Weightless, and yet not.

Breathing, but yet could not feel the rush of air into lungs.

Kneeling upon a floor that was there and yet not.

Aware of a body, and yet unable to see its form.

Brilliant white gold light, the essence of sunlight gleamed. Powerful, awesome, magnificently warm and comforting. Presence astounding. Bathed in such currents of welcoming and love, the Son bade the Father to listen to a dire request.

"Something troubles you." Three words so simple, and yet so complex. The Father's voice neither male nor female, in one place and yet in all. The mere sound enough to quake the Son to his core, filling him with such longing, love and praise, the reason why he had besought an audience was lost to him. Too long had it been since the Son had experienced these things he allowed himself to bask in the glory of the all-seeing, all-knowing and the Almighty.

"Speak, Axiel." The subtle yet firm demand was not lost on the Son.

"My Father." His voice sounded weak and pathetic in comparison, the exhausted cry of an animal in a silent forest. "Never before have I been so overjoyed, to hear Your words, to be within Your presence once more..to be home."

"And yet," the Father said gently, "you are displeased."

The Son was silent for some time, enough to hear the voice of another, far away. It came from beneath him and was a mere whisper of sound, but the pain and fear in the voice's screams moved him greatly and seized his heart with recognition. "Yes, my Father. I beg Your forgiveness and mercy upon me..one last time."

"What is it that you request?"

"My Father," the Son's voice shuddered with emotion absent in all of his kind. "I would like to be sent back."

The Son relished the brief moments of silence that reigned between the ghostly cries of a woman in great pain far below him. Each sound like a molten knife through a heart he could no longer feel beating.

"Axiel," began the Father, and the Son further prostrated himself at the foot of the Throne. "Your sentence of seven lifetimes owed has now expired. It is no longer necessary for you to repeat the cycle."

The Son weighed his response carefully, yet nothing could escape the Father, and this he knew well.

"Yes, my Father."

"You have learned far more during your last lifetime than in all of the previous six combined."

The Son did not speak.

"Your self sacrifice, the knowledge of love for ones outside of yourself, and the need to protect. All of this learned, and yet..you wish to return."

Another scream came as the majestic voice of the Father faded. This time, words heard, burying within the Son's being to stay for eternity.

"I c-c-can't d-do th-this!! I c-can't! Please, God, h-help m-me..!"

"Axiel," the Father gently retrieved the Son's attention. "There will be minor complications that you must overcome should this truly be the path that you choose.

"You will be once more cut off from your Holy post and will return in your truest form. Is it still so?"

"Yes," the Son's non-existent body shook with gratitude overflowing like a freshly tapped spring, pure and unhindered. "Yes, my Father. I would like nothing more, ask for nothing more. I must return..to her."

"It is done."

The Father's voice, the wondrous joy and magnitude of His presence was abruptly sucked away. Warm, comforting sunlight to frigid night air and stars as the Son fell for the eighth, and last, time.

Morning, January 29th..

Sera stirred in a fitful sleep. Something..something was telling her to wake up and once she did, she would understand. Unconsciousness slipped away like a heavy hand that was lifted off of her brow. Yellow light filtered in beneath her lashes. There were muffled voices speaking around her.

Where was her baby?

"She's waking up," the first voice quivered. It was male, not too deep and smooth. Comforting, familiar.

"Indeed, I'm not surprised. She has been asleep for several hours already," the second voice said calmly. Zenny. That single word 'Indeed.' She sounded as gentle and wise as she always did. Sera knew she wouldn't have been able to get through this without her.

Zenny poured the blond young man a glass of blood red that he accepted but didn't drink from. She leaned back against the desk and raised her own glass. Her calm gaze went from the man in the chair beside the bed to the bassinet at the headboard, and finally the vast array of photographs detailing the bright and happy life of the couple she was now sharing the room with.

The silence between them was heavy, thick with unanswered questions and curiosity. The young man spun his cup around between his fingers.

"You gonna say something or just sit there and drill a hole in the back of my head all night?"

