The wide oak doors of St. Agnes' Cathedral burst open and emitted the first of a laughing couple. Her black shoes clacked against the church's stone steps. The hem of her black skirt swished around her bare knees as she hurried down to the street. She threw her head back, her heart shaped face aglow with a pleasant light. The gentle, balmy breeze teased what golden ringlets of hair had escaped their updo.

And Sera sighed happily.

"W-wow. It's so beautiful o-out here." She gathered the edges of the black wrap circling her shoulders and pulled them taught. Quiet chuckles, more like snickers, slowly reached her ears. She pursed her lips to keep her smile down.

"Scenery's definitely improved since the last time I was out here," Patrick said warmly. She felt the heat of his words wrap around her like a blanket. The hairs on her arms stood on end. She made sure to keep her red face upturned to the stars even when she felt the electricity of Patrick's presence suddenly on her left. The sleeve of his shirt tickled her arm, sending tingles zinging all up and down her nerves.

"Yanno, if you just tell me where you want to go, I could get us there in less than half the time." Patrick brushed the outside of his knuckles along a few curls at her temple.

Sera's eyelids fluttered. She struggled to control her own body. Each oncoming shudder felt like it was going to leave her a puddle of weak knees and goopy flesh. "I d-didn't think we w-wanted to rush. W-we haven't just w-walked alone together in a l-long time. Y-you don't m-mind--" She swallowed, chancing a look up. Patrick's eyes were still pinned to the stars overhead. The angles of his lean face could have been the inspiration of a statue.

After a moment, he turned to face her. The rest of her question died on her tongue. His flaxen hair dripped over his forehead but did nothing to conceal the otherworldy fire in his gaze. It smoldered like the last embers of a fire, never quite losing all its spark. She suddenly felt like the only woman in the world. Her toes curled up in her shiny shoes.

Rushing things didn't seem all that bad of an idea now.

Then--"P-Patrick, what's the m-matter?"

His entire body had frozen, his head whipping around to face northwest. He scowled ferociously into the dark, his mouth clamped shut so tight, she couldn't even see his lips.

"Wh-what happened?" She laid her hand against his arm and squeezed, not surprised to find it as hard as stone.

"Sera," he began. Her throat closed at the gravity of his voice. He sounded rueful, like he didn't want to keep explaining.

"Patrick, d-don't do this to--"

"Sera, go back inside." He touched his warm hand to hers and coaxed her fingers to release him. "Get a room ready with all the usual junk in it. As fast as you can."

Her eyes formed two perfect, grey green circles. She gaped after him as he started down the street. "Patrick, what the h-hell is going on?"

He angled a sideways smile over his shoulder, but she knew him well enough to recognize a grimace when she saw one.

"What do you think?"

He vanished and she wasted no time tearing back up the stairs into the church, the train of her black dress streaming after her like a shadow.

Sera stood in the doorway of one of the many employee dorm rooms and looked around. It was set up almost identically to her own that she shared with her husband and son. But where she had made her own personal adjustments, this room looked nearly as barren as it would if no on was using it.

Toby had no pictures on his wall. There were none of his clothes on the floor. His wardrobe was closed tightly, there had not been any wrinkles in the blankets on his bed. The only mess there had been wasn't even a mess. The chair at his desk was half pulled out. His leather bag was set on its seat. The only thing on the desk's surface was a box. The wood looked rough, not yet sanded, and the hinges were shiny.

Did he make this? She knew he knew how to carve.

She caught her lower lip in her teeth and drew her hand away from the box. He wouldn't snoop through her things if he was here.

But she didn't know what else to do with herself. She'd brought everything she could think of. Bandages, gauze, that emerald green potion Nina was always perfecting. Painkillers if they needed them. Disinfectant, towels, extra blankets. She wasn't sure how she had fit everything on top of Toby's small nightstand. It looked like the aftermath of a small doctor's office explosion.

She had changed into loose jeans and a plain dark t shirt. If there was blood, and there usually always was, she didn't want to see it on herself. She just wanted to be able to do her job.

Was it really horrible of them to just assume that all he did was go out and get himself in trouble? ...But what else happened to him? He usually took care of himself. It was hard enough to figure out that he desperately needed help.

She had never seen anyone with such bad luck.

She ran her hands back over her hair, drying her palms in its curls. She had left it twisted up, the only reminder that she had originally planned to spend a quiet, peaceful evening with her husband. Their lives were already filled with so much blood and so much pain. They could all be over in the blink of an eye, no matter what abilities one had.

She loved that she had found a home in this church. It meant more to her than she feared she was even ready to discover. She could never repay any of the people she had met and who had touched her life. And Toby was one of those people.

But they had spent too much time inside these stone walls lately. They needed to get out more, and they needed to do it without being interrupted.

She sighed and drew the door to Toby's room closed, disgusted with herself. Hadn't she just thought that it only took drastic circumstances for him to even call out for Patrick in the first place? And what if he wasn't alone? What if he was trying to protect someone? Like he always seemed to be doing? And all she could think about was how inconvenient it was for her. They would have other nights together and Patrick was probably annoyed enough for the both of them. She didn't need to feed the negativity.

