You're a heart breaker

Chapter 1: Nightmares

(AFTER CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE)

He stood at the end of a long corridor, seeming like miles away from her. Simon raised a hand and waved familiarly to Isabelle who, in reply, started to make her way along the smooth stone path, glistening amber in the remaining sunlight of the evening. A heart-throbbing 'Simon smile' caused her to quicken her pace and she began darting across the, what seemed like never-ending, water. She could have sworn it was made of stone only a few seconds before.

Her excitement filled smile dropped suddenly as she watched Simon's welcoming face distort into something of confusion and unfamiliarity. As if he had just been waved to off the street by someone he couldn't quite place. Slowing to a halt, Isabelle watched as the other boy shrugged and started to turn away from her, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Something about watching him turn his back on her so casually, as if he never saw anyone at all, made her heart sink lower into her already churning stomach. Instinctively, she started to run after him -calling his name as she went - before she saw it.

A slight, almost invisible shimmer in the end of the corridor that somehow made her hairs stand on end. She watched as Simon continued to make his way towards the shimmering, then, like watching a sped-up flower blooming, the shimmer widened into a distorted, gaping blackness.

Simon didn't seem to notice as he continued - if not faster than before - to put one foot in front of the other.

"Simon!" She shouted, feeling as if she was being dragged further away from him despite the fact she was bolting her way across the narrow walk way to reach him.

She felt her heartbeat quicken. Her breath becoming rapid. Hating the helpless feeling, she charged forward, as if her life depended on it - faster than she'd ever run before. Faster even than she would run away from a murderous demon. But still, the invisible force continued to pull her back, retracing her same steps again, like she was running in an endless hamster wheel. And Simon continued to walk until-

The darkness inevitably closed in on him and swallowed him up. Isabelle screamed, feeling an immense sense of loss fall upon her like a huge chunk of her heart and been torn out of her.

Still screaming - muffling short bursts of cries, gasping for breath, she sat up in bed. As she reached to push an ebony strand of her out of her face, she realised she'd been crying when her hand came away wet with salty tears.

Realisation falling over her like a tidal wave, she rushed out of the farm house bedroom she'd been allowed to sleep in and ran down the hall screaming his name.

"Simon!" She cried, desperate for some kind of an answer. "Simon?!" She skid outside the bedroom he was staying in before turning to push herself through the threshold of the door.

Simon was sitting upright, now tangled in the sheets, looking slightly flushed from the alarming voice that had woken him from his dreams of what used to be. Now, he stared at Isabelle who was standing just inside his door, doing the same thing, her breathing slowing gently.

"Isabelle?" Simon said. "What's going on?" His brows furrowed in obvious bewilderment as he continued to return her stare. Her face had changed from horror to relief, she found her feet again and dashed to his side. "Simon? You're okay." She said, perching herself on the edge of his bed as he did the same and placed himself next to her.

"Yeah, of course I am. What's wrong?"

Isabelle sighed. "I had a nightmare-" She turned her head to look at him sideways. "I had a nightmare about you."

"Is that good or bad?" He was staring at her intensely with a mixture of sympathy and anxiety.

"I don't know." She said truthfully. "I dreamt I lost you, that you-" she sighed. "That you didn't recognise me anymore and then you- you walked into the blackness and... and..." she was sobbing gently between words now. And it was infuriating her.

"It's alright." He said reassuringly, resting a hand between her shoulder blades. "I was dreaming about you too, you know."

"You were? What about?"

She couldn't help but notice his eyes lighting up slightly, glassy and reflecting the moonlight. As he spoke, a hint of a smile raised one corner of his mouth. He still smiled the same, she thought as she felt her heart contract against her will.

"Well," he said. "I can't remember all of it, but, I was lying with you in one of the bedrooms in Magnus' house, I think. And I was telling you a story?" One of his eyebrows raised as he said it and his own doubt was evident. "I was telling you-"

"The entire plot of Star Wars" she interrupted. "I remember."

Simon had begun to smile and took her a moment to realise this was because she had unknowingly started to smile as she remembered that night when she had asked him to come. Asked him to come just to be with him for that night so she could sleep without fear.

She inhaled quickly before adding "Can I- can I sleep here tonight?"

Seeing the shock on his face she added-

"Please. I mean, I hate to ask, considering what you must be going through, but I-" She sighed again. "I need you, Simon. I need to be with you."

Unexpectedly, he smiled, grinned actually. "Well, no ones ever said that to me before. Well, not that I know of anyway. I know I've been kind of out of it, recently."

Isabelle, looking at him with total adoration, made an amused sound halfway between a laugh and snort.

"Of course you can sleep here, Izzy. Whatever you need." Suddenly, he arched his brows. "I mean, not that I want you to just because you need to- I mean- I don't mean that I don't want you to, too, because-"

She hastily leaned towards him and kissed him quick but hard on the lips, shutting off the rest of his words.

With that, he shut up, his eyes widened and he stared at her again. "I'm sorry" she said. "I shouldn't have done that, was that too much?"

He shook his head mutely, eyes still wide and focused on her before blinking twice and lying back down on one side of the messed up bed. Isabelle still sat on the edge looking down at him, almost in fascination.

Smiling, he asked "so... do you usually sleep sitting up?"

"Oh." She said in realisation as if being snapped out of a dream and brought back go reality once more. With that, she lay down carefully next to Simon, laying her dark curtain of hair to one side so it didn't get in Simon's face.

Somehow, despite how awkward he would have thought this would have been, (for him, especially) Simon seemed to be completely at ease with it as if it was simply normal. It felt as normal and right as making himself a cup of coffee every morning. Though, he couldn't think of anything that explained why it felt quite so perfect- anything he could remember, anyway.

"Simon?" Isabelle sounded slightly hoarse.

"Yeah?" He turned to look at her sideways, expectant.

"Don't feel like you have to..but" she sounded nervous and Isabelle never sounded nervous. Then again, she never cried  either. "Will you put your arms around me?"

In answer to this, Simon shuffled himself closer to her and turned on his side so he could clearly see, even without his glasses on, the pale moonlight accenting the curves in Isabelle's face and making her look even more beautiful. He didn't think that was possible.

He also didn't think it was possible for a girl like Izzy to feel like she clearly did about him, to care about him that much. But then he supposed he didn't know a lot about their relationship before his memories were taken. Only fragments from familiar dreams that had been scattered and dispersed in his mind, constantly reminding him of what he was missing.

Without words, he pulled Isabelle towards him slightly too - she didn't seem to mind. Her head fitted perfectly into the crook under his chin as if it belonged there. Carefully, he put both his arms around her heated body and hugged her to him in a way that reminded him of hugging a childhood Teddy bear he had once loved and cherished so much.

"Goodnight, Simon" she was smiling into his t-shirt and he could feel it.

"Goodnight, Izzy"