Mohavea the Akrep

"Flying almost to the middle of the dressing room, he again closes his eyes tightly from unaccustomed use, when the white light hurts his eyes, and then, through the tears that have gathered, he suddenly sees that he is not alone here.

In the middle of this huge, featureless white room. Like some wonderful and unreal dark desert flower in the snow, as Ian imagined them in his mind. He is. Saved. Alive.

Real.

He doesn't really know if the bright, blinding light is making his tears run down his cheeks, or if it's just that his emotions have been turned to the full, like a toggle switch. He's walking toward them, and they're walking toward him too, fast, and they impact into each other, and Ian realizes that his legs aren't holding him up, because it's at last over. Sharply. All at once. And pain, and expectation, and shame, and guilt, and this all. They hold him surprisingly tightly, not letting go, with his chin on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around everything - that's just everything - and despite the pain, the tears and the conditions that is a short step away from hysteria, he somehow breaks away from him, warm and alive, looks into his eyes and stretches his broken lips in a smile, forced but happy, and says softly:

"Come on. I'll get you out of here."

- You lie there like a flower in the snow.