Zenny chuckled and finished her juice, turned to set it down on the desk behind her. Patrick's enthusiastically wide open mouth and Sera's apprehensive smile stared down at her from the wall.

"Are you going to tell Sera who you are?" she asked finally. The young man sighed, his eyes sliding to the bed, and Sera, who had seemed to have stopped stirring. Their golden hue smoldered like the embers of a fire that refused to fully die. "Do you not think she will indeed figure it out?"

The young man took a long swig from the juice like it was wine, swallowing with a satisfied 'Ahh!' Then he reached over to straighten the cloth on Sera's brow and removed it when he felt its warmth.

"Can I ask you something..?" He set the cup down on the nightstand next to the bassinet and left the cloth to fall in a bowl of scented water that still had a lot of icecubes floating around in it.

"Indeed."

"Why is it.." the young man began, gently running the inside of his index finger down the sleeping newborn's cheek. It squirmed and cooed, but didn't wake. "That I hardly know you, and most of what I do know's not even come from my being around you. It's all other people and their stories." The young man beamed down at the infant, lost in his own world for the two seconds that its little warm head rested against his hand. "So tell me why I want to spill my guts to you, about crap that I've never wanted to tell anyone but Sera."

Zenny leaned away from the desk and finished the task the young man had begun prior to being rightfully distracted with his own son. She did not blame him in the slightest and calmly squeezed the cold water from the rag, settling it back onto Sera's brow. "I cannot answer that. However, from what I have heard and observed of you, you never quite shy away from letting your thoughts and feelings on all matters be known." She pulled Sera's blankets up to her chin, ignoring the small woman's murmurs of assumed protest. As much rest as she had been getting, her fever still had not yet broken. It was a wonder that the child was as healthy as it seemed under such conditions.

The young man snickered. "I suppose you're right. You ain't really ever been one to tell me to shut up either. Guess I take kindly to being listened to."

"Just because I have not done so does not mean I have been listening all the while," Zenny said as she rubbed her hands together, drying them. "However, if you indeed have things you wish to say to me now, then by all means do so. You might also answer some questions that I may have in the telling."

The young man sighed and stepped away from the sleeping child. His hands reflexively went to his pockets in search of his pack of cigarettes and a lighter, but he came up empty.

"To answer your question, yeah, I'll probably tell her. Keeping things from her, holding my feelings in about her..it's never sat right with me. Probably damn near impossible." He settled for further loosening the tie around his neck. It was tossed onto the wrinkled jacket of the suit he had draped over the foot of the bed. "If I don't, she'll figure it out." He looked back at Zenny. "Just not as fast as you did."

She smiled. "Well, as much as your natural coloring has changed, Patrick, you still do indeed possess the same features and most definitely the same personality."

Patrick smirked.

"I will admit that I had my doubts about your entirely human appearance. Most of which indeed made themselves known when I witnessed the half day long recovery period of several deep lacerations on your person." Her head tilted. "But until now, I have not had confirmation."

"Why didn't you ask or anything? Isn't that what you do?"

"Would you have told me the truth had I done so?"

Patrick blinked. "To the best of my ability, probably. Unless you caught me on a bad day."

"And what would you have said?"

Patrick ran one hand back through his newly blond hair. "Human. Up until just recently, I didn't know what the hell I was either."

Zenny raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"If you laugh, I'm gonna knock you on your ass."

"And what makes you think that I would do such a thing?" She tilted her head the other way. "Indeed, you would be surprised by what I have heard in my lifetime."

He gripped the side of his neck with his hand, golden eyes on the wall of pictures instead of Zenny. "I'm an angel."

The heavy silence returned. Zenny studied him with her calm gaze and he in turn glared at the wall. She did not have to be next to him to be aware of the palpable aura of embarrassment he was exuding.

"Do you find that to be funny?"

"I find it to be god--!" He froze, an owlish expression on his face. "It's ridiculous," he croaked finally, sinking back down into the chair at Sera's bedside, his other hand clenched at his stomach like he was in physical pain.

Zenny blinked, then chuckled. "How very interesting. Your status as an angelic being will indeed cut down on the number of colorful words in your vocabulary."

