Title: Time After Time

Synopsis: "First off, you didn't kill me. And, as a matter of fact, dying hurts a whole hell of a lot worse than feeling guilty. And guess what? I died. Slowly and painfully. So stop complaining." /Oz, Jack and Elliot-centric/

Rating: K+

A/N: I've been working on this since May and I've sort of given up on trying to edit it anymore. It haunts me, this piece. So just read it. Okay? Okay. Because I'm sick of working on it. Yes, there will be mistakes, but at least it'll be off my conscious.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts, its characters or anything affiliated with it.

...

"If you fall, I will catch you. I'll be waiting time after time."

-Cyndi Lauper

…

Sleeping was the worst part. Oz read once that it took a person approximately seven minutes from when they shut their eyes until they actually fell asleep. Those seven minutes were the worst seven minutes of his day, the most dreaded seven minutes of torture that came at him no matter what he did, no matter how he tried to repent. At any other time of day, he could find something else. He could talk to Alice, read a book, run around, do something. Elliot would sometimes find his way into Oz's mind, of course, but a few shakes of the head could expel those thoughts as he tried to continue his life.

But for those seven minutes, there was no escape. There was no light in the room to stare at until all he could focus on was the pain in his eyes. There were no books to read so that he could momentarily forget about his life by living vicariously through a fictional character. There was no one there to talk to; no Alice and no Gilbert and especially no Elliot.

Some nights, he would just relive that day over and over until he would fall asleep. A coming-of-age ceremony was supposed to be one of the greatest nights of a young man's life. Both times he had tried to have one, it had been a complete disaster ending in misery. And each time that misery cut him with new depth that he had thought impossible. But of course, he had now completed a ceremony. There would be no others. So he was a 'man' now and he could go out into society, but that was not worth the price he had paid for it. Nothing could be worth the price of Elliot.

Knowing he can't wait any longer, Oz slipped into his bed, trying not to wrinkle the sheets, trying not to change a thing about it. He thought that maybe, if he could get in quickly and cleanly, he would fall asleep sooner. No wasting time writhing around trying to get comfortable, no wasting time messing with the blankets. He would slip under, fall asleep, and hopefully wake-up no worse for the wear.

But it didn't happen that easily. It never did. Instead he sat there, eyes forced shut, thinking about Elliot. Wondering if he danced with any girls at the party that night, and if so, what did they think when they heard that he died? What did the girls at his school think? And Ada. He had conveniently forgotten about his sister. She had spent so long trying to get him out of the Abyss; was having Oz back worth it just to see her classmate die? A boy who she respected and heralded as being such a worthy person?

Oz believed himself to be scum; his life meant nothing compared to Elliot's.

Ignoring his own guilt and self-hatred, he blamed himself more for the misery of others. He blamed himself for Leo; he blamed himself for the reports he received every day from Pandora members telling him that every day Leo seemed a little less sane, a little more unstable.

What killed him, though, is the fact that he wasn't there with Leo. He wasn't doing anything to help. Of course, Pandora would have never let him get near to Leo, but that didn't change the fact that Oz was too afraid to even try to go near someone who he had considered to be a friend. He couldn't possibly have faced Leo; he couldn't have faced the possibility that he would be blamed for Elliot's death. No one else would ever say the words aloud, but if anyone deserved to, it was Leo. Oz had taken a friend away from himself; he had taken Leo's entire world away.

And it was with these thoughts that he eventually drifted off into sleep, expecting to have nightmares the entire time. It wasn't fair if it were easy; he should be as tortured as he possibly could be.

…

He was in a room, a room that was familiar, like a distant, half-forgotten memory or something like that. "Déjà vu?" he asked himself as he wandered about, carefree. He couldn't place the location. And since it was in his dream, the place didn't come as a clear picture. Bits and pieces of a room sat steady in his vision—a stone wall to the north, a tall, free-standing candelabra near a bed—while others flashed in the corner of his eyes, only to disappear when he looked that way.

Oz walked around the room, trying to touch everything that he could, trying to make the picture clearer by feeling the pieces and trying to make them connect with one another. But no matter how many times he reached out for something, it would disappear or move away from him. Some items vanished under his fingertips only for Oz to find the object a few centimeters out of his reach. He toyed with this, dashing across the room to touch one object, only to reach out for another one at the last second. He found he could not outsmart his own dream, but it made for a modicum of amusement in his confusion.

