A/N: Title comes from "Til the End of Time" by DeVotchKa, from the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. Originally posted July 31, 2007 on my livejournal.

Star-Crossed Souls Slow Dancing

They watch their friends fall apart around them. They pick up the pieces, fragments of things that have come to pass, and add them quietly to themselves.

It takes a while for everything to sink in for Georg. Moritz's death is surreal, too sudden and too close to Sunday; the pastor's sermon about damnation and hellfire, about not having what it takes to make it through the day, disappointing parents and self—it still rings true in his ears, and he walks home with Otto from church with laughter filling the air between them.

Wendla's death is too mysterious. Girls are a foreign subject anyway; Latin is easier to recite, Greek easier to translate. He's still working on sitting next to his piano teacher and being able to stand up without ducking behind the piano an hour later. Anemia means something to his parents, but to him it's just another condition. Hänschen Rilow whispers it to him over lunch with that soft knowing glint in his eye, and Georg stops chewing, stares at him and finds disbelief crawl into him.

"Melchior and Wendla—did that?"

Hänschen smirks and chews deliberately, swallowing it down and if Georg weren't too busy wrapped in his own disbelief, he might notice Ernst Röbel beside Hänschen, watching the movement of his throat with something like pained longing.

"Apparently," is Hänschen's reply, sitting straight in his seat. "I imagine it's the real reason he was sent away—not the essay."

This information is new, and Georg holds it out in front of him as he holds his sandwich, unsure what to make of it or what to do with it, and it gets set aside in his mind, to poke and prod later.

In fact, it isn't the deaths or the funerals that make Georg sit back and reflect, but it's the missing head in Latin class, that other empty seat that leaves the front of the room bare. Melchior was who they had all aspired to be, secretly, whether they wanted to admit it or not. He always seemed to have everything together, under control. He had that sort of walking and speaking that conveyed that he knew precisely what he was talking about, and you could only wish to know half so much as him.

There were times when he privately envied Moritz, to be so close to Melchior, but the story of childhood is envy and regret, and now he feels as if he rather missed being caught up in a tragic, terrible storm. He almost feels grateful for speaking in Melchior mostly in passing.

He starts to grow up when guilt follows after thoughts like those.

It takes Moritz's death for Anna's eyes to open. Church sits sourly in her mouth, fire and brimstone mixing with what she remembered of his eyes, sweet and sad and a little empty, and she finds her jaw clenching lightly. She walks home with Thea, who laughs and tosses her braids, asks Anna to come play by the river, but Anna goes home. She curls up in her window seat and presses her back to the wall, looking out over the fields where she can remember running, laughing. She mourns Moritz without really knowing what she's doing.

Then Melchior's gone and it's almost too quick for her to handle. Anna finds Wendla on the path to the lake, sitting by a tree and looking pale. She stops, kneeling beside her and placing a hand on Wendla's shoulder.

"Wendla? Are you alright? You look ill."

"I've been feeling a little weak lately, that's all," she says with a shrug and an empty smile, eyes hollowed out as she turns to gaze into the woods.

"You haven't been to youth group—I've been worried."

Wendla smiles and adjusts her skirt over her knees, turning to look at Anna now and there's something in her eyes, something quiet and resigned, that sends a shiver through Anna's spine. "You've always been so kind, Anna."

She smiles in return, squeezing Wendla's shoulder lightly, confusion slipping into her because this isn't how she remembered Wendla. It's as if something's come along and drained the life from her, as if she's holding a fallen leaf from the tree that Wendla once was, and it's only a matter of time before it fades to brown.

"Anna, if something were to happen to me…"

"Wendla, don't say such things!"

Her face is patient as she ignores Anna, reaches for her hand and holds it gently. Anna feels her heart flutter, her stomach sway.

"Promise me that you'll remember me."

Anna's eyebrows knit together and she tilts her head, hair brushing along her shoulder. "Remember you? Wendla, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Just promise me, Anna."

It's the most forceful, the most like herself, that Anna had seen her all day and so she nods, and Wendla smiles, satisfied, turning her head to look back out at the trees. As she turns, though Anna's hand is still on her shoulder and the other is wrapped up in Wendla's, Anna can feel her start to drift away from her, the path, and disappear into the woods like the spirit of some tree.

"Perhaps you should go home, Wendla. You don't look well."

She doesn't move at first, but as Anna stands and pulls her hand, Wendla rises slowly, walking in a dreamland as she lets Anna lead her home. As Anna lets go of her hand, watches Wendla be collected in the arms of her mother and disappear into her house, she can't help but wonder why her mother can't see that Wendla's half gone already.

