I've had this one-shot written even before I started Remembrance, although something about it was just 'off' so I didn't post it. Even after editing, I still can't say that I'm completely pleased with it. But here I am, telling myself that I can carry on changing things in an infinite loop and never end up posting it, or I can accept that this is just a fanfiction so post the damn thing and move on to another nagging story idea. Guess I've opted for the latter. That said, here is my take on the post-final battle goings on as far as Lowell and Syrenne are concerned. This story assumes knowledge of Lowell's backstory, so if you've missed that very missable conversation...do something about that!

Revival

Just make it through the gate. It became his mantra as the world physically fell apart behind them. His lungs ached, trying to sustain his strong, shallow breaths as he ran his fastest to keep up with the others, and keep ahead of the floor that was dropping into the abyss piece by piece. On a normal day he could do it—hell, he'd be at the front of the group teasing them to catch up—but after what had just happened he wasn't even certain that his body was in full working order. His chest burned terribly. Just make it through the gate, he repeated internally. Just make it through the gate and then collapse.

. . . . .

They all made it through, back onto stable ground and surrounded by a cave that could only be considered familiar to a group of outcasts like themselves. Even in the midst of this familiarity, Lowell could see his companions' intentions to keep moving onward: Zael was already scouting ahead with Calista a few short steps behind. Yurick looked relieved to finally slow his pace, but still uneasy. Mirania's expression was concerned as well, a bit anxious, maybe even eager to see what was waiting aboveground.

Only Syrenne showed no signs of hurry. When Lowell halted immediately after they crossed the threshold back into the world they knew, so too did she with an apprehensive look towards him. She adjusted her movement to a back-and-forth pace that never strayed too far in distance from Lowell. He didn't like that he would be holding them back; and strangely enough, he felt safe in this cavern that had once been the source of so many dangers. "You guys go on ahead," he told them. "I think my body's still working to put itself together, you know? Or maybe I'm just getting old."

Zael looked back at him and silently evaluated the situation before giving a decisive nod that was received in silent agreement by the others. The exception was again that fiery soldier, who ceased pacing and announced, "Well I'm staying here."

"Of course," Zael consented without hesitation. "I was going to tell you to do that anyway." He spared a glance at Lowell, one of silent encouragement. She'll never leave you again, he seemed to say—and while meant as a good thing, Lowell swore that his chest began burning even more.

He waited until his allies turned a corner out of sight, until the sound of their footsteps and echo of their clanking armour were no longer audible. He waited until he could not see or hear them to be sure that they could not see or hear him. Only then did he give into his body's frailty and sink down where he stood. Syrenne called his name, her voice low and thoroughly drained, as she moved to catch him. Her own limbs exhausted from the battles and the getaway, she could hardly support Lowell's weight. Her arms trembled and knees buckled. Recognizing that there was no use in staying standing anyway, she guided Lowell to a wall and set him down, back against it. He inwardly smiled, memories of him navigating a piss-drunk Syrenne to bed coming to mind. He could never tell her, though; she never remembered those nights and he didn't want her to realize how much he cared. But ah, maybe he'd gone and done something to ruin that intention? Impulsively, his hand moved to his chest, over the torn vest and busted chainmail, and the now-mended wound he had gotten from protecting Syrenne.

She noticed the movement and knelt down in front of Lowell, her hand hovering over his with a desire to help but an uncertainty as to how. As though conceding that there was nothing she could do, she pulled her hand back to her own chest and commented, "Still hurts, doesn't it?" The factual manner that she said it gave the impression that it was a pain she had felt personally. Lowell only nodded in response. He couldn't place the reason behind her empathy just then; his mind was too distracted, in part by the pain but primarily by the inevitable talk that he and Syrenne would be having. A talk about what had happened, how they felt, and where they would go from there... the thing was, he didn't want to go anywhere but backwards, back to the past where they bickered and teased and pretended that it wasn't an outlet for the feelings they had for each other.

Prompted by his desire to go back to that time, and by some curiosity too, Lowell said, "Humour me for a minute and take off my clothes. I want to see the damage."

