In the end it wasn't he who found her. She found him. Well, 'found' may not be the correct word. 'Found' indicated that he had been lost, which wasn't the case at all. She knew where he was, always. She never lost him, and so she didn't find him. She simply decided it was time they met up again.

He certainly never found her. It wasn't due to a lack of effort. He tried, spent every hour thinking about her, trying to find her, detecting basically. But the closest he ever came to finding her was when he was following her trail of destruction. And that wasn't difficult. It was hard to miss a burning city, or the flooding one that replaced it minutes later. She left a trail for him, knowing he was following, simply because she found him amusing and liked him following her. 'Makes a girl feel all special inside,' she crooned once. He couldn't disagree. She was special. She was Darquesse. She was Valkyrie. She was one of a kind.

She held his heart and held his mind. Quite frankly, that made her the most important thing in Skulduggery's world.

And amongst many of his failed attempts to find her, she found him. Here, on this mouldy wooden bench in some park in Australia, they sat side by side, as if she hadn't nearly torn the world apart just because, and as if he hadn't done almost just as much trying to find her. With the sunshine and the birds as their witness, it was almost as if they had never been apart. But they had. It was evident in the way they were. She in an ironic, lovely white sundress very much appropriate for this quaint little park, and he in a dark combat uniform not unlike the Special Air Service, hidden beneath a large tan coat that made it all the more obvious that he was a detective. His facade was a middle aged man with thin lips, wide eyes and dark hair greying at the temples. It may or may not have been modelled slightly after a certain millionaire playboy superhero that flew around in an iron suit... Back when those things mattered.

She liked it, he could tell right away.

"Hello, handsome," she said sweetly, which told him that he was not yet speaking to his Valkyrie.

"Don't do that. You've never managed to pull off the sweet little lady act, though I applaud you on your effort."

She pouted and her toned shoulders drooped. Then, as if she remembered that she was wearing a dress, she straightened and daintily adjusted her dress. She flipped her hair and the tips brushed his shoulder.

"Such a killjoy today. What's got your panties in a twist?"

"End of the world, Darquesse rising and all that. The usual."

He looked at her sideway, noting how she formed an 'o' with her lips, as if she was genuinely surprised that those things were a worry for him.

"Well, that shouldn't stop you from telling me how beautiful I look."

"Do you need me to tell you? You should know."

"I like hearing you say it. So?"

He sighed.

"Darquesse, you look absolutely magnificent today. I must admit, it's very rare that I get to see you in something other than blood covered leather. Very refreshing."

She wasn't deterred, instead she grinned at him. That grin.

"I knew you'd like it. So, what's on the agenda today?"

"Stopping you. Perhaps get my Valkyrie back if I'm lucky."

Darquesse paused. She really was a lovely sight to behold. Where had she picked up this little white dress? Surely she didn't take it off the corpse of dead girl somewhere.

"Your Valkyrie," she repeated with a curl on her glossed lips. "Is she yours?"

"Yes," he said without pause. There would be no lying around Darquesse.

She sniffed, stood from the bench and did little twirls, admiring her dress. "I could be yours too."

"Perhaps I don't want you."

As soon as he spoke the words, his ribs contracted, and he slumped on the bench, letting out a quiet, tormented groan. And then the pain let up, and he learned his lesson.

"Don't be so rude," she muttered distractedly, picking at a leave stuck at the bottom of her dress. "You used to be so funny. What happened to you? Oh... Right, I happened to you. Sorry, sometimes I forget you don't like me much, and that I'm the reason you're all serious all the time now. Or maybe it's your dead family. I still don't know how over them you are."

"Ah, yes, thank you for reminding me."

"Oh, crap. Seriously? I am so sorry, Skulduggery!"

Skulduggery took in her wide, horrified eyes, her lips slack with surprise and her hands rose in mid-air, as if about to touch her apology onto his person. And he laughed.

"Ass," she said with a well-aimed punch to his arm.

