Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Chapter 1

The Immortals are a race of supernatural beings that have been created by God to descend upon the earth to give humans a second chance, a sense of redemption, for all of our sins of the past.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

VICKI & ALEC`S STORY:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Vicki has this chance to become an Immortal, to become a being with a sacred soul. But to do so, she must give up her identity as a human, to give up her former life to become a being of darkness. She must sacrifice everything that is hers--her life, her family, her friends, her identity--to save the life of her beloved, Alec.

If you were Vicki, what would you do? Torn between loving a mortal man but not wanting to see him die in front of your eyes, would you give up everything to save his life in exchange for your life as an Immortal being?

God gives all of us second chances to start anew, and given this chance, Vicki takes it to save Alec`s life. But the road to immortality will separtate them forever, and as an Immoral, she can never fall in love with him again. Conflicts and turbulations will test Vicki and Alec`s love for each other as well as perhaps one day, reunite them together again...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

KRISTY & LOUIS`STORY:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

What lingers behind the door to life and death and what suprises does Fate have in store for us?

Louis has been in Immortal for over a decade, haven sacrificed his life to save the life of his lover in his past lifetime. Now, he is a spirit in the form of a human body with no purpose in life except to bring peace and comfort to others. When he meets Kristy, a beautiful young woman who had endured the tortures and suffering at the hand of her cruel twist of fate, Louis is ultimately willing to help her. But strangely, Kristy has much hope to offer Louis than he had anticipated and even though Immortals cannnot fall in love with mortals, Louis finds himself doing just that...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

JULIAN & KENIX & VIVIAN`S STORY:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If you were a woman in love with a dying man who had six months to live, would you fall in love, only to realize that there is no hope for your love to flourish and that when he dies, there will only be emptiness and grief in place of the love that you had once shared?

Kenix, an ER doctor, has seen her fair share of death in human lives. She realizes just how fragile life is and what other miracles God can have in store for all of mankind. When she meets Julian, an HIV positive patient, she find herself getting involved with his life,with his girlfriend Vivian who is carrying his unborn child, and grows to love him even when she knows that there is no hope for either of them to be together.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Do you know what we want the most in our lives?

I believe that we want hope to sustain us in the darkness of our lives, a sense of peace and serenity that will comfort us to our dying days. In my story, these seven characters will struggle to find just that--to find hope in this world that is cruel and unforgiving--so that one day, they can find their souls and find redemption.

------------------------------------

"Alec?"

"Hmm?"

"What would you do if this was your last moment on earth?"

On the couch, Alec Su looked up from the case file he was perusing and pulled the end of the pencil out of his
mouth with a slurpy pop. He stared at his girlfried for over five years, Vicki Chiu, as she smiled back at him, flashing that mischivious grin at him that made her look as devilish as a Chestire cat on the verge of eating a fish.

Vicki was sitting on the edge of the chair beside her couch, her elbows on her knees, chin in her hands. Her
expression was one of tease, her large eyes playfully blinking at him so that her long lashes fell against her smooth skin. Trust Vicki to always have a sparkle in her eyes. But that was what Alec loved the most about Vicki, how happy she always was and how much love she had to give, especially when she was willing to give it to him so unconditionally.

Alec and Vicki had met,from as far as he could remember, when they were both in the grand old age of 6. They had grown up beside each other (or at least their houses were beside each other). Then, this relationship transgressed over into elementary school, college and now finally five years after Alec had graduated to become an FBI agent and Vicki as a highschool Science teacher, they were steadily dating.

Five years had passed now, and they had moved in with each other only last month to discover that they could no longer wait for a wedding. Alec wanted nothing more than to have Vicki`s hand in marriage but at the moment, when he was still struggling to pay off his student debt from all the tutition loans, his tight budget could not afford to buy Vicki a decent diamond ring. A diamond is forever, the saying always goes.

Well, Alec wanted to buy Vicki a big enough rock to make her large, laughing eyes grow even bigger at the sight of it. Nothing was too good for his love and many times, Alec had wondered if HE was good enough for Vicki. She was smart, witty, funny, not to mention adorably cute with those wide-set eyes of hers and that charming smile. He was lucky and he knew it. He thanked God each and every day for having Vicki return his love too.

Now, Vicki was waiting for an answer from him. It was a strange question, "What would you do if it were his last moment on earth?" Very puzzling and yet, he knew that Vicki would want a deep, utterly syropy romantic answer. And so, just to annoy her, Alec pretened to be casual about it.

Alec simply stared. He stuck his bottom lip out and swept her slender form with his eyes. "I dunno." He stared for a moment longer, stuck the pencil back in his mouth and returned to the scintillating reading material before him: A hooker. A dead man. His widow. A smoking gun. Yeah. And this is an front-page news how?

"Alec?" There was an edge of impatience in her voice, even a trace of hurtfulness from his rejection.

"Hmm?" Alec continued his charade of non-chalence calm.

"I mean, your last night. Your last few hours alive. You know it’ll be over soon. What would you do?"

He looked back to the source of the question, the pencil still dangling between his lips. "What’s your point?"

"I have no point. I’m just asking a question."

"I don’t understand." Just play the lame brain fool.

"I’m not being cryptic. You have, let’s say three hours before you spontaneously combust. What would you do
with your last three hours?" Vicki slithered her way from the edge of the chair down to the floor and was now
resting her elbows on the coffee table. Her eyes were gazing at him, large soulful eyes that he had fallen in love with at the age of six. Could boys really fall in love at that age. Alec knew he did.

Alec waggled the pencil in his mouth to and fro with his tongue as he dissected her question for some signs of
hidden meaning. Fortunately for Alec, he had deduced long ago that often, when a woman asks a question, the
answer is not so simple as it may seem. "Honey, is it raining?" "Yes." "What do you mean, you don’t love me
anymore?!". But Vicki was not any woman, she was his girl. And she would be even more furious with her answer, "You jerk! Tell me you love me or else, rain or shine!"

Okay, not entirely fair, but sometimes true. So, given Alec`s paramount knowledge of the woman before him, he took
the logical and only safe way out. "What would you do, Vicki?"

She toyed with a smile. "I asked you first."

Alec thought. How wrong could the only OTHER logical response be? "I’d spend it with you."

"Why?"

Uh oh. A two part question. "Because I love you." And that was the honest truth. Alec never lied to her.

Obviously satisfied with his answer, Vicki flahed him one of her sweet smiles, shoved the coffee table over with a heave and scooted in front of him. She hooked her arms over his thighs, linking her hands. She turned her eyes to his face and once again, rested her chin. Comfortable as a pretzel, but damn cute in this pose, she went in for the kill.

"You love me?"

"I do."

"You would spend your last few hours on earth with only me?"

"Of course." It was true, after all.

"You would die for me?"

"In an instant. No hesitation."

"You would kill for me?"

"In a heartbeat."

"You would go to the ends of the earth for me?"

The corner of Alec`s mouth twitched into a wry smile. Ever since watching "Titanic" where Jack risked all for the sake of his love, Rose, Vicki had wanted to be sure that Alec would do the same. How he loved to kill James Cameron for making such a nausiating love story full of mush. Vicki fell for all of those romantic dreams, line and sinker. Love, what a complicated thing and yet, so rewarding.

Vicki reciprocated and kissed one of his fingers dangling before her. "You would do just about anything for me, wouldn’t you, Alec?"

"Without even thinking about it." Her one simple question had grown into the essay variety when he wasn’t looking. He gave himself a mental high five for keeping up.

Vicki gracefully unwound to a standing position and looked down at Alec. He should have a tattoo on his forehead that said, ‘Mess with me here’.

"Would you make love to me?"

"Yes." Easy peasy. Puddin’ and pie.

Vicki sank one knee down on the couch then the other, hovered, then settled back straddling his lap. He
confidently settled his hands on her thighs as she pulled the collar of his t-shirt down an inch and kissed the
exposed skin. When she looked at him again, her eyes were glittering. It was not lost on Alec. He knew her too well.

Vicki Chiu, you have got something up your sleeve, he thought. Why was she being so nice and sweet?

Vicki hooked her fingers behind his neck and kissed him lightly on the lips. "So, let me see if I have this right.
You would die, kill – I’m assuming lying, cheating and stealing are not beyond you either?"

"You would assume correctly."

"You would travel great distances and not bat one of those lovely, long lashes."

Alec nodded. Since she had slid forward on his lap, his vocabulary had taken a nose dive.

"You would do all that, and then some for me, wouldn’t you, Alec?"

"Uh huh."

She smiled and held his face in her hands. "Have I ever told you you’re my hero?" He grinned. She wrapped her arms snugly around his neck and kissed him, deep and wet. When she pulled back, his eyes were closed. She pulled up his left eyelid with her finger and was greeted by a very large pupil. He opened his other eye, pulled her flush against his chest and began nibbling on her ear.

"Alec...?"

"Mm hmm?"

"I need something."

"Mmm. Me too," he mumbled through a mouth full of earlobe.

With a sigh, she tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes. Maybe she didn’t have to follow through with her
little plan after all. No, of course she did. She steeled her resolve and thought, time to pay the piper, Alec is mine.

"Alec?"

"Hmm?"

She leaned into his ear and whispered seductively. "Go to the store and get me some Chocolate Chip icecream."

Alec nibbled for another moment and leaned back as she did. They stared into each other’s eyes. Vicki`s eyes were gleaming with that devilish playfulness again. Ah-ha, so that was what she wanted! Ice cream? All of this romantic, "I will die for you" talk just for him to get icecream? Women!

"Now?"

"Please?"

Alec sighed. Whipped, you are, my man, he thought sadly to himself.

Vicki smiled her best ‘I’m sorry, but I’m only human’ smile at him, her lips pouting.

Alec nodded and Vicki climbed off his lap. He picked up his keys and moved to the door. When he turned around, Vicki had picked up the case file and was immediately engrossed and happy as a kitten.

But now, Alec knew that it was his turn to give Vicki the third-degree interrogation.

"What would you do for your last three hours on earth, Vicki?"

Vicki raised her head from the newspaper, blinking at him in surprise. His voice was solemn, as though he were truly serious.

"I would want to die in your arms," She said without a moment`s thought.

Alec smiled at her in a way that made his eyes soft with love,and perhaps even, surprise. "Really?"

"I`d do anything for you, Alec," Vicki told him honestly. She had started this "lovey dovey" conversation and she knew that it was only fair that Alec knew what was in her heart. "I would give up everything for you. I`d sacrifice my soul for you. Anything for you."

With that, Alec`s eyes shone in the lamplight, as though he were blinking back tears. "Thank you," He said in a choked voice. "I`ll get you two tubes of icecream for that."

Vicki glimpsed his back before he closed the door. She grinned affectionately and turned back to the case file.
Her expression was suddenly stricken with horror. She leapt off the couch and threw open the front door.

"Alec!" Vick screamed hysterically. Alec turned in the hall, alarmed at the shrillness of her voice. "Get the Rocky Road, too."

Alec nodded and shaking his head in exasperated hopelessness, he headed toward the elevator`s open doors. Vicki ducked back in their apartment and closed the door. She made her way to the couch and plopped down without grace. She smiled as she picked up the file again. Alec`s familiar face danced before her eyes and her heart felt full of bliss and happiness.

"Thank God for heroes." Vicki whispered, the memory of Alec`s smile making her own lips curve into a small delighted smile.

Little did Vicki know that in just one bullet shot, everything would be taken away from her, including Alec`s life.

Chapter 2

"Hi, Mr. Carson," Alec smiled broadly at the owner of the 711 at the corner of the street across from his apartment. It was a convinient for Alec to just hop across the street instead of taking in his Mustang out of the garage. He knew that Vicki would be waiting for that mouth-watering cone. Ah, his sweet Vicki who could be the biggest pig sometimes.

"Alec! Good to see you!" Mr. Carson flashed him a toothy grin, looking up hastily from the cash register . Mr. Carson was apparently busy; a customer, young and in his teens, was buying a pack of gum.

Laughing to himself, Alec waved to the old man, whose sense of humour always amused him. It was so rare that a man so old had a vitality and good spirit as though he were only in his teens. Who cares about the toupe, decaying teeth and the wrinkled skin as long as your heart was young? After nearly two months of shopping at the convinience store, Mr. Carson`s bright smiles and warm sense of humour always brought Alec and Vicki back to the store as loyal customers.

"Chocolate Chip, Roaky Road. Hagen Daz is Vicki`s favorite. Wonder if they will have it?" Now he was muttering to himself.

Alec passed the rows of neatly stacked containers of food and finally stopped at the freezer at the end of the store. He opened the door to the freezer, shivering ever so slightly at the cool frost that burst out from the freezer. Once Alec got his hands on the two tubes of ice cream, he turned to head to the cash register. Vicki, eat to your heart`s content, Alec thought teasingly.

"Stay where you are! Don`t move!"

The voice made Alec stop in his tracks. His head raised to see the young man who had been buying the pack of gum aim a rifle at Mr. Carson`s chest. Mr. Carson, his face wan and pale, was blabbering out incoherent words due to shock. Alec could barely believe it. This was a robbery, a shoot out in this nice and peaceful convinience store where a kid of about sixteen was going to take the life of a seventy year old man! Life sucked.

"You!" The kid now turned the gun on Alec. He was so young, barely at the age to drink alcohol. His eyes seemed nervous as he waved the gun in the air as though it were a toy. "Get over here! Lie down on your back! Now! Do it!"

Alec simply stared the kid down, his expression cool. "Drop the gun, kid."

Alec had gone to five years of training in the FBI college to handle this type of situation. The kid was scared, that much was certain. If only he could get the weapon away from the kid before any bullets was fired then everything would be great. But he had to get that chance.

"Did you hear me?" The kid screeched, his voice shrill in anger. He approached Alec, his eyes bulging in indignation that a man dared to defy him while he held a weapon that could kill in his hands. "Get down on your back now! Or I`ll blow your brains out!"

"Go for it. A lifetime in jail will make you real happy, I`ll bet." Just had to keep up that smooth talking. Buy time, Alec had to buy time.

"What did you just say?"

"You`re not going to fire that gun. If you do, your IQ is as low as an ants. You`re going to rot in jail for a couple of hundred dollars from an old man`s cash register? How dumb can you get?"

"Shut up! Who the hell are you?"

"Look, you`re scared. This hold-up was a mistake. Just give me the gun and the most jail time you`ll get is two months. I swear to that. I`m an FBI agent. I got connexion with the cops. You`ll do community servicee, that`s all. Learn from your mistakes, kid. Don`t make your life a living hell."

"Shut up!" The kid was now trembling but the gun was still in his hands, loaded and ready to be fired. "Just shut your goddamn mouth!"

"Give me the gun." Slowly now, coax him into it.

"Don`t come any closer or I`ll shoot!"

"Give me the gun." How many times must Alec repeat this to get his point across?

Finally, a slight tremor shook through the kid`s young body and a flash of bewilderment took over his face. Without a moment`s thought, Alec dove into the kid, tackling him to the ground. Alec`s weight exceeded the young man`s body by far and with his training, in just two punches, the kid was pinned to the ground. Gasping, trying to catch his breath, the kid stared at him with glassy eyes, swollen and red, as though he had taken drugs before coming to the store. Alec ignored the challenging glare and tried to take away the weapon. But the stubborn kid refused to release the gun. Alec struggled to grop onto those hands, to pry the weapon out of those fingers. Damnit! Let go of the gun!

"I called the cops!" Mr. Carson`s voice drifted through Alec`s ears. "They`re coming, Alec! Real soon. Hold him down!"

The kid`s features contorted into one of agony as the news that more cops were on their way to get him dawned on him. Desperation gave him strength and with one swift kick of his boots, he send Alec across the floor. Alec, unprepared for the attack, clutched onto his abdomen as he struggled to his feet. The kid had also risen up and the gun was still in his hands.

"It`s not too late. Turn back." Alec`s voice was pleading, his hand on his wounded abdomen.

"No!" The kid was trembling again, his eyes wild. Fear or desperation? It was a mixture of both, even a bit of hopelessness. "No, it`s too late! I can`t go back. I can`t!"

"Listen to me please," Only five steps and Alec would be close enough to tackle the kid again. He hobbled over slowly, speaking hastily to lessen the tension. "I can help you. There are lots of people in the community who care and can help you through all of this. There are doctors, police officers, counsellors, foster homes, who can help you. Life is just so short, don`t you see? You don`t want to screw it up beyond repair so that you will end up with nothing. Give me the gun please. Trust me."

"Liar! Why do you care about me?" The young face was so full of hatred and accusations.

"Because I was once your age, because I know how it feels to be lost. But it takes more willpower to find your way home then it does to stay lost. Let me help you please." Two more steps and he would come face to face with the kid. Keep up the sweet talk, Alec.

"No, stay where you are!"

"Trust me."

"Stay where you are! Just stop!"

"Belive in me. Give me the gun."

For a split second, the kid`s grip on the gun began, to waver. As his defences broke down for a split second, Alec saw through the false macho facade and into the soul of a lonely and very frightened sixteen year old boy who had no family, no home and no friends but the darkness of the savage night to comfort him. But in an instant, the gun went off, shattering all of brief sense of hope for redemption for the young man who had not yet found his way home.

Alec never felt the bullet slice through his heart. He barely even felt the hardness of the ground rising to meet his head as he collapsed on the ground. The wound on his chest was spreading, like a red flower blossoming and growing brighter as his blood spilled onto the ground.

Then there were police sirens and the wail of an ambulance. These sounds rung through his ears and into his head. He wanted silence, to ease the pain, but there was only rapid commotion and frenzied conversation. Pain, the pain was excrusiating, as though a dagger had been flung into his soul and was left there for him to bleed. The smell of blood and sweat was stifling and his mouth opened for air. So hard to breathe, as though an object was blocking his airway. He struggled for air, gasping, writhing, moaning in pain.

"Lie still, sir. It`s going to be alright."

"We`ve got an Asian male, approximately 28 years old in critical condition. Massive chest wound, internal and external bleeding. He`s being taken to the Memorial now."

"Pulse is weak, we can`t get a decent reading."

"He`s lost so much blood. Can`t this ambulance go any faster? We`re going to lose him."

Then a mask was placed over his mouth and blessed oxygen whooshed through his lungs. A needle pricked his skin and cool pads were placed over his chest. New blood flowed through his veins as the attendants gave him a blood transfusion to keep his heart alilve.

It finally dawned on Alec then that he was dying. But he didn`t care. All he wanted was to say good bye to Vicki, his beloved Vicki. Where was she? Did she know about this? That he would slip into from this world and into the next soon? Vicki!

"What would you do if you knew you only had three hours to live?" Vicki had asked him that night in their apartment.

"I`d want to be with you," He`s answered honestly.

Alec struggled to open his eyes, to beg the ambulance attendants to just take him home. He didn`t want to be placed on machines to live, to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He wanted to die in his beloved`s arms, to have her hold him one last time, to be near her so that he could just see her. But he couldn`t talk. His tongue felt as dry as paper and the oxygen mask was blocking his speech. His vision was blurred, as though someone had smeared Vaseline over his retina. He only saw faded light, and blurred images of darkness and light and then darkness and then light.

"Please take me home," Alec pleaded in his mind, on the verge of tears. "I can`t die alone like this. Vicki...Vicki....tell them to take me home. I want to die in your arms. That`s all I want. My death wish."

His eyes were squeeze shut and he felt the coolness of his tears streaming down the side of his face. Suddenly, a hand touched his hand, warm and tender. Through a dim haze, Alec saw an image of a young man leaning over him. Even though his vision was so limited, Alec knew that the man was beautiful, with dark intense eyes and strong bone features. His eyes were kind and soft, comforting Alec somewhat. With the young man`s gentle touch, Alec`s pain began to ease and finally, end. The pulsing agony gave way to a tranquil, soothing peacefulness that filled Alec`s dying heart.

Are you an Angel? It was the first question that popped in Alec`s mind.

No, the young man responded, though his lips had not moved. I am called Louis, an Immortal sent by God to comfort you before you died.

I just want one wish, Alec pleaded in his mind in deseperation. Tell Vicki that I love her so much, so much. She`s my life. I just want her to know that.

Vicki knows, the young man assured him.

I never got to say good-bye to her, Alec rambled on in his mind, half delirious from loss of blood. I just want to say one last farewell. But it`s okay, I won`t ask for much. I can`t be too greedy, can I? Tell her not to wait for me. Tell her to live on and be strong. Will I become an Immortal like you?

No, the young man said, but Vicki will.

Alec was confused by Louis` last comment but he was too weary to speak. The young man, his eyes luminous with an inner glow of kindness, stroked Alec`s forehead tenderly with gentle fingers. Finally, Alec allowed the exhaustion to overtake him and submitted into the darkness of blessed unconsciousness.

In his mind, he whispered her name like a prayer, "Vicki...."

Chapter 3

Light a single candle
for this fate I did not choose.
Through it I have lost
more than I knew I had to loose.

Light a single candle
for those I could not save.
I failed them in my duty.
I sent them to their grave.

Light a single candle
for a love that once burned true.
Even if I could get my soul back,
would God forgive what I had to do?

Light a single candle
For a decision made while lost.
When I started on this path alone
I never counted on the cost.

Light a single candle
for all I didn't say. I could not face by light of day.

Light a single candle
for faith in friends betrayed.
I know now I should not have left,
but not how I could have stayed.

Light a single candle
for my battered heart and soul.
I cannot fill these empty spaces,
I left all that made me whole.

Light a single candle.
For I've done nothing but fail.
I hold each pain here in my hand,
With the memory of you smile, oh so frail

Light a single candle.
They cannot love me still,
but loneliness on top of grief
is too much a bitter pill.

So I ask the wind to tell the birds
to beg them this for me.
Light a single candle
on this path I cannot see
and lead me safely home again,
where I so long to be.

Poem written by: my friend Shannon McKenna
This chapter ritten by: Whistler & Little Dreamer

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Vicki stared down at Alec`s still body on the hospital bed, his familiar handsome face pale and still against the whiteness of the pillow. He looked dead to her, those warm brown eyes forever closed tight, those lips unmoving and ashen. All around him, machines bleeped and the sound of the respirator made whooshing noises as it delivered oxygen to his starving lungs. A bag of clear liquid from an IV pole beside the bed was inserted through a tube in his arm, and Vicki had held onto his hand. His hand was still so warm, so blessedly warm. His hand felt as though there was still some life within him even though the doctor`s prognosis was fatal.

It had already been 5 hours since she`d received that frantic call that Alec had been shot. Vicki had thought that it was Alec, calling to say that he`d forgotten to bring along his wallet for the ice cream, and that was why it had taken him so long to get home to her. Vicki had picked up the phone with a smile of amusement on her face, so certain was she that it was Alec. But it was not. It was a doctor.

"Ms. Chiu, are you the girlfriend of Alec Su?"

"Y-yes, what`s the matter? Alec—" Vicki`s heart had began to race. "Is he alright?"

"We need you to sign some papers at the Memorial Hospital. Alec needs an operation or else he would die. He is in cardiac failure and if these papers aren`t signed, we can`t go through with the operation. Please come soon."

"Omigod!" She was crying hysterically then. "No, no! How could this have happened?"

"He`s been shot in the middle of a grocery store hold up. He is injured very severely."

"No..." It was a moan of agony and disbelief.

"Please come soon or he will die."

Vicki had raced to the hospital as fast as she could. She had broken every driving rule as she cut across streets and took illegal turns and ran stop signs and red lights. Her eyes were so blurred from her tears that she could barely see the road or where she was going. But she made it to the hospital in less than fifteen minutes. But when she`d gotten to the hospital, Alec had been in respiratory failure. The doctors had to struggle to resuscitate him to make him breathe again. Then, four hours after surgery, Alec was in heart failure. The operation was unsuccessful. An international plea for a heart had been sent to every organ donor organization in the country but Alec`s chances of getting a new heart were next to impossible. The plea was too sudden and Alec needed a heart in less than twenty-four hours. There was no time.

All that was left for Vicki to do was wait until he took his last breath.

Wait for her Alec to die.

"Alec, I love you," Vicki whispered into his ear, leaning her body over so that her arms could hold onto his shoulders. Her eyes trailed over his familiar face–those closed eyelids, that youthful handsomeness, that slightly-rounded cheeks and those sensual lips that were now so bloodless and pale. She wanted to memorize every line and curve of his face, even though she knew that Alec`s memory would be forever engraved in her heart. "I wish that I could have been there for you, in your last conscious moment. I wish that I could trade my life for yours. I would have done so in an instant. I love you too much to let you die. Please don`t leave me alone, Alec."

Then the tears had come, in raging torrents that tore out for her. Her tears fell onto Alec`s unmoving hand, the wetness seeping into his skin. Vicki clung to him, hoping that her hold would prevent his spirit from leaving her. Would he float away if she did not hold him back? Death would separate Vicki and her beloved forever and the feeling of hopelessness and grief was overwhelming her until she thought she would go insane.

When Vicki got home to their apartment, it was almost four o`clock in the morning. The sky was lighter now, and not as bleak and dark. Soon the sun would rise and a new day would start. But her life would be ending, cast in darkness if Alec were to die.

Exhausted and feeling nauseated, Vicki drew the blinds closed so that the bedroom was draped in darkness and climbed into bed. She knew that she needed her strength. It would be another day before the doctor`s predict that Alec`s heart would give on him. Vicki needed to cope until then. She could not fall apart; she had to be strong to care for Alec. Sleep came to her easily as she sunk into the mattress, burying her head into the pillows that still had the lingering scent of Alec`s natural smell of mountains, waterfalls and wood. She was so tired that no dreams came to her, only the darkness of the night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He came to her in the dead of night. The Immortal, Louis.

All these months he had sought Vicki out; all these weeks he had stalked her unseen, watching her every move. Observing her every movement. Learning to know who she knew. God had given him permission to do so, to learn more about the lovely young woman with the beautiful heart so that he could train and teach her to become a etheral being like he was. In observing her, Louis had also gotten to know the love of her life, a young man named Alec, a good man with a generous heart. Now, Alec lay fighting for his every breath in a hospital, even when there was a no hope left. Louis had been with Alec only hours before, appearing before the pitiful dying man in an apparition to ease his pain. Alec loved Vicki, Louis knew. But Vicki`s love for Alec was just as strong, just as intangible.

Now Louis was close to her; standing at the end of her bed, he was almost close enough to touch, and he caught the lingering scent of her natural floral perfume rising from her sleeping form. The sensation in his exhausted mind was almost overwhelming. She looked small and frightened lying on the bed that seemed to engulf her small size . There were streaks of tears that had dried on her cheeks, as though she had been crying. Louis felt pity for her. A strangled sob was caught in his throat.

And one word.

"Vicki…"

At the sound of his voice, she moaned, tossed uneasily in her bed, twisting herself within the sheets.

Perhaps, he thought, the sound of his voice had evoked a nightmare of her nightmare past. Or perhaps some sixth sense was telling her to wake.

The Immortal Louis didn't want her to wake. Not yet. He only wanted to watch her sleep. Over the past weeks, watching her had been his only pleasure. His only pleasure in… how long? Too long. Already Louis loved Vicki, not in a sexual way but in a brotherly way. He didn't want her to wake, not yet. Her waking would almost certainly limit the time he had to struggle to sort out what is was that he could say to her. She would take one look at him and tell him to get out. To get out and go back to Heaven where he came from.

It had been almost a decade since God summoned him to create another Immortal. Louis was the first and only one. Long ago, Louis had agreed to sacrifice his life for the sake of his beloved Emileth, who was dying before his eyes. In doing so, he was casted to become an Immortal, a creature with an eternal life, who appeared to be a normal human being, but who could not love or hate or even feel anger for anything alive. For Louis, it was a blessing. He had watched Emileth from the shadows of the night lead a good and stable life. He had watched his love grow old and die, while he remained young, unchanging and unable to die. His mission on Earth was to limit the suffering of other moments before their death, to ease pain and suffering whenever he could.

It had been over a decade since God would create another Immortal to join Louis. But now, the time was here. Vicki was a unique individual who would be the second of her kind to receive this miracle. If she chose to accept it....

Finally Louis backed off, wrapped himself in the heavy cloak he wore, and merged with the deepest shadows of her room, only wanting to talk to her, to comfort her. Putting off the inevitable because he knew the pain to come.

But she was stirring anyway now. Her senses had alerted her of danger. Struggling out of sleep, Vicki threw back the bedclothes, sat up, her eyes searching the room. Still, The Immortal kept himself invisible from her eyes. Still, he postponed announcing the news of why he was here.

"Who's there?"

Ah yes, she knew that something lurked in her private room. And she sounded not afraid - had she ever truly known real fear? Vicki`s courage was admirable and her inner strength was what made her so special.

"Who`s there? Speak or…"

Louis was listening to the sound of her voice. It had changed, her voice, from teenaged schoolgirl, to something more mature, less sharp. More womanly. But of course, he reflected, even as he felt her searching eyes sweep the room again, she was a woman now. Over five years had passed since he been watching her–preparing himself for the day that he would have to tell her of her Destiny.

His eyes studied her, drank her in; now he was close, he could examine her properly. She looked more womanly too. Always beautiful to him, the years had only added to the enchantment she had always held over her beloved Alec. Dark hair trailed over her shoulders, well cut and shining. Her full mouth, open as she breathed in the night air, trying to sense whatever lay in her room with her. But that night, her eyes were troubled and pain lurked behind those dark depths.

Pain of losing her only love.

"Vicki," Louis whispered again, and this time she heard him. Had he wanted her to?

"How do you know my name? I'm telling you, show yourself. Aren't you brave enough to face me? I`ll call the police."

A careless taunt, flung out into the night.. She could not and would not harm him. Louis could not die even if he wanted to. He saw the slender form of Vicki start to rise up from the bed, her eyes searching in the darkness.

"I can't show myself," he said, and he saw her eyes, gleaming in the darkness, narrow with fierce concentration. Did she recognise the voice? he wondered. Doubtful she had ever heard his voice. "But I won`t hurt you. I`ll never hurt you."

"Why can't you show yourself? Who are you?" Finally, there was a slight tremor in her voice.

He smiled a twisted smile before he replied. Vicki was a combination of vulnerablity and courage.

"I'm afraid." Admit it, Louis told himself. He was afraid. He was afraid of creating another being like himself. He had never done so before.

"Why?" Vicki`s voice was soft, more gentle now. She was surprised that he would be so honest.

Finally, Louis stepped out of the shadows to stand before her. The wind from the open window gently blew away the drapes that Vicki had closed earlier, sending moonlight to filter down upon Louis` tall and broad-shouldered frame. Louis had no idea how he looked to mortals. He always considered his looks to have been perfected every since he had become an Immortal. Did his skin look too pale or did his eyes look too dark? He didn`t know. He never saw himself through the eyes of a mortal.

"Why are you here? I don`t know you." Vicki`s eyes were wide and luminous in the moonlight. But oddly, she seemed unafraid of him. Perhaps she sensed that he was not here for evil intentions.

"But I know you," Louis told her truthfully. He took a hesitant step toward her and when she didn`t cringe, he took another step. "I`ve been watching you for a long time, to get to know you. I`m not a stalker–" He didn`t want to frighten her. "I`m an Immortal. I`ve come here to ask you a question."

Vicki blinked at him, her hands clutched onto her nightgown in apprehension. "What is an Immortal?" It was a reasonable question.

"I cannot die," He explained gently, wanting to take time to explain it to her. "God came to me a decade ago to give me a miracle. My love Emileth was dying. If I were to trade my life for her life, then she would live. But I would become an Immortal, a being who is God`s servant to bring peace to the sick and the dying. I make balance out the suffering in this world, to make the world a better place."

Louis had never seen eyes grow so wide in shock before. She didn`t believe him. "You`re lying."

"No, I`m not," He assured her patiently. "You can feel it, can`t you, Vicki? Here, take my hand—" Extending his hand over to her, he watched as she hesitantly touched his skin and then he saw her expression of doubt fade away to one of belief. It was his power, the power to calm all panic and fears, to bring comfort and the truth to all beings. "You can feel it. My power. I am not a mortal. I`m not human. I`m an Immortal."

"What do you want from me?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"I don`t want anything," Louis smiled at her in the darkness, his heart wrenching at the dazed and forlorn look in her eyes. She looked so vulnerable, so lonely and fragile. He wanted to soothe her sorrows. "I`m here to offer you the miracle that was once offered to me. Do you want to become like I am–an Immortal–in exchange for Alec`s life?"