He had been gone too long, too.

Situations like these always messed with her perception of time, where one minute could sudden feel like one hour. And suffering through each one of those hour long minutes felt like her stomach was trying to twist itself away into nothing. She clasped hands between her breasts and bowed her head as she made her way down the corridor.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name--please. Don't let anything happen to them."

She gulped great wads of the nave's warm air, calming herself as much as she could before she walked out its doors. Once she was out there, there was no going back. Her mind and body would be outside the wards and open for Patrick. Maybe he had been trying to get in contact with her the whole time.

She slid a damp hand around one door handle and drew it open. The wards announced there presence in a camera bulb flash of white-blue light. She held her breath and stepped outside.

It was immediate.

Like a TV that had suddenly had its volume turned up, she heard Patrick's voice inside her mind.

"Sera."

It was so completely raw and full of pain she stumbled, staring blindly into the dark.

"Sera?"

She clutched her t shirt against her heart. He had been crying. What could that mean?

"Sera. If you can hear me, you've got to call--" She swore she heard him clear his throat, then sniff. "--you're got to call Matilda. She needs to come back."

"Patrick--"

"Sera," he said her name meaning to interrupt her with its finality, but instead its brokenness was what silenced her.

And its closeness.

One moment, the bottom of the church's wide, fanning staircase was empty. Then next she was looking down on two figures. Patrick's golden head was inclined, his attention on the lax body laying in his arms. Its head hung too far back, exposing the network of scars across the Adam's apple. Ginger hair lazily shifted along with the night breeze. The both of them were slick with sweat, smudged with dirt and drying blood. Crimson droplets continued to drip from the holes all over Toby's body.

He wasn't moving.

She rushed forward. "P-Patrick, P-P-Patrick, he's not moving." Her hands rushed to Toby's arm, both to halt herself and prove that they were really there before her. This could not be real. "H-He's not moving and he's s-s-so c-cold."

Patrick said nothing, but his golden eyes slid over to meet hers. He slowly shook his head.

"He's n-not m-moving." Her eyes widened when she raised them. She couldn't look away from Toby's ruined eye sockets quickly enough. Her own headshakes were frantic. "No. N-No. P-Patrick, n-no, we can do something. We have to do s-something to h-help--"

"Sera--"

"Y-you told me to call M-Matilda. To help, yes?" She dropped her hands from Toby's arm and wiped her face. Her fingers left a streak of blood and dirt beneath her right eye. "I'll c-call her, a-and--"

"...Sera." Patrick's voice stopped her mid-turn. She looked back over her should, unable to keep her face from twisting up. She could never hide anything from him, even when she was hiding. With just one look, he would tell her that he knew she was lying, he knew there was something wrong, and that he was waiting for her to tell him what it was.

That wasn't the look he had on now.

Now, his own face was tight, the wrinkles in his brow tense, the corners of his mouth turned down. His molten gold eyes were imploring and full of sorrow. He wanted her to understand something this time too. But it was something horrible. Something that he hoped she would understand without his having to say it.

Something they both knew.

"...Baby, it's too late."

It was the same agonized look Toby sometimes wore.

Sera whimpered, stuffed her dirty palm up into her mouth to stifle a sob. She hurried unsteadily away from her husband and their friend in his arms, and back inside the church.

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It was a day.

It was neither too sunny or too cloudy. It was neither too hot or too cold. Not too humid or too dry. It was the sort of day where no one noticed the weather, where they had too much to do to take one moment to look up at the sky and remind themselves that, oh yeah, there was an entire world out there, to be thankful that you could still draw breath, smile for the light of the sun or just because you could.

It was a day. Just another day.

That was the feeling he'd gotten from nearly every single person that stood before him. There were barely any tears, he noticed. Each face was pale and sufficiently tight above their dark funeral clothes but they all stared down on the newest plot in the church's modest cemetery like it was some complicated puzzle they needed to figure out. Why were they all here? Why were they all gathered in the graveyard? Who had dug this hole? Who had been in that coffin they had covered with dirt?

Why were they all holding white roses?

The wrinkles on Matilda's face had always been deep but today they were great crevices in the doughy flesh of her cheeks. Marlena stood on her left, her eyes as wide and wild as her hair. It must have been the chef's hat that always kept it tame. She was wringing an unused tissue into pieces, gaping at the fresh mound of dirt before them like she didn't know what it was.

And Zenny stood on Matilda's right. Her white shirt and red pants stuck out like two sore thumbs among the sea of black clothes. Her hair was down. All the way down. He didn't think he'd ever seen it like that before. Without all the hairpins and decoration it looked like the fine strings of a blue black spiderweb. Only from the bits and pieces that Sera told him did he know that that was what she had worn to his own funeral.

