He sat huddled on his bed, staring across his room, but not really seeing anything. He was thinking. He often sat like this for hours, just letting memories of Lyra and their adventures revolve in his head. They were the happiest times of his life, yet now they were the most heartbreaking. A tear rolled silently down his face as he recalled that last, most painful memory, their final goodbye. Closing that final window was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. His hands trembled, and tears fell freely down his face, as he saw her for the last time. He collapsed to the floor, sobs racking his body once that terrible task was done, grief flooding his thoughts. A part of his soul had been torn from him that day, and it would never come back.
It was a long time before he was able to speak to anyone of his grief, and then he would only talk to Mary. Everyone else took on a patronising tone when he mentioned his lost love, not believing that a child could possibly ever understand or feel that most complex of emotions. He knew he could, otherwise why would his heart feel so utterly broken? All that time they had spent together, all of the dangers they had shared, the bond that had grown so deeply between them, so much that it seemed their souls had become one. How was he supposed to just forget all of that and move on?
Kirjava understood and shared Will's pain. After all, she had felt the same loss when she was parted from Pantaliamon. So she realised that all she could do was comfort him and allow him to share his memories when he was ready. She watched him silently, sensing the pain that he was feeling, that she still felt herself. Mary was kind, she knew that Will needed to time to deal with it all and tried the best she could to provide comfort, but she could never fully understand the pain he was feeling.
Will had had to deal with so much pain and loss in his life already. He had seen his mother suffering, been made to leave her, and witnessed the father he had never had the chance to know being killed by the lover he had scorned. These events had scarred him deeply, but in time the wounds began to heal. With Lyra it was different. He waited for the feelings of loss and grief to subside, but they didn't. They grew with every day that he was parted from her. He was haunted by images of her beautiful face, and her voice that reached out to him in his dreams. All he wanted to do was reach out to her, hold her once more in his arms, but he couldn't. The subtle knife was broken, and all the windows closed. He could still see her of course, but only in his dreams. All he was left with now were dreams and memories. Memories that were comforting at times, but at others only caused him pain allowed his grief to deepen.
Love. What exactly was that? Wasn't it meant to give happiness and peace to those who felt it? As far as Lyra was concerned, all that love brought was grief and longing. She longed for Will, she had since the day they had been forced to part. That day, she had lost him forever. For a long time she waited for him to return. He was hers, and she loved him as he loved her. So a part of her expected for him to come for her, to hold her in his arms and never let go.
She knew that there wasn't a way back. If there was, he would have found it, she knew he would. She had herself spent what seemed like years searching for it, although they had only been parted for a matter of months. Every time she looked, she convinced herself that she would find it. Every time, she ended up hugging Pan to her breast, sobbing uncontrollably, racked with grief.
It was impossible, and after many attempts she realised that she had, unless there was some kind of a miracle, lost him forever. That did nothing to console her, in fact it made her longing increase to a level unbearable to her. She had no one in her life to love her now. Her parents were dead, and although she had now become settled at school, she had no friends. Only Pan.
He loved her, loved her dearly. He knew, however, that as much as he loved her, he could not replace Will's love, or mend the heart that was left broken by their parting. They often sat and talked about the old times, shared their thoughts and feelings on their adventures, on Will. Often, this left her crying, but she felt she had to keep talking about him, for she feared that else she would forget him.
She never would, as Pan could never forget Kirjava. They had, of course, only known each other since they parted from Will and Lyra at the boat to the world of the dead, but they knew each other inside out, just as Will and Lyra did. So Pan knew Lyra's grief, shared it.
She always had her memories and dreams; these would never leave her.
Their love for each other would never leave them until the day they died, and that day they would finally be together again, and never be parted.