There was time, time and silence and the buzzing blue field before him. It prickled his ears, his neck, and danced uneven where it caught the air, sparked and flashed against particulate matter. There was no dust here.

Watching the barrier made his eyes twist. The color meant nothing, reflected back in blinding brightness, clear and worthless. He saw past it, watched the door, and lost more time. It burned, kept burning.

Maybe it was just his hand, but his eyes held it.

The silence continued, unfamiliar whispers of air brought strange sounds that weren't really sound. He closed his eyes against it and tried to think in sound, not the liar light. Did light lie? Here it did, everything lied.

He turned, pressed back against the wall behind him, and folded his arms. He had a knife, long one, in his coat. He'd left the rest in his right boots, not these radiation tipping work boots. Unprepared. He was so unprepared.

A sound, shifting of air cracked his eyes. Something was moving behind him, against the wall. He twisted his head, tried to see, and his eyes stopped him. Was he seeing?

That face. It was a hundred years and thirty, wrong.

She was staring back at him, against the side of his head, where his cheek met metal. He could see her watching. She was in the blue light of the field, the ledge of the threshold. Her dark eyes were focused and sad, staring through the lines of his grief, through the prison he'd written her into. An appendix for a lost corpse, a life already grieved.

He was unprepared. His teeth clenched and his fury echoed in her face. She was mad at him, but he didn't need her any more, didn't need a shield, a soldier. Did he? Her face calmed but there was bitterness there. He'd failed.

He had to fix this.

Nero closed his eyes, shut her out and exhaled a soundless apology that resounded with her name.