He turned to her, his eyes glistening.

"Why? Why were you never home? He needed you. Dammit, I needed you! No, you had to go save the goddamned world. No matter who you hurt, no matter what I..."

His voice caught. Then he looked up, his eyes edging toward hysteria.

"And what good did it do? Look around you! What cause that you've fought for hasn't come to ruin? What hope hasn't turned to disaster? Who that you love hasn't been punished for it, ten times over? Well, was it worth it? Tell me that, at least. Was it worth it?"

He stood with muscles fully tensed, torn between storming away angrily and collapsing at her feet in anguish. Seconds passed; her steady gaze never left his face. One strand of her long emerald hair had escaped its braid.

She reached out, very slowly, across the distance between them, the folds of her sleeve sliding across her wrist. If he had not been trembling himself, he might have noticed a few tiny tremors in her fingers. She touched his cheek and delicately wiped at the tears.

The universe paused.

(June 19, 1993)