• Stellarlune • ~a SoKeefe story~

Four • Realization

Sophie

She pulled out of Keefe's consciousness with tears streaming down her face.

"He's gone. I can't bring him back," she whispered, her voice cracking at those last words. She took a deep breath and said, "I tried to bring him back by inflicting love, but he doesn't know what love feels like."

Ro snorted and directed her gaze at Fitz when she said, "I'm going to have to tell Pretty Boy to give us some privacy for a moment."

Fitz looked up from where he was staring at Keefe and looked from Ro to Sophie, and then back to Ro.

"I guess so," he said, looking as confused as Sophie felt.

The moment he closed the door, Ro turned to Sophie and asked her, "Do you remember the day Keefe showed you his sketching journals?"

Sophie nodded, not sure where the pink-haired ogre was going with this.

"I brought this for when Keefe wakes up. It helps him to forget about all of the things going wrong in his life," Ro said as she pulled something out of the bag she had brought for Keefe the first day.

Her eyes widened as she recognized the especially thick gold journal that Keefe hadn't thought to mention when he showed her his journals.

"Go on. Look inside," Ro said from behind her. "Then you'll know who Keefe loves."

She shakily opened the book to the first page and her breath caught. It was covered in about fifteen drawings of her, but the one in the middle was circled by a heart.

She flipped through the rest of the sketchbook and it was most of the way full of drawings of her, with only about a fourth of the journal left to be filled in.

But one repeated drawing that had been drawn about twenty times was of her hugging him after he gave her the paintings for finals while Lihn, Fitz, and Tam were investigating the fountain at Atlantis.

He had gotten everyone's expressions right, from Grady's glare to Edaline's sappy smile.

"He loves that one. He draws all the time, mostly when he's feeling down," Ro put in while she stared at it.

Then she realized the reason Ro had shown it to her: to help her figure out the person Keefe loves.

Keefe loves... her?