharp, biting words clear his mind for a moment and he sees that more than anything Halt is disappointed. He's angry and worried and disappointed in Will's behavior, and Will can hardly blame him.

He should say that he is sorry, but he isn't.

He takes Halt's words with gritted teeth and a flushed face, countering with a few bitingly bitter remarks of his own which Halt matches.

Finally, Will gives up and falls quiet, until the suggestion of an apprentice...

Maddie is what he expects. He knows her of course, loves her almost like a daughter, but she is a terrible apprentice. Wild, and spoiled and unwilling to listen. Several times a day he finds himself murmuring to Sable, "Was I like this? How did Halt ever stand it?"

His dogs thumps her tail against the floor and whines as if to say, I have no idea.

Slowly though, Maddie's skills progress, and Will finds himself opening up to her. She makes him laugh, she makes him smile, she makes him feel like he has a purpose, and he has never been more grateful to anyone in his life.

She's saved him.

So he saves her.

That day when he'd stitched her wounds, pleaded for her not to die, held her in his arms and looked down at this wonderful girl, his goddaughter, his apprentice, this strong-willed, skilled Ranger, He did not think he had ever been so terrified.

And then finally, blessedly, he cries.

Poor Maddie does not know what is happening, but she still tries to comfort him as he sobs through his smiles and kisses her forehead over and over.

Thank you for letting me save this one person, Alyss, He thinks, because he couldn't save his wife, and he knows that somehow she had helped him save his apprentice.

Gilan and Halt notice the change in him immediately, but say nothing. Halt gives him a swift look and then rushes to help with Maddie as she is taken to be cared for by healers far more skilled than Will.

Once Will sees that his apprentice is safely in the care of her parents and Horace and Evelyn thank him over and over, he escapes to the stable to take care of the horse's. Gilan is rubbing down Tug while a groom attends to Bumper. He looks up at Will's approach and crosses over to him. "Will, you alright?"

Will nods and manages a smile. He's tired and his muscle's ache, and he knows the area where the ropes bound his wrists will bruise, but he feels better than he has in a long time.

The older Ranger grins back and claps his friend's shoulder. "I'm glad," he gives Will a long, critical look. "You look better." He does not need to elaborate.

Will just nods to this and moves his head a bit to the left, motioning to Tug. "I'll take care of the horse's, Gilan. You go back and check on Maddie."

Gilan, understanding that Will wants to be alone, nods and leaves. The groom brushing Bumper looks up questioningly.

"Go on," Will says, making the words gentle. "I'll finish up here."

"Thank you," the groom says, nodding gratefully as he exits.

Will goes to Tug, who huffs and lowers his head to press his nose against Will's chest. Fondling the small horse's ears, the Ranger whispers, "Thank you," several times. Tug pulls back and snorts.

Don't mention it.

After leading his horse back to his stall, Will walks to Bumper. The piebald blinks liquid dark eyes at him and snorts softly.

"She's alright," Will tells the horse, stroking absent hands through Bumper's mane, "She's going to be fine. You know that, right?"

Bumper lowers his head and buts his head against the Ranger's chest. Smiling, Will pats the horse. "Let's get you settled down for the night, huh? You deserve it."

Bumper nickers softly as if saying, of course I deserve it.

Will laughs. The third time he's laughed in a long, long time.

Will dreams of burning.

The dream is different now, a mixture of memories and horrors. It starts out sitting around campfire's surrounded by his fellow Rangers, and Gilan is poking fun at Halt and they are all laughing and Will feels like he belongs.

Then, he's running in terror as the forest burns around him, smoke choking and black against the tree's trunks. Horses's are screaming in terror and Ranger's plunge around him in the darkness, battling Great Armies...

And he dreams of Alyss. Always of Alyss.

He dreams that she whispers his name before running into the inn, dreams of her with her hair wild and burned at the ends, eyes wide and full of tears, but she's smiling and mouthing three words: I. Love. You.

Will wakes shaking and covered in cold sweat, and Maddie, now officially deep into her training as a Ranger, well into her second year, comes to him. She sits on the edge of the bed, and instead of pouring out his thoughts to his dog, Will voices them to her. This girl who saved him when he so desperately needed someone. This strong willed, rebellious pioneer who fights her way for respect and slowly into the other Ranger's hearts.

He remembers his first few years as an apprentice, young and wild and dangerous, shadowing Halt, taking his criticism, practicing until he never gets it wrong, bonding with Tug. Now he's older, he's hardened, he sometimes feels those tearing knots in his stomach and the ache that is Alyss's absence so strongly it's crippling. But he's fought through. He's moved on. He's learned to laugh again, and thanks to Maddie, he laughs more often now.

That inquisitive apprentice now has an apprentice of his own.

The wheel has come full circle.