He glared angrily in her direction, his breathing strained.

She only waved a hand through the air. "It comes as no surprise to me that you found yourself with a church, attached to one of the strongest conduits of holy power that I have encountered since Matilda was indeed a young woman."

He drooped forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees. "It sort of all makes sense, doesn't it? Ever since we were kids, I've felt drawn to her. I couldn't wait to see her everyday, or be around her. I lived moment to moment, day to day, just like that. Everything that happened in between was just something I suffered through until I saw her again. I never knew why. For a while, I always thought it was just because I loved her.. Think it'll probably make all that sound dumb and unimportant if I blame it on God.

"When we grew up a bit, we started to drift apart. I did things I'm not proud of because I needed a distraction. I wanted to protect her and I needed an outlet..so I started fighting. It started out as temper tantrums, but the more I beat the sh*t out of people, the better I got.

"That only seemed to make it worse. When she figured out what I was into, all she did was get scared of me. I don't blame her.."

Zenny listened silently, her expression stoic and unreadable.

"One night, the guy she was goin' with went too far and she called me around three in the morning from my front stoop. I came out to find her, and she'd had herself propped up against the doorframe holding her ribs." He sighed slowly, his head hanging low. "She said that she didn't have enough strength to just come in, and smiled at me even though her lips were split open in about three places.

"Injuries I ain't ever seen on anyone that didn't fight for a living, she had them. All of them. Busted ribs, arm, sprained ankle, black eyes, broken cheekbone. I suspected it, but I had no damn idea that that f*cker Derek was putting his hands on her. Got her inside, got her as fixed up as she'd let me since she stopped me from calling the hospital." His hands clenched together tightly. "She said she didn't want no damn rape test and having everyone figuring sh*t out."

Zenny's eyes flicked up at the sound of a soft, ringing squeal that was growing in volume. She looked over at Patrick, who was still hunched over and tense. Dark slits burned themselves over his shoulder blades, she could see them through his shirt. The very air in the room was beginning to quake as power packed itself tightly into it. Zenny's bare skin tingled at the growing presence of unseen holy energy that was as amazing as it was oppressive.

She quickly clamped her hand down on his shoulder. Righteous, white hot rage surged into her heart from the point of contact, followed by waves of regret and unconditional love, powerful love. Zenny stiffened to remain on her feet. Her other hand gripped the short headboard as she battled her way through Patrick's intense emotions to find her own.

"Calm yourself. Indeed, you do not need to explain yourself to me any further if it will have this effect."

He sucked in a sharp breath and the screeching sound that made it impossible to even hear her own thoughts faded away. She pulled her hand from him immediately and blew on her scorched palm and fingers. There was a neat, ashen gray handprint on the otherwise white cotton of his shirt.

"My bad."

"Indeed," Zenny said, chuckling again. She stepped around the head of the bed and the couple nearby, drawing the door open with her good hand when she reached it. "We will have plenty of time to talk about such matters in detail, but when that time comes, we will hopefully be alone, without the company of a recovering young woman and a newborn child."

Patrick looked quickly over at the bed, then jumped up to check the infant..who still slept soundly, unaware of what had happened.

"Yeah," he muttered, sighing.

"Do not despair. Your life has indeed taken a turn for the better and you have most everything that you have ever wanted in this world, correct? Save the glory offered to those of angelic persuasion."

He nodded. "I couldn't be without, or my son."

Zenny smiled. "Then release the past and let this indeed truly be a second chance." She slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her with a click.

It was no use.

No matter how hard she tried to open her eyes, Sera found the simple task impossible. She wanted nothing more to remain a part of her dream in a warm, safe world, where Patrick was alive..but the nagging feeling wouldn't let her alone.

And now that the dream was ending, she was slipping back into unconsciousness without a fight. Would her body every obey her demands?

It was a question for a later time.

Morning, February 1st..

The crusty snow crunched under her boots as she stepped out into the modest graveyard of St. Agnes'. There was no wind, but even so, the winter air bit at any of her exposed skin uncomfortably. Zenny straightened her canvas duster on her shoulders and slid her hands into her pockets.