For a moment, Vicki stared at him. A hushed silence fell across the room as her eyes took in the sight of him–a beautiful being whose eyes were shining with a radiance that could only be described as heavenly. Was this the truth? But how could it not be? It would be too cruel for him to lie to her. And when she had touched his hand, she had FELT the goodness in Louis` heart and she had known that he would not harm her.

"Alec would live?" Vicki dared to whisper. She could barely keep the anxiousness out of her voice. "But then I would die? My life for his?"

"Yes," Louis nodded solemnly, those beautifully ethereal eyes so kind and full of compassion. "But you will be rewarded to live forever. Not every mortal gets this chance. You and I are the only two mortals who have been given this chance. You are unique, Vicki. That is why you are bestowed such an honor."

Vicki listened to the deepness of Louis`voice, realizing the sincerity in his voice. "What do I have to do?"

She instantly wanted to die, if it would mean saving Alec. Anything was worth doing if only he could be spared. She had vowed to offer her soul for his sake. That was the honest truth.

Louis touched her hand once more gently. "I will give you this morning to think about it," His touch was warm and tender, but cool all at once. "I ask nothing of you, only for you to think about what you are going to do. When you are ready with you answer, I`ll come for you."

His touch soothed Vicki from deep within and as she clung to him, the figure of Louis disappeared until there was only empty air existing before her. All that was left was the sensation of warmth that filtered throughout Vicki`s veins, making her feel that there was hope afterall for Alec.

Her Alec. Her life.

Louis had asked her to take time to think. But Vicki didn`t need time. She already knew what she would do, from the instant that bullet had shot through Alec`s heart. The bullet had shattered all of their dreams and their hopes. But now, a miracle was given to Vicki. How could she refuse?

For her love, Vicki was willing to die.

God, please light a candle for my love to find his way home.

Chapter 4

Kristy Yeung had no idea when it started--the time when she had lost all of her self-respect.

It had begun long ago, two years after her parents had abandoned her on the steps of an orphanage one cloudless night because they didn't want four children. Birth control must have not worked for her mother because nine months later a healthy baby girl was born. But this baby girl was unwanted, an "accident" which her parents did not want the responsibility for. Kristy had grown up among unfamiliar faces of children that were constantly being moved, either to permanent homes with new parents or to different orphanages. Kristy had never been chosen by any couple because who would want a stubborn and willful little girl who did nothing but pout and strike her anger out at anyone who was willing to listen. She could never do it--be the smiling and self-assured child that every couple who were looking into adopting a child want. Her mouth rarely smiled, so that when she did, it took effort and will beyond what she could muster. So as other children eventually found homes and new parents, Kristy never had a home and was never chosen to be Mommy or Daddy's little girl. And that was when the world came crashing down upon her. She would cry herself to sleep every night, muffling her cries and submerging her body in the shadows of the night where she belonged. She was a nobody, a child no one wanted. Pretty soon, Kristy believed in this.

"Are you ready?"

Kristy looked up from the vanity mirror in the bathroom of the small apartment she shared with her friend Ada Choi. Ada had been ready long ago for their night on the town. It was like this almost every night; both of them donning on the cheap jewelry and the short, tight dresses brought at the nearest Zellers on sale and applying heavy make up to make themselves look bold and radiant so that they could persuay men to sleep with them. Kristy often felt like an ugly duckling, being thrown from one fate to another. But she would forever be an ugly duckling, without ever haven the chance to become a beautiful swan. Poor unlucky little orphan now all grown up to be a slut. What a life.

"Just a minute," Kristy flashed Ada a look and as Ada's thin frame sighed and left the room.

"I'll wait for you downstairs!" Ada shouted. The door of the apartment slammed shut and footsteps pounded down the steps to the ground floor below.

From the spotted depths of the mirror, Kristy saw her own reflection. Dark brown eyes too large for her thin face, limp black hair hanging down past her shoulders, arched brows and high cheekbones and a mouth that had never done much smiling. Her skin, usually so white and smooth, looked pale that night and dark underye circles hung below her eyes, revealing her stress and her anxiousness. There had been little sleep for Kristy these days; she was always haunted by visions of the dark corridors that had been her orphanage. Strange how the past always came back to haunt you. Kristy gave her reflection a final glance, disappointed as always to see a sullen and dull plain Jane staring back at her. Ugly ducks could never be swans. Kristy swung her eyes away from her reflection and grabbed her purse to catch up with Ada.

Ada looked smashing in a tight leather dress with high leather boots strapped around her slender, shapely legs. She took a drag of cigarette and handed the cigarette to Kristy when she came over. The cigarette lit up her insides, warming up the coldness within her and Kristy breathed out the fumes slowly and deliberately.

"Where to?" Ada turned to her, taking back the cigarette.

"Downtown," Kristy knew that there would be good business that night. Cops were never looking in the downtown areas this late. Their shifts were over; there would be plenty of opportunity to make money.

"Sure, whatever," Ada shrugged in her usual sulky way, taking some more drags of the cigarette before crushing the bud with high-heeled boots on the ground, instantly exstinguishing the flames.

The night was cold, moonless and dark. The wind made Kristy shiver inwardly, though she fought off the urge to tremble in case Ada teased that she was chicken. Tough. She had always struggled to be a survivor, to be tough so that nothing could ever hurt her. It had been five years since she and Ada had hooked up to live together as roommates. But they were more than roommates; Ada was Kristy's closest friend in the world. Three years working at McDonalds had given them the opportunity to become friends and after that life continued well with money from their "night shifts" of selling their bodies to the most willing bidder. Kristy didn't care; she was not a pure and innocent virgin and she never thought herself to be one. Easy money, easy job. She knew how to handle herself and how to handle men who would rather curl up with a prostitute rather than the arms of their wives or girlfriends.

Life was cruel and twisted. Kristy had learned that from age six. There wasn't any "happily ever after in life." You had to make your own happy existence, but there was never a happy resolution. Happiness was just something that God never gave out readily. But then again, what did Kristy know? She had never been happy before. She just learned to get over it and live on. Survival of the fittest.

The instant their bus hit downtown, the place was already crawling with other girls awaiting a good job. But Kristy knew her worth and she held her head high and her eyes were calm and calculating as she scanned the crowd. She had been in this business too long to let the little guppies have her share of the profit. The other younger girls, some looking like they were only sixteen or seventeen, glared back her, eyes struggling to look hard and touch but their youthful vulnerabilities shining through. Ada smiled secretly at Kristy, indicating that they were to separate. Kristy knew that Ada liked to work alone. No matter how close they were in their bond as friends, they were not sidekicks on the job. Kristy watched Ada's back as her friend disappeared in the shadows and continued her walk down the sidewalk.

Toronto was a busy city--lots of sights and sounds, even for one o'clock in the morning. It was always a city full of life, never dead. The shops were all closed but the neons signs were left on to illuminate the dark night. Teens hung in cliques while some homeless groups huddled over bonfires to warm their hands from the bitter night winds. The traffic noises was jarring and blaring. Seems as though there were life on the highways too. People had parties to go to, clubs to go hang out with their friends. Hopefully, some of these guys would stop to pay her some attention.

"Hey honey," A group of boys whistled to her as she walked past them."Wanna do us tonight? We're willing." They were all familiar gangs in this neighborhood. She had slept with all of them before and had only gotten one hundred measle bucks. Cheapskates.

"Kristy, come over here, sweetie," The Philepinno gang leader known simply as Reg stroded toward her, smiling so wide that his teeth were displayed--white, straight and sparkling against a dark complexion. He laughed as she swung her eyes away from him, intent on ignoring him. But he continued to approach her, pursuing her with his eyes hot with desire.

"Not in the mood, Reg," Kristy warned him icily. "If you don't have the cash, don't you dare think of touching me."

"I miss you though," Reg lied. God, how men lied. It was just her body her wanted and she'd be damned if she would give him free favors. Freebies would not pay her rent, her mounting bills, and keep her stomach full. "C'mon honey, just one kiss?"

Kristy glared back at them and suddenly, a figure of a man caught her eye. He had been looking at her from across the street all that time and she had not noticed until now. His smile could be seen even from that far away, enigmatic and suave. He crossed the street quickly and soon approached her, looking rich and sensual in a well-tailored business suit. Young and handsome, he was clean cut, not like her usual customers. There was an air of arrogance and confidence about him that she liked instantly. This guy would be good. From the corner of her eye, Kristy was glad to notice that Reg was looking uncomfortable that a third party was coming in between their so-called acquaintance. Good, let the jerk sulk over her for once. She liked the attention anyhow.

"Do you---?" The guy didn't know how to ask what she was willing to give. His eyes moved over her body, from her small waist to the low top that she wore, revealing her cleverage to her advantage. He looked satisfied at what he saw.

"Of course," Kristy flashed her most seductive smile at him. God, it was so rare that she ever smiled that even the effort hurt like hell. But men always liked a happy woman, didn't they? Willing, beautiful and smiling. Kristy pretended to be all that well. It was a mask that she wore. She could slip into her mask as easily as donning on her gloves. The real Kristy was always hidden inside, like the little girl crying herself to sleep in the shadows.

And so, Kristy allowed the mysterious, handsome stranger to lead her off into his shining BMW while Reg and his gang of followers gaped at her. In envy? In surprise? Kristy laughed inwardly at their blank stares and Reg's fuming face.

They did it in a cheap motel nearby, quickly and with heat. But oh, it was a good night for Kristy. The room was dark except for the faint light of a lamp in the corner, and the curtains by the window fluttered softly in the breeze. The man lay on the bed, waiting, his bare skin basking in the warm glow of the lamp. Kristy unbuttoned her blouse and slid it from her shoulders, dropped her skirt to the floor and stepped out of it. The mirror in the room caught all of her actions, reflecting the visions back to her. Her movements were sensual and mysterious...dark and deliberate. Bare and feeling cold, her body felt like vulnerable, white and soft in the darkness of the room. The man's kisses were demanding and hot upon the smoothness of her skin and the night wore on and on, like a never-ending essence of a long ago dream.

When it was done, the man tipped her a large amount of money. One thousand bucks was good. The night sky was already starting to lighten as dawn broke out. The man got dressed quickly, stuffing the bills into her hands as he smiled at her. It was a beautiful smile, soft in its sensuality. In the light, he was more handsome than ever, his features defined and well-structured. A straight nose, dark eyes and a rounded chin. Good looks and money. He was Kristy's kind of man.

"Another time then?" The man laughed at her joyous expression as she placed the bills in the safety of her purse. "I'm Gallen Lo, if you want to know. But I trust that you won't open your mouth to let anyone know about that."

"I'm Kristy," She offered, looking at him with knowing eyes. She knew how the businesses worked. If the man told her his name (if it was his real name), then she wouldn't tell another soul. Her job was unethical but her loyalty to her customers was solid. "I will keep my mouth shut. I know what to do."

The man nodded, believing her. Then he slipped into the Armani blazer that he wore the night before and left the motel room. Kristy sat back against the dashboard of the bed, counting her money in the palm of her hands, feeling the texture of it in her graps.

Reflected in the mirror across from the bed, the dark circles underneath her eyes were sharper and more visible than ever. Her face was pale and haggard with the sorrows that a girl so young should bear. But Kristy never raised her eyes to look at herself carefully, so intent her gaze was on the money that her night with a stranger had given to her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Immortal Louis did not know why he was constantly drawn to the bedside of the dying Alec Su. It was a feeling of familiarity, a bond that he knew would soon form between them because their lives were linked with one person---Vicki. They both loved her--Louis loving her with brotherly concern, Alec loving her wholly and completely with his heart.

Louis had kept vigil over Alec all morning long after leaving Vicki's apartment. He wanted to give her time to fully think about the proposition that he had told her and not knowing where else to go, he had been drawn to go to the Memorial Hospital to see and be with Alec. He wanted to comfort Alec, even though the poor young man was lost in his own world of darkness ever since the bullet sliced through his heart.

Sitting in a straight-backed chair, Louis had pulled himself up close to Alec's bedside so that his hand could rest lightly on Alec's limp ones. He used his internal energy to comfort Alec, sending vibrations through Alec's arm and signals to his brain to strive to keep him alive. Alec must not die. Not yet, not until Vicki made her decision.

But the young man certainly looked dead. Alec lay as he had been placed, on his back, his limp right arm extended parallel to his body connected to an IV pole. His face, covered by a respirator mask, was barely visible, pale and drawn, his extreme pallor evident in the faint tranlucency of his skin. Dark circles hung below his eyes, startingly swollen against the paleness of his face and his chest rose each time the respirator hissed oxygen into his lungs. But Louis could hear Alec's heart, his pulse weak and erratic. Alec was on the verge of dying. Only one push and he would be gone. Time was running out.

"How is he doing?"

Louis had known that she stood behind behind him even before Vivian Leung had approached him. He had heard her familiar light footsteps from down the corridor of the hospital and knew that she was coming to check up on her patient, Alec. Vivian crossed over to inspect the electrocrdiopgraph that monitored Alec's heart rhythm through an EKG screen. The signals on the screen was almost flat---a sign that a patient was in respiratory failure.

"Not good." Louis' voice was frankly honest. "He's dying."

"I know," Vivian pulled up a chair and sat on the other side of Alec's bedside, so that she was faced directly across from Louis. "But do you think that there is a chance that he will make it? I performed his heart surgery and his organs were all literally destroyed. The organ transplant will not take place. Alec will die without a new heart. But there isn't enough time. I feel....hopeless."

At the weary, resignated tone of her voice, Louis' eyes swung up so that he could gaze at Vivian. He had known her for over three years and she was the only mortal apart from Vicki to know about his existence of being an Immortal. Why had he confided in Vivian and no one else? It was because Louis knew that Vivian was special and that she would never betray her secret. He had sensed that her spirit was good and he was never wrong about his intuitions. Vivian helped him in his search for human peace. She informed him of the progress of patients, which ones needed the most comforting, which ones were hopeless. Louis dedicated his time to helping others. With just one simple touch of his hand, he would leave dying patients with a sense of hope and a renewal of faith. That was his mission as an Immortal. Vivian's mission was also the same, though she was not an ethereal being.

Haven graduated out of Medical school five years ago, Vivian's love for life showed in her earnest attempt to resucitate every patient to prevent death. Medicine was her love, her passion, her definition of herself, her only reason for rising in the morning and getting on with life in a world that had otherwise become too colorless and purposeless to endure. Her reputation as a cardivoascular surgeon was well-known and widely respected inspite of her young age. To Vivian, defeating death was a battle won in an endless war against injustice, not just a healing act but as an act of defiance, an angry fist raised in the face of fate.

After haven known Louis and haven heard his story about how he had risked his life to save his beloved Emileth's life so long ago, Vivian had been touched and their friendship had broadened into mutual affection for each other as loyal friends. Now, sitting across from his friend, Louis wanted to comfort Vivian's broken faith in Alec.

"He won't die. Not if his lover, Vicki, chooses to become an Immortal like me. She has a choice, as I've been given a choice. Alec's fate isn't determined yet."

Vivian stared at him, wide-eyed. She was surprised that another mortal would be given such a chance. She looked young for her age of twenty-nine years, fragile and gracefully feminine even though the white lab coat covered most of the curves of her body. Even in daylight, Vivian looked vulnerable with her large brown eyes and sweet features consisting of a petite nose, rose-tinted full lips and rounded, soft cheeks. Her glossamar dark hair was often pinned up in a simple ponytail, but since the strands were so fine, some loose layers would fall softly against her porcelain face to give her sweet features an elegant look. She was beautiful, inside and outside. But Louis knew that she was still single, mostly because Vivian was too dedicated to her profession to care about relationships. She was a remarkable mortal, generous, caring and a friend whom he would always be grateful to have as his own.

"You offered her Immortality?" Vivian said softly, frowning in concentration. "What did she say?"

"She didn't give me her answer yet." Louis knew that Vicki needed time and he would give her that.

"Do you think that she will agree to it?"

"I know she will."

"How?" Vivian's frown deepened.

"Because she loves Alec enough to risk all for him. She and I are hopeless in our love for those we choose as the othe half of our souls. Vicki will save him, I'm positive of it. It is her Destiny, as it was mine."

Louis did not need to elaborate because Vivian knew of such love after haven heard his story of his dommed romance with Emileth. A comfortable silence settled between them as their eyes slowly focused again on the dying young man on the hospital bed. Alec's labored breathing filled Louis' senses and finally after a moment, Louis knew that it was time. He had to see Vicki because he sensed that she had an answer for him, even though he knew her too well to already know of her answer.

"I have to see her," Rising, Louis moved over to Vivian and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. Tension. Weariness. All of Vivian's stress and hardships melted away to sublime peacefulness with an Immortal's touch.

Vivian smiled at him, at his kindness. "Thank you. I'll stay here beside Alec to care for him."

Louis knew that she would, as she always will with her patients. It was in Vivian's nature to care for others, to love others more than she loved her own life. Outside, the sky began to open up in torrents of rain, the darkness of the overcast horizon descending upon the Toronto city like a looming shadow. Before Louis left Alec's ICU room, he turned to look over his back.

The room was silent. Vivian had reached over to turn the audio signal on the EKG off, leaving only the rhythmically bouncing light endlessly making its way across the screen. The only sounds were the soft moans of the wind at the window and the occassional faint tapping of rain against the glass. The only two figures present in the room was a dying patient and a dedicated doctor greiving silently because she could not save him. Louis's eyes flickered over to the back of Vivan's head affectionately and slipped out of the hospital in his quiet manner.

The rain poured down hard like a waterfall as Louis stepped outside into the street. But before the rain could drip onto his body and clothes, an umbrella was instantly raised and Louis dashed across a busy street when the light turned green. Suddenly, his shoulder bumped into a figure of a young girl and he was almost knocked to the ground. But he regained his balance quickly and spun around to see a girl rushing up to him.

"Sorry," Her voice was full of panic. She reached out to place her hand on his arm, to steady his position. "I didn't mean to run into you like that. God, I almost sent you flying. Sure you're okay?"

Louis stared at her, finding himself mesmorized the familiarity of her face. Those dark haunted eyes...that heart-shaped pale face....that quiet beauty....she had a face that he had loved with all of his heart in a past lifetime.

"Emileth...."

That single name fell from his lips.

"What?" The girl cried, her look of sorrow for haven bumped into him turning into a look of bewilderment. She hastily recoiled from his touch, uncomfortable at the intensity of his gaze. "Look, you must be mistaken or something. I'm not...whoever it is that you think I am."

Louis stared hard at her, drinking in the familiarity of her face, at her fragile beauty. She even smelled like Emileth of his past...like water lilies and a fresh spring flowers. But she didn't seem to recognize him. If she were Emileth, she would recognize him. If she were alive as Emileth then she would know that it was him. Emileth was dead, buried beneath the cold ground. Louis had watched his love grow old and have the opportunity to die, because he had given up his life so that she could live hers. This girl was not Emileth but that haunting beauty was startlingly frightening.

"I'm sorry." He was truly remorselful. "Forgive me."

"Jerk," The girl muttered under her breath. But when she gazed at him, a false smile spread across her lips, though is never reached her eyes. "It's okay. Weirdoes who use corny pick up lines like that often hit on me. I'm used to it." Sarcasm dripped from her words.

Suddenly, Louis jumped at the sound of horns blaring and realized that the traffic light had turned green and cars were impatient because he and the girl was blocking the crosswalk.

"Wait--"

Before Louis could finish his sentence, the girl sauntered off across the street, her long hair blowing in the breeze behind her. Louis dashed across the other side of the sidewalk and turned to gaze back at her longingly. When she had touched him briefly to steady his footing, his telepathic mind had confirmed facts about her that now proved that she was not Emileth. That was the power of an Immortal--the power of truth.

The girl's name was Kristy Yeung. She was twenty-five years old and a prostitute.

Louis watched her slight figure disappear beneath the transparent sheets of rain as he stood watching her from under the umbrella. He was intrigued by her, this young woman who looked like Emileth but had the eyes of a haunted spirit who could never find peace.

He wanted to see Kristy again and he knew that he would. Their paths had crossed, indicating to him that this girl was would be a part of Destiny's plans for him.

Soon.

Chapter 5

*Immortality*

The lover sleeps and amid his dreams
His Angel comes on sunlit beams.

To waken him with kisses sweet,
For her love for him eternal, so deep.

To caress her body and touch her soul.
For together two become as a whole.
When all is done and all is said,
Upon her chest will he rest his head.

He hears her heart beat for him alone;
A greater love he's never known.

For in his heart they shall always be
Eternally together, joined by destiny.

~ * Alec's poem for Vicki * ~ (Written by *Whistler*)

-- Chapter 5 -- Immortality

Edited by: Jessey

As the rain tore mercilessly through the night, Vicki dreamed. Turning in her sleep, twisting at the blankets until her limbs were tangled in them, Vicki saw Alec. She was walking in a forest beside him, but he was wrapped up in his pain and moved ahead. Vicki called out his name, "Alec!", her footsteps pounding against the earth as she chased after him as fast as her feet could carry her. But he was always one step ahead and would not stop so that she could catch up to him. She wanted to see him and be with him so much that it made her heart ache from within.

Finally, Alec stopped running as he stood near a river bank, and looked back pleadingly at her. His face was deathly pale and his eyes were full of tears, unshed and glimmering in those dark depths. He mouthed her name, "Vicki"and smiled gently at her, that familiar soft smile. He stood by the edge of the river and turned to stare at the water that swirled threateningly at his feet. Vicki saw him lean forward, drawn by the force and fury of the torrent. Vicki cried out, but he did not hear. Alec fell forward, caught up in a whirlpool of darkness that sucked him down, down, down, until he rose no more.

"NO! ALEC!"

Vicki sat up in bed, her eyes flying open. It was a dream, only a dream. But it was so real, so frighteningly real. Soaked in her own sweat so that her nightgown clung to her body, Vicki turned over to her side and glanced at the alarm clock on the beside table. 6:00 pm, the flourescent green numbers stared back at her. It was still early evening but the storm raging outside made the sky look so dark and so omnious.

"Oh God," Vicki moaned, burying her face in her hands in wearniess. She had slept for almost the entire day after Louis had left her, caught up in nightmare after nightmare of seeing Alec disappear in front of her. He was always just beyond her grasp and yet so far away. She could not reach him. Alec....

Fumbling for a lightswtich, Vicki's fingers finally found it and flipped it on. Warm light flooded through the room and Vicki's eyes finally fell on a book that she recognized instantly as Alec's diary lying open on the bedside table. He often wrote in it, daily and with joy.

Once, Vicki had asked him how he was so adament about writing his thoughts down on paper. Alec had responded by telling her that he wanted every moment of his life with her recorded in somewhere else besides his heart so that he could always remember her. She had slugged him in the stomach playfully, teasing him of being overly mushy, even while feeling delighted and touched from within. Even now, Alec's laugher rang through her mind as though the memory were only yesterday.

Strange how Alec's diary would be lying around. He often kept it hidden from her, for it was his private thoughts afterall. But the diary was now lying open and free for her to read. Vicki leaned over and picked the leather-bound book in her hands. Her eyes skimmed over the neat writing in Alec's familiar style of first person narrative. The diary was open to an entry from four years ago, before she and Alec dated each other. Vicki could not help but read what Alec had written about that day. She knew that she was prying into Alec's private things, but at that moment, she needed to be closer to him, to know that he had existed. Her curiosity beat her hesitance, and Vicki allowed her eyes to read the diary.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 21st, 1994

I want to dance with you, Vicki.

It's a simple request, really. Such a normal thought to have about the woman you love. I think that's why I think about it so much. The image of us dancing has been with me for quite some time now. I keep it tucked away the same way I keep my wallet tucked in the back pocket of my pants. It's always there, yet I only take it out when I need it.
It's so comforting for me, knowing that I can pull out this image on those days when my life seems like nothing but chaos. Of course, now that I think about it, that seems to be pretty much every day.

The place is always different. Sometimes we're in a crowded nightclub. Sometimes we're in a majestic ballroom, and sometimes we're simply doing an impromptu dance in our apartment. I've pictured us slow dancing, waltzing, doing the tango, and even doing some disco dancing, but no matter where my mind imagines us, one thing always stays the same. Our dance always ends with a kiss.

Tonight as I sleep, I find myself swept up in a dream in which the image of us dancing is clearer than it's ever been. We are in my apartment, talking, with soft music playing in the background. You look so relaxed sitting on the couch, and I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on what you're saying. I keep looking at your lips as
you talk and wondering what they would feel like next to mine. The streetlight outside is shining through my window, casting shadows upon your hair, and your eyes are intensely focused on me. I try to hide the fact that I'm looking at your lips, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm doing. You look so beautiful sitting there, and I know that it's time. If I don't take this chance now, I never will.

I stand up, hold out my hand, and whisper, "Dance with me, Vicki."

You look at me for what seems like an eternity. My heart is pounding so loudly in my chest, it's overpowering all my senses. Just when I think I can't wait a second longer for your response, you stand. You nod your head, take my hand, and slowly press your entire body into mine without saying a word.

Your head rests against my chest, and I feel my heart beating even faster. Your hips gently brush up against my thighs, and I feel a tickling sensation as you move your fingers along my lower back. I'm afraid to move, for fear of breaking the spell we seem to be under. Although words go unspoken, everything between us is being said in this one moment. After a long pause, we start swaying in rhythm with the music.

We dance for what seems like hours. You feel so good next to me, so soft, so warm. I don't want to let you go, but the music has stopped. Our silent dance is over. I take a step back, but you don't. You simply smile at me, and casually move your hands from my back to my face. I am absolutely mesmerized by you and before I realize it, my hands are stroking your cheeks. I want to kiss you, and I can see in your eyes that you want me to.

I slowly lean forward and close my eyes. Your breath caresses my face, causing a rush of excitement to wash over me. Our lips barely touch, then press together in an exquisite kiss. I pull you closer, wanting nothing more than to lose myself completely in you. I want you so much, Vicki. I've wanted you for so... "

"Alec, it's me. Are you in there?"

I'm suddenly startled out of my dream by the sound of your voice at my door. I immediately sit up and try to get my bearings. I feel warm and a little out of breath. I can tell my face is flushed, and I'm not sure I want you to see me like this. I take a couple of deep breaths and rub my eyes a few times, still trying to get myself together.

"Yeah, I'm here, Vicki. Just a minute."

I move towards the door, but before I can get there, you walk in, with my key in your hand.

"What took you so long? Are you okay?" You sound a little concerned. Of course, I can't tell you that I was right in the middle of the most incredible dream of my life.

So I simply say, "I'm okay, Vicki.I was just taking a nap
on the couch. Why are you here? Is everything alright?" Now it's my turn to be concerned.

"I'm fine, Alec. Just thinking about exams and God, more exams next week! How will I survive...?" You were babbling on in your usual perky, cheerful conversations.

"Dance with me, Vicki," I blurt out.

The stunned look on your face is priceless. With four simple words, I have managed to catch you completely off guard. After quickly regaining your composure, you raise your eyebrow, and suspiciously ask, "What did you say, Alec?"

"You heard me, Vicki. I want you to dance with me." My eyes lock onto you as you move over to the couch and sit down. I can tell that you're pondering what I've suggested, but aren't quite sure how to respond just yet.

You look up at me, searching my face for some kind of answer. Trusting what you see in my eyes, you finally stand up, and quietly say, "Okay."

I can't stop smiling as you take my hand and press your
body into mine without saying a word. You rest your head against my chest and place your hands on my lower back in just the right spot. We start to dance, and it's just like I've imagined us. Only this time it's even better. My dreams have become a reality because I have you in my arms.

If only I could hold you there for an eternity.

If only I could hold you in my arms forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vicki's tears fell softly down her cheeks and dripped down onto the pages of Alec's diary. The entry had been written before they had started to date each other steadily. She was still involved with another man, without truly knowing that Alec had loved her all along. Vicki's tears fell softly down her face; it was only when she saw the ink begin to blur did she hastily shut the book to shield it from ruin by the moisture from her tears.

Alec...she never realized how deep his love for her went until now, after reading an entry from his diary. It was like peering into his soul and seeing only blind love in her. The pain from the thought of losing him was now shredding her insides to pieces. How could she let him die? To let the only love of her life go?

Vicki held the diary close against her chest, clinging onto it as her shoulders hunched in grief. Her tears came hot and angry as her sorrow poured from her in torrents, much like the rain that splashed against her windowsill. The pain was blinding her, searching her heart into two. How could she ever feel happiness again, not if she were to lose the only beautiful thing in her life.

Alec...I can't lose you...I can't...I'll shrivel and cease to live without you....

Suddenly, gentle arms were wrapped around her shoulders and a fingertip wiped away her tears tenderly. Vicki knew that he would come that night, as he had promised.

"Shh...hush now..." Louis' soft voice whispered in her ear. His touch on her shoulder comforted her, calming her fears and sorrow. A lightnight bolt abruptly lit up the sky and the white flash illuminated the darkness of his face in the night. But his eyes, so caring and loving, eased all of her pain. Vicki knew what he came for and she had her answer.

"Make me into an Imortal." It was amazing how calm her voice was, even though her nerves were frayed beyond repair.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, please take my life. Give Alec back his. My answer is final."

"Vicki....you're sure?" Gentle eyes searched her face for confirmation.

"Please. Do it. I can't lose him. Take my life instead. Please."

Vicki raised her eyes to meet his, unblinking and determined. She saw Louis nod slightly through a film of tears and saw his hand reach out toward her heart. His touch was gentle, like a sigh of wind. Tears trickled down her cheeks and in an instant, Vicki slipped into darkness as her heart stopped beating. In her mind, Vicki chased after Alec and finally caught up to him. He smiled at her, his warm and beautiful smile. That was her last conscious thought.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - -- - - - - -

Careful not to smudge the line, Louis finished drawing the circle on the floor. He grabbed a new piece of chalk and proceeded to scrible the runes needed to complete the binding. His focus was unwavering as he worked. His concentration was completely focused on the task of creating another Immortal.Carefully, he drew out the complex figures. Louis spoke the name of each character, he whisper the only sound save the soft scraping of chalk on concrete. They were figures of angels, Angel's of mercy.

Vicki's spirit was in Heaven and Louis had to get it back so that she could remain on Earth, in this world. He had chosen an abandoned warehouse which had been his home for over a decade of being an ethereal creature. Louis needed a safe place to complete the ritual of raising the dead. He had laid the dead corpse of Vicki down on a soft mattress after carrying her from her apartment. Her hair spilled over the mattress softly, her eyes closed tightly in death. But she was lovely, even in eternal rest. Glowing candles burned around her body, lighting up the dark room and heightening the loveliness of her face.

Louis finished the last rune, then stood to survey his work. Examining the complex figures, she checked carefully for accuracy. Occasionally, he adjusted a rune, correcting a curve here, lengthening a line there. When he was satisfied with the binding, he stepped inside the circle. With infinite care, he drew out the pentagram, fitting it carefully around the large stone statue near the edge of the circle. That completed, he stepped gingerly out of the circle, taking extra care not to scuff the runes. One final step to finish. Louis positioned five large, red candles outside the circle, each one in line with a point of the pentagram. Now it was complete.

He cast a discerning eye over her work, double checking for any little thing that might be out of place. This would be his toughest summoning yet. Tonight he labored to call forth a powerful new being--another Immortal.

When Louis had started on this quest, it had seemed so straight forward. A spirit of an angel had come to him in a dream and explained what needed to be done. The angel had made everything sound so easy. Louis had studied what he taught, learning the complex runes and spells for summoning. Diligently, he had labored to summon demons as her mentor bid. Each one a little stronger than the last, each one a step closer to his final goal.

The things he had practiced to summon had been both hideous and beautiful. Things the human mind never could have imagined. Minions of Hell pulled from their ethereal plane with only the strength of her will to bind them. Each one to test and strengthen; each one to teach him more control.

Tonight, Louis was ready. He had to be ready. The life of Alec Su depended on his success. It had taken him five long years to reach this point after realizing that he would have to one day create a being like himself. Five long years of sacrifice and diligence. Louis had known from the start that this would be difficult and dangerous. If Louis were to lose control of his powers anytime during the ritual, then it could force him to release Vicki's spirit. He must focus hard on what needed to be done. If she was successful, then he could right a wrong and fulfill Vicki's wish, to free an innocent from a damning fate of death. If he failed, he would be responsible for two deaths--Vicki and Alec's deaths.