"Enjoying yourself, shorty?"

The blood in Oz's veins grew cold in an instant. If it had been any other voice in the world, he would have been able to smile and make some kind of witty—or at least cute—remark like always. But the voice that called to him was the one voice that could possibly make him grow colder than if he were to see his own father. It was unmistakable; it was the voice of his darkest nightmares, come to haunt him again.

"Oz?" Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. It wasn't Elliot. That voice was not his. This voice was familiar and warm, though, like Elliot's, it wasn't of this world. But it was not Elliot's. Oz drew his arms around himself, holding himself together. How terrifying it was to hear Elliot, if only for a moment. "Oz, can you hear me?" Elliot's voice had never inspired dread in Oz before his death. "Say something, Oz." Never had it, or anything else, caused Oz to feel so cold, or so alone. "Oz!" So alone. So cold.

"Jack?"

Jack sighed with relief. "I thought I had lost you for a moment there." Oz did not turn around; he did not look at Jack. He could only focus on holding himself together, if only for just one more moment. "You're shaking," Jack said, kneeling down behind Oz with his hands on the boy's shoulders.

Oz's voice was barely audible. "You would, too."

"Tell me what happened, Oz." So much of himself was in the boy. So much that it made Jack sick to see the nightmares that Oz had inherited. There was nothing to blame himself for, but still Jack wished that he could somehow ease the boy's pain.

The world shook around Oz as he joined Jack on the ground. "I am haunted," he said with no melodrama. "And I have no desire to…" How could Oz word what he wanted to say? That he wanted to hear Elliot's voice again? That in that moment he had found such a sick pleasure that he would kill himself to hear it again? Jack would not understand. Alice had not understood, neither had Gil. They both walked along with Oz, trying to support him but failing to do so. Both giving a valiant effort in vain. "Elliot…" Oz whispered.

Jack frowned. He had no more tears to use, but if he did, they would have been shed at the sight of this lonesome boy. "It wasn't your fault," he said, knowing those were the words that Oz wanted least to hear.

"I don't understand it," Oz said, pulling his body in. "Why him?"

"The Abyss doesn't care who it takes." Jack let go of Oz. "It chooses indiscriminately and kills the same way. If your friend was chosen to be a—"

Oz's head whipped back, exposing desperate eyes with the dark rings of sleepless nights circling them. "He was not my friend!" he shouted, voice so hoarse that it sounded more like a sob than a plea. "Don't call him my friend," Oz said, turning back around, burying his head in his hands. "I don't deserve that."

From somewhere unknown, Jack felt a cold breeze that sent a shiver down his spine. Jack had been somewhere far away, buried within Oz's subconscious, only feeling the pain of Oz, but not truly knowing why. After seeing what had happened to the young boy, Jack wished he could retreat back into that subconscious. Looking into a mirror and trying to fix the flaws you saw was sometimes the hardest thing to do.

But he yearned to try to help. He was not going to run. But what could he say? He remembered what it was like, those days after Glen was gone and before he had split his soul apart for the sealing stones. He had been the creator of watches and music boxes. He had felt like every movement was clockwork; made just for the sake of going forward. There was no beauty that did not remind him of his fallen friend and no ugliness that did not remind him of himself. And that was the pain of someone who had committed an injury against someone who was in the wrong.

Oz's friend had been innocent—was there no way for Oz to ever return to some kind of normalcy?

"I try to forget," Oz said after a grand pause. "But I never can. Every night he haunts me. But he's not even there. It's just me. I'm just… I just can't forget about him. No matter what I do, he's on my mind. Him or something having to do with him." Oz stared down at his hands. "And all I hear about his him. How Leo keeps admitting to the things that had happened and how I did nothing because I knew nothing." He clenched those hands into fists. "I would have done everything I could if I had known." He thought about the conversation he and Leo had before the headhunter—before Elliot—had come and destroyed everything. Could he have killed Leo? No. But for Elliot, he would have done so much. "But I never had any idea. Not until he…"

Oz stood up and ran across the room, trying to destroy something, but as a cruel joke, as soon as he reached the table that was to be his target, it disappeared. There was a chuckle from somewhere. "Idiot," it said, not without affection.

"Come out," Oz pleaded. "Tell me that it is all a lie."

