:I own nothing but my own imagination.

:Hope you have all enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it, and thanks for reviewing, it really means the world for me.

Echo: 10

"I'll end it all for you Marian, and for you too Vince."

Vince squinted up at his father in pain as he coughed against the pain. He had no idea what was going on, waking up to blinding pain although it felt like he had only just fallen asleep. He also had the most disconcerting loose feeling amongst the pain that did nothing to soothe his already fractured nerves.

"Vince! Vince speak to me are you ok?" Vince heard Howard's desperate tones cut through his confusion; he swiftly turned his head to see his friend cuffed to the wall and looking distraught.

"Howard!" Vince called out thankfully and tried to turn his body to get up, only to find he couldn't move his limbs past a certain amount. Looking down in panic he saw chains tying him to the floor.

"What's going-!"

"I've waited too many years to finish this charade Vince, I'm not going to wait any longer." Jacques interrupted sternly, causing Vince to jump and desperately squirm to try and get away from the proximity of his father.

"Leave him alone! He's your son for pity's sake!" Howard pleaded, nearly in tears.

Vince froze, looking up at the man that had tried to let him die all his life, and then looking over at the man that had done all he could ever do to save him, who would even now plead for him. Tears formed in Vince's own eyes.

"Howard." He muttered, remembering that first time he had seen Howard, seeing something he would later register as kindness in his eyes. Kindness he could not remember seeing before then. The vast difference in Howard to anything he had ever before encountered made him take those first painful and tentative steps down to freedom.

That genuine care and worry in Howard's eyes was the same if more intensified today as it was back then when the plan pony had broken his ankle. Howard met Vince's eyes, and the gratitude and fear and hope and pain that passed between them then, at what seemed like it was going to be the end of all things said more then any words they had ever uttered.

"Oh no, you're not going to get to die like that." Vince and Howard snapped their attention back to the man who had now moved to nearer the portal.

"You should remember, remember all the things that happened here, all the pain you caused me, all the annoyances. Your life really will flash before your eyes before you die."

"Not if I can help it." Came a determined monotone from the door. The three people spun around as much as they could to see Bollo give a great monkey yell and enter the room followed by a smaller figure.

"What! Who is it now!" Jacques screamed as Bollo ripped Howard's cuffs off the wall.

"I'm Naboo that's who." The puma answered proudly, Bollo pulling the chains that held Vince out of the floor.

"Is that so, well no ones messing everything up this time, not now!" As the man screamed the room shook hard enough to send the four friends to the floor and scatter them again. A huge rift appeared between the five people and the portal and it flashed violently.

"Watch out!" Vince screamed as a shadow exploded from the portal into Naboo, knocking him from the room back into the corridor.

"Naboo!" Bollo roared, running after him as more shadows pelted down the corridor after them.

"That's one thing taken care of then." Jacques screamed triumphantly as more shadows and random bursts of light filled the room.

"Howard!" Vince cried as a shadow grabbed Howard by the arms and threw him to the floor.

"Vince!" Howard yelled back desperately as shadows begun to circle and swoop around Vince rapidly, causing wind to whip around the small figure.

"Vince hang on!" Howard yelled, trying to run past the looming shadow only to hit some sort of force field and fall back.

"Oh he wont be able to soon!" Jacques shouted above the wind. "You're going to remember everything Vince! If it's the last thing I do!"

The roaring of the wind reached a tremendous height and Howard and Vince struggled to keep standing.

"Don't you remember it Vince? That first time I tried to carry out her wish; I pushed you down the stairs didn't I?! You bounced just like a rag doll and still didn't die, you just broke your arm and hit your head!" He screamed into the wind.

Vince gasped as he saw the moment clear as day, the stairs and then a weightless feeling before the stairs rushing towards him, blinding pain coursing through him. Only when the memory ended, the pain stayed.

Howard watched Vince scream as two shadows whipped past him; mealy knocking him over as a terrible cracking sound filled the room.

"No!" He screamed, once again running forwards and being knocked back. "Vince!"

Vince gasped in pain and clutched his bleeding arm as it hung awkwardly, the bone broken through the skin. He raised his head that felt like it was exploding with pain and stared in disbelief and hatred at his father. Jacques smiled sickeningly.

"And then the next time, when you hadn't eaten when guests were over, one of them had even asked me about you! So I sent you to your room only you put up such a fight that you fell and broke the mirror!"