Gently, Louis picked up Vicki's limp form and carried her over toward the circle. He softly rested her body inside the circle effortlessly; she weighted no more then a baby, for Louis' strength was powerful. Then, Louis stepped to his accustomed place at the edge of the circle, his long robe whispering over the concrete. The robe was an affection he had adopted that eventually became a necessity. Protective sigils and runes adorned the sleeves, hood and hem of the midnight blue robe. It made Louis feel comfortable and at ease with his challenging task.

Louis finally spoke, words of magic that were memorized and embedded into his brain.

"Our Lord, save the soul of the Chosen One
Give live to this body and hope to mankind.
Rise, Immortal, come before me.
Create into existence a creature of good
To save all humanity."

Gesturing sharply, Louis' fingers traced the runes of fire. Flames sprang from the candle wicks, licking greedily at the air before subsiding to small flickers of light. He nodded thoughtfully to himself; All was ready. With practiced ease he traced forms in the air, his sleeves waving animatedly. He chanted the summons, intoning the harsh guttural words with a steady voice.

The candle flames climbed higher, burning impossibly bright. The eyes of the statue glowed an evil red as he called the gateway to the nether world. In the center of the pentagram a small pinprick of light appeared. A portal. Slowly it grew, opening like a cavernous maw. A balmy-scented wind blew, issuing from the gaping tear in reality.

The circle began to glow an eerie green as the winds started. At first it was a gentle breeze that gradually built into a tornado. Dark clouds tinged with red whirled inside the circle obscuring the glowing portal. In the dust, horribly distored faces, momentarily flashed into view. Louis knew that there would inevitable evil dark forces from Hell preventing Vicki's spirit to submerge back into her body. But they were harmless, the creatures of the underworld in comparison to his powers. They were there only to distract him from his goal. Louis ignored these, as he'd been taught. Steadily, he looked into the vortex, his eyes never wavering, his voice never faltering. Any small distraction could break his concentration and release Vicki's spirit. The candle flames elongated again, never wavering even though a maelstrom of raw power whirled only inches away. The circle held.

Louis felt the first tendrils of resistance as the spirit of Vicki that he summoned was drawn by his irresistible command. An angry howl echoed through the room, reverberating off the stone walls; another distraction to be ignored.Louis increased the mental force behind the summons.Vicki's spirit came willingly now, seeking release into this world. Gleeful evil advanced on him, trying to
overwhelm his concentration.

"Come to me, Immortal.
Join me in this world.
Now and forever
May you bring peace to suffering."

Louis chanted the last words of the summons, pulling the demon from the depths of the abyss. With casual movements of his hands, Louis traced new runes in the air. The outer circle of runes glowed bright white as she activated it. The form taking shape in the circle screamed its rage. It was trapped, contained like an animal in a cage.

Whispers and promises echoed in her head as it tried to seduce her to its will. Louis ignored the empty words. Angered, the Demons from the underworld attacked his psionically. Resolutely, he fought each advance as the Demon tried to gain its freedom. A bead of sweat trickling down his cheek was the only outward sign of the fierce battle being waged. This war would be won, or lost, in the blink of an eye.

The pressure built in Louis' head until he thought it would split. This creature was stronger than any Demon he had ever fought before. The Demon was raging a war against him from taking Vicki's spirit. Louis felt its strength like constricting bands as it attacked, struggling to crush him. The pain was agony--blinding him mercilessly, tearing away at his insides, ripping his mind to shreads. Just when he thought he could take no more, he felt another presence buttress his defenses. Wrapping protectively around his essence, it lent its strength to his own. It took the brunt of the Demons' attack, freeing Louis' mind to finish the binding.

Louis didn't spare time to wonder about his anonymous protector. He knew that it was God who had helped free him from the power of the Demons. With lightning speed he bore down on the Demon, binding it mentally to his will. With one last anguished howl of protest, the Demon relented and acknowledged his dominance. The blinding pressure stopped. The force that shielded him withdrew, but continued to hover unobtrusively at the edge of his awareness.

Louis gathered himself, preparing mentally for what was required next. If something went wrong, it would kill the spirit he was trying to save. Without conscious thought, his hands traced runes in the air. His soft chant, almost drowned out by angry growls, gathered the Demons' power and added it to his own. Louis bid it to bring forth the spirit of Vicki, to pull it through the portal that separated life and death.

Louis commanded the Demon to remove it's foul brethern, to cleave the lesser demon from the form of flesh. Through the whirling dust, he saw a glowing shape rise from a spirit being held rigid as if it were bound. The spirit, threw back its head, screaming its agony as the Demon was torn from its body. An answering howl of anger and fury was echoed by the Demon as it was ripped from it's unwilling host. The mass of energy formed into a glowing, whirling ball, pulsating with demonic light.

It was finally done.

Louis bid the Demon release its prisoner and depart this plane, taking it's infernal brethern with it. Helpless to disobey, it did as commanded and disappeared howling its rage. A thunderous clap sounded. Lightening forked out from the dense cloud, bouncing harmlessly off the barrier of the circle. The candles sputtered, then their flames once again burnt normally. The maelstrom began to dissipate, and the spirit submerged instantly with its body lying motionless in the circle.

As the magical ritual ended, a cloud of smoke disperesed to reveal the inert form of a lovely young girl huddled on the floor. Broken and crying, she whimpered softly. Louis waited until the energy faded before stepping closer to gaze at another Immortal being. Vicki was beautiful, flawlessly beautiful in her mortal form.

He had done it, he'd truly done it.

At the intensity of his gze, the naked figure on the floor shrank back, looking fearfully up at him. She blinked against the light, her eyes not accustomed to such brightness. Recognition and hope flickered in her eyes as Louis spoke her name, "Vicki."

Louis took off his robe and placed it over her body, draping her nudity with its soft cloth. Tentatively she reached for Louis, her hand stopping short as it encountered the barrier of the binding circle.

She tried to speak, but could force no sound from his raw throat. She swallowed, her lovely face twisting with pain. Her eyes locked with his as she tried again.

"Louis?" she croaked, her voice rasping.

Louis nodded joyously. Vicki rememberd everything.

Carefully, he studied her, his eyes searching hers. A pleased smile turned up the corners of his mouth when he found what he wanted. Dark brown eyes, shining with the warm light of a soul looked back at him. A gesture of Louis' hands and a softly spoken word deactivated the binding. He stepped into the circle, his boots rubbing out a portion of the circle and the runes. He reached for Vicki again. This time she caught his hand.

Patiently, Louis bent to help her to her feet, but she wrapped long arms around him pulling him down. Kneeling beside him, she pulled him close. Desperately, she clutched at him, her face buried against his broad chest. Sobs wracked her body as she cried brokenly, sorrowfully.

"Alec...has his life been spared...?" Hope filled that pitifully small voice.

"Yes." It was the truth.

"He will live a long and peaceful life?"

"I think so."

"Will he know that I've died?"

"Yes, but time heals all wounds, Vicki. Alec will be fine. You've given him your soul. That's a sacrifice that will guarantee Alec a happy life."

"Then it's all been worth it. Thank you, Louis. Thank you." Her tears fell faster now, soaking the front shirt of his chest.

Like a father with his newborn, Louis rocked Vicki's sobbing body against him until her crying subsided. "Shhh..." Cooing gently, he stroked Vicki's head, his fingers tangling in her long silky strands of hair. "You are an Immortal now, Vicki. Welcome to your new existence."

Chapter 6

Alec floated, suspended in the air, a bodiless feeling coming to him, settling itself upon his limbs, paralyzing him. He felt no fear; the sense of weightlessness soothes him. He embraced the feeling, opening his arms and relish in this new freedom. The abundant darkness surrounded him, filling his eyes with its vastness. The garish and harsh light of day has disappeared, leaving him with a warm and soothing blackness. He took pleasure from in this feeling, and for one, all too brief moment he has discovered true peace. It does not consume him, but rather takes all of his daily concerns and worries and hides them, shielding his mind from their burden.

He was free.

Suddenly, Vicki was beside him.

She stood before him, her face only inches away from him, suspended in the air as though she were flying. Alec stood still, holding his breath, wanting to hold her, but a part of him would not dare touch her for fear that she was too beautiful to be real. Vicki was beautiful in his eyes, ethereal and fragile, fleeting beauty that never faded. Delicate ivory skin stretched over fine facial bones surrounded by soft strands of ebony hair that framed along warm brown eyes that he had fallen in love with. Her large eyes were full of love and gentleness as she looked at him, as though she wanted to peer into his soul. Alec knew that she was the only person whom he wanted to share his soul with and he was willing, always willing to share all with her. All his life there had only been Vicki, only Vicki.

"I'm going to leave you," Her fevered voice whispered to him. Tears shone in the depths of her eyes, making her seem more fragile than ever to him. "I have to go."

"Why?" He was confused.

"I made a choice," There was so much pain and sorrow in her eyes. Why was she suffering like this? He wanted her to share her pain with him.

"I don't understand."

"You won't, Alec. Just...forget about me....about us...live for me."

"Vicki..." Her words that made no sense to him was frightening him. "Please tell me what's wrong." He was begging her, pleading her.

"I have to go now," Vicki's soft voice was adamant, even as the tears began to slip down her face. His fingers ached to wipe them away, to make her laugh again. He didn't know why she was mourning, why she was in so much turmoil. He reached out for her but she took a step back, away from his touch.

"Good bye, Alec."

"Don't leave me!" The cry tore from Alec's throat before he could stop himself. He didn't understand why she had to leave; she had never told him why. But from the pain in her eyes and the tremor in her voice, he knew that Vicki was speaking the truth. He couldn't bare it, to let her go. "Why are you leaving me?"

On impulse, he grabbed hold onto her hands, her small hands that was always holding him, loving him. But she allowed her hand to slip away from his, even though he struggled to hold on as tight as he could, tightly in desperation. Alec shook his head in disbelief when he saw Vicki turn her back on him, her long ebony hair blowing in the wind as the image of her began to fade away farther and farther beyond his reach.

"Don`t leave me..." The tears fell from his cheeks, stingingly cold against his face.

It surprised him, those tears, for Alec never cried. Only Vicki could bring him so much sorrow that his emotions would burst like this. There was still so much he knew that she wanted to tell him but she had not. Instead she had left him and turned her back on him.

Vicki! Why? He wanted to scream at her. Didn't she know how much he loved her, how barren his life would be without her? He would rather die a thousand deaths than to live without her. For without Vicki, there was nothing for Alec. Nothing at all.

With Vicki gone, the serenity was short-lived of this surreal dream, as Alec is ripped from his comforting sphere of weightlessness and night, and fell.

Alec fell into nothingness, the speed of his descent lifting his body as he flew through the darkness. He felt as if he'd been shot through the air from a cannon and am hurtling downward, toward an emptiness that is raw and unknown, into a darkness he did not wish to fathom. He felt panic rise through his body, breaking through every shred of sanity he held close, the yell of terror about to escape from his lungs, as if the noise itself will somehow stop his periless and inevitable fall into this vast void.

He could not scream.

He could not move.

He will fall, never-ending.

In his mind, he screamed out her name, "VICKI!"

Instantly, images of the shooting vibrated into his mind. The sixteen year old kid robbing Mr. Carson's store...the gun....his head hitting the ground...the stench of blood...so red and flowing from his chest....his tears that mingled in with his blood as he cried out for peace....and the pain...the wracking pain....

Was he dead? Had he died yet?

Suddenly, as quickly as he had begun to fall, torn away from the comfort of the softness of the night, time begins to linger, everything playing in slow motion. The blackness of his descent came alive with color. Images took shape before his eyes, blinding him with their vibrancy and intensity. Voices flowed in and out of his ears, echoing and echoing like beats on a drum upon his head.

"He's coming to, Doctor."

"His heart rate is accelerating, looks like he is waking up."

"Take him off the respirator. His breathing is improving. Place him on an inhalator for now."

Very slowly, the blackness surrounding Alec faded into a faint glow. He struggled to open his eyes to blinding brightness, but hastily closed them again because the light burned his sockets. Cool liquid that smelled like alcohol was rubbed against the delicate skin of his left arm and a needle stung his flesh. For a moment, someone placed a hand over his face, as if trying to smother him. Alec felt something plugging up his nostrils, and for a moment, he could not breathe. The curious thing was that he didn't care. Then, cool dry air hissed into his nose and seemed to force an expansion in his lungs.

Finally, Alec found the strength to open his eyes once more. He was rushed instantly into the light and found himself surrounded by a myriad of sihouettes of men and women in white lab coats...a room that smelled of alcohol and medication and other disinfectants...the silhouettes becoming people with faces, then more faces appearing...soft but urgent voices..hands gripping him...rythymic beeps and clicks issuing from electronic equipment of some kind of machine that could breathe....but nowhere did Alec see or hear Vicki...

"Vicki..." Alec's mouth opened but no sound came out.

None of the people seemed to hear him. Alec was aware of movement around him, faces comng and going. He knew that he was the center of attention, an object of urgent inquiy, but he did not--could not manage--to care. It was all more like a dream to him than his actual dreams had been. A soft, tide of voices rose and fell around him, swelling rhythimically like gentle breakers whispering on a sandy shore. They were all engaged in their own conversations, though he was alert enough to realize that they were discussing about him.

"....Get him down to a recuperation room...keep vigil 24 to 24..."

"...Weak pulse..but steady vitals....respiration quick and shallow..."

"..Blood pressure is still dangerously low...put him on heavy medication...sedate him for the pain..."

Alec concentrated once more, with the last ounce of his strength, to speak again. He had to find Vicki. Where was she? Did she know that he wasn't dead yet? Oh God, thank you, he was still alive, or at least barely alive.

"Vicki....Vicki..." He wheezed out her name but even that effort sent pain through his throat that almost blinded him.

A young nurse, dressed in all white, leaned close, adjusting the inhalator, and smiled winningly at him. "What was that?"

"My girlfriend...Vicki...." Alec struggled to rasp out the words inspite of the hot fire that burned in his throat. "Please...find her for...me..." He could not go on anymore. He had used all of his strength and his body was drained with weariness. But Alec refused to rest. All he wanted was to see and touch Vicki, to be sure that she was alright, and then he would rest. But not until then.

For a moment, Alec saw a flicker of sorrow cross the nurse's face. Suddenly, another silouette blocked the nurse's striken face and Alec saw the doctor bend over to inject a needle into one of the veins in his arms. The prick of pain was over in seconds but instantly afterward, Alec felt nausiated and his eyelids grew so heavy that he had to struggle to stay awake.

A hand smoothed his hair away from his forehead and the gentle voice of a doctor told him, "Sleep now, son. You will have plenty of time for conversation after your heart has healed. You've just survived a major heart operation, just rest for now."

The voice faded and Alec's eyes closed. He was too weak to fight off the sedative and the warm sensation of dreaming was overtaking his mind once more. But strange voices filled his head before he had completely succumbed to unconsciousness.

"What will we tell him? He's been through so much. Would he be able to handle the news?"

"He has to know tht truth. His girlfriend, Vicki, is dead. He can't hide from the truth."

"He has no family. He has no one but her. The grief will kill him."

"But his girlfriend is gone. We can't lie to him forever."

Alec's mind jerked awake. The words echoed in his brain and sent alarm ringing in his mind. Vicki...was dead? How could that be possible? If Alec could escape death then why was Vicki the one to die? No...the doctors must be mistaken. Not Vicki. Not Vicki. No!

Alec demanded his body to listen to him, because he had to stay awake to ask questions. How could Vicki die? She was safe and sound in their apartment, wasn't she? He was the one who got caught in a crossfire, while Vicki should've been at home waiting for his return with her ice cream.

Oh God, this was unreal! Please, please not Vicki. No, God could not be so cruel as to give him back his life but to take it away again by taking Vicki from him. Oh God, please...please....take his life instead....give Vicki back hers....he would gladly die in her place...

Alec's heart seemed to clutch up like a fist within his chest. A new pain filled him, separate from all the other physical agonies of heart failure; this pain was more profound. In spire of terror and dilirium and exhaustion, all of which he had used as shields against the awful insistences of reality, truth came to him at last, and he was helpless to do anything but accept it.

Vicki was dead.

Alec finally sank into the darkness of unconsciousness, praying that he could join her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"ALEC!"

Vicki's eyes shot open as she sat up on the mattress upon the ground. She found herself sprawled upon a worn mattress dressed in nothing but the dark robe that Louis had draped over her body only hours ago. Everything came rushing back to her--her confrontation with Louis to beg him to make her into an Immortal, her own death and finally, her ressurection into an ethereal being that could only exist in her imagination. But this was no dream; this was reality. Vicki had just given up her soul to save Alec's soul. It was a bargain she would never regret.

"You're awake."

Vicki turned to see the beautiful man who looked like a mortal but was too flawless in his apperance to be human gazing back at her with those soulful eyes. He had urged her to sleep once haven converted her soul into an Immortal's soul and Vicki had slept soundfully and blissfully dreaming of nothing but Alec.

As Vicki stared at Louis, a warm feeling eased all of her fears. She trusted him, this beautiful man who had given her hope and had risked all for her sake. In her own way, Vicki had loved Louis all along after he had given her such a proposition to become what he was. Goodness and divine inner beauty radiated from him; he was the most generous soul she had ever had the privledge to know.

Now, Louis, the Immortal, handed her a warm cup of tea and after thanking him, Vicki drank it greedily, haven died and been ressurected again without haven drank any water. The tea soothed the dryness of her throat, calming her senses with its slight herbal fragrance. When she handed the cup back to him, her eyes began to travel over her new surroundings.

She and Louis sat upon a dirty white mattress in an old warehouse that looked as though it had seen it's better days. Worn paint was peeling from the walls, a slight draft drifted through a broken window and the ground was of sand and mud, without flooring. Shadows danced upon the scathered walls in eerie sihouettes as candles were placed encircling the mattress, like an aura of radiant light that warmed her inspite of the drafty air.

"Where are we?" Vicki asked him, yanking the blue robe closer around her shoulders. Even her voice sounded different to her ears, more gentle, more lilting, almost like notes upon a harp. "My voice...it sounds funny."

Louis' smile was soft in the candlelight. "This warehouse has been my home since becoming an Immortal. It is an old rundown building and no one will come to disturb us. About your voice, is it expected to change. You are an Immortal now, an angelic being of God. You aren't a mortal, even though you may look like one." His hands dug into the pocket of his dark trenchcoat and he handed her an ivory-backed mirror. "Look at yourself. You'll be surprised to find how different you look now."

Vicki hands trembled as she took the mirror from Louis' outstretched hands, unsure of what she would find. She raised the mirror until it reached levelly with her face and turned the smooth backing over until she gazed at her reflection. Her eyes travelled over her features--the large eyes, the petite nose and the sweet mouth. But strangely, her features were more defined, perfected and sensually soft. It was as though a magic wand had drifted across her body and corrected any imperfections in her body until all that was left behind was Vicki--but a more perfectly sculptured Vicki with beautiful skin, radiant eyes and an inner glow that was neither from health or youth but from an ethereal blood that now ran through her veins.

"I can't believe it...I look so different...but I'm me." Her voice shook from awe and wonder. Her hands glided across her skin and she was alarmed at how soft it was, how translucent the ivory flesh looked to her.

"All angels are perfected by God's hands."

"Am I an angel then?"

"Yes, an angel of mercy. You are an Immortal Angel sent to earth and selectively chosen by God to do his bidding to rid the world of evil But you will not be able to feel and love others. You will care for them but not love them. Your soul will be pure from passion, lust and love."

Vicki placed the mirror down and looked at Louis squarely in the face. It was enough of a shock for her in one night to have died and then to be ressurected into an angelic creature with a heart of gold. But inside, Vicki felt no different than the highschool science teacher who had given up her life to save the life of her loved one. "I haven't changed, even though I am not a mortal anymore. How can I not love when I still love..." Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

She had almost said "when I still love Alec" but Louis knew this. He looked at her with sad, knowing eyes.

"In time, your love for him will fade, Vicki. But even if you were to still love him, you cannot be with him. He is of the mortal world, you are of the ethereal world. There are boundaries that both of you cannot cross." Louis' eyes softened upon her as he sensed her acute pain. He knew that it would be a difficult journey for Vicki, to love a man but knowing full well that she could never be with him. But he himself had walked upon that road after giving up his life for his beloved Emileth and he had survived. "In time, Vicki, the pain will numb and you will feel nothing at all. That was your choice and there is no turning back. Giving up your soul to save Alec meant giving up Alec as well. You must've known that both of you can never be together."

"I know...." How pitifully small her voice sounded, how vulnerable that lovely face looked, so frightened suddenly and so uncertain. Vicki's tears shone with tears as she turned to him, her eyes searching his face. "How did you--how did you stop loving Emileth?"

Louis' heart lurched at her question but he fought for his composure. The pain came back to him, of haven watched his love wither and die from old age while he lived on but never having the chance to touch her or see her ever again before her death. It was an emotional wound that he had struggled to heal over the years, but the wound had eventually healed. It would be the same with Vicki. "I never stopped loving her. I just could never love her in the same way again. We could not touch or meet. She had believed that I was dead and I allowed her to believe so. But before she took her last breath, I was there with her and I comforted her until she slipped into Heaven. Love doesn't stop, Vicki, but love cannot endure with an Immortal soul. You may love Alec, but you may never reveal to him that you are still alive in this world. You are dead to him and you must keep it that way."

The look that seeped into Vicki's face at the harshness of his words was a look that Louis will never forget. Her eyes glazed over with a grief that was vivid, tangible and real and as the reality of the situation crashed down upon her, Vicki's tears fell. But they were not just merely tears of sorrow but tears of good bye to Alec. Her shoulders hunched as she allowed herself to cry like she had never cried before. Sharp cries echoed in the warehouse as Loius' arms held her, rocking her in his arms as though she were a child. But Vicki knew that there was something unfinished between her and Alec and if she did not have the last chance to see him, then her spirit would never rest.

"I want to see him, just once." Vicki pleaded to Louis between her sobs. "Please."

"You can`t." Louis shook his head sorrowfully.

Vicki snatched his hand and placed it against her heart. "Can you feel it?" She demanded, her voice shaking from the strain of her grief. She had to make Louis understand how much she needed to do this. "My heart is beating within me. I`m still alive and I love Alec. You can`t just make me forget everything about my life from before. I can`t erase Alec`s memory from my mind. Please, I just need to be with him this once, to make sure that he is recuperating and that he is safe. I need to know that he is well or else I can`t go on with this new identity when my heart is with another.

Loius`hand felt her heart beating from underneath the thin robe, rapidly and strong. It was a vital organ, one that God had given every mortal being so that they could live and love. Vicki was right; she needed this one chance to make amends with the one she loved. It was against the rules, but Louis was willing to break the rule for her this time.

"Just this once. Never again."

"I promise. Just this once and then never again."

Louis, the Immortal, nodded his head finally, smiling at her as he brushed away her tears. Vicki closed her eyes, struggling for composure, and in her mind, she began to plan as to how her final meeting with her beloved will take place. This was a new existence for her but why did she feel as though she wasn`t ready to let go of Alec? How would she ever be ready to say good-bye to the man she`d loved all her life?

Vicki knew that she only had this single chance to say a final good-bye to Alec. But it wasn't enough to say good-bye to a lifetime of loving and yearning and longing. Yet, for now, it had to be enough.

A hope to see Alec again was all that she had. A chance to tell him farewell was all that she wanted.

Chapter 7

In the darkness, sorrow and pain fill my mind
I writhe in my agony, crying out your name
You come on whispered breath
Holding me, guiding me,
Loving me and healing me
Till I see the light

(Excerpt of a song from the *Secret Garden* soundtrack)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

For an endless week, Vicki was caught in a web of indecision. Though she experience her new life as an Immortal with her surreal powers of being an ethereal being and hiding away from all of reality, Vicki`s never mind never left the thought of seeing Alec again. She had been too afraid to see him and she had asked Louis`mortal friend, the gentle Doctor Vivian Leung, to check up on Alec`s condition since he was her patient. Alec was recuperating nicely and his body seemed to be accepting his heart without any infections or side effects. But when Vivian had told her that Alec was in a deep depression after finding out that she had died a car accident in which Louis had made all parties including Alec believe of her *death*, Vicki`s tears fell.

"He`s not doing well," Vivian had looked at her kindly, with compassionate eyes. "The grief is hard to bare, especially for a man who has been through so much. He believes that you have died and the sudden knowledge of such profound news has made him wither away."

"I–I don`t want to lie to him," Vicki choked out tearfully. Her arms ached to hold Alec, to feel im the weight of him in her arms once more. "But I–I can`t be with him...." The words were definite, coursing out of her mouth based on a cruel twist of fate that forever separated her and her love. Then, she had cried silently and alone in the abandoned warehouse after Vivian had left.

Vicki had thought she could cry no more, after haven cried her heart to Louis so often. Some sorrows were just too deep for tears. And yet, Vicki knew that she could cry and endless well of tears for the doomed fate of her love for Alec. The sorrow was like an unending river, flowing and flowing until her soul was emptied and dry. Alec would always be so near to her and yet he was beyond her reach.

Finally, after one week of her resurrection into an Immortal, Vicki knew that it was time. There was no more time for contemplation. She had to see Alec. It yearning to see him and touch him was turning into a needful obsession for her now; she missed him until her heart would burst.

Now, Vicki stood before a shattered window of the old abandoned warehouse, watching as the sun rose up in the sky. It was a beautiful morning, one where the sky was crystal clear in shades of blue and golden yellow from the rays of the sun. She allowed the rays to drift upon her ivory skin, warming her flesh as she closed her eyes to bask in the glow of light.. She wondered if Alec was also looking up at the sky, and what he was doing now. He was being released from the hospital today and was given a sick leave of one month from the FBI squad to recuperate at home. Vicki wanted to see him today because she knew that she could wait no more. It was now or never—her last time to bid her love farewell.

"You`re going?" Louis`voice, now familiar to her, was soft as she felt his dark presence approach from behind her. A gentle hand was placed on her shoulder, unifying their bond.

In the past two weeks, Louis had taught her how to thrive with her new form and her new powers. Vicki was still spellbound by her powers–she was invincible, and her powers could heal, soothe and comfort. Though she could not save a soul who was destined to die, she could appear as an apparition in the mind of a dying patient and comfort their pain until the gate to Heaven was ready for their arrival. Vicki marveled at her ethereal powers, realizing now just how special she truly was to have been given such a gift. Through it all, Louis had been her only source for companionship, and he had introduced her to the lovely Vivian Leung, whom Vicki had instantly liked. But it was Louis who inspired her and made her whole; he had been her guiding hand and he had helped her accept the transition of being an Immortal. With only two weeks of acquaintance, he knew her so well.

"I have to see him tonight," Vicki`s voice came out in a whisper, her eyes still closed as she relished in the warmth of the sun`s rays.

"Take your time, don`t rush it."

"No, I have to see him. I can`t wait any more."

"You know that this is your only chance to see him. You can never reveal yourself to him again."

"I know...." Even now, the words were still painful for her to admit.

"Alec will survive, Vicki. He is strong and young. He`ll be happy again."

"I want nothing more than for him to be happy."

A silence fell upon them but it was a comfortable silence. Louis sensed that she needed to be alone and his body drifted soundlessly away and into the shadows of the warehouse. This would be the most difficult challenge for her and Louis knew that it was a challenge only she could vanquish alone. Vicki stood by the window with her eyes closed for the longest time, allowing the light to bathe her soul and then she opened her eyes again to face the wide open blue horizon.

The world was still there, lying in front of her eyes and yet, in a blink of an eye, after a gun shot, everything had changed for her and Alec. But the world continued to thrive and endure, even while two lives were changed forever. That was life, wasn`t it? Life was cruel but Vicki`s acceptance to die in Alec`s place had evened out the scales of justice somewhat.

Her death was her final gift to Alec, in definition of their love. It was the greatest gift she could ever give to him and now it was time for her to say her final farewells to the man she had traded her soul to save.

The man she loved more than her life.

Outside, the sky began to open in a sudden torrent of rain that threatened the peaceful world as Vicki`s eyes finally tore away from the window.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Vivian Leung`s mind was preoccupied as always as her Camry sped by on a deserted highway.

An emergency call on her pager had sent her rushing from Louis`home, the warehouse, and now she was speeding on the freeway in attempt to race to the hospital in time for an immediate surgery. God, Vivian hated this endless battle with Death that would never cease; she was constantly struggling against the invisible enemy in an attempt to save human life and she hated losing. Time must be on her side this time; she didn`t want to see another one of her patients end up in the morgue. Not all mortals were fortunate enough to have been given a chance such as Vicki had been given–to die for the sake of saving another. Most normal people would not be given a choice, and they would die. But Vivian did not want any of these people who would die to be her patients, not when they were under her care. It was her most strongest hatred–the death of her patients. She was the doctor, the healer. Nine years of medical school had to have given her some sort of power over the raging power of Death.

Suddenly, the once bright and sun-filled morning began to grow dark as thick raindrops fell against her windshield. The world suddenly seemed empty, as hollow as vacant chambers of a cold, dead heart. Shivering inwardly, Vivian flipped on her windshield wipers, struggling to see past the filmy residue left by the rain on the glass. Serried ranks of ancient evergreens receded up the slopes that flanked the highway, parting occasionally to accommodate sparse stands of stripped maple and birches that poked at the sky with jagged black branches.

However, that vast forest and the formidable rock formations to which it clung did not reduce the emptiness of the now bitter afternoon. As her Camry descended the winding blacktop, the trees and stony outcropping seemed to float past as if they were only dream images without real substance. Harried by fierce wind, the rain began to form into thick droplets that came faster and faster now through the headlight beams. But the oncoming storm could not fill the void, either. The emptiness that Vivian perceived was internal, not external. The night was brimming, as ever, with the chaos of creation.

Her own soul was the only hollow thing.

"Mother Nature, don`t turn against me now," Vivian muttered under her breath as she squinted through the smeared windshield, past rain caked wiper blades that stuttered across the glass. She needed to get to the hospital and fast. There was no other resuscitation doctor on duty that morning but an intern who Vivian did not completely trust to handle an entire operation by himself. Time was running out and a life force was losing valuable blood. Vivian`s insides ached at the thought of a patient`s life being lost because she could not drive fast enough. In spite of the threatening weather, Vivian`s foot pressed on the gas pedal and the Camry eased up to a faster speed.

The three lanes of the blacktop––one descending, two ascending–were disappearing under a shifting shroud of rain. The road slipped to the bottom of the slope and entered a short straight-away leading into a wide, blind curve. In spite of that flat stretch of pavement, she was not out of the highway yet. Vivian knew that the state route would eventually turn steeply downward once more before she reached the city.

As her Camry followed the curve, the land around her changed. The slope to her right angled upward more sharply than before, while on the far side of the road, a black ravine yawned. White metal guardrails marked that precipice, but they were barely visible in the sheets of thick rain that came pouring down upon the roof of the car.

A second or two before she came out of the curve, Vivian had a premonition of danger. "Dear God..." She whispered under her breath.

And she was right.

A downgrade straightaway lay beyond the bend, and another car came rushing toward her–but in her lane. Vivian tried to scream but her voice was locked in her throat. She tried desperately honking her horn to the driver to get on the other lane, but evidently, the other car did not have any snow chains on its tires. The car slid toward an odd angle on the wet pavement as the rain poured down mercilessly and Vivian pressed on her brakes so that her car did not collide with the other vehicle. But it was too soon and her brakes refused to lock. Within seconds, the two cars would collide head on with each other.

But suddenly, to her disbelief, the other car turned and made a suicide jump off of the ravine so that the collision was prevented. Vivian stared at the smooth and greasy motion of the car crashing through the guardrail with a sickening thud like the transition between scenes of a nightmare. The car continued to slide, and even though Vivian`s stomach was filled with nausea, she hastily pulled her car off of the road and rushed out of the car to dash down the ravine after the out of control vehicle. It was still sliding and finally, the slide became a dull thud. The car rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, as if it were a carousel without calliope...

...Around...around...and around....

As the car came to a second rotation, the grinding, screeching, scraping of metal against metal could be heard and showers of yellow sparks plumped up, mingling with the falling rain, like swarms of summer fireflies that had flown through a time warp into the wrong season. Vivian would have screamed if she had not drawn in breath before and she bolted down toward the car, praying and praying that the driver was not injured.. Or worse, dead.

