For FE_Contest Round 22, "Town Life" (the OC Remix song) 500 words max drabble challenge. All quotes are from the "Town Life" lyrics.

"Are you awake?"

He was on a bed somewhere, one that wasn't his, and it was moving. His body was in eight different kinds of pain – a searing sensation ran down his side and burned through the bones of his hip and his thigh, and his head throbbed, and he couldn't seem to tell one sensation in his leg from another except that it hurt.

But beyond all this, more immediate to his senses was the age-old ache within his heart, at last awakened by the alto tones of her voice.

He cracked open one eye to find hovering over him, a woman with dark, rich hair pulled back into a ponytail, and large beautiful eyes. Her nametag read LYN LORCA.

"You're safe now," she assured him. "We're transporting you to Bulgar Central. Can you tell me your name?"

"Mark," he said. He could feel the blood pumping in his head, a drone whining in his ears – from sheer excitement.

"Your last name too please?"

"Oh... uh... Young."

"Okay. Can you tell us what happened?"

"I didn't see them coming," he said with a tongue thick and uncooperative. "The wyvern knights. From the southeast."

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that?"

"They caught us unprepared – it was my fault – I'm sorry!"

"I need you to calm down, sir. You can let the lawyers decide who's at fault–" The man suddenly reached out, IV dangling, and seized her arm. The other EMTs jolted to attention.

"And then we were separated," he said imploringly, too-lucid eyes fixed on her as he brought his shoulders upward despite his broken hip. "For ages, and lives and lives gone past, we were separated." Without taking her eyes from him, Lyn started making urgent gestures at the other EMTs. "One cruel time we chanced to meet – but in that lifetime, you were a man. And I was an opossum."

"I see," she soothed, accepting a syringe and pressing its contents into his IV.

"But I've found you at last," Mark exclaimed, "and this time there shall be no mistakes! I have perused the internet, I have read the guides, I understand the course that our lives must take and this time I will not be caught unawares–" All of a sudden, his strength started to wane. He released his grip and sagged back into the cot. "It will be... perfect. ... Oooh... Lyn... what was in... that syringe?"

"Don't worry," she said with callous gentleness. "It's just to help you calm down."

"Oh... but I... I have so much... to tell you..."

"Is that so? Don't worry, we'll arrive at the hospital shortly."

"If only we were on the plains... Truly... to meet like this... is the cruelest..."

"Mmhmm. Don't fight it, hon. Just let go."

Without his permission, his eyelids started to close, a little mocking tune underscoring the oath he still had yet to fulfill –

every street recalls the time I saw you last

every avenue a moment in our past

For every story that I bottle up in time

I'll tell you each when I've returned

I'll tell you each when I've returned