She glided around the snow capped headstones, her skirt licking their corners. The only splash of color in the gray and white surroundings were the sunshine yellow flowers of the gravestone she was headed to. She found that she had been preceded by someone, but not the same blond figure she usually encountered.

"Patrick," she said when she was still some feet away. "I had a slight feeling that I would indeed find you here."

He sat back in the chair that had been left before the grave and sighed a cloud of steam instead of smoke, his golden eyes closing. A half finished cigarette dangled from his right hand.

"She alright?"

"Sera? Indeed, she is fine, as is the child."

He lifted his hand, one eye opening to peer at the cigarette between his knuckles. He lowered it again without taking a drag.

"It was a horrible shock to her, you know," Zenny said.

"I'm way ahead of you."

"Any other new mother in her situation would have indeed reacted the same way."

"I got it."

"And that is not even including the generous amount of emotional stress she has indeed endured recently."

Patrick grumbled and rubbed his face with the hand holding the cigarette. "You don't have to remind me."

"What, with your murder, the almost loss of her child several times over--"

"What the hell are you getting at?" he snapped suddenly, his voice biting as hard as the winter chill.

Zenny turned her eyes down to the grave. It had since been filled in, she was pretty sure of by whom, and covered with dirty snow. Since she knew of Sera's constant whereabouts, the yellow tulips had to have been the product of someone else.

"What I mean is that it is a wonder that she has not yet died and joined you in your Heaven, had you stayed there." She let the single statement hang in the frigid air between them and was surprised when Patrick heaved another heavy sigh and leaned forward, his elbows to his knees. He looked longingly at the cigarette then flicked it into the snow.

"You're gonna say I'm pathetic, aren't you?"

Zenny chuckled lightly. "No. Not in so little words, but..indeed, something along those lines."

"...Don't I know it."

She lowered her head deeply. "If you know, then why is it that you are sulking at your own grave?"

"Seemed a better place than at Father Willis'. Besides," he gestured to the headstone before him that, despite being a touch lopsided, was still in one piece. "Lookit how spiffy my name looks. Patrick Murray. Looks better engraved, dunnit?"

"I am indeed being serious."

Patrick scoffed. "So am I."

"I know that you are lying, Patrick."

A gentle freezing wind ruffled their hair. Zenny brushed back a few strands of both black and silver from her forehead.

"Are you indeed feeling guilty?" she ventured. "Or are you pitying yourself for some reason?"

Patrick's head whipped around to face her and he stared at her with his shocking gold eyes. "You ain't in my head, are you."

Zenny smiled knowingly at him and it garnered her a halfhearted laugh. "Walked right into that one, huh?"

"Indeed."

There was a long pause, during which she heard the caw of a lonely crow somewhere overhead. Even with as cold as it had been, she had been spotting various birds in equally various locations. She reminded herself to visit Nadeshiko soon and ascertain whether or not the water spirit's lake was starting to thaw.

"I did it without thinking," he said at last, jarring her from her thoughts. She blinked curiously down at him. "Asking my Father to send me back. I didn't really intend for it to be a stupid, selfish decision. And I don't think anyone's judging me, so I don't know why the hell I care.

"I could hear her up there. When she was having the baby, you know..? She was so damn scared, and in pain..and all I could think was..how much I couldn't handle it. Knowing that she's out there somewhere, somewhere just out of my reach.. Needing me. I'd always be able to watch over her, but really, truly be there.." He shook his head once. "And that was my son she was having. He's mine, that's my family.

"I couldn't stay up there, Zenny. I didn't get back in time to do anything, but hell, I'm here. That's gotta count for something."

Zenny observed a respectful silence as she listened, her chin raising afterward.

"You feel that now your choice was based solely on your own need to be reunited instead of Sera's need for your presence," she paused again. "And you feel guilty for her current state."

Patrick exhaled.

"Would you like my opinion?"

"You gonna give it to me no matter what I say?"