Vince once again felt the memory replay of his father practically throwing him into the mirror. Once again almost as soon as he had pictured it, searing pain sliced through his unbroken arm and side as he screamed, swaying dangerously as blood begun to darken his top.

"The time I beat you to try again and you coughed up blood!" Accompanied with Jacques's outrage and the helpless memories, forces knocked into Vince just like back then, making him fall to the floor, coughing for air but instead choking on the blood from his damaged lungs.

"Vince please." Howard pleaded the stricken figure, lying coughing on the floor.

The raven-haired man however raised his head in defiance to his father, causing a twitch of anger to deform his face. Slowly and painfully, Vince heaved himself up against the wind and injuries, standing panting in anger of his own.

Howard had never seen Vince so determined, fighting back the only way he could. It wouldn't deter Jacques though, who begun circling Vince himself.

"What about that time you dislocated your shoulder." Jacques stated, letting Vince play out the memory himself. Howard held his breath as Vince yelped in pain and fell to the floor again, groaning in agony of his now completely useless right arm. But he watched as once again to the hatred of his father, Vince staggered to his feet, glaring daggers at the vexed man.

"Go Vince." Howard muttered, partly in pride and partly in fear.

Jacques growled, face pale with dangerous anger as he resumed circling.

"And the time you cut your wrist." He stated, Vince once more crying in pain and hunching over, wrist bleeding, before looking back at him. "The time you sprained your ankle," Vince collapsed to his knees before tripping back to his feet, shaking. "The time you got concussed, the time you trapped your foot, the time you broke your leg!" Jacques screamed, each time Vince fell down before getting back up until his leg wouldn't support him, leaving him kneeling, but still glaring in defiance.

"Why wont you just die!" Jacques screamed at the bloody figure. "If you wont die then your friend will!" Howard suddenly felt his throat tighten as if in a vice, he fell to his knees gasping for air that wouldn't reach his lungs. Howard stared as Jacques laughed manically, and Vince met his eyes, fear written all over those expressive blue orbs.

"NO!" Vince suddenly screamed, Jacques looked round in slight panic as Vince launched himself, broken bones and all into the psychopath. They collided with a heavy thud, falling to the floor and rolling with the momentum.

As soon as they hit the tightness lifted from Howard's throat and he gasped desperately at the sweet air, the shadows fled around the room as the ground shook violently.

Howard stared for a few seconds at the father and son desperately tearing and clawing at each other as they rolled towards the giant crack in the floor. Then sense returned to him as he saw the trail of Vince's blood that led to them.

"Vince!" Howard screamed as he got up and ran towards them, being thrown by the room's tremors as the portal flashed violently.

The two eventually came to stop just before the crack as Vince managed to somehow temporarily overpower his father.

"You should have died! You aren't capable of living!" Jacques screamed up at his son as he twisted, nearly overturning Vince.

"If I'm so stupid then wouldn't I have died already? You could have just given me away! Left me with Brian! You ruined my life! You made me feel stupid! But I'm better then you'll ever be, and if she'd given me a chance then she would've been proud of me! I'm more beautiful then you'll ever be able to see!" Vince yelled, tears mixing with the blood on his face as he tore at and fought the man who he'd feared and loved desperately all these years.

Jacques wouldn't be bettered however, and with a final twist managed to throw Vince over right to the edge of the rift. But when Vince landed violently on his back on the very edge, he kept going and fell down, being scratched by the rocks as he desperately grabbed onto his last hope.

"VINCE!" Howard cried as he saw Vince disappeared over the edge of the cliff as a hand grabbed his ankle.

However, as Vince screamed from the pain on his broken leg and sprained ankle, he managed to grasp onto the wall above him, the sharp weight the stop caused nearly breaking the hold.

Vince's head jerked down to the slipping feeling on his injured leg, and the terrified pleas and utterings of 'no'. Jacques and Vince's blue eyes met for a second in identical looking fear, but opposite thoughts behind it. Jacques' eyes slowly widened as his hand slipped down Vince's ankle because of the blood he had caused to spill.

A final look of utter horror crossed his face before his grasping hand hit thin air, and he fell down into the darkness of his own home, an image of his wife holding their newborn baby with a smile welcoming him into the darkness, his last words of 'I tried my best' to be heard by no one, but the smile on his face as he lay crumpled and instantly dead in his own hall would be seen by all.