"You're not that handicapped," she snapped. Even so, she began to fumble with the button that somehow hadn't been ripped off of Lowell's vest. Her coordination for delicate tasks hindered by armour, she promptly grew irritated and hurled her gauntlet across the room. Fingers freed, she managed to remove the vest and then the chainmail. The wound was not made much more visible, however; it was so stained with blood. Syrenne noticeably flinched. Seeing the evidence of what happened on his skin, not just on his clothes or in her memories, made it that much more real. "Hang on. I'll run down to the lake for water to clean up this mess." After hesitating for a moment, she stood up and strode toward the path to the underground waterway.

Lowell watched her go, saw her tear off a piece of the armour on her arm in frustration and throw it down before she disappeared from sight. He knew that feeling of helplessness and disappointment in yourself, probably wishing she were adept in healing magic like Mirania rather than being a brute fighter.

This was getting bad. Really terrible. Syrenne had all but said 'I love you' to Lowell; Lowell had died—literally died—for Syrenne. Who else could truthfully state that they had done such a thing? The vocal chords of people six feet under didn't function so well, and they were the only others with the right to such a claim. He didn't want that right, though. He would rather everyone just forgot about it and the implications it had. After all, Lowell had had a solid plan to live as a flirt and refuse all involvement with the unspeakable L-word. If things kept on in the direction they were going, that resolve would not only suffer a crack, but would swiftly erode to rubble. No amount of lewd remarks or inappropriate jokes would repair his image and push Syrenne away, he feared. The trait that he most admired in Syrenne would prevent it:

Syrenne did not (whether she could not or would not was debateable) hide her feelings once she knew they were there. If someone ticked her off, they'd know it right away. When she was sad or jealous, she'd mope around like a child. And her grin when she was having fun was the most genuine expression of happiness a person could hope to see. So should Syrenne be in love with someone, particularly if she reached an understanding that that someone felt the same, she would adopt some behaviour that would make those feelings impossible to ignore. Lowell had really been doing his damndest to evade it, and the awareness that everything may be placed out in the open made him... well, maybe it was part of the reason the aching in his chest began anew at the sound of Syrenne's returning footsteps.

When she appeared in view, Lowell saw that Syrenne had shed the rest of her plated armour during her short trip. The only piece she had kept was a shell-shaped leg shield that she now carried carefully in her arms like it was a precious living thing. In actuality it was teeming with water ready to spill on the floor at one jerky movement. When she reached Lowell, she knelt by his side and held the makeshift bowl out with care. "Here," she offered. "Clean yourself up."

With wordless compliance, Lowell displayed his own innovation by using his scarf as a washcloth, unwinding the tattered garment from his neck and dipping it into the water. He was aware of Syrenne watching tensely while he scrubbed the blood off of his chest, so focused that she didn't see Lowell watching her watching him. Her sombre stare was not only intimidating, but too unlike Syrenne for him to accept. With sudden inspiration, he removed his scarf from his wound and dabbed it on Syrenne's cheek. She knocked his hand away on reflex, some of the water in her armour splattering from her abrupt movement. After steadying the water's container again, she began rubbing her face frantically with her free hand. "Ugh, Lowell, keep your sweaty, dirty scarf off me!" When she lowered her hand, she looked to Lowell as though pleading for him to examine her face's state. The single spot he had initially left on her skin had been smeared across her cheek. He tried to hold in the laugh that subconsciously surfaced by pressing his lips shut, but she noticed his stomach shaking. "No! Did I make it worse?" She searched the water for her reflection even though it was murky. Eventually conceding that she couldn't see anything, she splashed some water on her face at random—without success, Lowell remarked, his amusement now unconcealed.

"Stop, stop," he urged. He dipped his fingers in the water and used his other hand to hold Syrenne's head in place while he carefully wiped the marks off. Even in a moment of lightheartedness, that hovering seriousness never strayed too far, constantly present in Syrenne's fixated stare. She really was incapable of hiding her emotions.

Lowell made a conscious effort to look only at the grime he was cleaning even though he could feel the intensity of Syrenne's eyes on him. The instant her face was clear, he withdrew his hands hurriedly and picked up his scarf once more. Syrenne was still watching closely, he knew, and it made him all the more focused on his own hands as he soaked the scarf in water again and resumed cleaning his wound. Swipe by swipe, the blood was cleared away until the only blemish on his skin was the scar left behind. A brand new scar, still red with freshness. It was an indistinct shape, very much unlike the one on his neck; with that scar one could easily imagine the curve of the blade that had sliced through his skin. With this new one, it had the same abstraction as magic. The centre was slightly concave and darker while the uneven edges bubbled from burns.

