AN: This short story takes place between books six and seven. I've read them all but, rereading, I felt the strange need to give Cal just a little more time, only in the light instead of the dark.

Bittersweet

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I fell asleep. I knew when I opened my eyes again I wasn't awake. I couldn't be. There was a field all around me and I sat on top of the hill. I don't know how I had gotten there but it didn't seem strange to be there.

There was a house, not a hundred feet away, with a dark roof and white panels going down the sides. In the distance I could hear water and a few birds that I couldn't name.

Beside me, of all things, sat Cal. My heart stopped, my breath catching, as I looked at the person who, not two days ago, had died right in front of my eyes. It took a long few moments for my heart rate to slow but the pain didn't ease.

Cal - dark, strong, easy-going Cal - was sitting there with me and smiling, looking towards the house.

If his smiled had been aimed at me, it would have been harder, more painful to bare, than it was. He seemed happy though, really happy, like I'd only seen him a few times - times he'd been around me after a few of our circles. I wondered, now, if those were the only times he felt content. While leading our circles he hadn't had to be manipulative. Circles were just too pure to hide yourself from.

There was something in his smiles that I hadn't noticed before seeing him now.

Freedom.

I didn't know why I had never recognized it before, but it was something deeper than just seeing him this time. I felt him. He felt… different, magickally speaking. Where I had never really been able to sense his feeling as easily as he seemed to sense mine, his mind was bare to me now – an open book, as if wanting me to read the pages.

Then he stood, paying me no mind, and walked towards the house at the foot of the hill, half skipping down the side of it so he didn't tumble over the incline.

Even stranger than seeing Cal beside me once more, I saw Mary K step out of the house, a smile on her face as well when she saw Cal coming towards her.

I was frozen there, watching them as Cal took her hand and got himself onto the balcony of the small house, leaning over and kissing her. My heart stopped again, the pain there growing with confusion. I was over Cal. He had tried to kill me, even if he had saved my life. It wasn't love… it couldn't have been. He had just wanted to use me.

There was a hand on my shoulder and I spun to see Hunter there. Unlike me, he didn't seem at all surprised to see Cal still alive and, worse, kissing my sister. The anger ebbed away at his touch by my confusion didn't.

"Hunter, what's going on?"

His green eyes that matched the landscape perfectly turned towards me and he gave me a light kiss on the forehead. "Nothing is going on. This never happened after all." His voice came out far too proper and understanding for the situation.

"What do you mean?" I turned back to watch my innocent, Catholic sister that had wanted nothing to do with Wicca, take hold of Cal's hand as he stood beside her.

Now that I looked at them closer, for some reason they looked different. Cal's dark, rich-brown hair had grown a few shades lighter. I could have swore he only had a few inches on me, but he looked even taller than he had before, his shoulders slightly boarder.

Looking at Mary K, she looked older too. Her hair was longer, just brushing below her shoulder blades. She'd never let it grow past her shoulders before. While it was hard to tell at the distance, she obviously looked like she was growing into her body more that her fourteen years had allowed, her shirt showing off as much.

Then they kissed again and Cal put his arm over my sister's shoulder, looking towards us and waving with that same smile on his face, a glint in his eyes just a bit different as he focused on us instead of Mary K. It made my heart break.

I waved back hesitantly, still not sure what was going on or what Hunter was talking about.

I wanted to make sure Hunter hadn't gone crazy on me too while I wasn't facing him. I turned back and he still looked like the same old Hunter that I had gotten to know a lot better these last few weeks. His hair was the same length, blending in with the sunlight so well that it was almost ethereal. He hadn't grown any taller or older like the other two had while I looked away.

His eyes met mine and he smiled, cupping his hand around my cheek so that I could only look at him. He kissed me, butterflies quickly filling my stomach as they did every time we did something like this now.

Slowly, he backed off only enough to switch positions, resting his forehead against mine. "You don't have to keep looking. It will only hurt."

"What do you mean?" I asked more quietly. "You're not giving me any answers. You're just confusing me more."

"Magick," he said simply, his breath lightly brushing against my face. With the warm summer sun, it was nothing more than a feeling - no heat to make my face anymore red than it already was.

"That's not much of an answer," I said back. Magick was responsible for a lot of chaos in my life, but it didn't explain what I was seeing now. Cal was dead. There was no way magick could have brought him back. There was no way magick could make them age like he had or changed the way my sister felt about it.

"What could have been, what might have been… one of the many, many paths that could have been taken. This wasn't the one that life followed. Don't look anymore."

I felt a lump in my throat, understanding a bit now. I had scryed before, with fire, and I had seen possible futures for myself. I wasn't scrying now, was I? I didn't remember trying to.

After attempting to swallow, Hunter kissed the bridge of my nose. The movement was enough that I was able to turn my head again, even if he didn't want me to.

Cal was laughing at something that I must have missed. Mary K was standing there with an obvious blush, her hands behind her back as she took a step away in embarrassment. They looked so happy. I had to wonder how this ever could have happened, in any future. They were both so different. Cal had never done more than given my little sister a few quick glances or made small talk.

I managed to swallow this time, but it was hard and audible and I felt Hunter sneak his arm around my back, holding me closer. "I'm sorry. Sometimes dreams just have a way of showing us things, even things that we don't wish to see."

The tears started falling down my face. I was jealous, I realized, but I was also happy. Cal looked so at ease with the world and Mary K had been so upset lately because of Bakker. Neither of them showed any sign of all the pain they'd gone through. It was like it didn't matter anymore.

"Sometimes we're too blind to see what we really need, and see only what we want. That was Cal's mistake, not yours. You had nothing to do with it." Hunter's words didn't console me at all as I watched Cal playfully dance around Mary K, snagging some of her hair and disappearing inside with some strange game of tag.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see any more. I didn't want to know.

…

Then I was awake in bed, looking at my dark ceiling. The shadows seemed to shift and blotch as I watched, the tears from my dream now more real than anything else had been.

I cried that night. I cried for Cal, who I didn't love anymore but who had given his life for mine. He hadn't had a chance, really. He never had. I knew there was nothing I could do to change that, but I could cry for him, cry for his pain and all the things that he would never be a part of now.

He was dead. He wasn't coming back. He'd never come back. Even if I didn't love him anymore, this was someone's life, and Cal wasn't much older than I was.

After a while, the tears stopped. It was more due to the fact that I ran out of them than I ran out the pain that created them. I curled up in bed with my blanket, wondering why I had to have that dream. Was it real? Could that really have been the future like Hunter had said?

I wanted to talk to him about it so bad that my chest was aching. I knew I couldn't though. Hunter wouldn't understand. As much as I knew he knew, being the youngest member on the council of witches, he wouldn't be able to understand how I felt. He had hated Cal, even as he had tried to comfort me after his death.

No, I wouldn't tell him about this dream. It was mine and mine alone. I would live with it, just as I knew I would have to live with the fact that Cal had died for me. The fact that I had found the person who I truly loved in Hunter. Maybe, someday, it wouldn't hurt so much. Hunter had told me that, now I just had to wait for that day to come.

It felt like it never would though.

…

As I fell asleep a week later, I once again opened my eyes to a world that I knew wasn't the waking one.

There was a small wolf cub, padding across the floor. The room was dark. Yellow eyes gleamed all around it from every corner as if to swallow it up.