A MAN'S SORROW CUTS DEEPER

And now he was back..

Can sat in is boat. He did read the notebook Sanem had brought to him the night before everything changed. Now, damned if he didn't, he read her book too. He read it, and as he did, he re-read each page a dozen times, much like Sanem's original notebook. And something happened. Something so powerful and profound he had to close his eyes that were too damp from the tears...

With his eyes still closed, holding their beloved bandana, he allowed his heart to feel again. Feel Sanem's closeness. Feel her passion for life. But also, as fragile and surprising to him, he began to feel... loved again. That feeling that only Sanem was able to bring out in his heart, began to yearn to be felt again. And the moment that conscious decision was made, his soul shook from all those udeniable memories of their past...

Her ever so light touch of her softest lips the night that they met. How epic it seemed that their very first touch was that of a first kiss? It's as if theirs was a story of fairytales, where the kiss awakens a princess put under a spell of an evildoer... The fact was that it was him who had awakened. Along with her scent, Sanem conquered him without even a thought...

Her stubborness, clumsiness, and deep sense of what's right filled his heart too. For never before did he meet someone so innocent and pure yet too sure of herself. She was a dreamer, with a gift of spreading her light. She changed the agency's rhytm, no one could deny it. The moment she stood there explaining her thoughts of Aziz's eldest son to Guliz and Ceycey, she did so wholeheartedly. And that made him curious - a powerful thought. For if a woman sparks curiousity in a man's thoughts, she makes him remember her, or, not forget her...

The fact that she brewed a mean cup of tea was beyond all reason to Can. Here was a woman who had a gift in her hands to affect the senses. Her scent overpowered him. Her tea filled him with warmth. He would not permit anyone else to make him his tea - not only to taste it again and again, but that made him sure she'd keep coming back to him day after day and noone at the agency would suspect his growing feeling.

Her cooking skills were a much different story. How could the same hands that make creams, perfume, and the best cup of çay, be completely oblivious to the art of food? She burnt toast, left eggshels in menemen, and he swore he'd never mention those wretched overspiced cutlets from the day he revealed to her that he was her Albatross. Yet again, those cutlets everpowered his senses. Though they took his breath away for a whole another reason, again they shocked his system. No, he would never forget their suffocating taste. And that, beyond all logic, was alright in his heart.

When she searched for him and found him, deep in the forest after he was accussed of theft of the photos, he could have sworn he saw her anew. She was concerned about him. Though she denied it later, he realized that he was not indiferent to her. How else he would expain that she was the only one who found him? That she knew where to look? That she had fiath in herself, and courage above all, that she would find him, forgoing concern for her well being in the first place?

That day at the beach now came to his mind. He'd released all his fears that she may deny his feelings for her, and went into the water. It was a symbol to him of washing away all the past fears. Water so much symbolic to him in his life, now helped usher in a new beggining for them. She no longer ran from his arms. She stayed there, right in his arms. The chemistry of their bodies touching was nothing compared to what their souls felt. Their foreheads touching revealed so much to their souls. And from that day forward he would fight for their love.

When he returned to the opera for that faithful second time, this time he knew she was looking at him. Not at Albatross, not at her boss. She was looking at him, and she saw the real him. He surrendered completely, and the fact that she had accepted him and was filled with joy, reaffirmed him how right he had been to fight for their love.

And she proved him right a thousand-times over when he returned home only to find her waiting for him. They sat on the grass, facing their hearts. Her words of her love for him filled him completely. Each broken and empty part of his mind, heart, and soul. How could a man love a woman so much. They held onto each other as if holding on for dear life. And the magic of that moment, in his own words that night, would never be diminished by any future that passed. And nothing ever did...

He now opened his eyes, no longer tear-filled. A spark so powerful flew from them, that it brought on a smile. A Divit smile, which was gone for months, and gone for far too long. An all too-familiar and soulsoothing melody of whenever Can felt determined now filled his heart. The old Can was back! In more ways than one. It may take a war for Sanem to accept it, but he was damn ready to fight...