Lost Without You

~4~

After that, we fell silent. There was nothing more I could tell Lia right now. Will I ever be able to talk about what had happened to me with anyone? I mused, observing the diamond sparkling in the palm of my hand. What am I doing here?

Even though I only got up a few hours ago, I was feeling exhausted again. It was the effect of the time travel, it had been the same before, when I followed... I sighed deeply, looking away from my ring, remembering how I landed in Vlad's Great Hall a year ago. Yesterday.

Lia looked at me curiously, shaking her head, and as I found myself a more comfortable position leaning against the window, she took a book from her luggage. My last glimpse of this world before I fell asleep was of her, reading, completely lost in her medical textbook.

Then I was with Vlad. It was a warm summer day and we were by our lake. The sunshine, filtered by the thick canopy of leaves sheltering us from the heat of the sun, made the glittering blue-green water spreading in front of me look impossibly turquoise. Vlad called my name, luring me to follow him in the cool shallows and I felt his arms drawing me nearer as I hesitated at the edge of the lake. He caressed my loose, wet hair when I reached him, and the look in his green eyes made my heart race. I heard his soft laughter, then felt his lips on mine as I admitted to my fear of murky waters...

"Hey, Samara! We are nearly at the station. Are you all right?" Lia asked, shaking my arm. "You've been talking in your sleep but I couldn't understand anything. I think it was the same language I heard you speak with that blonde guide in the castle. Is it Romanian? When did you learn it?" Lia's caramel eyes filled with worry were piercing through me, forcing me to focus.

I took a deep, shaky breath, brushing a couple of tears away hastily, before the others would notice too. It had only been a dream. Breathe. You can do this.

"What's wrong with you?!" Lia asked when I did not reply.

"Nothing. Everything. I'll be fine." Hopefully. "I just need some time, Lia."

"For what? When you set foot in that castle yesterday, you were, well, you. The lively and cheerful Samara I've known all my life. Now, twenty-four hours later you are a... a weeping wreck, I don't know. You worry me."

"I'll be fine, Lia, you mustn't worry about me." I said, remembering all those times when I heard similar words from...

I looked out of the window through my unshed tears, getting lost in my thoughts, staring at, but not really seeing, the busy suburbs of the capital which replaced the never ending forests while I slept.

My memories and dreams. The ring, the book filled with my drawings, the note, and even the silvery, half-moon scar that I could feel on the side of my neck, under the tips of my exploring fingers. All of these things were souvenirs from my other life, very real, tactile memoirs taking my mind constantly back to what had happened. They were going to drive me insane if I didn't pull myself together. Fast.

"Well, there's nothing I can do for you until you tell me what's the problem." Lia pulled me back to our conversation.

She stood up and put the book she had been reading inside her luggage again. The train was slowing down. It had been a long journey, but despite having slept through most of it, I was still tired. Even my back hurts now, I realised, stretching and yawning, before I gathered my bags and followed the others out of the compartment. We were only half way through though. The flight would take another three and a half hours at least, and then there was the tube, and for me, who, unlike the rest of my travel companions lived in Barnes, not in Hammersmith, even a bus...

"Are they really holding hands?" Lia asked as the two of us followed the other three out of the train station and towards the bus that would take us to the airport.