Zenny chuckled again, tucking a few more locks of hair behind her ear before her hand retreated to her pocket. "No. Indeed, that is not my style."

He shot her a look that was almost surprised, then snorted. "Alright fine, shoot. Lay it on me, Yoda."

"Very well." She took a long, slow inhale of the cold air. "You are acting very much like Toby."

The boy's name was like a gunshot in the night; loud, sudden and startling.

She studied Patrick's reaction, or lack thereof. His entire body had tensed, and it had been some time since she had seen a cloud of breath hover before his mouth and nose. When he said nothing, she continued on.

"During the time of your..absence, and indeed for some time before that, I have gotten to know him a great deal." She nodded. "Recently, I have noticed his tendency to trivialize his wants and desires to mere fancies, or greatly ridicule them as unimportant. He, also, very much so, carries a great deal of shame. Indeed, it is nearly the same sort that you're carrying with you now. The only difference is the amount. Toby's shoulders are more heavily weighed down than yours."

Patrick's index fingers framed the bridge of his nose. "You've seen him recently too..?" His voice trailed off like he wanted to keep adding something. Zenny smiled when he didn't.

"Indeed, I have. He is alive, if you wish to know, and fairing as well as one can expect. He is changing."

He sighed deeply again, then abruptly pushed up out of the chair. "You're right. Much as I like that kid, being compared to him still pisses me off."

Zenny blinked and watched him in open awe as he angled past her, his eyes downcast, shaggy blond bangs in his face.

"I'm gonna see Sera and set this whole damn thing straight right now. I know she's been hangin' out in your room." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "It'd be a lot easier for her if you were there."

She turned smoothly and followed Patrick to the outside corridor. Their boots scuffed at the stones, and the floorboards of the nave afterward. She had touched his shoulder as she passed him by.

"You do indeed have a beautiful son."

Zenny was a single stride away from their destination by the time Patrick recovered from his initial choke of surprise. His hurried footsteps skidded to a halt at her right. She chuckled and rapped her knuckles on the door to her own room.

"Thank you.. One of the best d--one of the best things that's ever happened to me.."

"Let us indeed see if we cannot add to that list."

The atmosphere of the small, ten by ten room was palpably alive, charged with electric currents that made fine hairs stand on end..and Zenny wasn't even anywhere in sight.

Patrick clumsily straightened up and pushed the door closed. It slipped into place with a loud snap, then silence descended.

He knew he was getting 'the stare' from Sera's slit thin eyes. The one that said she knew that he had done something wrong, knew that he was going to lie, knew that it was going to send her into a whole other world of pissed off, and was still daring him to try her anyway. Instead of meeting her granite hard gaze, he looked around the room.

It wasn't the first time he had done it since he'd risen, and if he had anything to say about it, it definitely wouldn't be the last. He wasn't surprised that she hadn't changed or moved a thing, wouldn't have expected any less, actually. But to see it close up, a visual reminder of the feelings she had for him, and the strength that it took to be able to wake up everyday and see his face, their smiling faces together, plastered all over her wall and to know he wasn't there..

"Don't touch those," Sera snapped, and he dropped his hand from the wall of pictures. He hadn't even realized he'd gone over there. Must have been some daze. His eyes flicked from one picture to the next. He had seen his own face since he had risen too, and she was looking at it everyday. Even Zenny said that he hadn't changed. But did he really look that different to the one person that mattered the most?

"You know that the only reason you are still allowed near me is because Zenny has vouched for you," Sera said, her voice strong, nothing at all like the timid girl he knew she was. He hadn't heard her speak like this in years, without an ounce of emotion or warmth, each fact laid out flatly like the bricks in a wall. It was her, and yet not. "And I trust her, but I do not trust you. What exactly do you want with me and my son?"

He glanced over the photographs one last time, then turned to finally face her. He was hardly ready to.

Her small body was drowning in clothes that were too big for her, his; the flannel pants several inches too long, t shirt hanging to her knees and crooked so he could see the pale dip between her neck and shoulder. Her gray green eyes glittered with tears she wouldn't let fall, set in a face that was six shades of nauseous and determined. Her hair was a complete mess and looked more like a badly pruned bush than the usually neat curls..

