She doesn't look at him much anymore.

He knew she wouldn't; that's why he fought the inevitable for so long. That's why he dropped his eyes when she looked at him, or looked away, drew her attention to something else. He knew what she would see when she finally saw him. He knew what she would do, and he knew nothing would ever be the same.

He misses her eyes on him. Skeptical, affectionate, reassuring, furious, he misses them all. He misses the way she used to arch her eyebrow at him, the way she used to try to catch his eyes, to tell if he was lying to her. Not that he has, since his promise. Not directly, anyway. Not that she'd ever believe that.

She knows now, and she doesn't look at him.

He wonders sometimes if she saw how much he loves her, what he'd do for her. Maybe that's what frightened her away, more than the knowledge of who he is. She already knew that, after all. She knew who he was, and perhaps more importantly, she knew what he was.

He shakes his head, knows himself to be a fool. She's not gone, after all. She's still there. They still talk, still work together as well as they did before. She just doesn't look at him much.

He's been more of a fool than he thought.

Sometimes he will feel her eyes on him, a phantom caress, and turn and she was looking in an entirely different direction, or more often she isn't there at all and he is imagining things. He's good at imagining things.

Maybe she saw the dreams, the way he used to wish for a way to be with her. He doesn't wish for that anymore—he just wants his best friend back. And he knows she isn't coming back.

It's been three weeks, but he can remember the feeling of her as perfectly as if it had been three seconds, and he will remember it perfectly for the rest of his life; that's the nature of the Sight, after all. He can remember her faith, sullied and broken and knitted up again, and her focus, still whole and concentrated. He can remember her virtue, the virtue she doesn't really believe she has anymore, and her strength, and buried somewhere beneath all the slime and muck he's dragged her through all those years, he can remember the idealism she still somehow carries within her.

He saw her in her eyes, waist-deep in muck with a sword dulled by time, still fighting, still struggling. He wanted to reach for her and pull her out of the muck, wanted to take her place there. It's his fault, after all, all his fault that she's been so hurt, so broken by what she's seen. If he could take it all back, take all the pain and suffering and lost faith on his own soul, he'd do it in a heartbeat. He'd take all the world's suffering if he could; what else does he deserve, after what he's done?

He knows she saw that.

Maybe that's why she won't look at him anymore.