A/N: I made some stupid mistakes on my calc and physics quizzes, so I'm posting this to make myself feel better. Another angst-fest (I think I'm addicted), but I just thought of it and I'm posting it. Apologies in advance for inconsistencies and grammar/punctuation errors - I'm stressed and should be working. I also fell down half a flight of stairs and injured my right ankle and left knee. Ouch. On that rather cheerful note, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Not that there's much in here that really belongs to anyone but me, but I don't own this beautiful fandom or its characters. If I do actually own it, please let me know so I can throw a party and quit school.

It is a stormy night. Lightning flickers outside his window, revealing all in a shock of blinding white before clothing the world in darkness. He is grateful for the darkness. It hides his scars, old pains and new. It is where he is most comfortable – for in his world, to be seen is to die. But there are moments, moments where he yearns for the warmth of a yellow sun high in the sky, tinting the horizon a cheerful mix of oranges and reds and pinks. For while the darkness is safe, it is also incredibly lonely – and to stay in the darkness for too long is to lose who he is forever.

It is a thin line he treads, between the light and the dark, falling one way only to suddenly lean the other. A thin line, and dangerous, and he can feel himself slipping. It would be only too easy, he knows, to give himself up to one side or the other instead of walking continuously in twilight as spies are wont to do. But he cannot bring himself to fall. In the light, he would be too exposed, too vulnerable, and the years of lying and hiding would not permit him to be carefree. The dark, on the other hand, would swallow him until nothing was left, and he would disappear as just another spook – just another name to be forgotten. So he walks in the shadows, dappled light highlighting a sharp cheekbone here; a tormented pair of eyes there. He is visible to some, invisible to many, and while he may wish it were not so, it is truly the safest path for him to walk.

Knowing that the gloom will keep him safe, however, does not stop him from longing for the sunny days of his childhood, where business trips were simply business trips and injuries were explained away as accidents. It does not stop him from remembering a woman with fiery hair and the man with quiet features and eyes that shone with love for his young nephew. It does not stop him from remembering days of playing in the park with a pair of laughing blue eyes and perpetually ruffled black hair. It does not stop him from remembering the day everything changed.

He remembers, and he walks in the dusk. His enemies fear him, his allies are wary of him, and there are none he calls friends. Life is as it should be, and yet eternally wrong for he is too young for this job and too old for this world and too tired to do anything about either. So he lingers, and he watches, and he kills and maims and is a hero, his eyes dulled by horrors and ancient with pain. He is the world's greatest secret and also its worst kept one, and one day, the light and the dark will desert him and all that he has known will disappear (he dreams of that day, sometimes). But until that day comes, he walks the shadowed path and waits.

Feedback is always appreciated! I want to know what you think so that I can get better.

Note: after looking up synonyms of the word 'shadow,' which I had originally used about seven times, I discovered a love for the word 'gloaming.' I think it's pretty fabulous, so I'm off to go look at images of it featured in different fonts and sizes. Don't forget to review!

hugs,

-nrynmrth