[In the strange quite of the station, Aleksander finds even quieter corners. In the kitchen, sipping hot, fresh coffee from a fishy christmas mug, reading a book. Or in the sunlight room, head tipped back against a tree and the sun on his face. Eyes closed, he might look as if he's sleeping, and not thinking about what is to come.

A goodbye.

He was never good at those, despite the practice.

So many friends, dead back home. So many lost or close to it, here on the station. And Aleksander thinks about all of it.

Wandering the hallways, a black rock cradled in his hand and notes in his pocket - from everyone who cared to leave him one during the past several years. Rhysand's buttons in another and Natasha's bracelet hanging from his wrist.

Small mementos of his time here, and perhaps, a vague, childish hope that when they leave for a final time, he will keep them with him in the days and years to come. No matter where he is found, he will blink and turn his dark eyes to the orber and smile.]

Just one more, and we will be done here.

[He dreams, in his bed in a quite room. Another new thing; he stopped dreaming back home centuries ago. But he dreams now, sinking in to the

(icy water of a freezing lake)

(spell, cast to protect)

(portal to save)

(water, down deep where all the wonders glow against the deep, dark ocean-floor)

dead sands that Rhysand found inside of him. Sinking like a stone (a hope, a flame, a shooting star) as his feet drag through the remnants of who he was, who he had been and who he could have been (had the fates been kinder). Past the ruins of lost childhood hideaways and his blood soaked adolescence, past the tiny lights littering the shadows like fireflies. Past Finn's hands, and Daisy's warm skin. Past Yennefer's kisses and bright mind, and Peter's laugh. Down; down past Alina, the tether a pulsating beat living in his heart, past black hair, kind eyes and understanding (like calls to like, Wuxian)

He sinks and he dreams- Newton's potion never worked, and the Darkling screams with an inhuman mouth as his leathery wings takes him up in to a darkening, alien sky. Of being too late (always, forever) and between beats of his wings, he steps through a doorway just in time to watch as Cheri pierces Alina with shards of shrapnel (he sinks, dreaming of blood). He falls and there is a circle of (friends, enemies, those who touched him) people with tendrils of power wrapping around them, sucking them dry, the empty husks rattling to the floor of a castle. Too late, he's too late and in his restless dreams, Aleksander

walks across scorching sand under twin suns, following a breaking heart. Stumbles through red light and grimy cobblestone (to save, to find, to hold) to the sound of a revving engine. To the sound of heavy wheels thundering on old train tracks, a smile just out of reach and

screaming, so much screaming. As he sinks (drops, fumbles) deeper. Mission after mission, unspooling before him with every horrible consequence painted in the vivid blood red of his dreams (memories, fears, black and choking), they all

sink.

Through burning pyres and down through the slabs in a shadowy lab. He hangs from breaking branches, the sudden drop at the end leads him down.

Down, where nothing ever grows. Where every fear, every crushed dream and every fragile, burning hope might have lived - once. Leads him down in to the frozen lake, past Annika's rock and Alina's light, past hope and redemption

And he walks alone, eyes wide open in the impossible dark, listening to his own voice saying-]

Oh, I'm sorry. [His face smiles, soft and warm as he turns from the locked door to the North Wing] I was only curious. And we can never be too careful, can we.