It rains the day of Wendla's funeral. She's thankful no one can see her tears.

It's on the way back from the graveyard that she tells her mother she'd rather take the long path—through the woods. She doesn't listen to her protests about rain or colds because at this point Anna's starting to feel that there's a sickness looming over all of them already. Otherwise she wouldn't have lost two figures of her childhood to the mud, another to morality.

She's in the woods and it's starting to feel a little better, with the leaves blocking out some of the rain. It's colder but maybe that just sets the mood, and she pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders, her face still wet from the tears that streak her cheeks. Her mind turns over playing in the stream, tea parties and buying dresses. She hears light laughter on the wind and it's too much.

She stumbles, her foot caught in a root, and she falls, the palm of her hand slicing open on a rock. Hissing under her breath, she starts to try to stand back up when she hears feet crunching on leaves and then a startled voice.

"Anna Lotzer?"

Georg Zierchnitz steps between two trees and hurries toward her, reaching down to slip his hand carefully around her arm and help her up. "Are you alright?"

She feels silly and irritated, caught in her grief, and she nods, stepping away slightly. "Yes, I'm fine. I just fell."

He catches sight of her hand and his eyes go wide. "Your hand—it's bleeding." His hand goes to hers, to hold it still so he can inspect it, and she can feel her cheeks start to color.

"I'm fine, really. It's nothing."

"All the same." It's all he says and for a second she's confused, then she sees his other hand produce a handkerchief, which he dabs gently at her hand. He cleans away the blood and once the crisis is averted it seems they both realize how they're standing, what they're doing. He steps away and so does she, the bright red of her blood tainting his handkerchief in the dull, wet forest.

"Thank you," she murmurs, her eyes flitting down the path. "I must be going home."

He starts to turn back to the road when he turns, calling out to her. "Wait." He's holding out the handkerchief when she turns, eyes jumping between startled and kind. "Here. For your hand."

She slips the fabric from his palm, and for a second their eyes brush and something crawls over her skin, but just as suddenly it's gone. She turns to go home.

He's sitting at the base of a tree, pen scratching over paper, when she comes up behind him, basket of berries in hand, hair in pigtails brushing her back.

"Georg Zierchnitz?" He looks up suddenly, papers sliding from his lap. She smiles softly and steps around the tree, basket dangling from her fingers. "How are you?"

"Fine," he mumbles as he tries to put the papers back in something of an order, eyes not looking up at Anna as he shifts against the tree. She pauses, waits for him to ask her how she is, waits for anything like polite conversation, but when it doesn't come, she bites her lip and glances away.

"Well… I hope I didn't disturb you." She turns to go the way she came, dress flowing about her legs, when his voice pipes up.

"You didn't. You just…startled me."

She finds Georg looking up at her, hands covering the paper, and she smiles lightly, holding her basket out.

"Would you care for some berries? I've just picked them."

He reaches his hand in and takes a few, staining his fingers red. She eats one for herself and they chew quietly, her eyes on the basket and his on her. "How's your hand?" he asks quietly, and she shakes her head, nose wrinkling.

"Oh, it's fine. Just a scratch, really. Oh!" She stops, eyes wide, and she looks up at him. "I still have your handkerchief!"

He smiles slightly and shakes his head, looking back down at his knees. "Keep it. I've got plenty." They sit in silence a second or two longer before she points to the papers in his lap.

"Were you writing something?"

He nearly chokes on a berry, wiping his fingers in the grass. "Sort of."

She sits across from him, folding her knees primly and setting the basket between them. "What do you mean by that?"

He fidgets, moving his legs about in front of him, then takes a sheet of paper between his fingers, looking down at it. "I'm…writing music."

"Really?"

Nodding sheepishly, he hesitantly hands her a sheet of paper. She hums the tune to herself—she was the best singer at the choir at church, at least before the words started to burn her throat—handing the paper back to Georg with a grin.

"That's wonderful!"

A blush stains his cheeks and he looks at his lap. "Thank you."

"Are you going to have a recital soon?" Her voice rings with innocence, and so when Georg's eyes flicker up with a question she isn't sure what he's asking.

"Would you come?"

It's her turn to blush, turning her eyes to the basket of fruit between them. "I would."

He grins, and she blushes, and there's silence between them before Anna stands, brushing the grass from her skirt. "I'd better go."

He stands quickly, picking her basket up for her and handing it to her. "I'll see you tomorrow—at church?"

She flinches slightly but takes the basket, their fingers brushing in the transition. With a shy smile and a twirl in her skirt, she starts for the way home.

"Yes," she calls over her shoulder.