He didn't want to see Agatha or Margaret's faces, but he did. The former looked even more like the gargoyle her moniker followed with her grey pallor and pinched expression, like a great hand had taken her by the face and squeezed. Margaret clucked her tongue, shook her head in disapproval. She had a handkerchief folded daintily in her hand, her pristine red nails bright against the white cloth. Neither of them looked like they wanted to be there, doing this, but had been forced to as if by a power greater than themselves.

Helen stood apart from the entire group but close enough to still be considered included. Her arms were folded tightly over her chest. She wore a long wool coat with a bright red satin lining even though it was almost Summer. The streaks in her hair were too black with fresh dye.

Nina and Erica stood joined at the hip with their hands clasped like they were one being. Nina's face was impassive like always, but Erica's was stricken with horror. Her blue eyes were wide and made perfect circles. He could see the whites around them. She looked too scared to cry.

And then there was Sera. She stood directly across from him, at the foot of the new grave. She didn't know what to do with her hands, whether to clasp them or press her fingers into her mouth to stifle any noise of her sobs. Her face was red and splotchy, her eyes were wet, cheeks stained with the aftermath of tears. Her hair was a wide spray of ringlet curls. She looked up, found him staring at her and quickly scrunched her eyes closed.

The silence had turned from respectful to expectant. One by one, sets of somber eyes rose and met his. The priest that had provided the brief service stood behind him and to his right, but he could feel the man's beady black eyes beneath the bunch of a well practiced sympathetic scowl.

It probably hadn't sunk in yet. None of them, not one of them save for Sera had seen him dead, had touched him, had even known there was a corpse inside of that pinewood box, mottled and soggy beyond recognition. Even Sera had not been there when a vine as thick as his own arm had burst from Toby's abdomen. Sticky blood, still warm, had gushed in a wide arc, spattered wetly across the cement steps leading up to the church. Flaps of skin and the tatters of clothes had hung from Toby's body in strips. His ribcage had caved in as the plant life continued spurting from him like a geyser, like they had fed on his body, leaving nothing behind but a barely intact husk of flesh and broken bone.

It hadn't sunken in yet.

But it would.

Patrick cleared his throat and bowed his head, breaking eye contact simultaneously with everyone standing in front of him.

"I don't know why I'm the one doing this." His voice scraped at the inside of his throat, rough and hoarse. "I didn't know him as well as someone who--" No, that wasn't how he wanted to start this. "--as well as someone who's supposed to do these things." He swallowed, pried his tongue off of the roof of his mouth and tried again.

"He barely talked about himself. About his family, about his life. About what made him happy or sad. Or what hurt him. But it ain't like we knew nothin' about him. Lot more than I'm sure he wanted us to. And I can't say we were all very accepting of it." The atmosphere physically clenched with everyone's colective wince. He knew they knew, they all knew exactly what he meant. He paused, chanced a look around. Sera's hands had fully pressed over her face and she sniffed between the spaces of her palms. Matilda's eyes had closed and Zenny's hand lay firm on her shoulder. The face that had stunned him the most was Agatha's. Her already thin mouth was non-existent and he was certain he saw her steely grey eyes glitter.

He had been there, like they all had the night when he had transformed. He had cringed with the rest of them in response to each demonic bellow, each crunch of claws against stone as a horrific being more vicious lizard than Human scaled the church's outer walls. At times, only sheets of colorful glass had separated them from the monster ordered to slaughter anything it saw.

Ordered to, but--

"But he never hurt us. Not a single one of us. And never on purpose and even if he did, believe you me, he was already tearing himself to pieces enough on his own. He never needed our help with that. One look at him and you could see it all over his face."

Warmth was spreading through his reanimated body, a kind of pleasant tingle that he had not remembered he missed. The surety of conviction. He believed in what he said wholeheartedly. It was suddenly easy again to look into each tight face, easy to make sure that their gazes were the ones that looked away first.

"We took him for granted, got used to never having to do anything. Used to how smoothly everything worked. Used to how easy it was to go to him and ask a favor, knowing he'd stare at you dumbfounded, wondering why the hell it took you so long to ask in the first place.

"We got used to seeing him everyday, thought he'd always be around. Because he told us he would be. He told us not to worry about him." His eyes dropped to the dark pile of dirt at the center of their gathering. "He must have known that we did, but wished he wouldn't because he knew that sooner or later, he would have to break that promise to us."

A gentle breeze whisked through them, disturbing the hems of skirts, the tips of hair and the loosest dirt particles on top of Toby's grave. The message it sent was clear: wrap it up.

"Don't make today all about what he was or what he could turn into. Just remember who he was. Who he was to all of you, what he did for each and every one of you, even when you didn't have to ask him for it."

Patrick squared his shoulders and drew an item from his pocket. It was lighter and smaller than he'd thought it would be. The silk was smooth, tattered and bloodstained but still holding up. When they'd removed it from Toby's body, he was surprised that it had survived. He draped the sky blue scarf around the small, amateurly fashioned cross that had been stuck into the ground at his feet, looping and winding it so that it wouldn't blow away. It partially obscured the name that had been chiseled into the bark of the cross' arms.

Straightening, he shifted.

"He deserves that much."