No one spoke.

Strangely enough, Oz, too, had run out of tears. Or perhaps, Jack thought, Oz didn't shed them for a reason. Maybe this friend was not enough to shed tears over and the guilt that Oz felt was for the death, and not for the taking of life…

But no. Jack shook his head. That could not be the answer.

The despair that he saw in the boy was the same kind of despair that plagued those who truly hated themselves for what they had done. Taking a life was one thing. An unforgivable sin, yes, but one that could be overlooked. Taking the life of an evildoer with no name or face or backstory could be forgiven by your own mind. Taking the life of an evildoer who you know and have always known to be evil was another thing. Momentary guilt, perhaps, but the knowledge that the world was a better place without that person than with it should be enough.

But a friend.

"Shh," Jack said. "It's just a nightmare."

Oz shook his head. "Everything is a nightmare. Daytime, nighttime, life, itself. I don't—"

"You can't keep doing this." Jack walked around to face Oz's front. He put one of his gloved hands on the boy's face. "Life must go on." Oz shook his head; Jack took his face in both of his hands. "No matter what you feel, you cannot run away. Take these feelings and grow, Oz. Do not be a coward. Move forward. Keep going. You…" Oz's eyes had grown wide at his words; scared and unsure. His pale face grew even paler as he backed away from Jack's touch. "Don't," Jack said. "Don't shy away—"

Oz shook his head, laughing quietly. "You and him… Are very similar," he said. "And he was… Very kind to me. Not like you, but… Well, I guess like him." The smallest of smiles tugged at Oz's lips. "He was not someone who liked to admit to being kind," he continued. "But he was." Had Oz said these words already? He didn't know. But remembering Elliot was… not as bad as he thought it would be. "And when I think about him, I'm happy." He paused. "Because I loved him." All traces of Oz's smile vanished. "And I still do. He was my friend."

All of this back and forth in Oz's emotions was as familiar to him as it was confusing. What hurt worst, though, was how Jack knew that no matter what he did, no matter what he said, there was nothing he could do to ease the pain. It would be a slow process, one that even a hundred years could not make you able to forgive yourself completely. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Oz," he said. "I'll catch you…" There was no way to say it without sounding trite, but he said it anyway. "When you fall. So please, if you need to, fall."

Tears streamed down Oz's face.

"Finally." It wasn't Jack who said it. "Finally," the voice repeated with a smile. "You've let me in."

Oz's chest heaved with silent sobs. "What…" He choked. "Do you mean?"

Jack watched the boy in his white school uniform shake his head as he walked over to Oz. "I mean," he said. "That you remembered who I was."

Oz wiped the tears off of his cheeks. "I always remembered who you were, Elliot." He bit his lip. "But I didn't want to. It hurts so bad, Elliot. I have no reason to complain, but it—"

Elliot wacked the boy against the head with a gloved hand.

"Don't talk nonsense," he said. "First of all, you didn't kill me. Second of all, dying hurts a hell of a lot more than guilt. And guess what, shorty? I died. Slowly and painfully. And the only person there with me was Vincent. And Vincent is a creep. A full fledged creep. And he was the only one who knows my last words—or at least, I think—which bothers me a lot. I wish I had at least been able to die around people I liked."

Jack stared at the ranting boy with wide eyes.

"And more so, if someone has a reason to feel guilt, it's me. So shut the hell up. I killed almost my entire family. And yeah, they're okay with it now that we're all together again, but it still sucks looking at my brothers and knowing that, firstly, they wanted to kill Leo and Gilbert and… well… Vincent, too, but that doesn't matter quite so much… But yeah. They wanted to kill them. And secondly, the fact that I cut their heads off and then forgot about it. Yeah. Can't forget about that, can I?"

Oz stared at the ranting boy with wide eyes, perhaps rivaling the wide eyes of Jack, who continued staring at the ranting boy with wide eyes.

"So, yeah. You feel sort of guilty. But you didn't even kill me. You know what killed me? Rejecting my chain. And it was really epic, too. I probably looked really cool. So deal with that. In fact, revel in that. You weren't even good enough to kill Elliot Nightray." Elliot sighed, crossing his hands over his chest. "When will you ever learn?" he asked. "And you know what I'd be doing if I were you?" Oz shook his head. "I would go hug my sister," he said. "Because you never know when you'll be the cause of her death. And then I would go to my useless servant and tell him that I care about him and it wasn't just the chain that had possessed me for his sake that made me care about him." Oz knew that his situation with Gilbert was different, but appreciated the sentiment, nonetheless. "And then I would stand up to my father and… Then I'd read a lot of books." The smallest hint of a smile tugged at Elliot's lips. "I miss books."