The car finally shuddered to a halt, canted up slightly and met dead on with a birch tree that prevented the vehicle from slipping any further down the thick ravine. For an instant, the silence was overwhelming, the car had stopped moving. Vivian nearly slipped down the steep slope but she balance herself on her feet again and wasted no time calling for help from the cell phone that she took out from the pocket of her jacket. Her fingers were trembling so much that she could barely have enough control to dial 911. But to her relief, a dispatcher answered quickly.

"I need an ambulance right away," Vivian could not keep the tears out of her voice, even as she gritted her teeth for composure. It was not everyday that she was a witness to an accident that had a life balancing between life and death. "I`m on highway 498, west of the city, near a ravine. A car has just flipped over and the driver will need medical assistance. Please hurry."

After the phone call, Vivian struggled to calm her racing heart as she stumbled down by the car wreck. The car`s front engine was twisted and even from afar, she could see a man`s pallid face slumped against the driver`s air bag. He looked like a ghostly countenance, as if some malign spirit was a the wheel of the vehicle. Was he merely unconscious...or dead...? Vivian`s heart seized with fear as she took one last stride and found herself at the edge of the car door.

Now that she was closer, she could see the large gash that was bleeding furiously on the man`s forehead. Just the sight of the injury sent Vivian into a panic. The incessant bleeding could lead to brain damage or worse, even paralyzation to his body if the flow did not stop. Vivian`s trembling hands latched on the door of the vehicle, but it would not budge. Damn! The pressure of the fall must`ve jammed the door tight! Vivian struggled again, biting onto her lip until she tasted her own blood and finally, the door gave way and she was almost thrown back from the sudden movement of the door swinging open. The man was suspended by the seatbelt and no doubt the harness and the air bag had saved his skull from cracking against the windshield.

Vivian`s nimble fingers quickly unbuckled the seat belt and she tilted the man`s head up and supported his body against her own to drag him out of the car. Up close, she realized that the man was young, close to her own age and his features were soft, handsome and gentle. At the slight movement, his eyes fluttered open and an audible groan escaped from his parched lips. But his eyes were dim and his head coked to one side, his eyes seemingly seeing nothing and focusing on nothing.

"I`m getting you out," Vivian assured him. Her eyes drifted toward his head wound and she felt the familiar pang of sorrow in her heart at the sight of precious blood flowing from it. Somehow she had to stop the bleeding. "Hang on, everything will be okay. Hang on..."

She managed to drag the man`s body up the ravine as far as she could until her aching arms could not handle his weight any longer. She collapsed upon the earth and settled him as gently as she could on the ground. She whipped off her jacket and lay his head upon it and she was about to bend over to tend to his head wound when she heard a moan from him. He was breathing hard as his eyes pleaded with her.

Vivian did not understand what he wanted and she leaned her ear against his mouth so that she could hear him speak. "What is it?

"Don`t...don`t touch my blood," The young man wheezed out, his eyes large with fear like a deer caught in headlights. "Don`t....."

Vivian forced a smile of assurance at him. "I`m a doctor, I have to tend to your wounds or else you may die."

"No...I`m sick....you will be too...don`t....touch my wound....." Then his words faded as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Vivian frowned at his strange words and in the distance, she heard the sound of police cars and ambulances coming toward the accident scene. Thank God help was on the way. Vivian turned back to the man`s head wound, which was deep but did not look life threatening, and pondered about his words. Suddenly, a glimmer on his wrist caught her eye and her hands trailed over the silver substance of his Medic Alert bracelet. She read the inscriptions on the bracelet and found that her breath was caught in her throat.

Julian Cheung
Male
HIV positive

The words on the bracelet was clear and certain but the stark reality of the situation made Vivian`s mind whirl. The man did not want her to touch his blood because it was tainted with AIDS. Even though AIDS could not be transmitted through touch or feel, it could be transmitted through the bloodstream. If Vivian were to have a cut on her finger, no matter how small, and she touched an AIDS patient`s blood without proper protection, she ran the risk of being infected. It was a risk that doctors and medical professionals faced all the time and Vivian had been too ignorant to heed the man`s words. Not only was he sick but he was going to die.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"I`m so glad to finally meet you," The attractive young woman smiled at him, her ivory teeth sparkling with the radiance that matched her warm eyes. " Finally."

Alec was finally released from the hospital and of all people to come pick up him, his new partner now stood before his wheelchair, her youthful face radiating with health and happiness and exuberant vitality. She looked pretty and young in a white blouse and khaki skirt, a leather arm bag over her slender shoulders. But Alec didn`t blame her. She didn`t get shot, then was comatose for five days and then lost a loved one in a blink of an eye. She was not the one being left behind in the dark, to live an eternal life alone forever. He was.

"Agent Su," The girl smiled charmingly at him. She extended her hand out to him and he hesitated before shaking it. Her smile did not dim even though he was reluctant to make conversation; in fact, she seemed to beam even brighter. "I`m Ruby Lin, your partner assigned to you by the FBI department. Sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances, but I was told to bring you home. You`re finally being released today. Any happy fairies dancing around your head at the thought of freedom?"

Alec struggled to smile at her attempt at humor but his smile didn`t quite make it to his weary eyes. The last thing he needed now was a bubbly, vivacious new partner whose youthful appeal reminded him too much of the girl he had loved and had lost. Vicki had always been his light in the darkness of his tormented dreams and now, she was gone. Alec had to fight his demons alone and he didn`t want a girl that reminded him so much of Vicki interfering in with his personal torment. The wounds of losing Vicki had not healed yet–they never will heal–and seeing another young woman who had the same sparkling kindness like Vicki had was like throwing salt upon Alec`s open wound.

"Ms. Lin–" Alec began, his voice sounding hoarse but stronger than days before when he lay unable to move in the hospital bed that had been his prison. The respirator had been extracted from his throat, but even now, the abrasions of the tube made his efforts to speak painful.

"Ruby, please. I hate being called formal names, don`t you?" The girl named Ruby laughed merrily, her eyes sparkling. "May I call you Alec then? I mean, we`re friends now after I was assigned to work with you. No barriers between us right?"

God, this new angelic creature was too good to be true. Was she always this cheerful and perky? No bouts of morning grouchiness? "Ruby," Alec said with an emphasis on her name. He was not feeling well, not physically but emotionally, and he didn`t know how much of this *Mary Poppins* charade of giddiness he could take before he lost his entire sanity. He liked Ruby but she was appearing in his life at a time when he needed his own solitude. "Please, you don`t have to drive me home. I can call a taxi myself. I don`t want to trouble you. This is only our first meeting and I wouldn`t want to–"

"Oh nonsense!" Ruby laughed again, her smile radiant. She instantly picked up his bag of luggage that lay beside the wheelchair with flourish. She bent over to pat his arm as though she were complimenting an obedient child. "We will be seeing much of each other once you`re well enough to go back to work. It`s the least I can do for you, Alec." She spoke his name was easily as if they had been friends for years.

Alec was wheeled effortlessly past corridors of the hospital and a small van was awaiting for him in the front of the hospital`s entrance. Ruby drifted briefly in and out of the hospital doors, collecting his medication that he would need to ensure that his heart would not fail again. She helped him out of the wheelchair and Alec, embarrassed to be leaning so heavily on a girl whose slight frame could have her blown away by a gust of wind, struggled to ease himself into the passenger seat. But the motion was too quick and he would have fallen if Ruby`s arms had not reached out for him to steady his footing.

"Easy now," That assuring smile was still there, never wavering. "Here, lean on me, and I`ll help you."

Alec met her gaze briefly but he broke the contact by looking away. How easy it was for Ruby to help others. Did she truly care for him at all, a man she`d only met once? Then the van started and Alec watched with dull eyes as the hospital grew farther and farther away from him, the image of the building flickering in his mind like a dying candle.

"So you enjoy your job as an agent?" Ruby`s amicable chatter continued the instant he was properly strapped in passenger seat.

"Yes."

"I`ve only graduated this month so I`m still new. So I hear that you`re pretty good at what you do, especially with the unsolved cases."

"Thank you."

"I can`t wait to be working with you, Alec. I`m so happy that we can be on the same team. I heard so many good things about you and I just wanted to rush to the hospital after hearing about your incident just to say *hi* and to introduce myself and----"

"Ms. Lin, please. I–I need silence now. Please...stop talking...."

Once the words were out of Alec`s mouth, he regretted it. He hadn`t meant for those words to sound so harsh, but they had slipped from his mouth before he could think. He could not handle the conversation of frivolous chitter chatter when his heart felt as though it were breaking in two. Across from him, Ruby inhaled a long sigh and then, for the rest of the ride to his apartment, a tense silence stretched between them.

But Alec was too weary to even care and he rested his head on the headrest of the seat with his eyes closed. He wanted to disappear, forever. He wanted to die along with Vicki, and live with her in...in what? Was there even a Heaven up there or was that just merely tales spun of a paradise that did not exist? No one understood this pain that was tearing him apart inside, not doctors, not psychiatrists, and not the healthy and beautiful Ruby Lin who was too young to have known such burdens. His memories of Vicki were his own sorrowful haunting dreams; dreams that only he could understand. The pain sliced away at him, inside of him and the thought of coming home to an empty apartment without Vick`s smiles to greet him at the door was killing him. Alec felt the coolness of a drop of tear that came from his eyes slip down his face and unknown to him, Ruby caught sight of the tear before Alec hastily wiped it away.

When they arrived at his apartment, Ruby helped him into the elevator and helped him carry his bags into the apartment. Alec stood still in the doorway, his eyes drifting over the familiarity of the apartment that he had shared with Vicki for five years. It was neat and orderly, untouched and deadly silent of any sound. A window was open and a slight breeze filtered through the room, cool and making him shiver. Alec suddenly strode toward the bedroom and opened the door. The bed lay neat and untouched, but his eyes caught sight of his diary that lay open upon the flower-printed bedspread. He picked up the leather bound book and closed it, holding it against his heart Had Vicki been reading his diary before she died? Did she know how much she meant to him through his words that he was often too shy to tell her verbally? Alec hoped so.

Nothing had changed—everything was the way it was before he had left to go buy Vicki`s ice cream. But so much had changed, but these rooms lay undisturbed and settled, waiting for the return of a girl who would never come back home.

"You love her."

Alec heard Ruby come up behind him and he wasn`t prepared for the emotional strain that he heard in her voice. No doubt his superiors at the FBI bureau had informed her about Vicki`s death. Ruby`s words were a simple statement but it was so full of meaning and memories for Alec.

"Yes, always." He blinked back tears now, struggling not to break down. The grief of losing her suffocated him, overwhelming him.

"I`m sorry, about what happened to her, to the both of you."

"Thank you."

"I`ll be here if you should need me, Agent Su."

Ruby had reverted to calling him by his formal name. Alec heard her footsteps growing farther away, echoing in his mind and the front door gently closed behind her. Alec stood alone in the bedroom that he and Vicki had shared, his mind flooding with memories of her tender touch, her gentle eyes and her sweet smile. He wanted to die so that he did not have to endure so much pain to endure a lifetime of living without Vicki.

Vicki..please come home....

He wanted to believe that, he wanted to believe that if he was patient and faithful and did everything right then she would find her way back to him. But Death was forever, wasn`t it? Death gave Vicki no chances of turning back no matter how much he prayed and begged and hoped. Alec felt the weight of sorrow in his chest and the hopelessness encircling his heart as he bowed his head low.

His tears fell softly down his face for the love he had lost.

Vicki...come back to me....

It was a futile hope; one that God would never grant him.

Chapter 8

Dreams of Hope

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The dream enfolds my senses,

Reality falls away in a whisper.

All thoughts and worries

Slip away, once I am held.

Though I wish it to last forever,

It does not, cannot.

An eternity in one moment,

A fleeting solace in joy.

Dreaming, wishing, hoping;

Memories assail the mind

In a wave of what once was

Our dreams of hope.

Poem written by: Jessey Kwan
This chapter written by: *Whistler* & Jessey

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

DEAR DIARY

Vicki, I miss you.

What do I do now? Where do I go? I stand here in a daze. I walk along this street without even realizing where I'm walking. Holding myself tightly against a chill that comes not from the balmy air but from my fear, I continue to walk. Everywhere I go, I see and hear you. I see you walking around the bend, to Mr. Carson's grocery store and I see you sitting on a bench by the park where we would have occasional picnic lunches, your laughter trailing in the wind. I know that I am losing my mine. And I know it's true. You are dead, Vicki and yet, I feel as though your spirit has never left my side.

I find that my feet have led me home. Home. I stare at the empty apartment for a moment. The lights aren't on. No one waits there to welcome me. The room is completely dark, cold, and lonely. It's not home. It's just a building, cold and dark. You had taken the substance out of the place that was our home when you were taken away from me. I shudder a little at the thought of the demons, coming to attack my sanity with grief and lonliness..

My mind drifts to you now. That's where my mind usually drifts these days. I remember your look of love when we first kissed on our first date, your wide-eyed gaze of wonder and innocence. That was when I fell in love with you, Vicki. Not because we had kissed, but because that touch of our lips had given me a glimpse into your soul and I love what I see from within there--- your radiant outer and inner beauty and the pureness of your soul. You inspire me, love me, and give me the confidance to dare to dream when otherwise I would not have found the strength to reach my aspirations. You complete me .

But you are gone.

Thinking about you, I find that my feet have carried me further into our apartment. For a moment I wonder where my feet have decided to take me. I wonder, and suddenly I realize that I'm heading towards the bedroom that we once shared.. And as soon as I realize it, this feeling of peace comes over me. Not that the fear goes completely away. It never does these days, but I feel different. I feel protected when I think of you.. I stand for a moment, confused and alone. The room is silent and still without your presence. Following a sudden impulse I open the door, and walk inside.

Once again I feel the fear subside. I can feel you here with me, Vicki. You are in every corner of the apartment. Your beautiful paintings, your beautiful furniture and your sculpture that you had worked so diligently on as a hobby...the pretty ivory sculpture of some unknown woman. I touch the glass, as if by touching it I touch you. And it almost seems true. Slowly I wander the apartment, feeling your essence in the room, smelling your familiar lilac scent everywhere.

I reach the bed, it's unmade, as if your had just got up and left a second ago. I wonder for a moment if the bed is still warm. If I lie down will I be able to feel your strength in the sheets? I sit down slowly, and let my eyes close for a moment. Breathing deeply I inhale your light floral scent. I can feel you surrounding me. I feel you all around me, watching me, loving me. I lie down, savoring the feel of the sheets, of our bed. I curl up tightly around myself, like a little child after a nightmare and I close my eyes. I think of you and it all melts away. All my fear and pain just runs away as I think about you. As I lie there silently loving you, I can almost feel you next to me in the bed. I can almost feel your graceful, supple body next to mine. Only then can I feel safe, and I sleep.

Vicki, come back to me.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

All alone in the apartment, Alec drowned in his sorrow.

The day had faded into night as the silvery moonbeams flittered through the window, he sat unmoving on the bed and stared at his hollow-cheeked face in the mirror on the wall across from him. The color had left his skin and his eyes were blank. He was suspended in time, living in a nightmare that would never end. He had gone walking around the block, looking for a way to forget about her, his Vicki, but it had been impossible. He had returned home, only to feel more empty and devoid of emotion, and he had instinctively written in his diary an entry about his grief--for no one could understand how deep that sorrow went.

He knew that he had to be strong, to survive. There were many others who had lost loved ones; his own suffering was not soley his and that he should not be selfish to think that it was only he who was in pain. But Alec did not know if there was any other love such as his love for Vicki. She was his life, his soul. He would gladly die for her. This was his own pain to bear, his own grief and the sadness engulfed him, suffocating him and making him with that he had died in that shooting accident than to be the lonely one left behind. Surely dying was better than living in his own private Hell as he was now. His memories of her was tearing him apart from within. This could not go on; eventually he would wither away and disappear. Yes, he wanted to just disappear from the face of the earth. Living was too painful, more than he can bear.

Alec turned when he heard a rap on the window. Narrowing his eyes, he rose from the bed and bent forward closely to the window to see that there were raindrops trailing down the glass. Then he heard the distant rumble of thunder and his heart began to beat more rapidly. A storm was on its way; he could smell it in the musty air. It had rained earlier that day, but only in little showers without power or fury.

Suddenly, Alec wanted to do something crazy. He felt like it; he felt as though he wanted to do something drastic.The glass shook with the force of the wind outside and Alec ran to open the casement wide. It had been so long since he'd felt the rain on his face, the roar of the thunder in his ears, the wind in his hair. He had never wanted to do something like this in a long time.

As he drew the window inward, Alec shivered at the cold, sharp drops that struck him mercilessly, like an enemy who had waited for a chance to release its rage upon him. Alec stared at the wide and empy night sky through the rain. In his mind, he imagined the horizon to be an entity of God. Surely, there must be a God somewhere. He had never been a stronge religious believer in faith but he knew with a certainty that something waited beyond Death. But if God could create life and sentence all mortals to death, could he not create Miracles?

Heavenly Father, Alec's mind pleaded. Please bring back my Vicki to me. Please, please. Please give her back to me. This I pray to you with all of my heart.

He opened his mouth to cry out to the One above, but the rain fell against his tongue, bitter with the taste of grime from the city's air. The heavey, tained drops pounded brutally against the glass while the wind rose, howling and angry, like a trapped animal. God was not listening afterall, Alec realized by the powerful assault of nature that the storm was giving him. Alec shuddered at the vicious assault and tried to shut the window.

But the wind fought him, forcing the casements inward as he struggled to close out the storm. The deluge fell more furiously until the panes of the glasss quivered. Finally, one shattered, sending silvered fragments spinning. Alec gathered all his strength and with one last effort pushed the casements shut, latching them and drawing the heavy curtains closed. But even that barrier could not keep out the cry of the wind and the drops that splattered through the broken glass to make a wide stain on the rug on floor.

Alec gasaped at the pain in his hand and looked down to see his palm covered with blood. He stood mesmorized by the sight of the sluggish flow of red over his tender skin. The pain was numbing but he didn't mind it. He gripped his wrist until his knuckles were white and the pain brought tears to his eyes. But he continued to grip onto his hands, allowing the blood to flow out of his wound, dark and red, so that his own personal pain blinded the pain of losing Vicki.

Vicki...please...come back....

If only he could see her again, only for a brief moment, to hold her in his arms again. Losing her was too sudden for his sanity to handle, too abrupt for his mind to bear. He needed to see her again, like one needed to drink and consume food. She filled his existence with life and without her, Alec's life was nothing. He was only a shell of a man. Somehow, he had lost control of his fate. He was falling into the center of a whirlpool of silence and grief too great for him to bear alone. He was all alone

If only Vicki could reach him now. But the whirlpool was too strong. It would carry him down into the darkness and he would never see the light again. The windows flew open with the force of the wind and the rain poured in, knocking over a lamp by the bed, so the lightbulb burnt out.

"VICKI!" Alec wept to the horizon above. Her name was whipped up by the wind and carried, whirling, into the heart of the angry, black storm.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --- - - - - - -- -- -

The sound of her name echoed in her mind, in her heart and in her soul. Vicki knew that only one man could affect her this way, and she went to him.

Her Alec.

Images of him haunted Vicki's mind. She saw him crying out in despair., reaching desperately for something to cling onto. His face was washed in soot-blackened tears that became one with the rain as the tears ran down his face. He was trembling with the fury of his weeping and rocked, forward and back, backward and forward, moving inch by inch closer to the edge of insantiy. Then, without a sound, Alec fell, his body caught in the darkness of the swirling storm. He had cried out, "Vicki!" in a voice so full of anguish that it echoed deep within her, making her ache for him and her body shaking with fear.

I'm coming Alec....hang on....

When she arrived at the apartment, she had allowed herself to become a spirit and she slipped through the wooden door. It was a trick that Louis had taught her how to control and it was a simple way to enter and leave a room without constraints. It was a power that constantly reminded her for the past two weeks that she was no longer a mortal but an ethereal creature who could have the abilities to be a form of a spirit. The knowledge burned in her heart.

Vicki expected Alec to be shocked to see her. She had played the scene in her mind so often of how he would react to seeing her alive and well. Would he be angry, shocked, or even afraid of her?

What she did not expect to see was the form of Alec lying motionless huddled on the floor of their bedroom in a pool of rainwatehr, wet, shaking, and pale as marble. He remained deathly still even as she struggled to lift him in her arms and tucked him into bed. It was then that he began to burn with fever, coughing and gasping and muttering in his delirium.

"Vicki..." He moaned, caught in his own private Hell. "Vicki...don't leave me..."

"Hush," She smoothed his hair off of his forhead tenderly, lovingly. "I'm right here. Right here."

Vicki's eyes filled with tears when she bent over his limp form to caress his smooth cheek. She could barely believe that she was next to Alec, so close to him so that her own flesh could touch his. It has been so long since she had dreamed of being with him again. But now, he was ill and he needed her. Her powers as an Immortal could heal him, but Vicki was afraid that his wounds were more emotional than phsyical. Alec...her Alec......

Suddenly, her eye caught on the red stain on his hands, and she turned over his palm and gasped when she saw the large gash that was sliced across the palm of his hand. Had he not tried to mend his wound or did he just allow himself to bleed? Vicki cringed at the sight of his blood oozing out from the wound and she pressed her own hand against the blood gently, summoning her powers to come forth. Louis had taught her how to use the healing arts of being an Immortal well. The ability to stop the flow of blood and mend flesh with a skillful touch of the hand, the power of the ages flowing through her in a sort of healing energy that seamed the torn edges of wounds back together, and mended shattered bone like the piercing together of fragments of shattered crockery until the whole of the pieces was stronger than before was an Immortal's power.

When Alec's wound was completely healed, Vicki lay down beside him on the bed and held him in her arms. Trapped in a raging fever, Alec tossed and turned, his face flushed, then pale and sallow, the flushed again. Vicki held his damp, cool hand, and pressed it now and then to her own cool face to try to soothe his pain. Alec's breathing was harsh and ragged. Vicki would have infused her own breath and blood into him if she could, in order to end his illness, and yet all she could do was dry his sweat-soaked forehead, pressed cool cloth to his heated skin, and held his limp hand until, at last, the warmth began to return to his limp fingers and the furious color of fever began to fade from his cheeks.

Alec had no idea how long he had been unconscious. He had drifted off, dozed, and then finally awoke to find his head still spinning. But when he opened his eyes this time, he was aware of a body lying next to his and when he struggled to sit up, the lamp's weak glow cast a dim light upon a face.

Soft. Beautiful. Opalscent in the lamp's glow. The face of the girl he'd been dreaming about. His Vicki. His dead love. Was this a dream? Was he dreaming now?

"Yes, you are dreaming," Her whispered voice spoke to him. "I'm here with you only in your mind."

Alec stared at her, transfixed by the image of her but not quite believing her words. How could this be a dream when he could see her? The lamp light danced in her black eyes like the flames of passion, her lashes dark and thick, curling against the softness of her face. Her hair, cascading and tumbling over her sholders was shamlessly free and loose, and her mouth was curved in a soft smile. It was Vicki's face, Vicki's voice--and yet, she was so much more perfect than before, so perfect in her gentle beauty. Even her voice was different, more soft and lulling. She was Vicki but she was a more perfected Vicki physically.

He moved his lips, trying to speak. "You......you're alive...Vicki..?"

But a fit of coughing overtook him, blinding him with the wracking pain. Alec closed his eyes for a moment, overcome with weariness and then he heard Vicki's words falling in a songlike cadence, or a chant. He opened his eyes saw her standing above the bed. Moonlight spilled through the window and she stood, bathed in the ethereal glow. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back, and she stood with her feet apart. He had no idea what Vicki was doing but he watched her, full of curiosity and fascination. Vicki's left arm stretched upward toward the moon, her palm turned up as if to catch the pale moonlight that spilled into it. She turned her palm down and pressed it gently to his chest. Her touch was heaven, cooling and calming his pain.

As she chanted, he felt energy flooding him. Filling him. Warm, potent, blessed energy. A surge of tingling energy jolted through him and it was gone as briefly as it had come. He blinked his vision into focus and scanned the room, trying to understand what had happened. Vicki stood before him, her beautiful face curtained by her luminous hair. Alec suddenly realized that his mind was clear, his fever evaporated. The pain was gone. All that was left was a sense of peacefulness. Alec knew that it was she who healed him but how? Was he dreaming?

"You will get well," Vicki murmured, her eyes not meeting his. "I have to go." He heard her moving away, heard her soft, nearly silent steps crossing the floor.

It was then that Alec's santiy snapped. He struggled to his feet, even though he began to sway from the sudden movement and he reached a weak hand toward her. He couldn't let Vicki go, let her slip away again. Even if this was a dream, he cannot lose her!

"NO! Don't leave me! Vicki!"

"You're only dreaming, Alec. This is just a dream."

"I can see you, I can touch you. Vicki, I can't live without you! Please, don't leave me! Don't go! Don't you see? There is nothing for me without you! Please..oh God! I can't lose her again!"

Alec did not know that he was crying until he felt the coolness of the tears slip down his face. In the darkness, he summoned what remained of his strength and his lips found hers. It was a kiss that held all of the longing and love that he dreamed of doing since her death. Vicki trembled and Alec breathed in the essence of her, his hand caressing her hair, loving the weight of her in his arms. Vicki, in turn, pulled him in closer as if trying to pull him into herself. The memory of this kiss was the only piece of comfort God could ever offer her. She suspected that God permitted her to remember so she would suffer more from the longing and the lacking which came afterwards.

Such a kiss… Their lips met in a kiss that contained the passion of desperation and the pain of their loneliness. Through wordless agreement they were drawn into the natural rhythms of loving, but not lovemaking. Such things were as instinctive and appropriate to their togetherness as mated raptors in flight, diving and soaring like one entity. Forgotten was Vicki's existence of an Immortal being--the symbol of their difference--became trapped between them. Even forged steel couldn't keep them apart.

Alec's confusion grew. This wasn't how fantasies were; this felt too real. The kiss went on like heaven and, gradually, he realized that this wasn't a dream. Vicki was really kissing him. She'd come to him while he slept. She'd told him that it was a dream, but he knew instinctively that it was not. It was impossible for her to be still alive, but he never believed in supernatural beings. No, Vicki must be still alive, somehow, some way. Alec's heart tightened with reborn hope and fear.

"Vicki?" He mumbled against her mouth. He could taste her tears. Vicki's knees landed on either side of Angel's hips as she climbed into his lap. Their lips never parted. "Tell me that this is real? Are you really here with me?"

She giggled, pulling away slightly. "Yeah."

Alec could barely believe his ears. She looked happy and young, possessed of a strange joy that mirrored the euphoria Alec felt taking possession of his own soul. He was waking up; his nightmare was finally ending.

"Please tell me that you won't leave me again."

Alec's pleading echoed in her brain. Vicki swallowed nervously, staring fixedly at his chest. She had not wanted this to be like this---she was only supposed to see him this one final time and then leave forever, escaping out of his life. But how could she do it? After nursing him through an illness and realizing just how deep his grief went if she were to have left him, how could she desert him? She could not do it.

Vicki couldn't see more than a blur of pale flesh through her tears as her eyes searched his beautiful familiar face. Tentatively, she extended her hand, offering it to him palm down. He accepted reflexively, catching her small hand in his own. Automatically, their fingers entwined. Vicki squeezed his hand, deliberately lifting them. Her action drew his gaze downward as she rested his hand--the hand she had healed with her powers--over her beating heart.

"If my heart were to cease beating, then I will leave you," Vicki whispered solemnly, tears coursing down her face.

Alec closed his eyes in disbelief. "Thank you God," he replied softly, barely speaking above a whisper. "You've come back to me, Vicki. Heaven heard my prayers." His grip on her fingers tightened desperately. Vicki looked up to see tears trickling down his cheeks. Her heart caught on her own love for him.

Fighting back her own tears, Vicki reached up to cradle his cheeks in her hands. "Look at me," she demanded. His dark eyes opened, still swimming with tears. This hurt too much for him to believe. What she seemed to be offering couldn't possibly be real.

Vicki said it aloud for him. "This is real. Nothing will ever separate us again. I love you, Alec. I belong to you. We belong together."

"I love you too," Alec managed to croak. His heartbroken whisper was torn from his soul. "You're alive. This is too good to be true. I'm afraid to wake up from this dream..." He shook his head. Gratitude welled up through his soul. His eyes closed again in prayer as he thanked God for this gift. She loved him. He'd never felt so lucky, or so grateful, for anything before. How could someone so good love someone so undeserving?

"Hush." Vicki leaned forward, taking possession of his lips again. She tasted salt from his tears, not realizing as many tears were hers as were his. "Nothing matters any more but you and me." Gently, she pushed him back down onto the bed. He offered no resistance.

"Hold me, please, Alec." She pleaded hoarsely, but with all of the yearning and the love for him that she had struggled to suppress and forget but she could not.

Wordlessly, Alec eased back to recline on the mattress, bringing his beloved with him. They didn't make love; they just held onto each other with all of their might, loving the feel of familiarity to be in each other's arms. As it was, their love, which had endured, compelled and sustained, could not be denied. True love is never known than that which sacrifices all for the sake of its beloved. Vicki and Alec held one another with silent awe and wonder. Their holding began their healing. Their trust was reborn within the other's arms. Broken hearts finally began to love, broken souls to heal, broken wings to mend. In an blink of an eye, a gunshot had shattered all of thier dreams. But that night, lying in Alec's arms, holding him next to her, Vicki began to believe that dreams could be rebuilt.

"Don't leave me, Vicki," Alec forced those words through his lips before sucumbing to a veil of sleep that his weary body could not resist. "I love you. Please stay with me..."

Vicki held him even closer to her, realizing just how precious he was to her. No, she would never leave him again. Leaving Alec would kill her spirit, heart and soul, and he would wither and die along with her. And yet, Louis' warning rang through her head.

"Just this once. You can only see him once and then never again."

Vicki had vowed to obey Louis' words but now, she knew that she could not do it. That night, Vicki did not sleep. Instead, she lay awake, holding her love in her embrace and allowing his rhythm of breathing to comfort her fears of confronting Louis the next day.

Vicki had to break her promise to Louis. She needed this chance to be with Alec. Even if it meant that her soul would be condemned to Hell forever, being with Alec for one night was well worth the cost.

Love was well worth the cost.

Chapter 9

--- BEYOND MY REACH ---

Simple really, to have one last chance
One final interlude before we give up this dance.
Savor every second, this won't last long,
Days winding down until it's all gone.

Kisses so tender, love sweet as wine,
But still unable to claim you as mine.
Precious moments disappearing, clinging to each one,
Facing the fact that soon it will be done

Day gone by so quickly, never enough time,
Yet for you, there's no mountain I wouldn't climb.
Now our time's up, lost to the elements,
No use repeating the same arguments.

We part with no more worries, no more cares,
And I am left with secrets I'll never share.
Close to my heart, buried so deep,
These memories are mine alone to keep
Though they will be forever beyond my reach

** Poem written by: Kristy **
** Chapter written by: Kristy **
** Edited by: Jessey Kwan **

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

When Alec woke up the next morning, he immediately panicked.

His eyes flew open as his hand reached out on the space beside him on the bed and he knew that it would be empty. Was Vicki's presence in his room last night only a fragment of his imagination? No, no, it couldn't be. God would not be so cruel to him like that. He could still smell her light natural floral fragrance on the bedsheets and feel the slight weight on her in his arms. He could still see the imprint of her in the sheets, the sprawled impression of her body as she had lain last night. It had to be real. Vicki was alive and she had vowed to never leave him.

Without a moment's hesitation, Alec jumped out of bed and headed directly toward the living room of the apartment. There, standing by the window, stood Vicki. The early morning sun flitted gently through the window to settle lightly upon her hair, soft and black and flowing, in the golden light. Beautiful and regal, she stood with her back to him, gazing at the sunrise in the horizon. When she heard him approaching, she turned her head and her lips curved into the most fleeting of smiles that lightened her brown eyes that seemed to beckon him closer to her.

"Hi," Vicki's voice, strangely soft and lilting, filled his senses and Alec reached out to her. "I'm still here."

His hands caught onto hers, as his palms traced the feel of her hand in his. Her flesh was warm, her skin soft. Her face, lovely and young, was glowing with an ethereal radiance that took his breath away. Her skin, ivory and smooth as porcelian, was flawless and her eyes shone with life and vibrance. She was a vision to behold, perfect in every way. She did not have the pallor of the dead, cold and silent. She was very much alive.