"Vince!" Howard screamed as he skidded to the crack, grasping Vince's hand just as it slipped off the ledge. "Hang on." He begged as he got a better grip, at least the room had stopped shaking now, the portal just looking black if Howard had cared to look.

"Howard," Vince breathed in a range of painful emotions, tilting his head up to gaze at the scruffy haired man. Howard stared into the tear filled eyes on the bloody face; Vince's voice was soft and pleading. "Please don't let go." Howard felt a couple of his own tears slip down his face at that.

"Wouldn't dream of it little man." He croaked, before pulling with all his might, dragging Vince over the edge before gently but firmly grabbing him and scooping him up as they sat on the floor, holding him close.

"Its okay Vince, I've got you." Howard sobbed into Vince's hair as the small figure shook violently. After a minute or two Howard managed to draw a semi-steady breath and drew back slightly to look at Vince, softly wiping the tears from under his eyes.

Vince looked a mess, his right arm hung at an awkward angle, his leg too and foot seemed crumpled, his face was bloody and his hair matted. In fact there seemed to be blood everywhere, including the corner of his mouth and his wrist, which Howard hastily wrapped up in a handkerchief he happened to have handy.

He gently wiped the blood from Vince's face as his eyes struggled to focus on him, both from concussion and blood loss.

"There, see, that's better right." Vince attempted a brave little smile, but his eyes fluttered, nearly closing as his weight became too much for him to hold up. Howard held him close as he begun shaking with tremors.

"Shh, its alright Vince, its going to be alright." Howard soothed Vince's fractured mind and broken body, gently stroking his raven hair as he coughed.

Howard was worried beyond reason, not only about Vince but Naboo and Bollo too, but he was afraid to move Vince, especially as he no longer seemed to be able to see straight.

Vince's eyes drifted between open and closed, threatening to roll back as they moved loosely. Howard smoothed the fringe away from his face as he muttered inconsequential things to him, coaxing life into the darkening eyes and paling skin.

For a few seconds Vince managed to struggle slightly back to consciousness, looking up at Howard as their eyes met again.

Blurry brown eyes met by glazed blue ones. This time Vince did manage a smile, just as dizzy, if not as big, as usual.

"I'm glad its you here Howard." Vince mumbled out softly, meaning every word of it.

"I'm glad it's me too." He replied gently, stroking Vince's hair comfortingly as his eyes fluttered again.

To be together at the end of everything, that was the most important thing in the world, whether they lost or won, made it or not, this long night was just for them. That's how they needed each other, and that meant the world.

Howard however, still had to watch in despair as Vince's breaths became steadily more sluggish, the pulse at his neck further apart every time as the handkerchief stained crimson.

"You can't stop fighting now Vince, you've always fought them, I wouldn't have felt alive again if you hadn't fought." Howard pleaded, stroking Vince's lax face as his eyes struggled to comprehend the words, or see anything in focus.

"We'll get out, we always do right?" Howard asked his silent audience, tears tripping down his face as Vince's eyes faltered again and closed more.

The two sat like that, caught up in each other until Howard could no longer keep Vince awake, his eyes closing and meager weight sagging completely onto the distraught Howard.

"No, Vince please no." He pleaded, aware he should be screaming, running, dragging Vince to a hospital, but for some reason something held him in place.

For Vince, this was still his home, however terrible it was. And that was his father that had just died, no matter how messed up he was.

Vince had no family, no home, no strength and no stability. Did he really want to keep fighting and leave? What if Vince really was content to just die here, to leave his tortured life behind?

Howard looked high up into the ceiling above him, and was amazed to see that the rift had also cracked open the roof of the mansion and that he was looking up to see a cool nights sky accompanied by the most beautiful full moon he had ever seen.

"Come on Vince, you must at least want to see the moon one last time, I know you would've wanted that." Howard spoke quietly, partly to Vince and partly to the whole beautiful world that Vince would have loved to see.

"Yeah, I did." Howard jumped and looked down in shock to see Vince's pale face showing half open blue eyes. The light of the far off moon brightened Vince's eyes and they practically shone in the darkness as he smiled dizzily at Howard.

"I ain't done just yet, we've got all those tuna fish coming on Monday remember." Howard laughed in amazement at this stunning creature in his arms and his still genuine excitement about the impending tuna fish even as he shook badly.

