It hurt to look at her, so he tried not to.

It was hard. He had begun to enjoy her smiles, the way her nose crinkled up when she laughed, and those times when he could see her eyes through the thick lenses of her glasses. The glasses he'd made her remember with. That had been repaired, not replaced, but even then it looked like they'd never been broken in the first place, the lenses themselves obviously needing to be changed and the frame put back together with the utmost care. Little things. The softness in her gaze, the growing lack of awe at the simple fact of who he was and the respect for who he was becoming. Pride at the fact that this was who she'd helped him become.

He looked at her now, and most of that was gone. Gone, or changed, and she didn't even realise.

She looked at him as though she'd never seen him before, because in her eyes, she hadn't. She had to re-learn how to see him as more than 'Jack Atlas, King of Riding Duels'.

There was a sense of something lost. An echo of something she'd left behind, but couldn't find again.

For Jack, who felt everything so keenly, it hurt too much.

It felt like his heart was tearing him apart, and so, he tried not to watch the way she walked, the way she smiled, the way everything reminded him of how she was before, when she knew him.

Yuusei frowned at him, but he didn't care.

Besides, maybe if she didn't get close to him again, she wouldn't be hurt like that again. Carly was a reporter, and her death if nothing else had taught him that there was no stopping her from following a story no matter how dangerous it might be, so he didn't even bother to try and push her away like that. She'd only come back. Or get into danger.

He couldn't bear the idea of her death a second, more permanent time, to be on his hands as well.

So he made sure that she was safe each time something was going on. Safe, out of the way, and if she wasn't with him then with one of the others, or far away entirely, the story be damned.

He missed the way she jumpe up in the air when excited, and the constant click of her camera. Things that still happened but that were now tinged with sadness and pain for him. The quiet strength in her voice when she talked about something she truly believed in. Like him.

Red Daemons Dragon was his soul. But Carly, without knowing what she was doing, had become his heart.

..

When Carly had come to, Jack hadn't been there.

Oh, she'd seen a swish of a white coat, but she'd assumed it was just a doctor, passing through the hall.

Looks had passed between the group of people she'd seen before her. Some, she thought she recalled vaguely, others not at all. They all looked to have gone through rough times just like she had, if she was in a hospital. More than one had bandages around some part of them, and one or two had arms in slings.

"It's good to have you back," they said.

"It's nice to see that you're back to normal!"

But... back from what? And if she hadn't been normal, then what had she been? And why were all those people injured, who acted like they knew her?

"Jack'll be happy to see that you're better," said another, who'd been quietly watching everything that had been going on up until then.

"Eh? Jack will? Who..."

It surely couldn't be the one she had been hoping for. That would be...

Crazy. Insane.

Everyone was staring at her, and it made her feel uncomfortable.

Eventually, she'd get the story out of them. That was what she was good at, wasn't it? Being a top-class reporter, and grabbing the scoop, even if it was the truth about what had happened to her, and what was missing from her own memories!

If only there was some way to take back the good bits without the bad, though, she agonised some weeks later, alone in her apartment. If they were simply memories that she had lost, then it would be easy to tell her mind to accept what had happened, and say 'Now, remember!', and everything could continue where it had left off, with Jack saying that he loved someone... maybe even loved her.

But those memories didn't just contain Jack, or even those other, friendly people - Yuusei, Aki, Rua and Ruka, even Ushio the Security and Mikage. There were dark things, like dying, and dueling like someone else, and fighting Jack, and... such horrible, horrible things that she didn't know that she'd ever be ready for them.

Even worse than that, though, was that Jack never looked at her. Not really. Maybe when he didn't think she was looking, but the moment she smiled to show that she liked that he cared, that she appreciated that soft look on his face, he'd simply huff and turn away, as though caught doing something wrong.

It hurt her. Each time he did it, it hurt her. Her smile would falter, but only when he wasn't looking.

Maybe if she kept smiling, he'd remember why he'd liked her again.

She found out that first Mikage-san, and then the girl from the coffee shop, also liked Jack. But she wouldn't give up! She knew that she had a chance.

But first weeks and then months went by, and he still wouldn't look at her the way she hoped he would. Still turned away from her, as though... as though he were ashamed of her?

No. That couldn't be it. That couldn't be it at all.

But the wandering thought stayed, because no one told her otherwise.

He told her to go to safety when all she wanted was to stand by his side - why couldn't he understand that the safest place for her was right next to him?

They'd told her that the way he was now was all due to her. That, somehow, she'd changed him, and for the better. The fact that he was still showing that made her hope. If at least because even if he didn't... didn't feel the same way about her any more... she could always say that she'd done something to form him into the person he was. That in some way, a piece of her would live on in him, whether he liked it or not!

She just... wished that all of her efforts weren't in vain.

She'd wander around the appartment sometimes, and wish she could remember, and bring to life even a ghost of a memory of what he was like when, as Ushio-san and Mikage-san said, he'd been here, living here, sleeping here, eating her food and drinking her coffee. She'd screw up her eyes and imagine that proud man sitting on her sofa, and the images would be so strange and ridiculous she'd banish them with a red face, feeling silly for trying.

"Silly girl," the memory of Angela, her old rival, sneered at her. "To think that you really thought he'd remember you!"

Carly sighed, and fingered her glasses. Even now, she could still remember how upset she'd been when she'd found them sitting there, broken, on her bedside table, where they hadn't been before she'd fallen asleep.

No one had told her who'd put them there, or who'd paid to have them fixed.

The idea that it could have been him... was too much to hope for, even though that was what she'd entertained at the start.

Besides, it wasn't as though it mattered any more, was it? Jack...

If he'd had feelings for her at that time, they must have gone by now. He seemed 'normal'. Normal for Jack. Strong, confident, powerful, holding his head up high and fighting with and for his friends. And - maybe he didn't like her that way. Maybe he never had and everyone was saying something to comfort her. But she was going to keep supporting him, keep making sure that he won, looking after him with all of her power.

She'd follow wherever he went, because even though he might not love her, she still loved him, and wanted what was best for him. To make him happy.

Even though something felt at odds with that thought.

Not her feelings. She was sure of them, and couldn't imagine her feelings ever fading away or leading her astray - especially not while she was herself, and she hasn't been possessed once since the Signer war!

But... every so often, she'd do something silly. Something out there and ridiculous and stupid and she wasn't always sure why she did it, just that there was hope in there somewhere, and she wasn't giving up.

None of her attempts worked.

And then, finally, she could only watch as his back grew further and further away, and he never once looked over at her.

Not once.

She kept watching as he vanished, still wrapped up like a present for him to take with him.

He was too far away for her to have seen him when his shoulders hunched over, and his fist clenched, allowing himself one small moment of weakness.