"That's quite the addition to my collection," Lowell commented to himself.

"I do wish you'd stop adding to that collection," Syrenne muttered with a bit of humour, setting aside the armour full of dirtied water that was no longer of use.

Lowell let himself smile at her change in demeanour. "You don't think it looks nifty?" he asked mischievously. He balled up his scarf and tossed it to the floor some distance away. They would all be due for a new wardrobe after this, he reflected in passing; a new life was waiting for them even if he was trying to avoid part of it. "I was thinking I should start going around shirtless like Zael just to show it off."

"Spare the city that sight," Syrenne remarked dryly. "You don't see me showing my scar around."

"Your scar?" Lowell questioned. Each of the mercenaries had many scars, so many that it took an especially distinguishing mark—be that by its appearance or the story of how it came about—to warrant being identified as their scar. His scar had of course been the one that traced his jawline. He could think of a couple of his allies' as well, like the one Zael had gotten as a child when a splinter of wood buried into his leg during a getaway, or the trail of dots on Mirania's hand where, ironically outside of a mercenary's duties, a dog had bitten her. But Syrenne?

"Yeah. The one I got..." She paused, glancing in a certain direction and finding a column blocking her view. Unable to see the landmark she wanted, she got to her feet and took a few steps forward until something caught her eye, just out of Lowell's line of vision. "...right over there," she said while pointing.

Lowell followed suit and got up to stand next to Syrenne, a bit lightheaded at the change in elevation but stable enough. His eyes looked to where she was indicating, the altar not too far away, and then trailed to the scene around it: at the chiselled debris and skeletal remains that were still scattered across that area of the cave, at the ceiling high above them. There were some columns intact while others had been smashed at their centres, leaving broken monoliths on the ground. This decay had certainly begun long before the mercenaries' first visit, but some of that damage had occurred during the first skirmish with the skeletal undead. Lowell hadn't been present at that time; he had only heard the stories. Zael had been shaking when he told him that they had nearly lost Syrenne. She herself had brushed the whole thing off—'nothing that a pint of the good stuff won't fix!'—but if that was the scar that she was speaking of... if that had been the incident that had awoken the blue Outsider...

"I never really knew how bad that was," Lowell admitted with a conscious effort to keep the quavering out of his voice.

"You never noticed?" Syrenne sounded surprised, but not offended. She reached to her side and unknotted the cord that held her breastplate in place. That last piece of armour fell to the ground with a clatter, leaving Syrenne's upper body vulnerable in her civilian-wear. She tucked the loose waves of hair on her left side behind her neck; hidden behind them was a diamond-shaped scar below her collarbone. "I wonder where your eyes have been looking all this time," she teased.

Lowell took a step closer to her and touched the scar as if sight wasn't enough to believe it real. His thumb grazed it, felt the depth it still had to it even after healing. A fatal shot, to be sure—a realization that played back the horrors he had witnessed in the past. It had been a long time since a new chapter had been added to Lowell's living hell, and here it happened that that wasn't true at all. In a moment when he had been elsewhere, Syrenne had been lost. Not a lover, yet a love nonetheless. He resented the word but he couldn't deny the sick feeling of helplessness in his gut, one he had felt many times before. Syrenne stayed so still she could have belonged to the carvings in the walls, like she feared that any movement, even an involuntary twitch, would break Lowell from the trance he had fallen into. She coveted his touch too much to take the risk of ending it. The beating of her heart, however, was beyond her control, and soon enough the rapid ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump against his hand prompted Lowell to take a step back.

"Sorry," he said. "Overstepping my bounds a bit, aren't I?"

"You know I don't mind..." She meant to say it casually, but the nervous waver in Syrenne's voice betrayed her just as her heartbeat had.

"But I do."

Syrenne watched him incredulously, her focus a little less longing and a little more critical. "I gathered that. You care to explain yourself maybe? Because you're driving me absolutely batty. Have been for a while now."

The sombre Syrenne had been done away with, Lowell observed with regret. A new stubborn part of her honest side had emerged, the side that would not pretend that feelings didn't exist when she knew for certain that they did. Still Lowell pleaded, his voice low and pervading with impatience, "Syrenne, please just let it go."

