It's hard to believe it's been 20 years. I can remember it so clearly, almost as if it were yesterday. Your hair always smelled of cherries and wildflowers, and even now it wafts though the window like it did in Winhill.

I think back to what it might have been like if I was there, if I had of stayed with you when I sent little Elle back to you. I thought it was for the best I stayed here, in Esthar. I wanted nothing else but to bring you to me.

I wish I could turn back time now, and seen the birth of your son. Our son. If I had, believe me, things would be a lot different now. The first time I met him wouldn't have been in my office 17 years after his birth.

The first time I saw him wouldn't have given me butterflies in my stomach.

The first time I raked my eyes over his body wouldn't have made me warm.

And the First time I touched him wouldn't have given me an instant erection.

I know, it's not the thing you expect in a letter...but I thought you deserved the truth, no matter how perverse it actually was.

I've seen him sleep. Laid there next to him brushing the stray strands of hair from his face as the moon filtered in through the window. He has your smell, Raine. Only, there's something more. Something that makes him unique.

His skin is so soft, pressed against my hand, his cheek nuzzling unconsciously against it. It's like porcelain and silk together. Smooth; a lot smoother than you'd think for someone in his profession.

But, it's not a sudden thing, please believe me. I've been fighting it for so long, the conflicting feelings that have been biting at me. But, if I hadn't have let it all go, I would have lost him. We all would have lost him.

Someone so beautiful should never look like that. Tear stained eyes and cheeks looking up at the clouding night on the balcony of the palace. We have the same tastes in hiding places, obviously. I used to go up there to escape Ward.

He went up there to escape the world.

I saw him sitting there, his legs dangling over the edge, and it was them I promised him I'd do whatever it took to make sure he never looked like that again.

Bathed in the light from the full moon, he looked like the Angel he was. His wings: Feathers falling from the collar of his jacket as the wind picked up, tossling his hair to make it more unruly. (I wonder where he got that from.)

He didn't even notice I was there, too wrapped up in his own world, before I sat down next to him. I wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him close, offering the shelter to cry that he needed.

You should have heard him, it was heart wrenching. The stories of his past he told, of lovers, of friends, of duty he never asked for. He just wanted to be a normal teen, no more responsibility than taking the garbage out and washing the dishes.

It was then I'd noticed the scars on his arms, from where his jacket had ridden up. Had nobody noticed the pain he was in? Did nobody care?

He was weak, Raine. And I was weak. But there was no other way. I wanted to give him my strength, the strength to continue to save the world. We all had hope in him, and it was up to me to remind him to have hope in himself.

I kissed him.

More than a father.

More than a friend.

It was something I had to do. And will probably do again. And you'll probably kick my ass for it when I finally get up there.

But there was something that my mother told me before she died, wiping the tears from my eyes as the light from hers faded.

Angels shouldn't cry.

I hope you'll forgive me in time, for this. But, this is for the best.

For now.

I think you know it's right too...

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