Oz let out a small breath, his mouth forming into something dangerously close to a full smile. "I'll write a book about your life, Elliot, and then everyone will—"

"Don't. You. Dare." Elliot spat. "I bet you can't even use grammar. Besides, I'd never want my book to be written by a Vessalius. I may have come to terms with your house, but I would much rather a respectable kind of person write my biography."

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with—"

"Don't start," Elliot said. "This argument will get you nowhere." And then, the strangest thing happened. The two of them laughed. And Jack watched as the very boy that Oz felt such guilt over was the only person who could console him. He did not know by what manner of magic or luck that Elliot could communicate with Oz, but he was glad. This was probably the only thing that could have ever brought Oz back to normal once again. "You're as stupid as ever," Elliot said, flicking Oz on the forehead. "Idiot."

Again they laughed, but when they were done, it was on a more somber note. "Am I ever going to see you again?" Oz asked, trying not to let any hope into his voice.

Elliot smiled with the sadness, Jack thought, of someone much older than his age. "No," he said. "After this I'm leaving for good."

Another tear slipped from Oz's eye, but Elliot made no mention of it. "I'm sorry," Oz said, looking down. "Even if you say that it's not my fault, I'm sorry."

Elliot put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I know," he said. "But you don't need to be. Remember what I told you when we first met, Oz. Walk forward. Okay? Don't waste a moment of your life." He frowned. "I sound so cliché." Oz chuckled and wiped the tears from his cheeks. "Keep walking," he said. "Just keep going."

Oz yawned and without thinking, walked to the bed. Unlike the other furniture, it did not disappear when he touched it. He climbed into it with little fanfare and whispered "Goodnight, Elliot," before falling asleep.

Jack was left alone with the Nightray boy. "Is this your only stop?" he asked him. "Is Oz the only one you want to see?"

The boy's melancholy smile reminded him so much of Oz's. "There is no one left on earth besides him," he began. "And there are two others. One doesn't need me, though, and the other…" The smile faded. "He isn't letting me in. He's more stubborn than Oz is and…"

Jack knew the sound of someone holding back tears. That was the sound that Elliot made as he tried to explain his friend. Jack put a hand on Elliot's shoulder. "Go on," he said. "Don't let yourself be tied down here."

Elliot nodded and faded away.

…

The next morning, Oz woke-up. Rubbing his eyes, he recalled that he had a dream the night before, but could not place his finger on what the dream was about. He ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, put on clothes and did all of those other things that he did every morning. After that, he met with Alice and Gilbert, and laughed a little, made a few smart sounding comments and talked to them about what was planned for the day. Later the group met with Sharon and Break, and they all discussed their next plan of action with Pandora. They all had lunch together at the Reinsworth manor. The tea was very good. That evening he sat and read a book as Alice poked Gil repeatedly, trying to get him to fall into the fireplace. He laughed a bit more.

But there was something different this day. Instead of trying so hard to dispel Elliot from his thoughts, he found himself thinking about Elliot. He would catch himself smiling at the thought of some comment or another that Elliot had made to him at one time. And he would try to feel sad and to despair about the state of the world, but instead, he found himself inwardly celebrating life. His own life, and the life that Elliot had once had. There was no escaping the fact that Elliot was dead; it tugged at Oz, tearing him apart. But since he was dead, there was no reason not to try to remember every moment that Oz had shared with Elliot. Because if he were to let Elliot's memory fade away… That would have been unforgivable.

That night Gilbert approached Oz before he was about to go to bed. "You seemed different today," he said. "Better."

"Better?" Oz muttered, mostly to himself. "Maybe," he said with a smile. "I think maybe."

And that night, for those seven minutes before he fell asleep, Oz smiled at the thought of Elliot. And he wasn't sure, but he felt like Elliot was watching out for him, or something. That maybe, he would be there still if he needed advice. He would fall down someday, but Elliot, no matter where he was or what had happened to him, would always be there to get him to keep going. Time after time.

…

Fin