"Are you okay?" Alec sensed the melancholy within her and she nodded her head without speaking.

His mind spun with questions about her existence now even though the authorities had told him that she had died. Last night, when he was dilirious with the pain of the fever, he had accepted Vicki's existence as being part of God's miracles. But suddenly, now in daylight, he could not help but ask questions. She had been taken away from him as the world was pronounced by her death. Yet, here she was, warm and breathing and far too real, made even more alluring by the soft glow of sunlight that settled upon her hair like a halo. Vicki was too familiar and too lovely; if Alec continued to look at her, he would not be able to let her go.

"Vicki," He began, wrapping her in his arms gently. She fittted perfectly in his arms, as though they had been created from one mold. "I truly can't believe that you're here with me. I've dreamed about you and lost my sanity from missing you. But Vicki--is this real? How---how did you survive the car accident? I don't understand. The police had told me that you were dead from a head on collision on the highway while you were driving home from the hospital after seeing me. I thought you were dead but now---"

"I'm not ready to tell you yet," Vicki interjected lightly, cutting him off.

She tilted her face upwards to look deep into Alec's eyes. All he could see were her eyes. Lonely, haunted, tortured. In the stillness of the early morning, the world ceased to exist beyond her eyes. With the clarity of a vision, Alec found the intense loneliness of his own heart, his own soul, mirrored in Vicki's eyes. Always, he found a part of himself within her; this more than anything drew them together. No one understood his loneliness, his isolation, his suffering better than Vicki. Their hearts and minds and souls were intwined with one another almost from the beginning when they were mere children. Alec found a kindred spirit within those dark eyes. And yet now, it hurt him that she was shutting him out from the truth. Why? What is it that she did not want him to know? Alec wanted to share whatever pain she was supressing from within; he wanted to suffer with her. His love for her went that deep.

"Do you trust me, Alec?" Vicki asked him, her voice above a whisper.

"Always," He instantly nodded her head truthfully. His eyes were begging for her to let him inside her mind. "Vicki, what is it? What is it that you won't tell me? Are you in trouble? I want to help you."

"You cannot," She lowered her eyes and a trickle of a tear slipped down her face. "Please don't ask me what I'm not ready to tell you. In time, Alec you will understand. Let me deal with this on my own."

Too stunned to speak by the extend of her sorrow, Alec's fingers instinctively smoothed away a wetness of her tears. It tore him from inside to see her suffering this way and he was helpless to protect and shield her away from the brutalities of her unknown demons. But he knew of Vicki's stubborn pride--they had grown up as children to become best friends and now, lovers. He knew her too well and he knew that she would not open up to him unless she was ready and willing.

‘I just want you to love me, like before," Vicki released a shaky sigh, her eyes searching his face." I just want to be with you and have our life the way it was before the accident. I want a normal existence with the man that I love. Can you do that? Do you still love me, like I was the Vicki of the past?"

The Vicki of the past, she'd said. Alec had no idea what she meant by those words but he knew that he would love her until infinity. There was no question about it. The pain of losing her was too real, too acute and unbearable. He loved her more than his own life.

"I will love you forever," Alec vowed without hesitation, absolute certainty in his voice.

His heart was crying out for her, his lips forming her name. Tenderly, Alec's arms tightened around her small body. An illusion? A dream? Lord knew, he'd dreamed of this before. With reverence, and an odd sort of grace, he lifted her hand. He held it level with her face, slowly drawing closer as Vicki trembled with fear and anticipation. Alec saw her turn her face slightly towards that questing hand.

That small gesture, an unspoken invitation, provided Alec with the hope he needed. With the edge of his hand, Alec tenderly touched the smoothness of her face. His small hand lightly grazed along temple and cheek. Vicki felt solid, real, too real not to believe. Suddenly, he did not care about the doubts and nagging fears of this image of her being a hoax. God had listened to his prayers--that was the only logical explanation he could think to explain Vicki's existence now. Vicki had aksed him to trust her and Alec did, wholly and completely. He could never ask for anything else now with his hands embracing a miracle that was his love.

Vicki closed her eyes, against fear, against hurt, against disbelief. She'd dreamed of her holding Alec for so long; this couldn't be real. More than anything, she needed him, needed his touch. So she closed his eyes, and let herself believe. Vicki gave herself over to him, to their love, without hesitation. She loved him more than anyone in the entire world; he was her world.

Her heart floundered like a grounded bird. She couldn't believe, couldn't feel... Believing meant feeling; feeling meant pain... Louis had warned her that her heart would turn cold for her love with Alec now that she was an Immortal being. But Vicki knew that for her, that could never be. Alec infusd her with life and hope and without him, her soul would die. Now, that she had broken all the rules of being an Immortal when she had decided to stay with him, Vicki's mind was spinning with torn emotions.

When Alec was on the verge of dying, she had blindly clung to any hope she could to save his life. Louis, the Immortal, had offered her that hope, of giving back Alec his life and Vicki had agreed to the terms of conditions to save the life of her love. She hadn't been ready; she'd had no chance to prepare for what this bargain would cost her. Lost and alone, Vicki would live in the mortal world without ever being able to see or touch Alec again. That was a death sentence to her and she could not do it. Last night, Alec reappeared on her horizon, a guiding light shining out of the darkness. He was the lighthouse of her life. How could she bring herself to leave him forever?

Instinctively, Vicki reached for him, knowing that he'd guide her to safety. Her hand turned over, pressing closer to his smooth cheek. She trembled with hope, longing, fear... Alec had closed his eyes tighter, fighting hard to stop the tears from falling. He failed, tears trickling silently down his cheeks. He was crying at the simple pleasure of her touch.

Vicki felt her heart breaking at the sight of his tears. He was so sad and so desperately sweet. Sad, sweet Alec... Her chest became constricted and her breathing labored. She'd done this to him, reduced him to tears. Alec loved her enough to cry at her touch.

Vicki knew that as an Immortal, she had nothing to give him. Their future was doomed without her needing to foresee the future. As was Louis's love for his Emileth, Vicki would descend upon the same path to heartache and sorrows. Louis had been wise to let Emileth lead her own life, to allow his memorires to fade from her mind. But unlike Louis, Vicki did not have the strength to turn her back on Alec. She could not deny her love for him. She knew that she needed to see Louis, to tell him of her plans. She had not wanted to tell Alec the truth yet, not because she did not trust me him but because she did not trust herself to break to him the news that she was now a freak, not even a mortal. Would he turn away on her and cringe at her touch? No! Vicki's mimd whirled at that thought. Alec loved her. He would never turn on her. Vicki's love for him was as definate as his love for her. That she was certain of, if nothing else.

"I have to go now," Vicki took a step away from his embrace, pushing him away with gentle hands. She could not meet his eyes. "You'll be waiting for me?" How pitifully hopeful she sounded.

Vicki stood at a crossroads, about to choose a path that would alter the course of her life. So far, she'd come to three such points in her short life. The day she'd learned that Alec was going to die, the day she was resurrected by her saviour, Louis, to become an Immortal, and today, the day she'd chosen to remain forever with Alec. Somehow, she found it hard to believe that this might be a good thing. She simply couldn't afford the luxury of hope; she had no strength to squander. But she knew in her heart, that she had to do this. She could not live without him, to live a lifetime of eternal lonliness without him.

"I'll always be waiting, Vicki."

Vicki turned to head out of the door, a smile playing on her lips at the sweetness of Alec's words and fragile hope filling her heart.

Chapter 10

Louis felt lonely when night time fell upon the city but after a decade of lonliness, he should be used to it by now. Now, he walked slowly through the alleys of the city, his figure dark and his mind haunted with visions of a smiling, young girl who had he lost so long ago.

That day, he had been at the hospital. Vivian had been on duty that day and she looked tired and worn, shuffling back and forth between OR rooms, too busy to speak but a few words to him. Louis knew that the accident yesterday had her shaken, and he wanted to comfort her but she had denied him. Instead, Louis had wandered into a room where an elderly woman lay dying on the hospital bed, her life only dangling by a threat. Only the respirator was her anchor to this world and Louis was beside her when she took her last breath, easing her pain as she slipped from this world and into the next.

Tonight, Louis' heart was crying out for Emileth.

Funny how he still remembered every moment with her even after a decade of living without her. He had told Vicki that Immortals no longer loved, and that was partly the truth. Louis' passion for Emileth had died but her memories haunted him always. He knew that he would carry her memory in his heart forever. True love could never be entirely forgotten.

Louis remembered her the way he had first seen her. It was her seventeenth birthday and she was the light of her party. She was elegant, beautiful and agile among the crowd of young women, though Emileth was by far the most becoming of the crowd. And yet, Louis did not merely appreciated Emileth for her beauty. Beauty was an innate physical characteristic that she was blessed with upon birth, while the pureness of her heart was hers alone. Louis and Emileth had fallen in love and embraced themselves in a relationship begining with courtship, love and then engagement to be married. He had needed and loved her for her compassion, her friendship, her love. She was everything to him.

But then, Emileth had drowned two months before they were to be married in a fatal swimming accident and Louis had agreed to die in her place only to be ressurected to become an Immortal. He had never spoken to her once after that, though he had watched her on many occassions from afar to see her, but not touch her. Even now, it brought tears to Louis' eyes when he thought of Emileth. She had not married anyone after his death, even though more than a handful of proposals from eligable men came her way. She had died at age seventy two of cancer, unwed and without children.

But she had not been alone, for Louis was beside her to hold her hand and comfort her pain. She resembled the elderly woman that he had seen at the hospital, fragile and lost amid the chaos of the world. Louis had spoken to her in her mind, easing her pain and loving her and finally, touching her before she died. She had smiled at him her familar gentle smile that made him ache for their love and then she had closed her eyes for the final time as he clung onto her hand like an anchor.

Emileth. How he wished he could turn back time to be with her again. But Time was not on his side. Too much was lost, too much had happened. It was now over a decade and Emileth was dead and gone. Only Louis remained behind, lonely in his memories of her.

"No!"

Louis's ears perked up at the sound of the distressed voice. He had not heard the voice literally; it had echoed in his mind from somewhere remote. He recognized that voice and suddenly, he knew who the voice belonged to. The voice was of the prostitute named Kristy Yang, whom he had met briefly upon the street almost two weeks ago in the rain. She was the girl whose face resembled the face of his Emileth, and Louis sensed that she was in danger. He could not fathom WHY he knew but he did.

Louis used his Immortal power of sense to guide him to her. He could hear her cries in his mind, and feel her distress and her wrenching pain. She needeed help and he had to save her. As he got closer and closer to her, there was moaning and a male's harsh laughter rang in the air. Someone was crying, weeping and the sounds of those sobs tore at his heart. He turned a corner around an alley and found the prostitute Kristy sprawled on the ground, her bloused unbuttoned as a bare shoulder spilled from the thin fabric of her shirt. A man lay on top of her, his hands digging into her flesh as he pinned her down to the earth, his lips upon her throat and her body. Louis's eyes widened in horror at the image in front of him, and his sanity snapped.

Kristy's vision was blurred by her tears; she felt that the blood in her throat would choke her. She had not meant for this sexual engagment to go so far; she had always willing slept with her customers but she was never raped so violently like this before. The man whose name she did not even know drew her beneath him so that the weight of his body pressed her down and down into the hard ground where she could not escape from the touch of his skin or the harsh demands of his mouth on hers. She tried to cry out for help, but he swallowed her cries with his hungry lips and she was suffocated by his intense lust for her, her insides quivering with dread and fright. She felt the clammy coolness on her skin, touching her, and penetrating her pores so even her insides were tainted with his touch.

Suddenly, she saw a hand reach out from the darkness of the night to yank the man off of her. She was hurled swiftly out of the way until she fell on her back. Kristy screamed, released at last from the pressure of his lips. She fought back bile that rose in her throat as she watched through the film of tears as a dark figure attacked the man who had raped her. The punches that the dark figure gave to the other man was powerful and swift and the other man had no chance to fight back. With only three punches, the other man lay unmoving on the ground. The dark figure then turned on her, his eyes almost glowing in the moonlight as he approached her.

"No," Kristy whimpered, sobs choking her voice. "Don't come close to me."

She finally loathed the sense of a man next to her. All her life, she had been the ugly duckling, the unwanted outcast who no one loved but for men who wanted her body. She was a possession, a play thing. But she was wanted, at least, if not for anything but sexual pleasure. Now, her body had been violated and she felt dirty--even dirtier than when she had lost her viriginity at age fourteen when she needed money to fill her stomach from days of starvation. No man could touch her again, or she would die from the effort of fighting him off.

"I won't hurt you, Kristy." The man's voice was so familiar, so gentle, so lilting, like notes upon a harp. Even in the darkness, his profile was not threatening. But he knew her name! How could he have known her name? Who was he? She felt fear trickling down her back, mingling with her tears.

"NO! Stop where you are!" Her heart dragged, as if it could not bear the strain of her terror anymore. Quivering, her palms cold with sweat, her head spinning into the cruel darkness, Kristy recoiled further away from his approaching form, drawling her knees to her chest, and retreated into the darkness. "Get away from me!"

But the man was by her side in a second. He had moved by her side in a blink of an eye; his swift movements caught her off guard. Kristy opened her mouth to scream but once the man's fingers fell upon her bare shoulder, she felt all of her fears ease and her panic calming down. A warm feeling overwhelmed her senses and in the dark, her eyes searched his face. His face was barely visible in the darkness; all she could see were his eyes but they were kind eyes. She had seen him somewhere before but where? But right then, nothing mattered to Kristy. All she knew was that her pain was suddenly gone, the ache within her subsiding. The man had powers to soothe and heal.

"Shh," He whispered in her ear as his hands stroked her hair off of her forehead. "I'll care for you. I'll take you home with me. No one will ever hurt you again." He took off his dark trench coat and gently draped it over her inert body, wrapping the silk against her bitter cold skin.

Kristy felt herself being lifted into his arms as easily as though she were a mere child. His arms felt strong and blessed warm and without knowing why, she clung onto him. She lay her head against his broad chest until she heard his hearbeat--rythmic, soothing and melodic. For the first time in her life, she felt protected in the arms of a man she did not know. He would be the first man who had not offered money in exchange for her body; he had not asked for anything from her. Instead, he had offered to protect her unconditionally. Kristy held onto him, her tears soaking the front of his shirt.

"Who are you?" The whisper fell from her lips as she tasted the salitiness of her tears. "Why are you helping me?"

"I am a friend," The man's voice vibrated in his chest. "And I care."

A friend who cared. The first man who cared a danm about her. A friend who had not asked for anything of her. Funny how the world could be so cruel and yet, miracles still exist. Kristy closed her leaden weary eyes as the man's strong arms enveloped her like a cocoon of love and hope as he carried her home.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

When Vicki entered the abandoned warehouse that had been her home with Louis for the past two weeks, she was surprised to find that Louis had lit candles all around the thick carpet in the centre of the floor.

A young girl lay asleep on the worn mattress, a thick coverlet draping over her shoulders. Louis sat beside her, his head bowed, his expression dark with an emotion Vicki could not make out. The golden flame of the candles flickered in his eyes and it flitted onto the figure of the woman beside him. She was beautiful, this girl whose fragility tore at Vicki's own heart. The girl's cheeks were ashen, her long hair spread across the white pillow like a fan, her lips blue and closed. For a moment, Vicki would have thought that she was dead, if not for the rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket. Loius's head lifted as he sensed her presence and he rose softly from the carpet, careful not to wake up the woman lying on the mattress. Fortnately, the woman did not even stir at his movements.

"You're back," Louis eyes met hers, his mouth twisting in an odd smile as they faced each other.

"I am," Vicki instanly noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the rawness of his voice. His hair was tousled and his skin looked strangely pale and withdrawn. Weariness and resignation made his broad shoulders slump and his body vulnerable than ever before. Vicki reached to touch his arm lightly in concern. "What happened to you?"

Louis gave her another twisted smile. "I was going to ask you the same thing." He echoed her question.

She knew that he was asking about her visit with Alec and she found that her heart was racing. Vicki blinked and glanced quickly away. She knew that she had to tell Louis of her decision but after all that he had done for her sake, the words were lodged in her throat. She clutched unconsciously onto the hem of her skirt, her palms clammy with anxiety.

"Who is she?" Vicki asked instead, her eyes flickering over to the figure of the woman on the mattresss.

"A prostitute that I just saved," Louis's voice shook with emotion as his eyes clouded over. "But I didn't come in time to save her from enduring a rape by that bastard. I punched him out. I used my powers to hurt him, just like he had hurt her. I wanted to make him pay for what he did to her. I think I might have killed him, for the blows were powerful, but I doubt it. But I admit that I want him dead. For what he did to her, I want him dead."

Vicki took in Louis' fury, shocked. In his eyes, she saw his shame at his outburst of anger but she sense his inner turmoil even more vividly. She had known Louis for only weeks but it had seemed like an eternity. He was peaceful and a gentle soul at heart. He would never hurt a fly. Also, Immortals were chosen by God for their goodness in their hearts. She had never seen Louis so tense and so fueled with anger. Only one reason could explain why he was reacting like this.

"You love her," Vicki whispered in realization. She saw the look of pain in Louis's eyes and she knew where she had seen that look before. It was a hopeless look that mirrored her own tortured soul of loving a person who was out of reach.

"Do you think so?" Louis gave a dry, mirthless laugh though his eyes filled with tears. "I just met her but my soul feels as though I have loved her all my life. She is Emileth all over again. Even her unfortunate fate of being an orphan and now being a prostitute echoes Emileth's sorrowful destiny. I saw her only weeks ago and I knew even then that I would love her. There is goodness in Kristy's heart, though even she doesn't realize it. She has been through Hell and back. Life has been cruel to her. I want to love her the way she should be loved."

"But, you are an Immortal," Vicki's heart ached for him. "How can you love her?"

"How can you love Alec?" Louis' abrupt question sent a shiver down her spine, and she found herself speechless.

Vicki and Louis stood facing each other, basking in the glow of the candle light, Immortal beings who had both loved a mortal. Vicki's heart thundered in her ears as the blood in her veins seemed to stop. She had come to Louis tell him the truth and yet, here was Louis, faced with the same dilemma that she was facing. He had lost a girl in his past and here was another woman who had also stolen his heart. Vicki had lived and died for her love and now, she could not bear to leave him behind. They were both destinied to descend upon the same path of misery that would lead to their doom. God had given them a bargain in exchange for the miracle of life for their loved ones. Now, they would be cheating against His rules.

"What are we going to do?" Vicki asked in a cracked, hollow voice.

Louis lay a hand upon her shoulder, his face lean and weary in the light. "We will do what we know is right," His words were faint, like a breeze in the wind. "Our moment of true happiness occured because we are with the one we love. You realize how rare that is--true happiness? I think that in our hearts, we know what to do."

Vicki understood Louis' words without further elaboration. As Immortals, they had been through heart ached and the torture of emotional pain. Louis had suffered for ten years while Vicki had suffered for weeks in lonliness. Now, they could no longer deny what they both yearned for--to love their soulmates. But it was too much to ask and they both knew that there would be punishment for their decision.

"Are you afraid, Louis?" Suddenly, Vicki wanted to know how he felt because that would reassure her that she was not alone in this suffering.

"Yes. Are you?"

"Yes, more than I have ever been in my life." Why lie to him at all? She was scared out of her mind.

"I understand."

"Do you know what will happen to us now? What will happen to us because we have broken the rules?"

"I don't know. According to the Scriptures, Adam and Eve got their eternal life taken away, dooming all humanity to a sentence of death and suffering. Immortals who break the rules will have its consequences. We are the two first Immortals to ever grace the Earth. I don't think that we will know of what to come until it happens."

The words of doom hung over her head like an axe awaiting to fall and Vicki felt Louis' arms around her. She did not realize that she was trembling until she felt his body tremble with her. Vicki held onto Louis, burying her head into his chest. But she did not cry; this sorrow was too deep for tears. This was a sorrow of the reality of the situation.

She and Louis had chosen to be with their loves but at what price?

Vicki was not afraid for her life because she had died once before in exchange for Alec's life. What she feared was being forever separated from him, being torn from his embrace and sentenced to never be able to have him as her own. Her heart was entwined with his and to take him away from her was to kill her soul. She needed him and loved him too deeply to live without him. As for Louis, she knew that losing Emileth was his biggest regret and now that he had found another kindred soul, he would rather burn in Hell than to lose her again.

At the moment, it seemed as though both Vicki and Louis will burn in Hell for what they would do, for what promises of chasity they would be breaking.

"Are you ready, Vicki?"

"No, but I would rather burn in Hell than live a lifetime without him."

Vicki and Louis's eyes met in the flickering of the candle, their eyes mirroring each other's fears and sorrows, before a slight breeze from a shattered window blew out the golden flame.

Darkness engulfed them both.

Chapter 11

Vicki fell to her knees, gripping her right hand.

Pain.

Intense waves of pain radiated from her center. She threw back her head, gasping for a breath she didn't need. The pain. It was ripping her apart. Vicki doubled over, her eyes flooding with tears. As suddenly as the pain started, it vanished. Supporting herself with one hand, Vicki took a second to gather herself. She didn't understand what was happening to her.

Vicki's eyes focused on feet. Why was she on the floor? She pushed herself back up, seeking the owner of those feet. Her love was standing over him, a long knife in his hands. Vicki's widened in disbelief and then horror.

"Alec?" She questioned, a sob escaping her parched lips. She focused on his face. Alec looked at her with eyes cold as steel. "What's going on?" she asked, bewildered. Alec would know and he would explain everything to her. But Alec looked down at her, bewildered. He didn't seem to recognize him, that confused her even more. Vicki glanced around, then got to her feet. A cold sensation of fear gripped around her heart, though she did not know the reason why she had anything to fear from Alec, the one she loved more than her own existence.

"Where are we?" Vicki asked, searching his face in confusion and fear. "I-I don't remember," she confessed.

Was she not in the warehouse speaking to Louis only moments ago? Why was she in the midst of nowhere, a place where darkness lurked at every turn. Could it be that Alec didn't remember either? Vicki felt that something was terribly wrong. She wracked her brain, desperately trying to recall what had happened.

Alec lowered the knife, his eyes losing their hardness. "Vicki?" He stated softly, his voice rife with disbelief. He stepped closer, his eyes never leaving her face. "You don't resemble yourself. You look different to me. Are you still the same person?"

Confused, Vicki's heart lurched. What did he mean by that comment? Was she still the same? Of course she was still herself! She watched with dazed eyes as Alec finally lowered his weapon. His eyes were shinging with what looked like ot be tears....there was so much sorrow in those dark depths. On impulse,.Vicki gathered Alec against her, embracing her love tightly, as though he would slip away from her at the slightest breeze.

"Oh, Alec... God," She breathed the words. "I... I feel so afraid, Alec. I don't know what's going on anymore. I--I just want you, just to be with you." She murmured, pulling him closer.

Vicki had made her decision to stay with Alec, even if it meant that she would be punished for doing so by God. But as long as they had each other it didn't matter how she would suffer as a consquence. Alec was her life. Vicki squeezed him harder, pressing a kiss against his shoulder.

"Alec..." she breathed softly. "Please say that things will be normal again....please." She needed that reassurance from him, that vow to always love her. Only then can she be sure that all of her strife and pain had not been in vain.

Abruptly, Alec stepped back, slipping from her arms. Vicki released him, blinking at him in surprise. "What's happening?" she asked, frightened by his sudden withdrawal. Something wasn't right. Alec wasn't acting like himself. His eyes, much too dark and his body felt too cold and too fragile in her arms, as though he were a gust of wind in the air.

Alec pressed his fingers to her lips. "Shhh. Don't worry about it," He said gently. His fingers moved to brush her cheek. Vicki closed her eyes as he kissed her softly. She returned his kiss, deepening it, pulling the essence of him into her, to become one with him. But,her eyes popped open in bewilderment when he pulled back again. She looked up at him, her eyes piercing his.

"I love you," Alec whispered, his eyes shining with tears.

"I love you," Vicki whispered back, her heart in her eyes.

Alec touched his fingers to her lips again. His touch was gentle and loving. "Close your eyes," He instructed, nodding reassuringly. "Trust me, Vicki."

Vicki did not doubt his words and closed her eyes as he bid. She felt his fingers lift from her face, his presence draw away from her. What was Alec doing? The silence filled her senses, making her wonder about what was about to happen.All of this was so strange. Was this a dream or just a fragment of her imagination. Why was he being so strange to her?

Suddenly, her curiosity was suddenly ripped in two by a searing pain in her chest. Vicki's eyes popped open, surprise chiseled on her face. She reached for him, but her eyes were drawn down to a glowing knife protruding from her chest. The same knife Alec'd been holding. Blood gushed out from her wound, faster and faster, flowing like a stream that was her lifeforce over her hands.

Why? Why, Alec?

Vicki's shock and anguish at his betrayal hurt beyond belief; she barely even felt the weapon slicing away inside her flesh. She didn't understand. She looked up at Alec, her eyes imploring him to help her. She stood transfixed, her eyes never leaving the knife. He did this to her?

"Alec..." she gasped, reaching for him but he recoiled from her touch, stepping back with as tormented look crossed his familiar features. Her tears slipped down her face, half from the pain of the wound, and half from the shock of having the man she had loved all of her life stab her, intent on killing her.

"Burn in Hell, Immortal," He lashed out at her and Vicki felt her breath being cut off from her. He knew? He knew that she was no longer a mortal? "You lied to me, Vicki!" He raged at her, his eys full of such anger and disgust that Vicki trembled under his scrutinized gaze.

No..this could not be happening...

"Alec, listen to me please," She pleaded to him, sobs wracking her body as the pain intensified. Her heart felt as though it would explode from the effort of speaking but she had to ask him why even if it killed her. "I never meant to lie to you. I sacrificed my life for yours, Alec. I died for you! Now, you want to kill me?" Suddenly, a mirthless laugh escaped from her lips as her tears blurred the vision of his face through her eyes.

This was a nightmare; Alec's face was so cold, so emotionless. Where was that gentleness about him that she ad always loved, that sweet tenderness in his eyes? Why was he staring at her as though she were a freak or some sort. But then again, maybe she was...

Vicki understood now. This was God's punishment for her, was it not? As an Immortal, she had broken the Lord's rule of chastity and now she was paying the price. But oh God! Not like this, please not like this!

"Burn in Hell, Demon!" Alec's face controrted into a look of disgust as his eyes travelled over her wound. "Go back to where you belong. You're not Vicki, she died. You are nothing now, not even a mortal. How can I love you like that? How can I have a future with a creature who is not even human?" His eyes, dark and full of hatred, burned in her soul and Vicki shook her head miserably, wanting to block out his cruel words, for they piereced through her being ten thousand times sharper than the blade of a dagger.

"No, Alec, don't turn against me. NO!" The pain of his denial was blinding her, tearing her into shreds inwardly so that all she could feel was that wrenching heartache of having the man she loved despise her and loathe her as though she were a disease.

Suddenly, she felt a force pulling her, yanking her away from her love. As she felt himself tear away from Alec, Vickil opened his mouth and screamed...

Abruptly, everything shifted and Vicki found herself in a dark landscape where fire pitts burned and lava filled her feet until her soles burned. The nightmare began, for the thousandth time for her ...

Pain... She closed his eyes, fighting the pain. Black, evil, feral beasts rose from the lava filled earth and held her to the ground. Like bits of shadow they blended in with the eternal darkness, their glowing eyes the only things she could make out. They held her captive their razor sharp claws digging into her tender flesh like meat hooks. Vicki gritted her teeth against the pain as they ripped into her flesh. Screaming didn't help; it only amused them more and made them crueler.

Finally, a large form, glowing with a faint red light, stepped out of the impenetrable darkness. The form of a grotesque demon moved to stand over her . Its red glow illuminating the twisted visages of the beasts that held her.

"Satan," Vicki mouthed, staring up at the demon as it squatted over her. She didn't how she knew that the creature was Satan; the knowledge came to her like realization. It reached out one enormous clawed hand. With the tenderness of a lover, it caressed Vicki 's face. She shuddered under its scathed touch.

"You have sinned, Immortal," Satan accused. Its voice was a horrific combination of grating gravel and the tortured sound of twisted metal. Vickil trembled violently, partly from reaction to that voice, partly from fear. She knew what was coming next. A preminition of her life in Hell flashed in her mind. It was her eternal hell... Every day these beasts would torture her , leave her bleeding and dying. She would fall into a fevered sleep, praying for death. Death never came. When she awoke, she would be whole. Untouched. Unmarked. She tried to escape, running blindly through the darkness. No matter how fast or how far she ran, they always found her, like hunters on the trail of their prey.

"The price of failure is eternal!" the Demon roared. Its clawed hand slowly trailed down her chest to rest over her stomach. Vicki glared at him, tensed. Every muscle in her body straining to break free from her captors. But she knew that they would always be stronger than her. "You..." the Demon hissed, its nails digging into the soft flesh over her stomach. Vicki ground her teeth together, determined not to give the demon the satisfaction of hearing her scream. Dark red blood welled up, coating the claws. "Failed..." The demon's claws ripped downward, slicing through his flesh like a knife through hot butter. The force lifted her body off the ground and hurled her into the air. "You will BURN IN HELL forever!"

Unable to hold it in anymore, Vicki screamed and screamed and screamd until she could bear no more......

Vicki sat bolt upright in bed. Her own terrified scream filled her ears. Oh God, it was only a dream....only a dream....

Head back against the dashboard, Vicki realized that she was in the apartment that she shared with Alec. She remembered that she had gone to him after confronting Louis about their decisions and she had fallen asleep in his arms. But the dream.....Vicki quivered with remembered pain. Her mind was still caught in the nightmare, held thrall in its terror. Like a helpless fly in a sticky web, she thrashed, struggling to get free from her dreams.

Then, she felt gentle hands holding her face. A soft voice, barely heard over her terrified scream, insinuated itself into her mind.

"Vicki, it's just a nightmare," Alec's familiar soft voice was reassuring her. He cradled her face in his strong hands, hoping his touch would calm her. Gently she turned her to face him. Abruptly, Vicki's scream stopped and she blinked. The dim glow from a night light, illuminated his gentle face. She stared back at him, confused, her eyes wild with fear.

"Vicki, it's just a dream..." Alec whispered, his voice soothing and calm. He had been in the kitchen preparing her favorite blueberry pancakes for her when he had heard her screams. It had sounded like an animal's wail from a wound, inhuman and making his blood freeze in his veins. When he had rushed into the bedroom, he was at last relieved to see that Vicki was only dreaming. She always haunted by demons that he never understood. "It's alright, Vicki, I'm here. No one will hurt you."

But Vicki's eyes never lost its haunted look. She did not believe his words.

"I've made a mistake," She whispered, the Demon's words echoing through his mind. Failed and sinned... That was the key that unlocked the memoriess he hadn't been able to recall. Memories of Satan and Hell flooded her mind. Suddenly, her eyes grew wide, shining with new terror. "Oh God, Alec," she sobbed, her hands coming up to cover her face. "I'm going to be condemned and I will pay for what I did," she wept into her hands. Her frail body sagged in defeat, falling toward him.

But Alec caught her, cradling her in his arms. Vicki instantly curled against him like a small, frightened child and Alec stroked her hair gently over that sweat covered face. "What? Vicki? What are you afraid of?" He wanted to understand her. Ever since her return to him, she had been harbouring a secret that she had not shared with him and it was eating away at her. It killed him to see her like this, on the verge of insanity and yet, she wasn't opening up to him.

"What have I done?" she sobbed wretchedly. "I'm going to burn in Hell," she stated, turning to look up at him, expecting him to understand when he could never comprehend the extent of her sorow. "But I'm not afraid of that,"she confessed, tears ran in crystalline rivers down her smooth ashen cheeks. "I can burn for a thousand years and I would not mind. I just want to be with you, Alec. Even if it means that I will be punished. But to have you turn against me......for you to hate me...I will die...." And she sobbed harder, her eyes closing in resingation and weariness, her tears endless and making Alec's mind spin.

Alarmed at her delirious words, Alec coaxed her to lay her head back down. Gingerly, soothingly, he stroked her long dark hair and pulled her closer. "Shhh...." He murmured. From beneath the thin nightgown, Vicki's flesh felt clammy and cold, her body trembling in spite of the coverlets upon her. "Everything will be alright."