For a very long time they sat together, silently. Neither of them knew how long Valkyrie was here for, or why Darquesse suddenly let her out. All they wanted to do was cherish this moment, the few moments that Skulduggery chased Darquesse around the world for. A couple of times a year, where it was just the two of them. He chased them for this. It didn't escape him that this was the pain Darquesse promised him, the slow torture that would eventually break him. He couldn't bring himself to care yet. Not yet.

"Think you hurt her feelings," Valkyrie eventually said, slumping sideways into him, resting her dark head on his armoured shoulder. "She has a weird crush on you."

"Of course. Who could blame her? I certainly don't blame her. Do you blame her?"

Valkyrie laughed, and Skulduggery was victorious.

"How is everyone? Those... Those who aren't dead, I mean."

"They're alive-"

"No shit."

"- but now is not the time for you to be thinking of them. Let's focus on you. What would you like to do today?"

"I don't know. Let's go find a kangaroo and stare at it."

"Wonderful idea. Where shall we start?"

Their day ended with the setting of the sun after hours of staring at random animals and an unhealthy amount of ice cream. The town had long been evacuated, the ice cream Valkyrie ate stolen from abandoned shops at a petrol station.

"Petty crimes. I cannot believe I've been reduced to this," Skulduggery complained. "The things I do for you, love."

"You've done worse for me and you know it. I don't know why you're complaining. Oh gees, look at what I'm wearing."

"Nonsense. You look stunning."

"Are you blind? That mutant koala ate half my dress! And those kangaroos threw poop at me!"

"It's artistic."

"And then I dropped ice cream all over it. This isn't a dress anymore. It's a hazard to my eyes and the environment."

"Don't be so dramatic."

Valkyrie glared at him, waited til he took a few steps so that he was ahead of her, and threw herself at his back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her strong legs around both his body and arms. Skulduggery staggered.

"Oh god," he muttered. "Please do get off me. You're getting your filth all over me and that is unacceptable."

"It's artistic!"

"Absolutely revolting."

"No, I'm beautiful!"

"Your dress is so horrendous it's just about to raise the dead!"

"You're dead!" She claimed with glee, grabbing onto his jaw and turning his head, smacking a loud kiss onto his temporal bone.

Skulduggery merely sighed, giving up on shrugging her off. "You're ridiculous," he said fondly.

"You love me."

"Only sometimes."

He freed his arms from her hold and wrapped them around her legs, giving her the piggyback ride she always enjoyed. With her on his back, he took them to the small motel on the edge of the town.

"What are you wearing?"

"Modern armour. I think Saracen stole a bunch of them from the SAS."

"It's cool."

"I know."

Valkyrie grew quieter with each building they pass. By the time they entered the abandoned motel; she was practically boneless, slumped completely on Skulduggery's back and shoulders.

"I'm tired," she whimpered.

"I know. It's only a little while longer."

In a room he found unlocked, he gently deposited her on to the bed and sat himself on the edge of it. And while she drifted off into sleep, he held her hand. He held her hand for a very, very long time.

Then he let go, stood and shrugged off the tan coat. From one of the many pouches attached to his legs he took out a dagger and held it above Valkyrie Cain's chest. And there he held himself for several hours, like a statue.

He only plunged the dagger down when Darquesse woke from her poisoned slumber, but like a dozen times before, the sequencing was off. The poison was perhaps too weak, the way he plunged the dagger too wrong. Maybe the temperature of the room was off too, maybe he hesitated without realising. Whatever happened, he has failed to kill Valkyrie Darquesse once more, even with a God Killer in his hands. And he was both devastated and relieved. Relieved still when Darquesse gripped his throat and threw him out the window.

And off they went again.

Another round in this vicious cycle they've developed.

"Give Valkyrie back to me."

Leave me a review if you'd like! I wrote this 3 days before the Dying of the Light comes out. I am not prepared for the pain. Oh god, I only hope for these two to end up happy, and not dead.