The Devil

A/N - I wrote this as a writing experiment without intending for it to be H/G, but it fits, so here it is.

A Major Arcana card, The Devil represents a wildness and shadow side that each of us carries in their subconscious. This shadow is at the core of our being, which we cannot get rid of and will never succeed in taming.

It was the nightmares that plagued her. They taunted her and tormented her through the night and lingered on the surface during the day, lurking and ready to pounce at any second. Sleep became almost an impossibility for as soon as she closed her eyes he was there, the devil, the boy with the cold, hard voice who made her a prisoner in her own head. His pale face hovered over her and his image was burned into her brain, so much so that she could look in the mirror and see his face staring back at her instead of her own. Once she smashed a mirror just to get him away from her, but though the shards rained down on her and cut her face and arms, she didn't feel the sting of her wounds, and she could still see him through the broken web of glass, staring back at her, his face twisted into an evil smile.

Dark smudges under her eyes became the norm. So did existing on only a couple of hours of sleep a night if she was lucky, only finally falling into an exhausted slumber when even her mind was too tired to conjure up the sight and sound of him in her head. Even then she was scared to close her eyes.

She jumped at shadows and saw danger lurking in every corner. Her schoolwork suffered and her friends shunned her. Only he saw her. He was her light, her only hope, but to him she was nothing more than a sort of friend, someone who he could sit in solitude with and who he knew wouldn't try and pester him, to force him to talk, to ask a thousand and one inane questions.

And so they went on. She with her tortured half-existence, barely functioning most of the time, while he was the most revered of the students in the school. No one knew of the quiet moments they shared.

No one knew.

No one knew of her suffering. No one knew of the voice in her head. No one knew of what she saw in her nightmares. No one knew how she relived that day over and over and over again. No one knew how it played on a constant loop in her mind, the images burned into her eyelids, there the moment she shut her eyes. No one knew of the endless question of "what if" she asked herself.

Her parents worried about her. They couldn't understand what had happened although they tried, but she didn't want them to know the cold, hard truth - she wanted to spare them that at least, she didn't want to burden them with what she had to suffer with every second of every day and every night. Sometimes she tried to pretend it hadn't happened. It never worked.

They said she was depressed. She didn't think she was, she just thought she was broken.

They gave her medication, but she never took it. Well, she'd tried it the first few days but it dulled everything down. At least feeling something was better than feeling nothing. At least she knew who she was when she felt the pain. Without it she didn't know who she was any more.

People thought she would get over it, but she knew she never could. People thought she should try and pull herself together, but no one knew of just what she'd gone through and how she was still suffering. Only he saw her. He was the only one who she allowed to see the full extent of her exhaustion, the haunted look in her eyes, and the few times she ever allowed herself to succumb to tears. Wiped away as quick as they'd arrived, but still there. He never judged her or told her she was being stupid, or to simply "get over it". He allowed her to just be.

One day when she slipped into the quiet, empty room that had become their place, he was the one who was crying, he was the one who blinked back tears. And so she gave back to him what he'd given her. No judgement, no harsh words, just a presence.

He began to seek her out more after that, to walk with her between classes, to sit in their place during lunch, and they even began to talk.

Slowly the shadows began to lessen and the cold, hard voice became a whisper. She began to look around her and see that there was more to life than the prison cell in her head. She began to take comfort in small things - the dawn of a new day, the song of the birds in the trees, the smell of freshly baked bread. One day she even laughed at something her brother said. He nearly fainted.

He saw her laugh more, and one day when they were sat together under the shade of a tree on a summer's day, she even told him the truth of what had happened. She spoke in a flat tone while staring unseeing in the opposite direction to him, unable to look at him and see the pity and disappointment on his face. When she'd finished he put his arm around her and hugged her. She'd forgot what it was like to enjoy something as simple as that. She braved a quick glance at his face and saw only admiration. She felt her face heat as a foreign feeling rose up in her and she had to look away quickly again, lest she make a fool of herself.

The days began to take more shape after that and she felt as if some of the weight had been lifted off her shoulders, now she was no longer carrying the burden of knowledge around alone.

