Somehow Vince had ended up at home. He was led on the sofa, his forehead cold and damp because his mum had insisted on giving him an icepack and he felt distinctly… empty.

His Gran was watching him with a suspiciously pleased looking smirk on her face.

"I told you." she was muttering to Shelia and Antony, "I told you all he was a mental case right from the start but would you listen? Of course not, you just said he was a bit of a loner."

"Please." Mrs Noir pleaded. "He's had a shock or something." she said, desperately trying to defend her son.

"Don't stick up for him." scowled Antony, "He should be going to prison too. The way he treated that PC Thomas was a disgrace."

"What are we going to do with him?" Gran asked. "I think we should kick the poof out."

"Well, I think we should let him explain himself."

"You're so thick Shelia." Gran retorted cruelly. "He doesn't deserve your sympathy."

Vince just led there. He didn't react. He didn't need to. He wished he'd never persuade Moon to leave the house. He wished he could just escape there now. He'd give anything to just be led with him now on that red sofa, with pictures of great rock gigs floating past or watching a DVD of something called Woodstock. He wished so many things but none of them came true.

--

Vince sat on the wall opposite the prison looking up at Moon's cell. Moon was staring back, confused and forlorn. It was hopeless. Moon's case was as good as lost. Vince, obviously, had refused to press charges but the murder charge alone was enough to get him life imprisonment and, as the only lawyer in the town, Antony had taken a great deal of pleasure from taking on the case personally.

Antony had gloated about how easy the case was over dinner a couple of days ago.

"The man's a fool." he'd laughed maliciously, eying Vince, provoking a reaction. "He keeps going on and on about magic curses and ancient spells. If I'm not careful he'll be shipped to the loony farm and we don't want that. We want him to suffer."

At this point Vince had stood up, calmly walked around the table and punched his brother in the face. Suddenly, everything that hadn't been said, and dared not been said over the last few days was screamed at tops of voices. All of which resulted in Vince being thrown out of his own home with a tiny suitcase containing nothing but a few essentials.

Since then, Vince had just spent his days by the wall; sat on it during the day, curled up against it during the night. Moon watched on with difficulty as Vince turned into a shivering, shadow of a man.

"Hey." a gentle voice disturbed Vince's slow downward spiral of depression. He looked around to see Shelia smiling down at him.

"You should go." he scowled, his gaze shifting to the floor. "If people see you they'll hate you too."

"I know how you feel." she said, sitting down next to him and squeezing is hand.

"How do you?"

"My love was forbidden too. I had to pretend I didn't love Mike and when I married him, people were a bit angry. But I was in love and it was worth it. All the pain, all the heartbreak, it was all so worth it. And I bet he's worth it too, isn't he?"

Vince looked back up at Moon and nodded. Shelia smiled.

"You're so in love." she said, putting her arm around him and pulling him in close like only big sisters can and after a while she added; "He's quite good looking too."

And Vince grinned against her shoulder.

"I'm serious." she continued, "He's rocking the tall dark and handsome look but I'm not sure about that moustache."

"He recons it's fashionable. I did tell him that it hasn't been fashionable for years but he refuses to accept it. He's pretty stubborn."

"Yeah? Tell me more about him."

Vince looked at her for a brief second and nodded before spilling every detail, grateful to finally be allowed to talk about the person he'd been infatuated by for so, so long.

--

Vince was alone again now and was slumped down on the grassy patch next to the wall. Shelia had listened to him talk for hours. She'd hugged him when he'd sobbed and when she'd finally gone to cook dinner, she'd left him with the immortal words: 'Whatever you do, don't give up.'

Vince had almost pitied her as she walked off to rejoin the monotonous humdrum of town life and then he'd remembered his own situation and decided to save all his pity up for himself. He knew that if Moon had been able to talk to him he'd have said something about self-pity not helping anyone but Moon wasn't there, that was the point.

"Vince." another female voice interrupted his self-perpetuating misery. Couldn't people just leave him to wallow in his own depression in peace? "You okay?"

Vince didn't even look round this time. He just sat silent and sullen.

"Vince" the voice repeated, sliding down next to him. "Vince. It's okay. I'm not going to judge you." This made him look up. Elisa.

"Why are you here?" he asked, his face crinkling with confusion.

"I… I want to…" she placed a hand on his shoulder and from his cell Howard barked some kind of protectively, jealous cough.

'It's okay.' Vince mouthed up at him, 'I love you'.

"Look Vince." Elisa repeated slowly, like each word was causing her some kind of physical pain and maybe they were, maybe they were breaking her heart but Elisa was selfless. She was willing to sacrifice her own heart for the sake of mending two others. "I think I can help you." she whispered."How?"

"I've got the key to his cell."

"How?"

"The jailer, he's my dad."

"I didn't know that."

"Because you could never be bothered to find out." she said, Vince could see tears in her eyes as she spoke and desperately wanted to say something comforting or kind,

"I…" then realising he would never have the right words he trailed off feebly.

"I thought I loved you Vince." Elisa tried to force a smile but the smile stopped where her tears began. "I always thought I'd be the one to make you happy. I thought that eventually, you'd love me back."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise." she said sadly, "just… be happy, okay?." She took his hand and pressed the key into it.

As she went to leave, Vince got to his feet and placed a shaky kiss on her cheek,

"Thank you." he whispered softly, "I swear, I'll never forget you."

--

The next morning, when PC Thomas went to retrieve Moon from his cell he was shocked to find an empty room. The gate was wide open, there was no sign of a struggle or an escape route. Moon had simply vanished but people didn't just vanish. Then Moon had never been a person, he'd been a myth and a legend but never a person, not in their eyes.

The entire town was baffled by the disappearance but, it fitted in perfectly with their tiny little, straightforward world and Moon and Noir were quickly forgotten by every member of the community.

If you were to go to that village now and ask about the legend of Moon and Noir; people would stare at you blankly and point you in the direction of the witch of dreams, Elisa, who lived in a rickety old house not far from the bridge.

They say that she had always wanted to follow her love across the bridge but when the time had come she hadn't been brave enough to make those steps alone. And, with no one in the village prepared to believe that it was even possible to leave the town, no matter how much they wanted to, she just waited; waited until the next, curious and open minded child of imagination came to find her and help her across the bridge. She wasn't a hostage of love, so much as a hostage of truth. But one day, they'd come… that child of imagination, she knew they'd come. She'd just have to wait for that day.

It is always rumoured that Elisa see's pictures in her head when she sleeps, that they'd started just after the disappearance of Moon and Noir but everyone believed that these were just legends; designed to frighten children. It was absurd to suggest that it were possible to dream when you sleep. One person, however, did believe those rumours and that was a certain Mrs Noir, who remembered that once upon a time her forgotten son had asked her something similar. The son she'd ignored for so long, the son who'd finally fulfilled his dream and had left the town.

It's over! Woo hoo!
Thanks for reading!

Sisi...xx