"No, it won't--" Vicki's voice faltered and she began to tremble under his hands even more violently than before. Her eyes shone with grief, her voice raw from her tears. "It will never be alright again."

"Vicki---" Alec felt confusion and frusteration mounting up inside of him. "Please, let me in. Tell me what is going on."

"You won't believe if I tell you." Doubt lingered in those tearfiled eyes that were so beautiful.

"I trust you, Vicki. Trust me enough to tell me the truth."

"Alec, don't push me."

"I want to help you, Vicki. I love you." He meant every word, for that was what his soul was telling him.

"Not enough to live with someone who is not a mortal." Bitterness filled her voice.

Alec blinked at her, shocked and barely believing what she had just spoken. "What was that?"

Vicki's eyes met his eyes but suddenly, she gasped in pain. Alec was instantly at her side, his heart racing. All of this was too much for him. Nothing made sense. Vicki's hand, which lay beneath the coverlet was shaking and he could feel its vibrations even from beneath the comforter. As gently as possible, he took hold her wrist and took her hand out from beneath the blanket. Vicki was biting on her lip, moaning from the pain. Once her hand was displayed before Alec's eyes, his breath caught in his throat. Her right hand was burnt, her flesh blistered and red and raw from a flame that had scorched her tender skin. Alec grimaced and his arms held onto her protectively. Something was terribly wrong with Vicki---something that she was refusing to tell him.

"Omigod..." He stared at her disfigured hand, mesmorized by the scares on the skin, his heart lurching in pain for the sorrow that she had to endure. He did not dare touch her wound, for fear of infecting it. But he was on his feet in a heartbeat, wanting answers. He needed to know the truth from her. "Vicki, what is going on? How--how did you get so hurt like this?" He bent over to hold her close to him, to soothe her pain but she drew back from him.

What she told him made his blood stop flowing through his veins.

"I was burning in Hell," Vicki whispered to him, holding up her scared hand for him to see.

Tears slipped from her face and onto the hand that was starting to bleed, red, thick blood onto the whiteness of the blanket on the bed as she began to tremble again, though the room was not cold at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Louis' flesh burned and he screamed and screamed. Satan's laughter rang through his ears, loud and clera and tautning.

His eyes flew open and he sat upright on the mattress. Kristy Yang's sleeping form was still asleep from her ordeal the night before and she did not stir. But Louis was awake and it was then that he felt a pain slice through his hand. He gasped, moaning in pain and his eyes fell upon his right hand. His flesh had been torn, and the skin was crimson and red, covered in blood from a burn that had been caused by a fire.

A fire from Satan's own flame.

Loius did not need to know that God was punishing him and Vicki for breaking their vows. The worst was already happening---their punishment had begun. The right hand being burned by those of a sinner....

Louis closed his eyes and wished that he could wake up from this nightmare. But reality mocked him; his nightmares were real. The Immortals' punishment on Earth was initiated that day. Soon, the Immortals would cease to exist on Earth and be condemned to a liftime in Hell.

To burn.

Chapter 12

Louis waited for Vicki to come to him. He did not call to her using his telepathic powers nor did he seek her out. He merely waited for her by a beach far from the outskirts of downtown Toronto, a place that was secluded so that he could collect his thoughts and be at peace once more with nature.

Now, Louis sat by the loch and the river on the edge of a cliff, his eyes staring out at the deep blue river as waves swept toward the bank like a caressing hand. The clouds were massed in the east, portending rain before the night was over. The beach was beautiful that night--place and moon-curved, bordered by a narrow strip of spiky yellow-tipped grass, then the macer--the wide belt of grassland where seagulls made their homes. Beyond it all whispered the pale blue sea of glimmering powdered shells strewn with kelp. Here on the west side of the Toronto city, the ocean was serene, protected from the fierce north wind that made the waves rage against the cliffs.

Louis gazed at the scene before him with hungry eyes, memorizing it somnolent tranquility to carry inside of him along with the turmoil that plagued him. Immortal beings were natural creatures and once in the serenity of nature's embrace was Louis finally able to come to terms of the stark reality of the situation at hand.

He and Vicki, as Immortal beings and servants to God, were now being initiated as being sinners. They would be condemned and their spirits would die. Although they had both died physically to save the lives of their loved ones, their spirits were still very much alive in this human shell of a body. But once their spirit, their life force was taken away, they would east to exist no more. Immortals who would die.

"Have you been waiting long?" The soft voice penetrated through Louis' thoughts and he turned his head slightly to the side.

"No, not a long time. I came here to think--about us. About our Immortality. About how we are now doomed to die."

His voice cracked after speaking his later comment. Vicki approached him, her footsteps hesitantly, the image of her beautiful and fragile in the wind. She looked like an angel, ethereal with her ivory porcelain skin made almost translucent in the mist of the night. Immortals were perfected creatures, molded upon their resurrection to be appealing in shape and form. The only difference from an Immortal to a mortal is the paleness of the complexion, the smoothness of the skin. Other than that, Vicki could pass off as any normal girl in the crowd, though her beauty would make impressions that would last a lifetime. Her eyes were soulful, filled with unspoken pain and yearnings that Louis shared with her. Her long hair whipped in the breeze, the folds of her violet dress flapping against her ankles, the airy fabric rippling from the force of the wind against her slender body. He took in the sight of her, the nearness of her, the youthful beauty of her. She was only resurrected into an Immortal for a mere two weeks. She did not deserve to die like this. Louis did not want to break the news to her. But he knew, from the resigned sadness in her eyes, that Vicki knew what he already knew.

"I had a dream last night," Vicki's eyes were searching his face for a sign of hope, anything to keep her from losing that precious faith. Even now, when she recalled the images of Satan and the feelings of worthlessness, helplessness and the torture of her soul from that dream, shivers coursed down her spin, her body wracking with terror. Her voice shook when she spoke, "It was a nightmare, really. I woke up with a burn on my right hand. Louis, I was--"

"Burning in Hell," Louis finished for her, his voice oddly emotionless, though inside, a storm was brewing in the depths of his stomach. He saw Vicki's eyes widen in surprise and he gave a dry laugh, "We shared the same dream. Our spirits are connected together as Immortal beings. It was a sign from God above, a sign to warn us our impending doomsday. We broke the rules of chastity, Vicki. We, as Immortals, must retain a pure soul to serve His greatness. Like Priests, we must not adhere to our emotions and break our vow to obey and be share goodness with this world. But we did. You love Alec and I--I love Kristy...."

Louis broke off, glancing away nervously at what he had just spoken, of what he knew was true. Kristy....He loved her. It was much too fast, this feeling of warmth and love for someone he had only met twice. But the feeling was genuine and strong, manifesting itself within just one night of laying close to her and watching her sleep after the ordeal from the night before. She owed him her life but he owed her everything. Louis did not believe in reincarnation but now after haven met Kristy, he dared to believe. She was his Emileth all over again---in spirit and in mind. She was exquisite, though she never realized her uniqueness. She was cursed by the world, shamed by the road of prostitution that she was forced into for survival, and most tragically of all, Kristy did not love herself as a person. She loathed herself and in some ways, that was what was killing her slowly. Not her lack of morality and not her dire poverty. Just her lack of self esteem. Louis knew that he needed her, just as much as she needed him. He needed her to make his conscience ease. She was Kristy and Emileth all in one and he loved her with every fibre in his being. From that day when she had bumped into him on the road to the night he had rescued her from the rapist who had humiliated her most cruelly, he had saved her. But Louis knew that he needed her too, to love him, to make him feel "normal" again and not a creature of an ethereal world. He was a man after all, trapped in a body of an Immortal. Kristy would ultimately save him from himself. Even if that mean forever damnation, Louis was willing to take that risk.

Vicki's eyes were radiant with fury and frustration. "But I want to be with him!" She cried out, tears unshed lingering in her eyes. She shook her head miserably. "I know that we made a bargain to become Immortal, but if only He had made certain that we would not love..that we would not feel sorrow when separated from our soul mates...then it would be bearable. But how can we let our emotions go and not feel anything?"

Louis understood her pain. He swallowed against the lump that was forming in his throat, nodding slowly. "I know. If we are to be chaste, then why let us love at all?" He was struggling against his emotions, determined not to let his guard down. He had to be strong in dealing with this dilemma.

But Vicki was not as strong as Louis; she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, wet and stingingly cold against her face. A surge of anger overtook her and she whilred on him, "How much time, Louis? How much time to we have left before we die?"

Louis sighed deeply, blinking back the moisture in his own eyes, dry and burning. "I did research in the Old Testament. The Hellmouth opens, according to the apostle John, on the night when the moon is a crescent. This has never been proven scientifically but since science does not believe in Immortal beings and here we stand, I believe that we have exactly two weeks before the gates to Hell are opened. The right hand is burned because that was where the Christ was crusifixed first. Then his left hand, then his feet and finally, his forehead. These are the marks of Stigmata. We are being chosen to die, Vicki. We have two weeks left, if my estimations are correct."

Vicki's eyes met his and they stared at each other as reality sunk in. Reality struck them hard in the face. Two weeks...that was all they had left before their souls would be taken away forever to the Hellmouth, where they would be punished eternally for what they did. Because they loved, they would die.

"Will you stay with her?" Vicki spoke up finally after the long silence. She was referring to Kristy Yang and Louis nodded without hesitation.

"Yes, I want to make sure that she is safe, before I leave. I want to love her, even if it is only for a short time. She deserves that, if only she would have me."

"I will spend one week with Alec and then leave him. I want to make our memories last in my mind but I don't want him to grieve for me when I go. I want him to be happy. I will make sure that he is happy too, before I go."

Louis nodded silently and gently, he reached over to take Vicki's right hand in his own. He turned over her palm and his heart constricted when he saw that her skin had been burnt most brutally. The burnt marks had been treated with antibiotics but the skin was raw and red. Vicki took Louis' own hand and using her finger, she traced the marks of dried blood that had dried upon his flesh from his own burn mark. Together, they silently comforted each other's pain, peering into each other's tormented soul to find comfort from their shared sorrows.

The wind rose, high and shirll and Louis and Vicki turned to leave the beach to head back to their loved ones. Before he left her, Louis held her close, loving her like a sister to him.

"Come back to me, when you feel ready to leave Alec," Louis told her. "I would have left Kristy by then. We can await the Hellmouth together. You're not alone, Vicki. I helped mold you into who you are today. I will protect you until then."

"I know," Vicki smiled fleetingly at him, grateful for his love. "We will meet again when the Time is near. I will join you then. I know I'm not alone."

Louis smiled back at her and turned to leave.

Vicki watched his thin figure disappear from her sight before heading home to Alec. Her face was wet with tears as she made her way back to the apartment in realization that she was living on borrowed time from that night on. Two weeks. She would give Alec the world in two weeks and love him for an eternity. She trusted that Louis would do the same for Kristy.

Back at the beach, the loch glimmered black in the distance across the water in the distance, reflecting and reshaping the dramatic, textured clouds that began to pour down rain---like tears---onto the dark city of the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That one please," Alec pointed to a velvet blue box on the display of The Bay's Jewelery department, his fingers pressing against the glass compartment.

The retail associate smiled at him and took out the ring that he had chosen to hold it in front of him. The ring was exquisite, the diamond shining brilliantly against the blue velvet. It took his breath away, this symbol of eternal love that would cost him three months of his salary. But the cost could not compare to the joy he knew would streak across Vicki's face when her eyes fell on the ring. Almost a lifetime of loving her and five years of dating, Alec was finally able to afford a $3,000 ring to ask the woman whom he loved for her hand in marriage. They were both ready for this step.

In fact, to Alec, there had never been anyone but Vicki. She was everything to him. Now he wanted to show her that he wanted to be her husband, to love her forever, as he has always done. Her brush with Death had shown him that he needed her in every way possible, and it made him realize that without Vicki, his life would be barren as a wasteland. This ring, the symbol of their love, would show her that he meant all of his promises to her, his vows of undying affections. He could not wait to see the joy in her face, her eyes lighting up with excitement of their life together.

"You've got excellent taste," The retail associate purred as Alec took out his Mastercard to pay for the ring. He smiled in discomfort at the Sales Associates's phony compliments and waited patiently for the card to ring through.

"Agent Su! Hey there!'

Alec whirled around to find the pretty and exuberant face of Ruby Lin next to his. Three Agents from his FBI Department followed closely behind her and Alec returned her smile easily. Although she was still quite new to his Homocide Department, she was already becoming popular. It was his first day back at work after the shooting incident and it was a blessing to have Ruby's natural perkiness cheer him up. She was always smiling, always happy with the world and Alec found her joy infectious. Vicki shared Ruby's vitality for life, though she was much more subdued these days after her return. It worried Alec--this nagging secret that Vicki was so adamnet in keeping to herself. But he would wait for her to tell him when she was ready, even though it was a barrier that separated them and made Alec worry for her.

"Hey," Alec smiled at the other fellow Agents. He knew them but was not close friends with them. He had always been a quiet person, loving his solitude life to be filled with Vicki and a few close friends. He was sociable, though not outgoing. He liked the solitude and the quietness of spending time with his favorite girl alone in the security of their home.

"Hi," Agent Williams returned the smile. He glanced at the casement of rings and he whistled under his breath. "Man, pretty pricy stuff. You gonna get hitched or somethig, Agent Su?"

The other Agents snickered teasingly. Alec forced a small smile and his eyes caught Ruby's gaze. She was staring at him in concern and before he knew it, she turned to the others, "Go on without me, I'l be right up to the cafeteria."

Agent Summers shrugged carelessly and nodded, "Okay then. Agent Su, wanna join us for dinner?"

Alec shook his head gently. "No, it's alright. Go on without me. I'll take a rain check?"

The other Agents nodded and left together promptly. Alec glanced at Ruby once they were alone and she took him by the arm discreetly.

"I thought your girlfriend was...dead.." Ruby frowned at him, searching his face worriedly. "Alec, if you are depressed, or if you need to see a doctor then----"

Alec smiled at her, patting her hand gently. "It's ok, I'm fine. My girlfriend, Vicki, is doing well. She's not dead. It was a mistake afterall. I think that there is something wrong with the police file. She is very much real and alive." His eyes shone as he spoke about Vicki, remembering her touch and her sweet smile.

Ruby stared at him, dumbfounded. "Alec, the police are never wrong about this. Are--are you sure about this? I mean---didn't she get into an accident and died on her way home from seeing you from the hospital? I saw the report, Alec."

Her eyes were filled with disbelief and Alec felt uncomfortable under her scrutinized gaze. He felt as though he were being probbed by the eyes of an investigator, or a phsychological doctor who thought that he was insane with grief. He knew that Ruby cared about him but the truth was the truth. Vicki was alive and waiting for him to come home to her. That was all that really mattered to him. Whether it be the mircale of God that sent her to him, or whether it be some scientific phenomenon that made Vicki rise from the dead, he didn't care. All Alec wanted was Vicki, all he needed to know was that Vicki was not leaving him, to Heaven or to Hell or to anywhere else.

"Here you go, sir," Alec jumped in surprise when the Sales Associate handed him his purchase in an ivory bag. He had forgotten about the ring for a moment in Ruby's interrogation about Vicki. He took the bag and finally turned to Ruby, feeling her gaze cautiously on him.

"What did you buy?" Ruby asked him carefully.

"A ring," Alec told her softly, his eyes warming at the mention of the symbol of eternity that he had finally brought for the most deserving woman in the world. She was precious beyond life to him and this ring would seal their vows of eternity.

Ruby gaped at him. "Alec---" She began.

"I'm going to propose to Vicki tonight," Alec met Ruby's eyes levelly, his gaze unwavering. "To my dead girlfriend. I'll tell you all about it at work tomorrow."

Chapter 13

Two weeks left, only two weeks to be with the man who she loved. Vicki wanted that night to always be imprinted in her heart, in her mind, so that the memories of it will forever linger in her soul even if she is condenmed to the Hellmouth, a fate worse than a phsyical death. It was worse than death because that meant that she would be separated from him forever more. Without Alec, she would die. So that night, she wanted to "live" with him and have him be a part of her.

That night, Vicki carefully lit scented candles around their bedroom and wore her ivory silk nightgown that Alec had brought her for Valentine's Day two years ago. The aroma of lilacs and roses filtered through the air as she waited for him by the light of the lamp that created a soft, glowing aura throughout the room.

That night, she felt fear. Not just in her heart, as an emotion, but as a tangible presence. It lived in the bedroom that she shared with Alec, plaughing her, mocking her. She only had so little time left to be near him and touch him one last time. She wanted so desperately for this night to become one with Alec.

Before her soul died.

Which would have been the lesser of two evils -- dead or reduced to a staring, unthinking shell of a woman? Had Vicki only myself to consider, she would choose death. That unknown didn't frighten her... there's something out there waiting for her. She knew it. But factor Alec Su into the picture, and it becomes impossible for her to make that choice. Either way she will be no longer with him -- to challenge him, shield him, comfort him. To love him.

To need him.

Vicki knew that Alec wanted all those things from her He deserved them. Wanting them and knowing he already has them are two altogether different matters. Oh, he knew she was there to challenge him. They had started off in an intellectual sparring match to end all matches, and even after over five years Vicki and Alec were still going round after round.

A lifetime of loving him.

Their history together as childhood friends, into lovers and now, into soulmates went back at neary tweny years. Vicki had shielded him from harm, from the powers that be, even from himself, hasn't gone unnoticed. Alec was a innocent soul; he did not believe in the evil in humankind. She had shieled from the injustice of it all by loving him more than ever and making him believe in the faith of the world even when she did not.

A prime example of this was when his mother had died of cancer when he was only fifteen. One especially dark day he felt her arms around him in comfort. Though she was weary from lack of sleep keeping vigil at his mother's bedside, Vicki couldn't resist turning his exhausted body to face hers as they stood beside his mother's hospital bed. Pulling his head down, Vicki remembered massaging the back of his neck as his arms coiled around her, his tears warming her shoulder as they fell.

Even at age fifteen, Alec knew that Vicki loved him, though she never actually said the words until much later on. The first time he did, he was freshly fished from the ocean, a bump on his head the size of an egg, and doped up with sedatives. Deep in Vicki's soul, she knew none of those things caused him to say what he did. Vicki wished that she could get the words out. They seemed so easy for him to say, so matter of fact, as though he'd just realized that the time had come. But Vicki knew that she was more afraid than he is, the kind of fear that keeps her from voicing her love.

So Vicki did her best to show Alec how deep her love for him went. Through their relationship, by her belief in him, with her body as she lay it bare for only him and her soul that she gave to him willingly. Actions have always held greater sway for her than words. As a scientist Vicki was trained to look for evidence, not accept the word of anyone solely because he says it is so. That was the way she lived her life with Alec-- allowing her actions to speak the words she could only whisper under the cover of darkness and solitude. He had become adept at reading them, the expressions on her face, the clues she dangled in front of him, so she was certain he knows that she loved him. Some things are almost impossible to hide. Need was easier to hide than love.

Did Alec knw that Vicki needed him? She wasn't sure. How could he, when she rarely gave him proof? If she was afraid to tell him she loved him, she was even more terrified to admit that she needed him. To do so is to relinquish a measure of control, to leave herself a living, breathing target. To stand before him stripped, more naked than than anything, and allow him to devour her flesh.

But tonight would be the chance Vicki would take to place that need in Alec's hands. To open her arms and reach for him, not out of desire, but out of need. She needed him that night, to retain her memories of him for days to come when they would not be together anymore. When they would be forever separated between life and death.

"Hey there," Alec's familiar voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she smiled up at him. He looked handsome and sweetly vulenerable in the light of the lamp. She had not heard him come in, so deep was she in her thoughts. He took off his jacket, and not wanting to wait another moment, Vicki took hold of his hands as she approached from behind him. Alec turned his head and smiled at her, that wrenchigly tender smile at her. "Have you been waiting long for me? Sorry for taking so long."

"Not that long. I want to hold you in my arms tonight," Vicki whispered to him. She saw the surprised look in his eyes and she lay her head on his shoulder. "Please, Alec. I want to just be with you tonight." She pleaded to him with her gaze, silently urging him to just hold her that night. But she did not blame his confusion. Alec had no idea that the time that they would have together would be so short and limited.

"I was want to tell you something," Alec began, his eyes soft and shining with bliss. "It's important." But Vicki placed a slender finger on his lips, silencing him with her eyes.

"Please, Alec," Vicki led him toward the bed, her nightgown soft and tender against her skin. She sat on the bed first and took him with her, lowering his head gently upon the mattress. "Just for tonight, I want to forget everything. I only want to be with you, only you."

Alec's eyes met hers in the yellow glow of the lamplight and he smiled at her, reaching out to gently caress her hair off of her smooth forehead. "I miss you so much," His eyes shone with love as he lay gently beside her. "Vicki, you know how much I love you."

"I know now," She reached out to stroke the side of his face lovingly, feeling the warmth of his skin, tracing the familiar angles of his face. "Our love is real. I've always known that. For tonight, I want everything to be normal. I want to lie in your arms and dream about our future, just to feel your body against mine. Can we do that?"

Alec simply smiled at her again and then he turned off the light of the lamp. The moonlight streamed through the window settled upon their bodies, white and silver in the darkness. Alec's hand trembled as he reached out for her, as though he could not believe that Vicki was real in flesh and blood and lying next to him. But Vicki understood his hesitance. She wanted him to know that she was here with him. All he had to do was reach out and touch her. After all the times she had existed only in his memory, it's her corporeal presence that grounded him.

As if Vicki's thoughts were whisper in his ear, he pulled her closer to him, but Alec could not stop trembling beside her. He was so afraid of losing her, of waking up from a dream.

Ruby's words rang through his mind, loud and clear, "I thought your girlfriend was dead. Do you need to see a doctor or psychiatrist about your depression?" No, he was not depressed or disillusioned. Vicki was real, her touch was real. How could he be mad when he felt the desire to love her pulsing through his veins like liquid fire?

For Vicki, she savored the feel and the scent of Alec lying in her arms. He had no idea at this moment that she was drinking it in, absorbing the security that flows from his body into hers. Here in the darkness of their bedroom, intangible emotions became real for both of them.

Vicki's need wore comfort like a long mink coat, soft and warm, just as his skin was against hers. His chest was braced against her back, one arm holding her securely against him. His body spooning hers was a shield to her fear. He surrounded her, protecting her. Vicki was held securely, and no one can steal her away. Not death, not Satan, not the Hellmouth. Rather than weaken, it was a truth that empowered her, this desire for him made her bold, leaving her with a spark of desire, and suddenly she knew that fear, security, and need won't be the only abstracts made real tonight.

"You're beautiful, Vicki," Alec's warm breath brushed lightly against her flushed cheeks, and she smiled in the darkness, always loving him for thinking of her so highly, like the romantic soul that he was.

Reaching over to him, Vicki covered his hand with hers and loosened his fingers from her nightgown. Turning in his arms, she found herself looking into warm, tender eyes. His lips parted, and Vicki knew from years of experience what he was going to ask, but this is not a night for words. Only action will do --- love was not to be spoken, but made.

Before Alec was able to give sound to his words, Vicki touched her lips to his, feeling their softness melt against hers. Brushing back and forth at first, as lightly as pastels against a canvas but it was not enough, and she deepened the kiss, pulling his lower lip between hers, loving him and showing him through her touch that he was forever hers.

The next morning, Vicki awoke to the sunrays filtering through the window. Her eyes opened to the sight of Alec's sleeping form beside her, warm and real and beautiful. She slipped out of the warmth of the bed, but her movements caused Alec to stir and his hand reached out for her to bring her back into the bed.

"Good morning," Vicki laughed as Alec grined his sleepy eyes with his fists and she ruffled his hair lovingly. "Had a good night?"

Alec smiled at her, muffling a yawn. "The best of nights. I got to hold my love in my arms, to have the security of love. What else can a man want?"

"Breakfast?" Vicki began to rise again, her stomach grumbling for pancakes but Alec would not let her leave.

Alec reached for her once more. Vicki could feel her earlier sleeplessness slipping away with every stroke of his hand against her face, with every soft kiss along her hairline. Finally, Alec turned on their sides as he pulled gently from within her, enfolding her in his arms. Cocooning her in his love.

"I want to give you something, Vicki."

Fitting her head in the hollow of his shoulder, Vicki nestled in his arms, feeling happier than she had ever been in her life. The sun rose again on a new day and she welcomed its rays upon her skin, to welcome a life with Alec. The darkness was temporarily conquered.

"Really? What is it?" She eyed him curiously, smiling at his secrecy.

Vicki watched as Alec rose from the bed and he moved over to the closet where he had hung up his jacket the night before. She watched him fumble inside the pocket of his jacket and then he came forward toward the bed. She almost laughed aloud at the sight of him---his hair ruffled and uncombed, his pajamas wrinkled, his face unwashed and unshaven. But to her, Alec was perfect and beautiful, even in the wee hours of the morning (love made one blind on ocassion *wink*!) Vicki swung her legs over the bed, intending to stand up but before she knew what was happening, Alec sank down on bended knee and held up a velvet blue box to her eyes.

He opened up the lid and inside....Vicki's eyes widened in disbelief...lay a diamond ring.

An engagement ring. A symbol of undying love.

The sunlight from the window fell onto the diamond, making it shimmer in an array of colours and it shone like stars, beautiful and fragile in its form. Vicki's hand flew to her face in shock. She was speechless, completely and utterly speechless. Alec's eyes radiated with hope and faith and love all evolved into one as he spoke the words that were spun of fairytales and girlish fantasies. Her heart pounded in her ears as his words penetrated through her mind.

"Vicki, I love you with all of my heart and my soul. I dream of you, need you, and yearn for you. There has and will be no one else but you. Please, will you do the honour of marrying me? Vicki, will you take me as your husband, now and forever?"

Tears streamed down from her face. She did not know that she was crying until the tears blurred her vision. Her hand clasped againast her mouth as she struggled not to lose control of her emotions. But she had lost all control; she was choking on her tears until she could barely breathe. The ring glistened like polished glass before her and Alec's hopeful gaze was fleeting, his smile pleading to her to accept his proposal.

It was a proposal that she had waited her whole life to hear. Alec had always promised her that he would buy her a ring, though his meager earnings was never enough to pay for one. She had understood him because she knew that one day his promise would be fulfilled. That day had come.

But now, everything has changed. A bullet shot had destroyed all of her dreams, a bargain for Immortality had stolen away her life. Vicki was living on borrowed time with him. How could she offer him forever when she only had two weeks to give?

"Please marry me, Vicki."

It was a praise. It was a plea. It was a prayer.

Vicki reached out toward the ring, but her fingers did not touch it. Her tears fell soflty against her face as she turned her face to meet Alec's eyes. She closed her eyes for a moment, and opened them again. Alec was still kneeling before her, his eyes lighting up at the promise of their love and their future. The beautiful ring was still nestled in dark blue velvet, laying in the palm of his outstretched hand for her to slip upon her finger. She wanted to touch it but did not dare.

This was not a dream.

It was real.

Touchable.

Love, comfort, and security incarnate.

The intangible made real.

The tears slipped down her face in a torrent of sorrow and grief and regret that overcame her.

"I can't marry you, Alec."

The words fell from Vicki's lips and shattered the promise of love forever.

Chapter 14

"I can't marry you, Alec."

The words fell from Vicki's lips as her tears flowed down upon that beautiful porcelaine face, smooth as ivory, a face of an immortal creature unable to find a life with a mortal man even though her soul, her spirit, burned with yearning for him. She wanted but could not have.

A heart ceasing to beat, a wound unable to mend.

She had rejected his love.

It was over.

Alec released a shuddering breath, struggling to comprehend what Vicki was saying to him. She had just spoken the word that had destroyed all of his dreams, his everything. Had she truly rejected his proposal? No, that could not be --- it couldn't be true.

"What–?" Alec's voice came out in a whisper of shock, his throat constricting in pain at the meaning of her cruel words. "Vicki, I–I don't understand..." His head shook slowly in disbelief

God, was this real? Was she truly denying the engagement ring, his proposal? The ring lay on his open palm, shimmering like polished rock in the light of the early morning sun, waiting for her to accept it. His hands ached to slip it onto her nimble fingers as he had dreamed of doing for so long. Now, the time had come but Vicki had refused him, refused the vows of their love.

No! No! That was not what was happening! Vicki, no! Please don't shut me out like this!

His mind whirling in a panic, he reached out for her to evelope her in his arms as he had done so many times before. But at his touch, he felt her recoil away from him, her body instantly stiffening as though his touch has soiled her, made her unclean. His head shot up as he stared deep into her eyes, into the face of the girl he would have gladly died for if he could. Suddenly, he noticed how smooth her skin was, how so very luminous it was. The skin looked as though the light filtering into the bedroom shone out of her flesh, making her skin translucent. She was breathtaking–this beauty who looked so much like Vicki, and yet, not at all. She was too perfect, too flawless in her appearance. Last night, she had given her body and soul to him but this morning, she had rejected him. Her hot and cold behaviour made his blood run cold. Did she ever love him at all—or was their love just a hoax, a fairy tale that would end once the magic was over?

The words that he could no longer hold back came tumbling out in a current of frenzied accusations. "Why? Why not marry me, Vicki? I love you, dammnit! Just–" He broke off as the pain came to him, choking him. The tears that he was struggling to keep at bay burned behind his sockets. "Just give me a reason, please. That's all I want to know."

Alec knew that she was frightened. He saw the sense of fear flickering in those dark depths of her eyes and in the way she moved. The exeburant Vicki of the past was gone. In her place, this beautiful creature moved about like a floating spirit, her heart dangling by her sleeve. She was cautious and hesitant to tell him anything about what exactly had happened to her during those days when he had been unconscious in the hospital. Why was she presumed dead by the police? Had they not found and buried her body? Why was she standing before him now, in flesh and blood and bone, but so out of reach?

Vicki felt Alec's desperation, and though she formed the words of soothing lies, her mouth could not utter it. "I don't think you really want to hear the truth."

Alec looked up then, his face drawn and pale. The pain that she had caused him shone vividly in his eyes. She would have sold her soul to prevent him from feeling any pain, but the situation was beyond her control now. " I want to know the truth, Vicki. Don't lie anymore, please. What is it?"

For a moment, Vicki could not stop herself from staring at the shimmering diamond ring that lay nestled in his strong, sunbrowned palms. The ring that was meant to be hers. How lovely it was. It seemed to be only a fragment of a sequence of the dream she had spun long ago about a marriage to the man she loved. But now, the dream was shattered, leaving only the broken shards of glass upon her heart to tear and rip until her heart lay dead. Instinctively, before she could stop herself, her fingers closed around his palm in a plea for understanding that she knew he could not give.

Vicki bit her lip. The time had come when she could not longer avoid answering his questions. Her mouth was dry and her hands that clung onto his trembled.

"I'm not truly alive," The hoarse whisper slipped from her lips, flat and unfeeling.

"You're not truly alive?" Alec repeated blankly. Then he realized what she was saying. He stared at her, his eyes turning hard and cold. "But that is ludicrous! What exactly are you trying to tell me, Vicki? Don't feed me these ghost tales about how you rose from the grave and returned to your lover and now you have to go back to Heaven because you've sinned? Is that it?" A dry laugh rose from his throat, mirthless and taunting. He snatched his hand away from hers as though she had physically burned him with her touch.

Vicki hated to see him this way, though she had known deep within her that Alec would not accept the truth. It was beyond a mortal's conception to believe in supernatural entities. Had she not once scoffed at the idea that Louis was an Immortal being? But Alec—he was laughing at her, wasn't he? He had no idea what exactly she had traded to give him back his life! She had given up everything--- her own life, her own soul in exchange for his. But he would never know. Vicki did not want him to hurt after she was gone. Let him move on with his life and life a happy one while she and Louis burned in Hell, as it was meant to be. She had nothing to give him now that she was soon to become nothing.

"I'm an Immortal," Vicki continued to speak, though she had no idea where her will power came from.

Her stomach knotted painfully, urging her to stop there. She was going to destroy everything beautiful about her love with Alec. But he needed to know–it was already too late to tell him, but she must. She would have to leave him anyway—why not leave him hating her for the rest of his life than for him to mourn her death and be barren inside, as she had been? She knew just how that sharp and deep that sense of lonliness went. How could she condemn Alec to a life like that if she claimed to love him? Now, she must lie to him...for the truth of how she had traded her life to save his would remain a secret that would be buried with her in her grave...

