"Abraham?"

Sometimes he awoke to the sound of her voice echoing faintly in his head, as if called from a great distance, heard only by him.

Logically, he knew his sleeping mind was re-living the short memories he had of her. Realistically, he woke feeling as if his heart had been torn carelessly from his body and tossed aside while he slept.

Those so few, so precious moments together. They weighed so heavily on him at times he withdrew from his friends for days, brooding in solitude. They had all tried to help him - Liz with her well-meaning but unbearable sympathy, Johann with his experience in the same matter, and Red with another offer to get drunk - but Abe knew this was something he had to get over on his own. Only time could have a chance at healing his broken heart. He feared somedays that it would never be healed at all.

They were living temporarily in Scotland, in a small remote area where, at least for now, they were left in peace, renting a old disused farmhouse from the nearest village. Liz had started a garden which she worked upon between bouts of rather violent morning sickness and the often harsh weather. Johann had taken over the attic room for his own, and bustled about the stone-floored building keeping the place clean and what food there was to be had on the table. HB had tried his (smaller) hand at carpentry, namely in building a crib for his future children. Liz had stated she wouldn't let any child of hers near the contraption he'd come up with, which seemed to resemble an exotic sculpure more than a crib. He was re-working his designs.

And Abe spent his days predominantly in the water, where he had always felt at home. Sometimes he didn't even return to the house at night, instead finding a quiet bend in a river or the sheltered crest of a loch to anchor himself and sleep. Not that he slept much, or well, anymore.

None of them really understood. They were as close as he had to a family, but he had never known anyone on earth who had abilities similiar to his own. When he had touched Nuala's beautiful ivory skin... it all made sense. There was nothing to hide, regret, or fear. With a single touch she had shown him more hope than he'd ever had cause to feel in his life.

Every day he found himself going over his actions, examining every detail, trying to figure out if he'd done something, anything different, she wouldn't be dead now.

For hours at a time he lost himself in daydreams, imaging what things might be like had she lived. Had she stayed with them... if they were together. Even these fantasies did nothing to help him. Every time he envisioned her smile it was with the knowledge he would never see it again, and whatever happiness the smile itself brought up was swiftly hammered down again by that unbearable fact.

Someday, perhaps not so many days away, he would be able to face the past. He would be able to think of the love he had lost without exposing his shattered heart, plain for everyone to see. Someday soon, he would return to his friends in earnest, help lay down plans for their future, perhaps even rejoice at the thought of being an godfather, of which both Hellboy and Liz had agreed upon together but not yet found the right time to ask.

Until then, he allowed the soft currents of the waterways he loved sooth him to sleep, and hope in vain that when he awoke, the pain of loosing Princess Nuala would be that little bit easier to bear.