I'm very sorry for the delay! My computer crashed and junior year was a cow. Written to the song Once Upon A December.

Disclaimer: I don't own the quote used or Sailor Moon.

Dimming Embers

One-shot

Where the heroine weathers the storm

As I was going up the stair…

"You haven't gotten past page three of that book in twenty minutes, Meatball."

Wide cornflower eyes stared out the large window, looking without really seeing. The cold from the pane seeped into her skin, causing an involuntary shiver to run through her small frame.

"The rain is distracting and soothing at the same time."

"You shouldn't let your attention linger there forever. You have to finish that story in order to start another."

Her gaze slid from the clear rivulets, streaking down the glass and cracking the window's façade into a thousand tiny pieces, to lock with his.

"I know."

I met a man who wasn't there...

"Serena, you have got to get out of that house!"

"Andrew, I can-"

"Just…stop. All you do is talk to yourself and stare at that book you never finish."

The young woman's gaze flickered to the rain splattering against her window. With a heavy sigh, she hung up.

"Is there trouble in paradise,"he raised his brow questioningly. "Guess life isn't always what it's cracked up to be, huh?"

Pale yellows and hues of red from the roaring fire clashed in stormy eyes as she lost herself in hopeless thoughts. She shifted with a small frown and clutched the book in her lap.

"Do you ever wonder why you can't remember being alive?"

Though his shrug was nonchalant, a flash of lightning highlighted the brief, haunted look in his eye.

"Sometimes I feel like there's an ache where my heart should be, but then I think it's just my mind playing tricks on me, you know?"

With a tumultuous boom, the lights flickered off and the rain seemed to beat harder on the vulnerable walls.

"I know."

He wasn't there again today.

I think it's going to stop raining soon."

He voiced his words in a hollow timbre. She glanced at him in surprise, but the moment was gone before she could comment on his behavior.

"Then you can finish that story you've been neglecting!"

Bitterly, "Will you ever get tired of haunting my every thought? My home?"

Guilt ran through her for spurning the joking lilt to his voice and the carefree way he ran his fingers though his dark locks.

"Can't say I've really felt inclined to."

His gaze took in her bare walls and empty picture frames solemnly. She tried to glance out the window, but the heavy downpour blurred her view of the outside world.

"Besides…you'd be lonely if I decided to move on."

A slightly worn picture rested in the center of her book's third page, and as lighting forked the sky, the photo could be seen with starling detail. With a glassy gaze, she admired the brilliant azure eyes that peeked out from underneath dark, curly bangs.

"I know."

As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today.

I wish, I wish he'd go away.

Hope you enjoyed! Up to you to decide if he was a figment of her imagination or a ghost! (I'm almost unsure!) Another sad one, muse? I promise to fight for a funny one next.