"Yeah, yeah I remember. Just, don't let go all right Vince." Howard asked, meaning so many things. Vince just smiled softly, his eyes drifting shut again.

"Howard, Vince!" Came a lisping voice from the other side of the room.

"Naboo!" Howard yelled thankfully as he and Bollo ran to them looking none the worse for wear. Howard would learn later that they trapped the shadows in the vacuum they had brought, but it was back at the room and that was why they took so long.

Swiftly the gang left the room, Howard accepting surrendering Vince for Bollo to carry. As they passed the entrance hall they skirted around the rest of the keepers and Fossil who were staring at a crumpled form on the floor.

Howard watched carefully as Vince's half open eyes slid over the dead form of his only living relative with unreadable emotion.

A carpet ride and several hospital days for Vince later the four were back at the zoo in their normal routine, Vince having been allowed shaman medicine a few days earlier, earning him a swift recovery.

The day after the tuna fish had arrived, much to everyone's excitement, Howard decided to tell Vince about what he couldn't remember about his past, although the years between Jacques and Bainbridge were still a mystery, but Vince would remember in time.

They sat on the old couch in their hut, Vince with tears in his eyes as he learnt how his life had been created into the nightmare it was. Howard watched him as he struggled to take it all in, shaking with the emotion.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

That night Vince felt his head running in circles so much he couldn't sit still or move for fear of something either happening or not. Would his life always be like this? Discovering more pain and never being able to do anything he really wanted to.

Vince wanted to travel and see other countries and animals outside the zoo, he wanted to do so much with his life that he wouldn't waste the amazing luck he'd been given in first surviving and then finding Howard and Naboo and Bollo.

The problem was he couldn't see himself doing it.

Feeling trapped in the small walls of the hut, Vince leapt up and ran out of the house, only bothering to put on a coat over his pajamas. He ran as far and long as he could to get away from his strangled thoughts and echoing memories. Ran as far as he could before he finally collapsed on a small grassy hill, staring into the night, only just then realizing he had put on Howard's brown jacket, and for once not caring.

He stayed there for hours until he saw the sky begin to lighten with the beginning of day. He felt empty and drained, having not managed to cry a single drop of a tear to help his fractured mind.

Just as he was thinking he should go back incase Howard was worried he heard a small scuffling sound. Turning around he saw a cat creeping up to him before it sat itself purposefully on his lap.

"What's your problem Hun, bet you don't have four tom's chasing you round town." The cat purred as she made herself welcome and started licking her paw.

"I just think, maybe, I can't do anything." Vince answered, stroking the pretty tortoishell.

"Well what makes you do things then." She purred out good naturedly, lying on her back to have her stomach scratched.

"Well um, Howard I guess, he made me go down the stairs." Vince answered thoughtfully.

"Then it sounds like you should go find him Hun, I've got to go catch a mouse." The cat purred finally before stretching and slinking off back into the bushes.

"Thanks kitty!" Vince called out after it as he got up and launched himself back down the hill, the sudden urge to reach Howard now all-consuming.

Vince ran even faster then the night before, sprinting back to the Zooniverse as if chased. He dashed past the slowly stirring animals and keepers as he ran to the hut.

Howard was awoken by a sudden weight falling on top of him. He looked up blearily to see a panting Vince and immediately sat up.

"Vince, what's going on, are you ok?" Howard questioned, hand on Vince's shaking shoulder before suddenly being attacked into a Vince-hug.

"I think I was lonely." Vince mumbled into his shoulder, and Howard smiled and gave a little laugh.

"Well, you've found me now, lets try and get some sleep alright?" Howard suggested, lying back on his bed and offering Vince the covers.

Vince snuggled into Howard, feeling more complete and happy then he had in a long time. Howard had saved him from his eternal loneliness and desire for affection, and he would never let that go again.

It was time he got to enjoy his life, and time the world realised he deserved it.

:Wow that was a long time to finish for a story spanning approximately a week. Thank you for all the beautiful reviews, they really do mean the world for me. I want to dedicate Echo and Dizzy to everything that has inspired me, and to one of my friends, who will never read this and ill therefore never know, ha.

:Once again you've been gorgeous, like a giant shiny toy penguin, and please let me know what you thought.

:Thanks for reading, shadowtheo.