"Let it go?" she sneered. With each word that escaped her, her throat seemed to thicken. "Lowell, you just broke my heart and made it whole at the same time! How is that even possible?"

Lowell closed his fist tightly. Had he been closer to a wall he likely would have vented by slamming the cave itself. As it was, he unfurled his fingers and inhaled deeply before breathing out with resolve, "Why do you have to be so honest?" In the stillness of the catacombs, his slight raise in volume made his voice seem booming.

Rather than shrinking away at his anger, Syrenne's temper flared. "Why are you getting cross with me?!"

"I have been trying to avoid this..."

"Like hell you have! What was that forty-second wife nonsense, then? Not avoidance, that's for damn sure."

"It was exactly what you said: nonsense! If you had taken it as a joke, it would have been fine."

"And what about what you said right before you—" Syrenne stopped herself just short of admitting that they had actually lost Lowell for a time. The censorship, whether conscious on her part or not, seemed to sedate her. When she found her voice again, it had softened considerably. "You said you couldn't let any harm come to a beautiful girl like me."

Censorship did not extend to Lowell, who blurted out without thought, "I really wasn't thinking too far ahead on that one since I was dying!"

The choice of words struck them so strongly that their argument was eradicated in the crossfire. Syrenne's heart was wrenching again; he could see it on her face but made a point to ignore it. The silence brought back the fatigue that had been forgotten amidst words and Lowell sought the nearest fallen pillar to sit down next to and lean against. A bone from some long-forgotten person's body rested by his foot. He kicked it without any sympathy for what it was. A graveyard of a past society... he was so bloody sick of graveyards. Would that he could just walk out and leave it behind him, but he knew Syrenne wasn't ready to let him escape. Let's talk about this later, he'd try to reason, and she'd say that she's fed up of waiting. Every word out of her mouth chipped away at Lowell's resolve, so he'd prefer to keep her quiet. Like that were ever an option.

"Lowell, what were you thinking leaving me alone like that?"

He looked to Syrenne, still standing in the same spot where they quarreled, staring past the space where Lowell had been. He didn't know how to answer; a lie would just set her off again, and the truth would be interpreted as a lie anyway. The truth was that he hadn't thought much at all, only acted. Protecting Syrenne had been an instinct. It was as simple as that. While he worked to author a suitable reply, Syrenne ambled to his side and sat down.

"Lowell," she said firmly, "I can be thick-headed, yeah, but I'm not totally daft. I'll call out all of your excuses and keep harassing you until you talk to me honestly for once. So spill it." Her head sunk onto his shoulder, removing her from his vision so long as he looked resolutely forward. It was a bit liberating, to know that her gaze couldn't meet his. A lot of thoughts scrambled to the surface and kept him from talking until he sorted them out.

His action had not only been a response to that moment. It was a reaction to everything he had witnessed up until then. A group of bandits making their attack before he could react... an illness he could never hope to cure... freak accidents and civilian casualties, all happening within his sight and yet untouchable, unpreventable, inevitable. When that sword hurtled towards Syrenne, he had finally harnessed the ability to react. At last, he had made it so that he would not have to watch the woman he... cared for... die. But it didn't end at relief.

"I really wasn't thinking. It was only after the fact that I had time to think – and I felt really proud at first actually," he began. He felt Syrenne's eyelashes brush against his skin, but she did not lift her head. "I've saved lots of people before, sure. Clients whose names I can't even remember, people whose faces are blurs—never the people who count. So I thought I'd finally changed that, and it was peaceful. That was how I wanted to go. But before the darkness started closing in, I saw you... your eyes and the panic in your voice were really familiar to me. I can't think of a word for that feeling. I don't think there is one that can really do it justice. I just knew that you felt that you wanted to die. When I'd felt that, I thought about it long and hard until I was back in control of my emotions. Then I moved on. But seeing that feeling in you... I regretted it. I hadn't saved you at all. You don't bite back emotions or waste time pondering the responsibility of life. You just act. It's what makes you fun. But knowing that and realizing the weight I'd put on you, my last thoughts were... I've killed us both, haven't I?"