"I'm not human anymore, Alec. Look at me closely, look at my skin," Vicki was surprised how strong her voice sounded, though she was quivering inside. This was the most difficult lie she would ever have to tell him. She raised a trembling hand up so that he could see the texture of it. "See how white it is, how soft and smooth the skin? It looks as though my skin was made of wax, without real blood sustaining it, doesn't it? I died while you were in the hospital; the police were correct about that. I traded my life for the life of a man. But I had to come back, to find you once last time. Just wanted to know that you were happy. I'm dead, Alec. Gone forever, and now....I have to go..."

There was only silence.

Alec stood still, unbreathing as her words sunk into him. No....how could it be possible? Vicki was...what? A ghost? And she had done what he thought she would never do to him!

"Who is this man?" Blind rage shook his entire body. He had to think, but his thoughts were clouded by hopelessness and, beaneath that, a sense of violent betrayal. Vicki had--- an affair with another? A man whom she loved deep enough to give up her life for him?

"That's not important," Vicki closed her eyes momentarily, wanting to block out the look of horror and fury in Alec's eyes. When she opened them again, she gave a strangled moan and turned her head away, but not before she saw the bitter realization on Alec's face. "He's someone I love so very much. He means the world to me, and even now, I will never regret what I've sacrificed for him."

Alec saw a ripple of shiver pass through her fragile body but he turned away. The sense of betrayal was consuming every fibre of his being. "I assume," Alec said carefully, in a voice without inflection. "That this man knows that you love him?"

"I hope that he knows just how much," Her words sliced through his heart.

Oh God! Alec could barely breathe, so difficult as it was to remain composed. Vicki had an affair! Had she been in love with the bastard all along, while she was just playing a game with him? Had all of her soothing words, their lovemaking last night, been only a lie? Even now, the memory of her supple body in his hands as he held onto her was imprinted in his mind. Vicki.... Vicki...how could you do this to me? How could you do this to us?

Damn but what a sweet lie it was and yet, she had no right! She had no right! He loved her forever, would give everything to her if only she would stay with him! He had been dying in the hospital, clinging to life by a thread and calling out for her while she was out loving another, giving herself to another? Had he truly lost her now?

"Get out of my sight."

Terror of a new kind shook Vicki then. Alec was pushing her away, condenming her. "No! I want to stay with you until the week is over. I only have week left, Alec! That's all that I ask of you!" She was crying now, her tears blurring her vision until the image of his handsome face staring at her as though he did not want to see her was only a hazy reflection in her eyes. "Alec, I have so little time as it is...please don't make me go..."

Finally, inevitably, Alec's control snapped. He was by nature not a violent person, but he could not stop his rage from exploding. He leaned down toward and grabbed her by the shoulders. How fragile she was as he threw her against the wall, trapping her head between his two arms so that her struggles against his hold were futile.

"Then, what in God's name do you want? Do you expect me to love you as though nothing has happened?" His own tears soaked his face, blinding him. "Tell me, Vicki! What do you want? Why the hell did you tell me this now, when I've given you everything that I could ever give you?" The sobs tore out from him, violently and causing his entire body to shudder. "Did you mean it, when you said all those times that you love me? Did last night mean anything to you, because dammnit, I felt as though God had bestowed upon me the most sacred treasure of all when you gave yourself to me. I love you! Don't you know that? How can you do this to me after all that we've been through? Why did you destroy this dream?"

It was in his eyes—that rage that made Alec into a stranger. Vicki wanted to push him away, to free herself from that glittering stare full of loathing and hatred. And it was all directed at her. At the woman Alec believed had betrayed him. And yet--- Louis' warning pounded in her ears: You can't love a mortal, it is against the rules. But she had and now, this was the price. Vicki faced Alec's penetrating gaze, her own eyes loving him all the same.

"The dream was mine, too." She told him. "I wanted it just as much as you did."

"But it's gone...." His words echoed in her mind as the tears fell.

Alec's shoulders sagged in defeat. He straightened slowly, releasing her from the prison of his hands. Vicki sensed that he was going to leave her and she knew she had to stop him. She only had one week with him and then they would be separated eternally. She had told herself that making him hate her was for the best. Yes, that would soothe his pain once she was gone. But now, she could not bring herself to do it.

Vicki reached out to grasp Alec's hands before he could slip away. "Please don't leave me!" She pleaded him with all of her soul.

Vicki had never made that plea before; Alec did not understand what she was asking for. Her fingers were warm and beguiling on his and against his will, he met her gaze. She held him immobile with her eyes; he could not look away. It had always been so. Those large, laughing brown eyes that was so beautiful were now beseeching him to stay. She tortured him with her agonized look, tempted him, enchanted him and denied him. Her eyes were wild and dark as night and fanthomless and he knew, in that instant, that he had to break free --- before she dragged him back into her web of deception and they both drowned in the lies.

"Our relationship ends here," Alec whispered dully, withdrawing his hand away from her grasp. He saw her eyes widen in sorrow, but he chose not to care. "Whatever or whoever you are now, I hope that your soul rests in peace. That's all that I can do."

Alec turned his back to her.

"ALEC!" Vicki screamed out his name.

But, his footsteps did not pause. He crossed the bedroom in three long strides and the sound of the front door slamming behind him echoed off of the walls. He was gone; she should be relieved. She had given him freedom now that he despised so that her memory would not torture him once she was gone. But Vicki knew as she lay on the bed that they had shared their lovemaking only last night struggling with the darkness that she could not bear his absence.

Chapter 15

Heart in tender moment
Deep within my thoughts
Captured in reflections
Dreams I somehow lost

Years of deepest passion
Caught within the bliss
Memories are gathered
These feelings gently slip

Should I keep projecting
What my heart will see
Or does this endless battle
Wage inside of me?

Sorrow now emerging
Heart so deep with woe
Searching for an answer
Where does this passion go?

Enter my sweet vision
Life now pass me by
See the passing pleasure
Of love I held too high

Dreams of new tomorrow
Shall these days bring peace?
Seeking what I crave for
In shadows that I seek.

Poem written by: my friend, Shannon

Vicki was laughing at something he`d said on their first date. God, she was so beautiful in her own cute and charming way. Those large eyes were always laughing and teasing him, though they could turn soft whenever she became serious. She made his bones feel like liquid with just one touch. At age six when they`d met, he knew that he was meant to love her. They grew up together, loving each other, until now....twenty years later...that love was broken...

Alec was consumed by rage. It ate away at his santiy, one bit at a time. He had nothing left, no one left, nothing left to live for.

He bought a twelve pack of *Lebatts Light* from a corner store and roamed the streets at night. The night was wild with action, music and laughter of teens lining up for entrance at local clubs and bars. He had never been a good drinker; his consumption of alcohol was usually only upon occassions when he was feeling at his lowest. Alcohol was a good pain soother and Alec wanted to forget everything.

Vicki, ah Vicki.

She had killed him by telling him the truth. Why had God brought him back on the brink of death after the shooting to endure this kind of pain? How much pain could a person take before they just...died away? Hell, Alec wanted to die now. Yes, death. It was cowardly choice, even immoral. But that would stop the pain, wouldn`t it? Stop the pain, please...He could bear it no longer.

Alec threw away what seems to be the last of the twelve pack and quenched it down in two gulps. The liquid poured over his mouth and onto his shirt, though he did not care. The night air was cool agaist his skin and even when he began to cough violently, he continued to walk aimlessly around the city like a man driven by nothing but his own insane thoughts.

In his mind, Alec saw Vicki with another man. The man was handsome, crouching beside Vicki at his feet. His form loomed tall and dark, framed by the speckled light that filtered through a lamp by the table. His dark hair fell over his forehead to emphaize strong, masculine features that looked as though his face was a carving from an Adonis statue.

Alec studied that man`s body, from his broad shoulders to his chest to his muscle thighs. He wanted to look away but could not; he was mesmorized by the hungry glitter in the man`s eyes. His face was shaded so his hair blended with the shadows; only his eyes were clear and bright and blue as day. Such beautiful eyes they were, crystalline in the way they bore into Vicki`s face. Alec only caught a glimpse of the man`s yes but it was enough. In those eyes, Alec thought he saw the man`s passion--like his body--for him to see. Vicki lay gazing up at the man in wonder, almost as though she were dazed. Her black hair fell over her graceful shoulders and spilled over onto the floor beside her.

As Alec watched, the beautiful man laughed deeply and his eyes glistened. Then he saw the man lean down and, gathering Vicki`s hair in his hands, raised his arms before him. Her hair fell over his arms to the elbow to slip between his fingers, settling like falling feathers on her ivory skin. His gestures were slow and sensual, as though he wanted to savour every moment of his seduction.

Suddenly, the man turned around sharply, as though he sensed Alec`s presence and his eyes swung over to him. Those lovely blue eyes darkened until they were almost a black colour. The sky in his eyes had turned into a raging storm in only a matter of seconds.

Gracefully, the man rose. As he took a step closer, Alec realized that the man was fully dressed, and not naked after all. He wore a thin white shirt that was transparent enough so that the sun bronzed tan of his skin could be seen beneath the flimsy fabric. Dark pants fit snugly about his lower form.

"Kneel down to me,Mortal," The man commanded, his eyes glittering wickedly in the light. His eyes hardened when Alec challenged him with glare of defiance. The man beckoned Vicki to come to him and she did willingly. Strong arms rippling with muscle entwined about her waist, and the man smiled at Alec coldly, "You don`t deserve her, fool."

Alec fought back his fury. His eyes met with Vicki`s eyes and he lashed out at her, "Is he your lover, Vicki? Is this the man that you`ve given your life for?" His breath came out ragged as he choked on the words. Vicki and the man were obviously lovers. The man`s arms about her waist seemed protective and lovingly gentle. He cared for Vicki, that much Alec could sense.

Vicki remained silent, as though Alec`s accusations were only a sigh of wind. Instead, the man spoke softly, "I am not the one she loves," His voice sounded almost wistfully sad. "The man whom she loves is a coward who will never see the light because he chooses not to. He has believed that she would betray her vows of chastity for another when she has sacrificed all for him. I despise Mortals who are hypocrites as well as fools." Those striking dark eyes burned directly at Alec, accusing him of something that he did not comprehend.

In exasperation, Alec turned his back away from the strange man and the girl who had caused him so much pain. But suddenly, the man`s words made him stop in his tracks.

"Alec Su, do you want to know just how much Vicki loves you?"

Alec spun around, amazed that the man knew of his name. But the man`s proposal left him breathless. Just to know that there might be a thin shred of hope that Vicki`s heart had once belonged to him would bring him peace, he knew. Right then, his heart was hurting so much that he thought it would split open. The alcohol did nothing to spare him the pain. He wanted to know, needed to know that she had onced loved him. Because dammnit! He loved her, even though he had turned his back on her back at the apartment, even though he knew that he should hate her for what she did. But deep down inside of him, Alec`s love for Vicki would never die. It was in existence, alive and beating from within. He could not deny that fact, though he wished that he could. Vicki was his world.

Alec faced the stranger who was now glowing in all of his beautiful form. The light almost blinded him. "Who are you?" Alec whispered, half in fear.

Was this a dream? Had the beer gotten to his head so that he was hallucinating? Even the image of Vicki was fading away, so that all that was left was the man who now shone as though he were an...Angel? His white shirt billowed out, translucent and flowing...everything was flowing on air.

"I am no Angel," The man laughed gently, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The fierce blackness in his eyes had faded away to the gorgeous and radiant blue again; the storm was over. "I need more merits of good will to become an Angel. I consider myself more like a Guardian, you can say. I`m appointed to protect Vicki`s soul, though she has sinned by loving a Mortal. I am her Guardian, the Guardian of all Immortal beings."

"Are you real?" Alec choked out, his voice faltering.

But no, this man must be real. His skin was just as flawless as Vicki`s complexion--his beauty was an ethereal one, too radiant and perfect to be of human form. Alec suddenly felt foolish that his jealousies would get the best of him--perhaps he should have listened...really listened..to what Vicki had to say. But all of this was so surreal. Vicki had confessed to him that she was also an Immortal being--dead but then ressurected to come back to him. Oh God, had coming back to him made Vicki commit a sin?

Alec stared at the holy man, his hands trembling as he whispered, "Did she come back for me, only to now be punished?"

The Guardian nodded grimly. "She loved you enough to risk all. She will be punished by the Underworld Lords. The Hellmouth will open soon and she and another Immortal being named Louis will be forever sealed within there for eternal damnation. But the Lord has felt pity upon their souls, for their soul burned with so much love and their hearts are clean and pure. Therefore, that is why I am here, to guide Vicki away back from the darkness."

The words of truth sunk into Alec`s tortured mind. His mind whirled back to their conversation in the apartment only hours before in sudden understanding.

"I only have so little time as it is," Vicki had told him through her tears. "I only have one week left! Don`t leave me, Alec!"

But he had not heeded her pleas, had ignored the sorrow and desperation in her eyes. His envy and rage that she had betrayed him had covered his eyes so that he did not see what she really was --- the woman that he loved. Whether or not Vicki had betrayed him no longer matttered. What mattered now was that Alec did not want to lose her so soon. One week with her was better than a liftetime of living without her. But God, oh God, why had he not realized this before? Alec closed his eyes, waves of regret and remorse hitting him too late now.

"Do you want to save her soul?" The Guardian`s voice broke the silence. His voice hardened with impatience when he sensed Alec`s hesitance. "Save her now or it will be too late. What kind of coward are you?"

But the Guardian peered at Alec closely, noticing how the Mortal`s hands trembled, how ashen his cheeks are and how deep the shadows were beneath his eyes. Just now, Alec Su was no longer a Mortal to despise, but a Mortal to be pitied. It was enought to realize that his love was a spirit who had committed a sin against the Heavens. But, he was only fed with half of the truth; he did not know that it was HE who was the one Vicki had sacrificed her life for. He was still in doubt that she had an affair with another, but he had showed concern for her wellbeing. His love for her had won over his jealousies. That was the first lesson that Alec had won. But would Alec be strong enough to risk all for Vicki?

"Do you want to save ---?" The Guardian began again.

But Alec cut off his sentence. His eyes were determined and unwavering. "I will do anything for her."

Something about the raw pain in Alec`s voice made the Guardian believe him.

"What must I do?" Alec`s eyes searched his face pleadingly, humbly.

The Guardian sighed in resignation. This was the only way, after all. There was no other way.

"You must die to be able to go into the Hellmouth to save Vicki`s soul."

Alec felt a conscriction in his throat. He remembered all too well the pain of dying, the sensation of his blood flowing from him insides once that bullet on that fateful night tore through his flesh. His wish had been to see Vicki one final time--in his final moment, he had begged to be brought to her. Now, he must give up his life once more, this time for Vicki`s sake.

"If I die..." Alec said softly. "Will Vicki be able to live again, normally, without being an Immortal?"

The Guardian`s heart contracted in compassion at the Mortal`s dilemma. It was not an easy choice, to choose between giving up your life for the life of your loved one. But Vicki had done it for Alec. It was up to Alec now to wish to do the same for her.

"Yes, she will be released from her bond of Immortality. Your body will not be dead, but you will be brain dead, which to many Mortals who have medical knowledge, is the same thing as actual death. So, yes, you will die."

A pause, but then, "I will do it."

How confidant the Mortal`s voice sounded, though his body was trembling.

"No regrets, Alec? Vicki had an affair with another, you know. Her heart did not entirely belong to you." Ah, such lies that the Guardian had to tell in order to be certain that the one who would be worthy of Vicki`s love was genuine.

Alec glanced away slightly, but he turned to face the Guardian once more. "It doesn`t matter," A small smile tugged at his lips. Feeble as it may be, but it was a smile without sadness or guilt. It was a small smile of acceptance. "I love her, no matter what. I know that now. You`ve shown me that. I am the fool, to judge her so harshly when I truly do not know how much she loved me, even if it was just for a little while."

The Guardian reached out for Alec`s hand and the Mortal took it. Then, his blue eyes began to cloud again, this time radiating with a dark crimson shade. It would only a milisecond to send Alec Su to his death but it would take a lifetime of regrets if this was the wrong decision for him to have made.

"Alec, you can still turn back now...or your Destiny will change as of now..." The Guardian warned.

"Do it." Alec pressed on, closing his eyes finally.

"I will be in the Hellmouth with you," The Guardian assured him gently. "I will help you find her and fight for her. Just call out for me in your mind when you need me. Call out for Whistler, and I shall come."

"Thank you, Whistler," Alec`s eyes were still closed but a peacefulness had settled over his features now, as though he knew that this was the thing that he should do.

Whistler, the Guardian of Immortals, smiled at that calm and suddenly beautifully unselfish face of a Mortal he had thought to have not deserved Vicki`s love. But he had been wrong; Alec Su shared Vicki`s unconditional and loving soul. They were like pieces to the same puzzle that was made of their divine love. They would die for each other, and live for each other. Perhaps not all of mankind was conditioned to kill and destroy all that is beautiful and worthy.

As his own flesh touched the flesh of the Mortal Alec`s hands, Whistler summoned his powers from above and the golden light intertwined with a radiant blue from the sky that opened from above.

"Alec, I`ll see you in Hell," Whistler`s deep voice echoed in his mind.

In an instant, Alec felt a deafening sensation slamming into his body. He felt his body hurling into thin air and then, for a moment, his body dangled for a split second before he crashed onto the pavement with a dull thud. His mouth opened in a scream of agony but no sound emerged. All he could feel was pain slicing away at him, blood pouring out of his nostrils and out of his head. Alec felt the coldness of the rainfall upon his skin that penetrated through his pores like waves that left him shivering in his bones.

He realized vauguely that Whistler had vanished and he was alone on the city streets once more. It was raining hard and wet and the raindrops fell upon his body, mingling with his spilled blood on the ground. The engine of an automobile seemed to be humming by his ear. He had been hit by a car. Yes, that must be it.

The shock of the fall had robbed him of all breath and he struggled to get air into his starved lungs. But no air could come in. Gasping, his lungs expanded but Alec choked on his own blood that he could taste in his mouth. No air came in and he choked, vomiting out more blood. He was dying....no shooting accident this time, just a car accident...He prayed that his death would come quick and fast, for he didn`t want to waste any more time. Time was precious; he needed time to save Vicki.

"Alec!" It was a familiar, feminine voice. He knew that voice...

Suddenly, Ruby Lin`s striken face loomed above his. He felt her arms around him, her tears also wetting his face along with the rainfall. She was crying for him, telling him that she didn`t see him walking out in the street and could not stop in time to prevent the crash. She was begging him not to die, begging him to hang on. He heard her frantic voice on the cell phone as she called for 911. She shouted into the reciever, demanding instant medical attention, though Alec knew that by then, it would be too late to save him.

Ruby, don`t try to save me. I`m going to where my Vicki is and that`s where I want to be....

That was Alec`s final conscious thought as darkness invaded his mind and the fierce fire of the Hellmouth consumed his soul.

__________________________________________________

Vicki rushed out into the streets wildly, her mind spinning. She heard Alec crying out in pain and the burning sensation of fire. Fire that was eating away at her love.

It had been three hours since he had left their apartment, and Vicki had cried herself to sleep only to be awakened by the fear that Alec had somehow died. She knew that it was proposterous that such a thing could happen. She had saved him from that fate,hadn`t she? How could he be taken away again? But why was her soul feeling so dead, as though her life force was gone?

Suddenly, alone in the streets, Vicki heard the distant sound of an ambulance`s sirens blaring. Ah, another fragile life was taken, and she was powerless to prevent it. She had no more faith in religion or in herself. She was an Immortal being who had failed in everything and everyone. She deserved to be punished for her inability to overcome her love for a Mortal man. Vicki gave herself up to despair and hopelessly as she roamed the streets, allowing the rain that had flooded the city to soak her flesh and her hair.

"Alec..." She whispered his name with regret and longing, though she knew that he was forever lost to her. "I`m so sorry, so sorry..."

Where was he now? Was he missing her at all, or did he resent her with every fibre of his being, as she knew he should. Vicki knew that she should search for Louis, wherever he may be. They had decided to meet at the river, if they needed each other.

But as of now, Vicki wanted to punish herself in lonliness. Louis deserved his time with his love, Kristy...they still had one final week of loving each other, whereas she had nothing now. She should have known that Alec would not want her anymore if he learned the truth. That was something she should know---something that must have hovered in the back of her mind, just out of reach, because she had not wanted to admit to it. She had thought that Alec would forgive her, even with her flaws and her lies. But he had not; those eyes who had once looked upon her with yearning had turned as hard as stone. He had rejected her and cast her away....

Suddenly, Vicki saw through the rain that her hands were trembling and her skin was suddenly cold. She felt her head begin to spin, though she struggled to fight against the blackness that was coming. The rain fell down faster and faster, its pressure tearing away at her flesh until her skin was raw with pain. Vicki felt the chill penetrate her skin, seeping into her blood until a vision of a fire suddenly appeared before her. The fire was icy blue, seemingly unwavering against the elements of rain and wind, burning furiously and with power.

"It`s time," A voice spoke to her from some remote corner of her brain.

An apparition of a beautiful man held his hand out to her. Vicki`s brain registered his name: Whistler. He was her Guardian and he would not harm her. He would be guiding her into the Hellmouth, as that was destinied to be her punishment for haven gone against an Immortal`s rules. But it was too soon! One week, was it not? Why so soon? It had been written in the ancient scriptures as being such. Time was hers.

"Alec changed your Destiny when he died for you, Vicki," Whistler told her, haven heard her thoughts. "He`s waiting for you. Come now, child. Accept your Destiny."

"Alec?" She didn`t understand.

What did Alec have to do with anything? Vicki`s mind was aching, her body throbbing and pulsing with an unknown pain as she took a few steps closer to the burning flames.

Whistler turned his eyes upon her and Vicki was amazed by the sheer brilliance of that blue gaze. His gaze calmed her, easing her fears for Alec. No, Alec would be alright. It was she who would be punished, not Alec. Her hand reached out for his instinctively and Whistler`s fingers closed over hers.

"It will be alright," Whistler told her before the flames consumed her vision.

Vicki doubted his words.

They both entered the blue flames together to the Hellmouth to meet the unknown as the flames burned.

Chapter 16

Alec slipped into a coma two hours after the operation that managed to keep him alive for the moment. Ruby felt as though within those two hours, her own heart was dangling by a thread. She had killed a man with her car, she was certain of it. This wasn`t an ordinary man by any standars. It was Alec Su, her partner and the man she had a liking for almost the instant they met. Ruby admired his courage to fight after the shooting, and his very goodness that was a part of his soul that was revealed in every gentle gaze that he gave her.

Alec was a rare man who was in love with no one else but his girlfriend, Vicki, whom was pronounced dead by authorities. Everything about Alec intrigued Ruby and made her want him in every way possible. Yet, she had stayed within the shadows, yearning for his love but knowing all too well that she would never have it. Now, she had killed him and that guilt wracked her from within like a hammer, slamming away at her sanity and making her want to die with him.

At the scene from last night, Alec lay in her arms before the paramedics came, his body crumpled upon that wet and rainslicked pavement, his eyes closed, his breathing irregular. His face was so still and cold, marble-like in its texture, smooth and without substance. The smell of blood had been stifling to her–she could barely breathe as she clutched onto him, begging him not to let go, not to give up what was the most fragile things in all the world-- Life.

And yet, he had.

Now, in the ICU unit of the hospital, Alec lay as though dead connected to machines that would breathe for him while his own heart could not. The IV lines were connected to his arms so that when her own hand clung onto his, it dangled before her. The liquid in there kept nutrients to feed him since he was unconscious and unable to eat on his own. The Ivs were inserted into his veins, the cartherer into surgically inserted into his chest to help him breathe, while the respirator hissed like a snake beside his bed, urging air into those starved lungs that had long ago given up.

The EKG machine above the bed reflected almost flatlines of brain activity--- Alec was pronounced braindead almost instantly after his arrival at the hospital. The doctors could not help him. He was only kept alive solely by the respirator expanded his lungs as aritificial air breathed for him. Though Ruby was useless to help his plight, she knew that there was one thing she could do for Alec before it was too late.

Vicki.

Alec would have wanted Vicki to be by his side for that final moment, though he could not wake up to tell her so. But Ruby knew of how deep his love went for Vicki. She had seen the radiant glow to his face at the department store when he purchased that engagement ring for Vicki.

His voice, full of hope, rang in her ears in distant memory. "I`m going to propose to her, the girl I love..." He had said, his eyes full of dreams of what was suppose to be a beautiful ending to their love story.

Ruby had envied their happiness and had cruelly reminded him that he was only dreaming, that Vicki would not return to him because she was dead. But Fate had listened to her curses afterall. Vicki had not returned to him and Alec`s dream was shattered into fragments of nothing but hopes and dreams that had little meaning.

Ruby had called his home, slammed on the door to his apartment and even broke into his home with a polic warrant in serach of Vicki, the girlfriend whom Alec had insisted was still alive. Yet, the apartment had been barren of any signs of life. Vicki was nowhere to be seen, though her photographs together with Alec were displayed along the walls in splendor. Vicki was a beautiful girl, her smile vibrant and those brown eyes laughing as she posed with her love in a picture that made Ruby`s vision grow blurry with emotion. Where was Vicki now that Alec needed her so much? Did she even know that his life was already gone, that time was running out for him? In this moment of finality, where was Vicki to comfort Alec before he slipped from this world and into the next? Alec had no other living relatives, no family to be notified of his condition that was beyond medical resusitation. But Ruby stayed by his side, unmoving and stubborn in her efforts to comfort him the best she could.

Now, the ICU room was quiet, hushed and dark. The only light shining about Alec`s head was a small lamp attatched to his bedside so that the pool of yellow light shimmered above his head like a halo. He lay still and unresponsive, his eyes gently closed to the world around him as the respirator hissed on. Ruby sat by the stiff-backed chair beside him, holding his hand and loving hin in her own quiet way. Time was so short. Alec would soon leave all of them, all of this, to go and be in another world. Perhaps Vicki was there waiting for him, and perhaps not. But Ruby knew that she would not forget him, no matter where he went. Alec Su, though she had only known him for such a short period of time, had touched her with just one glance of introduction.

"I`ll never forget you, Alec," Ruby leaned over to whisper into his ear softly.

There was no response from him, not even a flickering of an eyelid. His breathing came out ragged and laborous–having to hear him struggle to live tore her heart into shreds. She was the one who did this to him. It was she who had not seen his figure on the road and her vehicle had slammed into him at a deafening rate. For that, Ruby would never forgive herself.

"Ms. Lin, are you ready?"

The voice of the doctor brought Ruby back from her reverie of melancholy thoughts. She turned to look at him and saw the curt nod of affirmation from the doctor to go through with the procedure that was inevitable. Alec was brain dead; he would never wake up again to see the rising sun or to see the world. His chances of living were next to nothing. There was only one humane thing that Ruby could do for him and that was to release him from the ties to the world of the living that he was trapped in. Alec was suspended between Life and the Afterlife. She had to let him go. She had to do what was right, for Alec.

"Find your love, Vicki, in Heaven," The tip of her finger stroked along the side of his face tenderly. She bent close to his ear, hoping that he could hear her, though he was trapped in a dark world where she could not reach him. His flesh felt soft as down and warm against her own fingertips. His blood was pulsing inside this body that was dead. Ruby`s tears slipped down her face as she reached over to unplug the respirator from the unit in the wall.

"Good bye, Alec..."

____________________________________________________________

The darkness seemed to engulf him.

He saw nothing else, but he could feel, and he felt pain. He knew that something had happened near his right eye because a dull ache emanated from there. Also, the left side of his body seemed very tender, and his left shoulder felt like someone had punched him about two thousand times. His head felt weighed upon, as though it has been banged and attacked at so that now, his vision was blurred and unfocused.

God, what was happening? Where was he?

He didn`t recognize where he was. He was in a sitting position leaning against a cold, damp entity that felt like a wall or some sort and he didn't know how long he had been there. He sat there, trying to conjure up his last moments in the light. Where had he been? He remembered loving and looking into the concerned eyes of a beautiful woman with ivory, smooth skin and large, brown eyes that held life within then all together. She was always smiling at him and telling him that everything would be all right. He remembered the velvety smoothness of her skin against his, the softness of her cheek against his lips and the smell of her–like soft lilacs and roses. They had shared everything together....

What was her name?

And then it came to him like it had been whispered by an angel. *Vicki*. Her name was Vicki. Somehow that name meant everything to him. Everything that forced him to fight for life was connected to that name. Images of large, round eyes and pale skin clouded his mind. Images of holding her as she cried in his arms came to him.

Suddenly, his own name came to him. He knew who he was. He was Alec Su and the woman with the beautiful eyes and gentle gaze was the woman he loved, Vicki. God, it felt so good to know who he was. Finally, after so long, his memories were slowly drifting back to him.

Where was he? That was something he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He abruptly shivered and realized that he was not clad in anything above his waist. The air stung his exposed skin, cool and harsh against flesh, as though the darkness were made of an empty void in the middle of winter.

Suddenly a thick black smoke filled his senses, choking his nostrils. His hands raised to cover his mouth from the smoke but he discovered in alarm that he was chained together by metallic ropes that bound him together, limiting his movements. His hands were strapped against a mottled grey wall while his feet were bound together, preventing him from every thought of escaping. He choked on the smoke, coughing violently as he struggled not to breathe in the grey fumes. Then, his head snapped in memory. He was dead...he had accepted the Guardian Whistler's bargain to die in Vicki's place so that she could be free from being an Immortal. Vicki....Vicki....where was she now? Was she safe and sound, alive? He hoped so with all of his heart. He wanted her to be happy, to be safe. The smoke filled his senses, robbing him of breath.

"Alec!"

The familiar cry made his heart stop beating. Before Alec could open his mouth to say anything, his eyes widened in dismayed disbelief when he saw the image of her in front of him. She seemed to be submersed into the mist, her face blurring before him as though she was not entirely there in existence. Her eyes were full of tears as her eyes searched his face anxiously, lovingly.

"Vicki..." A soft smile curved along his lips as he moved toward her, raising a hand to touch her face. But the chains rattled and his arm was instantly jerked back, the confinements of the chains stopping him from touching her.

Vicki wanted to reach out to him but she could not. She felt as though she were there, as though her spirit were balancing before Alec. And yet, she was not there at all because she could not see her body or her form amid the mysterious white smoke. Her mind was there, her heart was there, but she was not in human form. She had no idea what was happening to them. Were they both already in the Hellmouth? There was nothing but darkness, but she could SEE Alec, as though a beam of light had settle upon him so that his body was illuminated before her. All of this seemed as though it were only a part of a dream, only a dream.

But the pain of knowing that Alec was in this predicament because of her was very much a reality. Whistler had told her everything upon entering the gates to the Underworld and she knew of Alec's sacrifice for her. He stood before her now, stripped of nothing but his pants, his body trembling against the bitter winds that blew its force at him from an unknown source. Oh Alec...Alec, why did you agree to die for me? Wasn't one of us suffering enough? She never wanted to see him like this, to have to live with the knowledge that he was going through pain because of her....

"Vicki, why aren't you alive? Why are you here?" Alec's words brought back new fear to her heart. He was right; if the bargain had been made, why was she present here in the Hellmouth with him and not on Earth? His eyes widened in alarm as he realized what had happened. She saw pain renewing itself in his eyes as he stared at her, gaped at her. "Vicki, look at yourself! You're a spirit! What the hell is happening? I made a deal with Whistler and he promised me that once I found you, then you'd be restored to your human form!"

"Alec...I don't know what's happening either," Vicki shook her head in despair, fear gnawing deep within her like teeth eating away from within her. She was frightened beyond description but first thing was first. She needed answers from Alec. She met his eyes and held his gaze with her own. "But Alec, why? Why did you agree to risk your life for me? I did all I could to save you from the same fate that would befall upon me, but you ruined it all. Did you know that you have made a bargain with the Lord, a bargain that can never be taken back? You'll die in my place, Alec!" Her voice shook at that thought, at the realization of just what Alec was going to give up for her. Oh God! Did he truly know what he had gotten himself into? Suddenly, she whirled to face him, furious at him for making such a rash decision. "You made the wrong choice, Alec! When I died for you, it was my greatest wish to see you alive and well. But now, this is a cycle of death that we are doing to ourselves! Now you're going to die for me?" Her laugh was empty and full of dry pain that wrenched at her inside at the stark reality of the situation.