And she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

The overwhelming urge to take her in his arms, to hold her tight to him, to kiss her was an unrelenting pain that throbbed throughout his whole being. If he ever needed any reminders that he was in a human body..

He shook his head, afraid that if he moved any more, he would act before he could stop himself.

"You don't even know who I am yet? Come on, Sera.."

"I only care because I want a name to go with the face that's been haunting me ever since the birth of my son. What was supposed to be the h-happiest day of my life was t-tarnished because of you." She spoke each word with painful clarity. "Who are you. And what do you want with me."

"Hell if I have time for this," Patrick grumbled. He turned and swiped his hand down the wall, tearing a bare streak in the sea of identically smiling faces.

"No, stop it!!" Sera lunged forward, her arms outstretched toward the remnants of pictures in his hand. Her fingernails raked across his right cheek and she gasped as one of them broke. "Give them b-back!! What are you?! Give them back!!" Her hysterical voice cracked on the last word.

He caught both of her wrists firmly in his grip and spun her around. Sera's eyes widened as he forced her into the wall, pinning her small body with his own. Her breasts swelled warmly against his chest, her knees trembled. She looked up at him defiantly, but her face was beet red.

"You know something's familiar about me, don't you?" he whispered. Their breath mingled. "I know you do. Otherwise, you would've kicked my nuts so far up into my gut, you could call me a chick."

She shook her head wildly, her wrists twisting in his hold. "That's n-not true. Disg-g-gusting.. L-let go of me..!"

"I'm not going to, not until you listen." He leaned into her, heat from their contact coursing through him. He could feel the erratic pounding of her heart. "And not until you look at me. You've avoided doing that this entire time. Ever since I saw you--"

"You were holding my s-son!!" Her voice was shrill like a banshee's. She bucked against him but he didn't budge and inch, and she bounced into the wall at her back. "You w-were a s-stranger. A s-stranger and you w-were holding, t-t-touching my s-son!!"

"Our," he said, the word ringing in both their ears. "Our..son."

"HOW DARE YOU!!" Sera shoved forward into him in a fit of strength that surprised him and made him stagger backward. "HOW D-DARE YOU IMPLY ANYTH-THING BET-TWEEN US!! HOW D-DARE YOU DESECRATE MY FIANCE'S M-MEMORY!! GET OUT!! I DO NOT CARE ABOUT ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY!!"

"You're gonna listen anyway."

"GET O--!!"

"Your middle name is Maxine," he shouted. His voice rang with the power of a collection of trumpets. "It was your grandmother's name on your mom's side and you hate it because it makes you feel just like her, a fat old woman. You broke your front tooth on one of the wheels of your old man's office chair when you were three--"

"SHUT UP!!" Her shout grated on his ears. Intense holy energy billowed invisibly from her body, but he felt it filling in every pore. It drew him to her like a moth to a flame. His hands curved around her shoulders, he could have cried at a simple look from the divine presence in front of him.

"You were crawling around and when he yelled at you, you got scared and lost your balance, and you fell. You were a fan of all the popular boy bands and had posters all over the damn place, even after everyone else started to hate them -- you knew all the Backstreet Boy's songs by heart. You have a stuffed monkey named Martin in the bottom left corner of your wardrobe right now. It's missing a leg and an eye because my dog Dill got a hold of it. But you didn't want to throw it away 'cause it was the last present your mother ever gave you before she died.

"And you know, you know I'm not making any of this up, don't you? That's why despite the fact that you've clapped your hands over your ears, you're not fighting me off." He lowered his voice, barely hearing it over her quiet sobs. "You're listening to me."

She was leaning into him weakly, he still felt those brief moments of resistance when she tried to push at his stomach.

"Wh-why..why are you d-doing this to m-me..?" She sounded so fragile and meek. He eased her back into the wall and her head hung so low, her chin was on her chest. "Wh-why c-couldn't you have j-just..left me al-lone.."

