6A/N: I've re-done this one-shot because it, well, needed to be redone. This is my first Root/Holly and I hope you enjoy it. I do not have a beta so all of the mistakes are mine. I apologize for the italics, but I thought they were useful in expressing how he feels.
Disclaimer: If I wrote these books, Root would still be alive and Holly wouldbe allergic to holly because let's face it, it's funny.
There were so many chances I had to tell her. So many times I opened my mouth only to have her take my breath away once again. She was, to me, perfect and I hated her for it. I was perfectly honest when I told her why I was so hard on her, it was because she was a girl well that's the tip of it if I'm being honest. She was the girl, the girl who took my heart away from me and put it on ice. She's just a child and yet...she is perfect.
I am, was, so much older than her it would have never worked; and if I hadn't seen the look, that damn look she gave me when she thought I wasn't watching I would have never considered it. It's funny now that I look back on it as if there was ever a time I wasn't watching her.
Of course, Vinyaya always got a real kick out of it; watching me stop mid-sentence whenever she came in, always late. I would kick the Council member out of my office just to make ready for her when she would walk by my door as fast as possible, not that I blame her.
I was a...well, I was never very nice to her. Not in-person anyways, after all I did save her badge quite a few times. I was not made Commander by being soft but I had hoped well, I don't know what I hoped for. As if she could ever love me, but I really was going to tell her one day. I was going to tell her how I felt. What a sickening word: felt.
You have to understand, I almost did it so many times, but Trouble or that wannabe Cudgeon would walk by and I would lose my nerve. Me! The greatest Commander in LEP history, losing his nerve around a girl. (That's not me speaking by the way, it's just what Trouble and Vinyaya would say in-between their laughter after I well, after I lost my nerve.)
I wanted to tell her after she woke up from the troll attack, but she looked into my dirt brown eyes with those hazel ones of hers and all I could think about was, what if I had lost her, and that made me angry. Or when...oh, there were so many times, but something always got in the way! Like that little mudman brat Fowl in the D'Arvit! I'm straying from the target, I mean subject.
I did tell her, in a way, I told her that I was proud of her but then I thought of how fatherly that made me sound and that made me think of how old I was and...and it was a good thing those officers were right out-side to scream at. Right before she shot me (oh, that sounds just lovely doesn't it?) I just knew I was going to say it, I opened my mouth and, and I said 'Be well.'
Those were my last words to her! Be well? The one woman I love everything about, the one person I had ever truly cared about that had never (intentionally) hurt me and the only heartfelt things I can think of are 'I'm proud of you' and 'be well'? Well that's not really true, I can think of tons of things, I'm just not brave enough to say it.
Even now as I watch her from the monitor showing her 'prison'. Even as she cries over my death, as she watches my 'body' be given to the earth it came from, I know I cannot tell her. I am 'dead' now. A member of the 'Guardian Unit' deep within the LEP. Have you figured it out yet? I was saved by what you mudmen would call 'dark magic' and am now a Guardian. Ironically I will watch over her and yet I will never have another chance to tell the gi-no, the woman I love that while I may be her Guardian, she will always be my angel.
Well, that's it. I know not everyone will like it, or even review, but I couldn't get it out of my head. I posted it as soon as it was written down really, so the original had a lot of stupid mistakes. I hope this is better. You probably think Root is OOC but, the man did just get shot by the woman he loves and now won't be able to talk to her for the rest of his long life...or will he? Thank you for reading and have a great day!