When Lowell had been resurrected, all of his companions were at a standstill while the ground shook menacingly beneath them. They took a short time for Lowell to find his balance and Syrenne to collect herself, but after that it was all rush and no reflection. "I'm sorry," Syrenne whispered, an apology for the hypothetical scenario that had been so close to becoming reality. It took her speaking that apology for Lowell to realize that everyone had stopped escaping because Syrenne had said she would not go on. Again, Lowell was struck by the fact that he had nearly lost her.

"I didn't say that to make you feel guilty," he assured her. How could he make a person understand the argument he was having with himself? This extensive internal debate that had begun many months ago, in another town at another time. The affirmative side always lost to the negative at the start, shooting down the notion of a relationship with examples from the past. But the more time spent in the company of Syrenne, the stronger the rebuttals to those examples became. "All of my romances have ended in graveyards..." Lowell mused distantly. It was the argument that always won and he was losing his grip on what made it so convincing. How was it that he and Syrenne kept escaping that fate? It could have been because they never really had a romance. If Lowell truly had some curse on him that stole all of his loves away prematurely, then the distance he kept could have been a loophole. But no, that isn't fair... absence of a relationship does not equate absence of love.

"Well—I mean..." Syrenne raised her head and released a heavy sigh. She brought her hand to her forehead and dragged her fingers through her hair. In spite of this attempt to compose herself, her voice dripped with desperation as she prattled, "Listen. I don't know what's happened, but... have you ever thought to start one in a graveyard? Or something?"

A breath of laughter escaped Lowell before he could give any consideration to his mood. Syrenne's head turned suddenly in Lowell's direction, unable to process that that sound she had just heard could have been a laugh. In Lowell's mind, they were in a graveyard. It made the delivery of Syrenne's question seem more like a terrible attempt at flirting than a sincere suggestion. "Oh all the time," he said, somehow finding his carefree tone. He looked to Syrenne and rested the side of his head against the pillar behind him. "Surprisingly difficult to convince a girl to join you in the graveyard for a first date, though."

Syrenne's wordless struggle to trace back the conversation in search of this change in Lowell's demeanour was plainly visible on her face. Without looking away from her, he waved his arm in a grand motion that swept over the room. She followed his lead and glanced around without knowing what she was searching for. After a time, she must have found the answer in one of the skeletons on the ground. "Then what the hell am I doing here?" she questioned with a hint of that radiant Syrenne smile shining through.

"Testing the theory," he replied with a smile that mirrored hers. And my resolve.

With no further preamble, he kissed her. Short and tame – and evidently unsatisfactory to Syrenne, who quickly reached her hand behind Lowell's head when she felt him move to pull away. Her acceptance had been inevitable; the eagerness of her lips against his was more unexpected. As they exchanged heavy kisses, her fingers dug into his back desperately and her legs hooked around his, keeping their bodies as tightly together as she could. It was all welcome, to be sure, yet unexpected.

In one of the moments when they parted for a breath, Lowell felt the throbbing in his chest return afresh with exertion. He played it off, letting his lips trail along her jaw and neck until he could set his head down on her shoulder. With a cushion beneath him, he lacked the will to do anything aside from rest his eyes. "I'm too tired..." he sighed.

"Oh you'd better be joshing me," Syrenne whined. Her arms fell loosely at her sides in resignation. "The only time in your life you're 'too tired' is when I'm all bothered."

Lowell laughed quietly. "I do hate to leave a lady disappointed," he said. "Tell you what. We can go find a nice inn in the city where I can take a little nap, and we can do whatever you want for the rest of the night."

Although she sighed at his suggestion, Syrenne said nothing to dissuade him. If anything she did the opposite by moving out from underneath him and standing up, forcing Lowell to wake up at the loss of his support. "You're plenty awake and healthy," she said, offering her hand. "So get up—let's go."

Lowell accepted her hand. He felt well enough that he could have stood up on his own, but the bit of assistance on Syrenne's part was assuring. Now standing face-to-face, Syrenne gave Lowell a quick kiss before turning and beginning the trek to the surface. He noticed her shake her head to herself as she walked away. Disbelief at her own ease with the development with Lowell, perhaps. As he moved ahead to walk with her, he too found himself shaking his head. Never again fall in love. Never again let someone fall in love with you. They were the two rules he had sworn by, and now he'd gone and broken them both. But that feeling of security, of that simple ease to touch each other without a sense of finality... it may have been worth it, to know that feeling again.