"Because I can't..Sera, you, look.." Patrick cupped her warm, damp face in one hand, tilting her head back. With his other, he held the stack of ripped pictures up before her nose. "Look at these. Just look for a second, what do you see?"

Sera whimpered, raising her eyes. She sniffed, swallowed. "A h-half of a teddy b-bear and c-c-cotton candy..?"

"What?" he jerked a look to the pictures. "Damn it."

Sera sputtered a sound that was almost a giggle. It froze in her throat when he held up a new picture.

He knew she would recognize it.

It was a Polaroid and had been taken by an old, cute, Japanese tourist couple a few days before the carnival where he'd won her that half a teddy bear. The sky was a bright blue with wispy cotton clouds stretched across it. They were both fresh into their 20's in the picture, their faces youthful. Sera sat nervously on the edge of the playground's merry-go-round. He had his arms wrapped around her shoulders from behind and was smiling enough for the both of them. The wind made their hair a blond and maroon mess.

Tears pooled on Sera's lashes and fell all in the span of one second.

"I'm not trying to scare you, or make this any worse. Go--Heaven knows, I don't." He swept his thumb beneath her right eye and she shuddered, looking away. "Sera please, I know you ain't as stupid as this."

"It's not p-possible," she whispered. "I s-saw you, his..I s-saw his b-body in T-Toby's a-arms all b-bloody with a h-hole through h-his ch-chest, I w-w-watched th-them b-bury h-him!! E-even if it w-was..how..

"H-how d-dare you l-leave me and d-die!! H-how.. Wh-why would you do that to m-me?!" She pushed weakly at his chest and he took a step back. Her hands lifted and smashed back into him, fleshy thuds punctuating her sobbing shouts.

"D-didn't you know that I l-loved you?! Wh-what m-made you th-think that I could l-live without y-you?!" She clenched her fists in his shirt. "Y-you l-left me alone!! The o-only th-thing keeping me g-going w-was our baby and it w-would n-never meet its f-father!! And I!! I W-WAS JUST S-SURVIVING!! TH-THERE WAS AN EMPTINESS TO E-EVERYTHING!!

"H-how did..wh-why..?" She sniffed, panting.

"Sera," he sighed her name. He pressed her hands into his chest with just one of his own. "I know. Get it outta your head right now that I didn't know about any of the pain you were in or what--what are you doing?"

Her fingers were moving beneath his. He drew his hand away, and she parted the half open collar of his button down shirt. He knew that he hadn't changed out of any of his funeral clothes save his jacket, but now he could see that she was figuring it out too. The realization made her look like she was going to be sick.

But she didn't look away.

He felt her timid touch at work, freeing each button from its hole until the neat, vertical scar on his breastbone was exposed, gasping when her fingertips grazed his bare skin. Tentative, curious, exploring. She traced the scar's outline..up, down. And again.

Her gaze lifted, not to his face, but his hair..so golden, so different from the last time she had seen it. The heat from his yellow gaze could have made the room's air waver.

"Is it r-really you..?"

"Yes." His voice was husky with desire, every nerve alive with it, every muscle tight as he uselessly fought to keep some grasp on self control when her hands flattened on his chest, smoothed down around his sides to his hips.

But it was no use. All he could see was her. Her face flushed with warmth of a different kind, eyes cloudy in that drowsy, seductive way. He smelled the faint scent of honey and soap from her wild hair. His mouth watered with the memories of all the kisses they'd shared, the feel of her skin on his tongue.

"I'm n-not dreaming..? Do you p-promise that I'm not d-dreaming..?"

He tried to chuckle, but just sounded like he was choking. She slipped her fingers behind his belt buckle, her other hand touching the button of his dress slacks. Their eyes slowly met and his resolve snapped like an overworked rubber band.

He captured her face between his palms, a single step had her pressed hard to the wall. He muffled her startled squeak with his mouth in a feverish kiss that wrapped them both in a twister of fire. Her arms snaked around him, fingernails scraping his back.

He came up for air only long enough to mutter, "Let me show you," against her lips.