A/N: While watching the movie I was struck by how everything was so eerily and utterly connected, so I decided to write a little drabble on why Howl's life turned out the way it did, and just how Sophie affected him.

PS: not based on the novel, the movie.

Disclaimer: characters by DWJ, movie by Miyazaki and his crew.

"Howl! Calcifer! I know how to help you now! Find me in the future!"

Howl stares at the dark grass, the black lake, which only seconds ago had begun to melt away right before his very eyes. Now it looks perfect and serene, except for the rare falling stars that ruin the stillness of the lake by falling in and drowning with a sizzle and a hiss.

The joy he had felt for a brief second when his heart had come out of his chest with his own fire demon attached plummets now. The fear he felt when the silver-haired girl called out his name is still echoing in his body. "I know how to help you now!"

Her words leave a dampening chill over young Howl. He is a boy, but also a wizard, and he knows that warnings from future can never be too good. And at this particular moment? Right when he has achieved the forbidden? It is a little too unnerving for the boy, and he is still staring at the lake with the little flame flickering softly in his hands.

"I think you'd better listen to her, kid," mutters the little fire in his grasp.

Howl blinks, finally focussing his gaze on the flame, which stares back up at him with little eyes. "She… called… you… Calcifer?" he mumbles out laboriously.

The fire rolls its eyes. "Sure, why not? You humans would never be able to grasp my real name, the way stars speak it—"

"Calcifer it is!" Howl cries at that exact moment, and his youth flows back into his face and he goes back to looking like the happy twelve-year-old he is, rather than a sombre adult. The encounter with the woman is momentarily forgotten. Right now he feels so deliciously light, as light as air with no human attachments to weigh him down.

"So you're using me to build a what?" roars Calcifer, blazing in the hearth, the flame growing a dangerous shade of green. Howl ignores him, and continues to write frantically on a sheet of paper. On it are scribbled sketches, messy writing, and little notes and numbers stretched across at all angles. "Hey, Howl, listen to me!" yells Calcifer. Howl doesn't even blink, but finally replies.

"A castle," he says. "A moving castle."

It is a year later, and Howl—try as he might—cannot get the woman's shrill warning out of his head. He has grown paranoid, even if he tries to hide that fact. But… save him? Save him from what, exactly? He has taken to being careful about his appearance… he can't help thinking that if he's going to die he'd like to die looking rather nice, thank you very much.

But he won't die. He can't die. Who cares what that Sophie woman said? That's why he got the fire demon, for god's sake. His original plan had just been to help him build a hidden castle, but…

"And why exactly?" cries Calcifer, exasperation and incredulity apparent in his tone. It is a moment later, after a stunned silence from the fire demon.

"Because." Howl's quill slips under his fingers, and he frowns at the wanton line that has skidded across his sketch.

He will never tell that demon of his. He will never tell him that with a moving castle—the one he plans, anyway—he will be able to find this girl easier, faster. He can vividly remember her face, her hair, her voice. Even that drab dress she was wearing and the stupid dog that was tripping over its own ears to reach her. Living in an unmoving, if safe, castle is not enough to find her. Howl knows it is selfishness driving him to find this woman. Like any human being, dying is his last plan (at least at the moment). Every night he wakes up in a cold panic, fearing if he is to die today, if he missed his chance to meet the girl, if—if—

"Oh, fine. I'm running from Suliman. Happy?"

Calcifer frowns, but Howl doesn't see. He is in his cottage, and Calcifer's hearth is behind his desk. "No, not really. A moving castle is still a moving castle, no matter what crazy reasoning you use."

Howl ignores him.

He can still remember her name. Sophie.

Howl is sixteen now, with his own castle, and his own apprentice (it is no surprise to him. After all, he is a genius), but he still does not have Sophie and so the dread of the future continues to haunt him every night.

He never tells Calcifer or the boy the reasoning behind his castle, never explains why he disappears for days at a time.

Today, it is his two hundredth time checking Kingsbury for the girl, blasted royal city and its huge populace. He flips the cloak over himself, and turns the knob when it rests on the proper color. He has rotated the castle's locations several times already. He happily calls it 'moving', but really, he is just hunting.

As Howl walks effortlessly through the streets he scans the crowd, and it infuriates him that magic is of no help to him in anyway. The memory of the girl is growing fuzzier at time passes. He remembers her face, a bit of her voice, but sometimes he wonders if he dreamed up the silver hair or that fearful look in her eyes, like she… cared about him.

Shaking his head, Howl cranes his neck over the people, ignoring the gaping stares into his face. He knows he is beautiful, and at least has that knowledge to comfort his otherwise terrified existence.

But then he thinks of course he must find her, after all, the future has happened already and she knows him, so it will happen when the time is right… but he is still scared, still afraid, nervous he's missed her.

Sometimes he sees a silver head, but it is always an elderly person and he thinks that a young girl with silver hair would be famous, but he asks and people think the sorcerer Jenkins is crazy, and it's getting difficult for him to believe his memory anymore.

And then he's in that village—walked in from the Waste Lands, felt like a stroll—and it is quite a few years later, and he is more beautiful than ever and takes that to heart, because he must not have long now before he dies especially with the war looming on the horizon.

And he's walking through the streets—he can feel the Witch of the Waste's presence, curse her—but it's been several years since he's checked this village and decides it's about time.

So he slides into a back alley, tempted to start running from the shadows he knows are following him, but suddenly he sees a young girl cornered by two men. He is about to laugh, and envisions himself saving the girl and smiles dreamily. Yes, he still likes the attention of a woman. He steps close, beside her, and whispers, "there you are," in her ear, and when he glances at her through the corner of his eye she hits him as familiar, and Howl wonders why.

And he helps her escape, and then he teaches her to fly through the sky. She is terrified and he laughs carelessly, because he doesn't have a human heart to fear what is right in front of him. And he leaves her on the deck and feels that flicker of knowing her, of knowing who she is, and it doesn't hit him until he is back in his castle and sits in his bath, soaking in the heat. Then he remembers that plain face, those sturdy eyes, that voice. Even with the brown hair he knows it is Sophie, he just found Sophie, and he screams in shock and anguish and frustration, and the next day he flies to the village and runs to the café, and her sister says she lives with the hatters, and he flies there too, but he asks where Sophie is and her mother says, in tears, "I don't know!"

And Howl knows he's lost her, and his life is over, oh God, he found her but lost her, how is that fair? Sophie just said to find her, not to try and keep track of her like some stray mongrel!

Howl finds himself crying all the way back to his castle, moping, sulking, fearing his end.

The old woman says, "I'm Sophie," and Howl knows it's too much of a coincidence.

He doesn't tell her that every night he watches her sleep, because that is when she's in her younger form and he recognizes that face: that stubborn little nose, the straight jaw, the blunt bangs. And he smiles with relief each night he sees her as a young woman in her sleep, because he's finally found her like she told him to, and now all he has to do is wait.