"Vicki, I know," Alec's voice was strangely calm, though his eyes spoke all of his emotions. Vicki's breath was locked in her throat when she saw all of the love and divine faith in those dark depths of his eyes. His smile was so beautiful, even in the darkest hour of their lives. "I'm the man that you risked your life for, aren't I?"

"You and no one else, Alec." Vicki's tears streamed down her face, her eyes shimmering with profound love and devotion for him. The truth was finally told.

"I'm not worthy of it, Vicki. I deserve my death." Alec whispered in shame, lowering his head in pain as he remembered all of the awful words he had accused her of that day in the apartment when she'd rejected his ring.

His voice shook with emotion as his eyes filled with tears. He could barely believe what a fool he had been to jump to conclusions before in the apartment when he had ran away from Vicki, his belief intent on that she had an affair with another man. But that man WAS him! He didn't know how he knew. Vicki herself did not even deny his suspsions. But now, Alec was certain that she loved no one but him. Those eyes of hers full of so much agony and love was his answer. He had been too blind to see what a rare woman Vicki was–and he had failed in her in his doubts and jealousies. Whistler had been right when the Guardian called him a fool. Alec knew that he was a fool indeed — for it was only when it was too late did he realize just how much Vicki had done for him, and at what cost. He had believed that the shooting accident had been a fluke. He had miraculously been spared of Death because he was a lucky. But he had been blind to the knowledge that Vicki's life had spared him that death. She had placed her life on the ligne and became an Immortal being because she wanted to save his life. Vicki had done what most women in this world would not be able to do, unconditionally and unselfishly. Giving up her life for the life of a loved one was a choice that Alec would always be in debt to her. Vicki, I`m not worth this sacrifice....

"No,you are worth it," Vicki whispered softly, thinly.

At the sincerity of her words, Alec choked on his own tears. His Vicki, always so foolish and so willing to believe the best in him. But she was wrong this time---his death was what Destiny had in store for him. Her agreement to accept Louis`offer of Immorality intervined with what should have been his death a long time ago. It was time now to set things right; Vicki didn`t deserve to die. It was Alec who should accept the responsibility. And, as his gaze wandered to take in the darkness of the Hellmouth, he knew that Vicki didn`t belong there. He had made a deal with Whistler! His life for hers. Now, strangely enough, Vicki was not alive. Had Whistler not told him that once he died for her, then she would be spared? Something was wrong...or else, something was missing...

"Whistler!" Alec screamed to the darkness, praying that the Guardian would be listening somewhere along the midst of nothingness that was Hell. He took a final glance a Vicki and uttered those words. He knew that Whistler would not fail him now--could not fail him now! "Take me! Give me back the death that should have been mine! Take my soul!"

"NO! Alec,no!" Vicki protested when she realized what Alec`s intent was, but her cries were futile against the current of wind that suddently flowed through the darkness.

Once the words were out of Alec`s mouth, a spasm shook his body to the core and he gasped in shock. Vicki screamed as Alec was flung onto the ground by the current of wind with so much force that the chains that held him captive snapped. He fell into her arms....Oh God, she had her body back! Her arms and her legs rushed forward when she saw his inert form falling....falling....down...

Vicki could barely see through her tears as she reached over to catch him in her arms before he fell. In a heartbeat, she caught hold of him, not wanting to ever let him go. Alec slumped into her arms, his eyes open unblinkingly in a look of peacefulness. Vicki`s hands cradled him against her, his body limp and fragile in her arms, as though he were made of glass and not of flesh and bone. Her heart felt as though it would burst when her fingers felt a moisture upon his skin. She gasped when she saw the bullet hole in his flesh that protruded from his heart....the bullet wound that was meant to have killed him in the shooting accident. His blood soaked her hands and her clothes, sinking deep into her pores so that Vicki knew that Alec`s blood would always be a part of her. No...Alec! Don`t leave me....don`t leave me....

While she was sobbing, Alec had never felt so at peace before. This was the right thing to do---this was justice. He should have died on that fatal night instead of causing the one women whom he loved more than the world a lifetime of pain. His eyelids were growing heavier by the minute, but he fought off that wave of fatigue as he struggled to speak. He wanted, needed to tell her so much, to voice out all of the things that he should have told her when they had time on their side. But Time would not wait now and Alec could only pray that Vicki knew what was in his heart.

"Vicki...don`t cry..." His voice was barely audible as he fought for each breath. Strangely enough, he felt no pain in the wound. His sensations seemed to be numbed, but in his heart, he was crying for Vicki. Every tear that she shed for him were like arrows stabbing him. He wanted to see her smile, to see those beautiful brown eyes laughing again. Her tears wetted the front of his chest and his arm reached out weakly in search of her hand. "Vicki,don`t leave me..."

Vicki caught hold of his hand in an instant. Though as feeble as he was, she felt a slight pressure from his grip as he managed to squeeze her hand. "I`m here, Alec," The sobs came more rapidly now as she could no longer control her emotions. Oh God, she was losing him a second time and this time, she could do nothing to stop this from happening! A gentle hand caressed his face that now shone with a thin film of presperation and flushed with color. Alec was not pale in the least; instead, his face held a rosy tint of health. But his eyes, dull and unfocused and growing heavier by the moment, told her that once he closed his eyes, then Alec would never open them again. "I`m here, Alec. I`m right here with you."

A fragile smile traced along the corner of his mouth. "Thank you," A breath wheezed from his chest, laborous and faint. "Thank you for loving me, Vicki. I love you, forever. Keep our love safe and live for it. Even when I`m gone, I`ll be with you..."

Those words were final, hinting at this farewell that would be forever. But he was smiling in the most gentle way, his smile wrenching at her heart. His eyes met hers for a split second in time, and his gaze melted into one of love and longing before his eyes began to close. Alec had accepted his death, but Vicki could not!

"NO!" She screamed when her eyes fell upon his body, growing lighter and limper in her arms. "Àlec, no! Please don`t leave me, hang on! I`ll do anything, I`ll make another bargain with Whistler to save you! Whistler!" She shrieked in desperation as Alec`s eyes began to close. Her gaze searched frantically for the Guardian, but he was nowhere in sight. "Oh God, don`t let this happen! Whistler! Save him!"

Her words trailed off as Alec`s eyes closed for the final time. In her arms, his muscles relaxed and his head swayed over to one side. Vicki stared at his face, taking in Alec`s features, peaceful and almost radiant in death. His lips was slight curved into a smile, as though he had seen an angel before he died.

"No...No....Alec..."

The moan formed on her lips, but her voice startled her. She sounded different....far away and faint. Vicki felt the flesh on his arms and her heart soared when she found his body still warm. Perhaps he has only slipped into consciosness? Placing her head against his chest, her ears listened helplessly for a pulse, a heartbeat. Please...please...Alec, breathe...

But there was no longer a heartbeat in Alec; there was nothing to be heard but the sound of her own tortured cries of sorrows. Clinging onto him, Vicki breathed in the life of him--remembering Alec`s smiles, his laughter, his corny jokes, and the pure goodness about him. For a Mortal man, Alec broke the mold. He was her life and now he was gone.

As Vicki`s tears fell, the body of Alec grew more and more distant from her. She watched in mute horror, unable to find her voice, as a blue flame appeared in thin air and Alec`s body was consumed in flames. The flames burned and burned, the light shining like a star streaking across the sky in the darkness of the Hellmouth. Yes, a star, Alec had been her light in the darkness. Like a shooting star, his life span was short but he had invaded her senses until she was able to experience the most beautiful of all loves imaginable.

"I`m sorry," Vicki did not need to turn to know that Whistler had finally appeared beside her in his Human form.

She knew that he had been there the whole time as Alec lay dying in her arms and he had not done anything to help her keep her love from leaving her. Whistler was HER Guardian Angel, wasn`t he? But he had chosen not to help, to remain silent and invisible in the shadows while Alec`s lifeforce flowed out of him like a stream of crimson blood.

"Liar!" Vicki lashed out at him in her anger and her pain as the tears blinded her. She choked on her pain but it consumed her, as the fire had consumed Alec`s body. She whirled upon him, striking out at him with her fists. "You promised that justice would be done! Is this justice? This was MY bargain first, my vow of Immortality to die while Alec could live! Why? Why did you not help me? Why did you let him go?"

Whistler dodged her futile blows easily and he caught hold of her hand in his own tightly but without force. His beautiful blue eyes had turned into the somber grey; his mouth in a grim line as he spoke the painful truth. "I never wanted it to end this way, Vicki. You must be furious that the bargain of Immortality that you made did not go through. You have sinned by loving him because you could not help yourself. Alec could not help but love you to risk all as well. You were given a choice of life and death. But that was Alec`s choice to make as well. You see, it was his death that you took in exchange for giving him his life. Alec was also a unique individual that could be just as unselfish as you are in his sacrifices. He chose to give up his life for you, as it should have been from the beginning. Alec knew that. His death was not painful, my child. He`s gone. Accept his wishes and live on."

Vicki barely saw Whistler`s take hold of in his arms because she was so numb with grief and stark pain. Blue light flooded befor her eyes, white and lovely and ethereal in its lightness. She knew that Whistler was giving back her life, sending a force to give her back all that was meant to be Alec`s. But she could feel nothing but the deepest form of greif as she stood still with unblinking eyes as Whistler summoned forth his magic to make her into a human again. Vicki`s eyes were so full of tears that she did not see her skin turning dulller and less translucent, her face losing its perfected beauty, her body growing more real and with substance.

Within a blink of an eye, Vicki was a Mortal once more and she collapsed onto the ground as a force knocked her off her feet. The darkness of the Hellmouth gave way to a brilliant blue sky full of noise as an airplane flew above her head.

Vicki got onto her feet and realized that she was back in the city, back in a world of the living. Gone was the Hellmouth, gone was Whistler...gone was Alec....and for her, there was nothing...

It was all like a nightmare, a dream that would forever haunt her mind and her spirit. Because Vicki had lost the very meaning of her soul. Alec was gone, and with him, she was dead, even though she would wander around the earth in search of him until her own body died and faded away to dust blowing in the wind...

___________________________________________________________

Ruby pulled the plug from the respirator and for a moment, the stifling silence was haunting as the respirator ceased to hiss out oxygen.

On the hospital bed, his eyes closed to the world, Alec`s chest rose one final time. His mouth parted slightly as he sucked in dry air and then his chest froze, refusing to rise anymore. Motionless by his bedside, Ruby pressed a cool palm upon his head and whispered the words of the Bible

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May your spirit rest in peace..."

On the EKG machine, the green blimp of a flatline shone like brilliant light in the silent and dark hospital room. All was hushed and silent in the final harrowing moment.

Alec Su was gone.

Ruby squeezed his umoving hand one final time as the white sheet was placed over his body that would remain forever in death.

From far away, Ruby thought she heard the strangled cry of a woman and when she turned her head toward the window that faced the evening horizon, a white dove looked in toward Alec`s body upon the bed, its onyx eyes wise and knowing.

Chapter 17

Forever.

When she arrived at her funeral, there had been suprised murmuors. Had she not died, had she not been claimed by Death in an automobile accident. Vicki had flitted past those questions and bent over sullenly to Alec`s grave. It was freshly dug, the soil still brown and fresh. He had only been lowered to the ground for an hour or so.

Her sweet Alec...forever locked under the barren ground of darkness. The grey stone stood tall and smelling like new concrete. Alec`s tomb, his final resting haven...far from her reach...

The musty smell of soil and earth clung to her hair and through the veil of the black cap of mourning, Vicki`s eyes remained painfully dry. No, she could not cry. She had already cried for her love in Hell, a lifetime of tears that would flow not out of her eyes but within her soul. Some pains were too deep for tears and those tears were too late to shed.

The entire police force came to honour his memory and his committment to the force. The sound of the horns blaring out the mournful tune of goodbye gave Vicki no solace and she closed her eyes shut, wanting to block out the dire tune. She wanted Time to rewind itself; she needed the Lord to take back all the injustice that had happend to Alec. Dear God, she had traded her life for him! They had been separated for all eternity and because of one mistake, one dreadful weakness of her not being able to let go of her love for a mortal man, Vicki had condemned her love to an eternity of hellish nightmares.

She remembered the Immortal Louis`words to her: "You will live to regret your decision, Vicki..." But she has not heeded his warning, her heart too weak to break away from Alec. She had killed him, it was she who had brought him to his death! And for that, Vicki wept inside, her guilt tearing her apart until she could not bear the pain anymore.

She heard the music swell and fade, in and out. The world was cold, empty and barren. No sunlight shone her way, no beauty of the earth could be seen in her eyes. People who knew Alec spoke kind words of condoleces, but Vicki shivered, though the words were warm with affection. She felt as though her body was there, in the graveyard with Alec, but her spirit had died. Yes, maybe it had, because she was one with Alec, their heartbeats was one.

"Shadows of the dead, have I not heard your voices
Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?
Surely the soul of this hero rejoices
In the land of the Heavens where his spirit vales..."

The Priest`s blessings fell upon deaf ears as Vicki stared numbly at that fresh soiled earth where her love lay buried so far beyond her reach. No words could give her comfort, no touch and condolences and prayer could mend her soul. For Alec had taken it along with him to wherever he may be and all that was left of Vicki was...an empty shell of who she once was...

A young woman whom Vicki sensed also had affections for Alec came over to take her hand after the ceremony was over. Poems had been spoken, laments had been sung--they all faded into one another, like a steady stream of sorrow reminding her of her grief. Vicki barely heard Ruby`s comforting words.

"He wasn`t alone in the end," Ruby had told her, struggling to smile even through her film of tears. "I gave him his final rites and I clung onto his hand. A dove even watched him through the window. He`s at peace, Vicki. He would have wanted you to live on. You were his life, you know." Those pretty eyes had misted over and Vicki almost felt sorrow for this girl, if only her heart had not ceased to feel or bleed. "He was in no pain and he just slipped away, out of this world and into the next, like a shadow. It was fast and I never saw a small smile upon that delicate face. Peace was brought to him at last, Vicki, so that he no longer suffered. My pain is even deeper than yours, Vick."

Vicki could only stare unblinkly at this strager of a woman, her sweet face pale and withdrawn. She felt sorry for Ruby, for obviously Ruby also felt affection for Alec. It was Alec`s goodness that Ruby loved and Vicki wanted to become friends with Ruby. Perhaps one day, they could be friends. But not now, not when the pain was so fresh, the grief too real.

Now, Vicki felt nothing. Nothing at all.

She hated those words of condolences about how Alec was better off dead, of how he did not suffer! Vicki hated all the lies of comfort when really, there was no comfort. Only she knew what had happened, what had caused Alec`s death. She knew that there was no way Ruby could have known what really happened. How could Ruby even compare her pain to what Vicki was going through?

No, Ruby did not know what Alec had endure in a place called Hell, or how pitiful his death was. She was not THERE when he had taken his last breath, to hold him in his puddle of blood and cradle him against her chest even when the blood was choking her until it seeped deep into her pores, taining her flesh with his blood. Ruby was not there when Alec traded his life for another, when Alec closed his eyes for the final time! Ruby did not know how it feels like to watch a man whom she loved with all of her very being die in front of her eyes, his lifeforce seeping out from within a fatal wound, his chest rising one final time and then ceasing to rise again!

Had Ruby ever agreed to trade her life for the life of the man she loved, only to be condemned to a lifetime of Immortality, forbidded to love him and yet, she cannot stop herself? In the end, had Ruby ever lost that man all over again because of her own weakness and forced to live a lifetime of regret, pain and sorrows that would never ever fade away?

But Vicki had. She had experience the sorrows of the world, of being torn from Heaven and Hell and to return to Earth without substance, without Alec. She had lost everything, her humanity, her life, her love, everything...

"I understand," Vicki forced a faint smile that barely reached her ashen lips to the other woman. "Alec is at peace now. Don`t feel grieve so much." The words were lies, all lies but Vicki spoke them even though they were against what she knew was in her heart. No one would understand and no one could understand her pain.

Ruby nodded earnestly, sorrowfully. "You too."

Vicki stood by Alec`s gravesite alone while one by one the mourners left. That day, the wind dipped cooler than before and the sun seemed paler, weaker, duller. She stood crouched by that new and fresh grave, caressing the marker which bore his name until her fingers began to bleed and scar. The crimson trails of her blood stained his name etched in stone and it was only then that Vicki wept.

The tears came to her like a river of neverending sorrow, flowing, flowing, tears that would glow forever for the love that she had lost.

"Alec," Vicki wept mournfully, whispering his name as she clung onto his gravestone. The wind whipped agaist her hair, stinging her cheeks and making her body tremble.

But nothing more was said, nothign more could be done.

Alec.

The single syllable of his name echoed deep within her heart and left it bleeding and crying out for him.

Overhead, the sky opened and a torrent of rain fell from the sky, like tears from Heaven....

Chapter 18

Alec screamed out Vicki's name, in his mind, in his soul, in his heart.

The darkness engulfed him and tore at his sanity. His flesh burned and burned within the fury of the flames. The pain was killing him, slowly and bit by bit even though he had already died. But that was not the pain that killed his hope. The thought of never seeing Vicki again, of holding her again, loving her again, killed him. To never be with her killed him. It was ten times worse than a bullet penetrating through his heart. One bullet could end his life. But a lifetime without Vicki would give him nothing but an eternity of sorrows so profound that he could do nothing but scream out her name in vain for comfort.

"You love her."

Within the pain, Alec heard the voice speak to him. It was a voice that he knew and recognized. But the pain blinded him so that he could not see and the fire burned his sockets so that he could not open his eyes to see even if he wanted to.

"You're...my Angel..." Alec choked out those words. Yes, he knew that voice, he knew that voice! He had been injured in the shooting accident and that voice had comforted him in the ambulance. The image of a handsome, benevolant man came to his mind and he whispered faintly, "You are my Angel, aren't you?"

Even those few sentences cost him and he almost doubled over from the effort. The fire flared up again and once more, his flesh was scorched by the flames of Hell. He grimaced, groaning and finally, he fell. He felt his body falling, his arms flailing out helplessly.

But he was caught in a strong grip. Caught in darkness, Alec clung onto the anchor that felt like a whisper of wind. It was not a human form, just merely empty space that was strangely able to support his weight. But haven died and been caught in the Hellmouth, Alec was no longer suprised in supernatural miracles.

"I am merely Louis, an Immortal being such as your Vicki."

"Louis," Alec knew that this being that he had never met had a kind heart of pure gold. Even in his death, Louis had came to him to soothe his pain. Was God finally feeling mercy upon him and sending Louis to him for comfort so that he did not rot in Hell alone? "Thank you for coming."

"I came because I care about you and about Vicki." That gentle voice held so much wisdom and yet, it was underline with raw sorrow and pain.

Tears suddenly sprang to Alec's eyes as he thougth of Vicki. The saltiness of the tears stung his torched eyes, burning his sockets but the pain of seeing her beautiful face in his mind pained him even more. Vicki...Vicki...

"Is she alright now?" Alec breathed unevenly, weary and yet, he had to know. He need to know. "She has been given back her life? Please say yes, please."

"Yes, she has."

Another familiar voice struck a chord within him and Alec turned his head toward the softness of the voice, his hope flaring.

"Whistler!" Alec cried out the name of the Lord of Good and Evil in recognition. Blindly, panting with pain, he reached out for Whistler and the Guardian caught his hands in a firm grip that was not of human form. Once more, it was a form of a gust of wind, intangible and made of air and yet, it had substance all the same. "Whistler." The name had never sounded so beautiful to Alec's ears. Caught in a world of darkness and lonliness and being consumed by eternal flames of Hell made a man quite lonely and desperate. For Alec, it was both.

"We're here," The two voices of the beings synchronized together to form one voice. It was a voice full of power and of force; a voice of mercy and redemption. "What do you need us to do, Alec?"

"Please," Alec pleaded, though the pain sliced between his flesh and ate away at him from within. He winced and closed his eyes as another spasm of pain hit him. This spasm nearly knocked him to his knees, so violent was it that every bone in his body shook from the effort. But still, he struggled to speak. "Please protect Vicki. Grant her a good life, one with meaning. Make sure that one day, she will find a man worthy of her love. Give her a good life. That is all I ask of you."

"That is all that you ask of us?" Again, the voices of Louis and Whistler wove into one to form a single voice that was angelic and gentle as a gush of wind.

Blinded by the fire and burned by the flames of Hell, Alec could not bare the pain any longer. But he fought for each breath, forcing himself to wheeze out the words. "That is all I can ever hope for. Vicki. My life. Have mercy upon her soul."

The fire suddenly grew at its most intensive state and Alec screamed. Whistler's grip slipped out of his grasp and he fell.

Falling and falling and falling. Alec screamed out her name before he was once more consumed in flames.

But the flames did not pierce his heart or burn his flesh. Startled, Alec found the flames of this fire soothing away all of his wounds, mending his broken bones. In a heartbeat, he was able to open his eyes once more. Blinding white light greeted him and he blinked at the celestial lightness. But the light was pure and fleeting, like a dream. Suddenly, Alec was aware that he was suspended in the air, in Time. There was nothing below him, only mist and clouds and yet he did not fall through.

Finally, he was aware that the pain was gone. The eternal pain that he was condemned to endure ceased. His hand trailed along his bare chest and astonished, Alec watched wide-eyed as the wound in his chest slowly evaporated. Torn flesh was repaired and mended by newly formed skin and blood that had dried upon the wound flowed back into the wound, leaving nothing behind, not even the slightest scar. Gasping, Alec finally saw two figures approaching him. They were clad in the purity of white robes and their image shone as bright as stars before him. Alec saw the face of them and he knew who they were. Louis and Whistler.

"What's happening?" Alec wanted to know, rising to meet them.

Louis, the younger man, smiled kindly at him. "Your words made the Heavens cry for you."

"My words?" Alec echoed, astonished and surprised.

"Your wishes for the Heavens to have mercy upon Vicki's soul," Whistler told him. Those radiant blue eyes had never shone so brightly, so brilliantly. Such clear and vibrant eyes, full of hope and peace. The storms were over. "In your most painful moment, you had desired nothing else but the safety of your loved one. Now, my child, not even God can abandon a mortal with a heart as pure as yours. I always thought that Mortals were destinied to destroy each other because of their innate selfishness and greedy desires, but your love for Vicki and her love for you have built a solid foundation of love and unconditional faithfulness that caused even the Heavens to weep for your plight."

Alec stared at the two Heavenly creatures, dumbfounded. "What does..that mean?" He dared to ask. A flare of hope filled him, infusing him with a spark of life. Could this be true? Did that mean that...that he had a second chance?

"Go to her, Alec," Louis' reassuring voice confirmed his fleeting hopes and Alec's eyes burned with unshed tears. Before he could find his voice, Louis beckoned him toward an image that suddenly evolved before him.

The image was of Vicki, his beloved Vicki. Alec's heart lurched in agony when he saw her tears flowing, her head resting upon his gravestone, her fingers raw and bleeding, tracing the corners of his engraved name upon that mottled stone. She was real and alive. Her skin was flushed with color and life, her eyes brimming with tears. The sky was raining and she hovered close to the tombstone, clinging onto it for dear life.

"Vicki..." Her name caught in his throat. With a trembling hand, Alec reached out for the image and yet, he hesitated. No, this could not be real. Was he truly forgiven at last and able to live with his beloved, alive and well?

Whistler placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, though it was firm. "Go to her. Only you can set her free and give her spirit mercy. You are her soul, Alec. I release you both from your bonds of Immortality. Join your soulmate on Earth. Your soul seeking is over."

Alec could barely open his mouth to speak before he felt two strong hands push him into the portal that opened up in that instant. It was so quick that Alec had no time to scream or to react. All he felt was the sensation of falling and in a heartbeat, he was standing before his tomb, looking down at his beloved mourning for his death.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Vicki..."

The sound of the voice she thought she would never hear again echoed in her mind. No, it is only my imagination, only my imagination.

"Vicki, I'm here."

Vicki slowly raised her head from the tombstone and trembled. Was she growing so mad that she was hearing voices? But gradually, she became aware that a figure was standing before her, his shadow cutting off the light from the lightning. Vicki raised her face toward the figure and her breath caught in her throat.

"I'm alive."

That endearing face, those gentle eyes that had known her soul inside and out, that pale yet familiar boyishly handsome face that she had caressed countless of times..No, it couldn't be..and yet, there he was, standing right before her, holding out his hand so that she could reach for it.

Vicki did not hesitant a moment longer. She reached out for him and began to cry brokenly when she felt the warmth of his flesh in her grasp, the solidness of his hands. "Alec!" She sobbed, her tears making her vision blurry so that his face swam before her. "ALEC!"

He caught her in his arms, her figure slender and frail. Oh to hold her in his arms again, to feel her in his arms again! The sohnd of her voice calling out his name made tears come to his eyes. All that Alec could do was nod; he could not find his voice among the turbulent emotions that whirled inside of him. Vicki...a lifetime of wanting you, missing you, being apart from you..how can I love you any more than this? He felt weak, his hands clammy as he clung onto her, breathless from the sheer exhileration of haven died and reborn again.

The rain fell faster and faster, soaking both of them as they clung onto each other. Alec led her over to nearby tree in the cemetary and in the raging storm, they held each other. Vicki and Alec had been spared a lifetime of eternal suffering. That unbearable emptiness evaporated and all at once, they needed to touch each other. No words needed to be spoken---only their touch could appease their racing hearts.

Alec placed his arms around Vicki and she pressed against him, tasting his lips as though she were starving for the feel of his lips against hers. Alec cupped her sweet face in his hands, and she was aware of every scratch, every abrasion, every patch of dried blood that he had to endure in the Hellmouth. It was his price for her life, but now, her Alec was restored to her. These things reminded Vicki of all the sacrifices that they had to endure; she felt the texture of those scarred hands gratefully. She knew his touch, though it had been so long, knew it and longed for it to heal all of the wounds inside of her.

"God, Alec, Alec...," Vicki whispered his name over and over, loving the sound of it upon her lips. "Hold me, please don't let me go..."

"I'll never let you go, Vicki." Alec vowed solemly, with all of his heart. "Dying twice was enough. Never again will I leave you."

Gently, softly, Alec kissed her smooth cheek, her forehead. But Vicki needed to feel his passion and she reached out to hold his face in her palm, to gaze into those deep depths of his eyes in search of his love. She smiled in blessed joy when she saw love and acceptance in those eyes of his, nothing but the love of her Alec. She ran her hands through his dark hair, brushing her lips over softness of it, sighing as the emptiness began to fill within her soul and the darkness began to lighten.

The rain continued to fall incessantly, soaking them to the core through the branches of the tree, but this only made the fleeing momemnt more real. Wetted by the moisture of rain, Alec pulled her close to him so that their heart beat one into the other, and she slid her arms around his back, feeling his heat through the fabric of his shirt. Vicki's cheek lay against his, her hair tangled with his. For a long time, they did not move. Alec had missed what it was like to simply hold her, to breathe the rise and fall of her breath, to feel her meld with him, body and spirit. To feel the ardent satisfaction of sharing the rhythms of her body, to know that the love pulsing through his heart was flickering iside her as well. To know words were unnessary, would have been a descration.

Instead, Alec told her with each loving gaze, each tender caress that she was his life, his love. There was a lump in his throat as he looked at her face, made more lovely by the fallen rain moisture, radiant in her youth, her wisdom and her courage.

"I love you, Vicki."

Those were so much more than just simply declarations of love. Those were the words from his soul, his deepest and most truthful soul. Vick was his once more, his love once more. She had been given back to him. He'd though she never would.

Vicki read his thoughts in his eyes and her own filled with tears of gratitude. Gingely, she reached up to trace the path of a tear of his cheek. She smiled, and he gasped at the power of that smile to make him blind and hungry, powerful and helpless.

"Forever?" She whispered in the darkness of the night, though she did not need to ask. Everything that he had done for her had proven so, and yet, it was sweet to hear him say so.

"Forever." He swore from deep within. Even the Heavens knew just how much.

Vicki clutched onto his body, torn apart and healed by the force of their hunger, carried beyond the shelter of the trees to the colors in the now cloud-laden sky, to the turbulence of the once raging storm to the soothing pleasures of watching the rain fall cease and the sky change from a dull grey to brilliant blue. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear as Whister's blue eyes.

Vicki lay against his chest, listening to his heartbeat in quiet joy as the colours faded and the wind sighed between the trees and caressed their hair with everlasting promises of tomorrow. Alec nestled her close in the protectiveness of his loving arms as they lay together near the tree beyond the cemetary while the blinding light of their yearning and their love faded into cool, whispering darkness....

Chapter 19

It has been three months after his rebirth again and life had gone on like normal. And yet, they carried with experience with them through life and hell and back like it was a dream. But it was not and Vicki never forgot almost losing his life, her life and their happiness. But now, life was back to normal....

Alec cocked his head toward her playfully. "Again? Ice cream cravings again?"

He didn't need to remind her of the incident that led to his shooting and then to his death. But that was all in the past, a past that had created a bright future for them both. Vicki never forgot Louis, the Immortal being, and Whistler, her Guardian who had given Alec back to her. They were in her prayers every night, in her thoughts every day. She was alive now because they had cared about her and about Alec enough to lend a hand. Angels did exist.

Coyly, she crouched in front of him, pretending to pout. "The freezer is empty and I'm drooling for ice cream. Rich, chocholate....mmm.."

Alec laughed and he finally rose to get his jacket. But before he could go out the door, Vicki's lips brushed his gently.

"Come back to me," She reminded him softly, her eyes holding every curve of his beloved face in her heart.

Alec's smile was radiant. "You know I will," He ducked out the door but suddenly turned around, "The flower plot near the television needs to be watered. Please do it for me. I'll be back." With a wink, he flashed her another beautiful smile and Vicki returned it, happily.

When the door shut behind him, Vicki curiously approached the flower plot and suddenly, a twinkle from the light caught her eye. She blinked and moved in toward the flower. There, embedded halfway into the soil, her fingers laced upon the outline of a small, round onject. She brushed the soil off of the object and took it out into the light of the lamp. An engagement ring lay in her hand, the diamond shining like a celestial glow.

Vicki smiled softly at the ring and this time, without hesisting, she slipped the ring onto her finger. It was a perfect fit. She did not need to hear Alec's proposal again; once was enough to last her a lifetime. In her heart, she didn't need a ring from him to be a symbol of their love. They had gone through Hell and back and had endured.

"Is that a yes?"

Vicki felt his arms around her waist and she turned to shake her head teasingly at him. "Back so soon," she chastised him playfully. She inspected his hands, frowning teasingly at finding them empty. "No Heavenly Hash, I see."

Alec leaned over to kiss her forehead gently and his gaze fell upon the ring that sparkled like jewels in the night upon her slender finger. "I proposed once to you, Vicki. This is twice now. Put me out of my misery and say yes!"

"And what if I refuse you again?" Vicki made a face at him, swatting him playfully in the shoulder, though she was bursting with joy inside. Life could not get any better, any more beatuiful than now.

"I'll go through Hell and back for you," Alec told her with all the of his heart. Vicki never doubted that he would do that for her, again.

Vicki laughed and wrapped her arms around him. "YES!" She shrieked, "YES!"

As though she were as light as a feather, Alec swung her around the room of their apartment until they were both dizzy from the spinning. Vicki felt as though she were flying in his arms, loving him and realizing just how much she had to endure to have him with her.

Her Alec, her wonderful Alec. At last, their search was over. She had found her soul and he had found hers.

Outside of the window, a gentle moonbeam beckoned its light toward their open apartment window and the diamond upon her finger shone like polished rock. It belonged on her finger, this ring that had given her so much joy and so much sorrow, but now, so much redemption and love.

Alec held onto her, gently but with all of the passion was within him, and Vicki relished in his touch, in his arms, where she belonged.

Love was something so much more than an engagement ring, more than words spoken friviously, more than sexual pleasure. Love was even more than risking all for the love of another.

Love was a challenge of faith, courage and loyalty. Through Heaven and Hell, Alec and Vicki had endured through it all only to find each other at last.

The Soul Seeking was over.

And within Alec's arms that night, Vicki closed her eyes as dreams of a better tomorrow came to her through the balmy sweetness of the wind that whispered throughout the night....

Back - Comments