Some days she even fancied herself in love with him, but she didn't dare to hope that he could feel anything for her other than what was now actual friendship. Well, she told herself that she didn't dare hope. But hope she did.

But then one day he came to her and told her that he was going away for a while, that he had places he needed to go and people he needed to see, and things he needed to sort out. Tears stung her eyes but she blinked them away, not wanting him to see her feelings.

And then he kissed her. Her first kiss. Perhaps her last if he didn't come back to her. After a quick brush of the lips he kissed her again, really kissed her this time, and suddenly she did dare to hope after all, to admit it to herself.

It was a kiss of hope and of promise - a promise that when he returned it would be for her, that they would be together despite the worlds and wounds that conspired to keep them apart.

But still it stung.

Still it hurt.

Perhaps she should have expected it. The cold, hard voice in the back of her mind, louder than it had been for months, reminded her that she was worthless, that there was no way he could ever love her, that he was leaving her because she wasn't good enough for him.

She reverted back to how she had been before he became her saviour. Her parents worried about her again and lamented that they didn't know what to do any more, but having not known the reason for her improvement, they could not possibly know the reason she was hurting again.

The nightmares returned and the voice in her head rose to a crescendo again after being almost silenced. The Devil had reared his ugly head again, reminding her that she could never be rid of him. She deliberately avoided looking in the mirror.

But this time real whispers followed her, the sort that could be heard by ears other than just her own. Whispers from the people who had finally noticed that she had been spending time with him, those who had thought it strange given the huge difference between them, the people who were too shallow to see just how similar they actually were.

It was only now he was gone that she realised just how much he had protected her from the cruel words and taunts. In a way she preferred the taunts in her head, at least she was used to those ones. Those ones didn't make her wonder what the hell she was doing.

But the real whispers did. They made her wonder why she'd shook off the darkness only to allow it to consume her once again.

And all for a boy. For love.

Slowly, slower this time, she moved towards the sunlight. Although it took her longer, perhaps this time it would be more lasting as she was doing it for herself and it was her own decision.

Perhaps it was because having tasted the freedom that she'd had from the nightmares and the sleepless nights once she suddenly craved it again. Or perhaps she wanted to prove to herself that she could beat the devil with cold, hard voice and the pale face, or maybe it was simply that she wanted to prove to him that she could stand on her own two feet, so he would be proud of her when he returned.

Whichever it was, even she wasn't quite sure.

Whichever it was it worked.

But finally the day came when he did return. And when he did she realised that she hadn't imagined the strength of her feelings for him. She was in love with him and, remarkably, he was with her. And he was proud of her for throwing off the darkness that had plagued her for far too long.

But it wasn't all plain sailing for them. Suddenly there was the difficulties of trying to navigate a relationship - something she had no clue how to do, and he was no better - and the real whispers became louder as people insisted on gossiping about them. Not to mention that there was the complete awkwardness of introducing him to her family as her boyfriend.

The stares, the comments, the whispers, the rumours. Sometimes it all got too much and she felt like hiding away again, to slip back into her shell and wait for it all to pass, to build a fortress around her heart to protect it from the cruel barbs. The urge was strong. But the touch of his hand, his smile, his kisses, they were enough to keep her grounded, to remind her that she was no longer alone. That she could do this, that she was strong enough to do it.

So somehow they stumbled along and figured things out. Fast forward a year and they were taking on the world together. Standing there on a crowded beach in front of a sea of faces with nothing left to say but "I do".

As she stood there on the beach with a ring on her finger and her husband at her side she could finally say that she wasn't broken. That she hadn't let what she had gone through break her - although there had been some close calls - but despite it all she had beaten the voice and face that had haunted her night and day, she hadn't let him win.

She could finally look in the mirror without seeing his face, without jumping at shadows. She could close her eyes at night without fearing what would happen. She could sleep more than two hours - although she didn't get that much sleep now she was living with him, her fiancee, her husband. That thought brought a blush to her cheeks. No, the shadow was still there, the darkness still in her, but she knew she had accepted it now, could acknowledge that the scars were still there, they always would be even though they had faded, but she looked at them now as a reminder that she was stronger than him, that she chose to ignore his voice.