Love You to Death (Part 7)

For the next two months Kiera and Connor did what they could to save as many people as they could on Connor's list.  Every time, Connor feared that Death himself, grim, was going to show up and demand they stop, but it never happened.

The next name after the car accident victim had been the last one in town, but that didn't stop Kiera and Connor from jumping in the car and driving dozens of miles away to the next town over where Connor's next four weeks worth of marks resided.  Kiera took a half day if she needed to in order to make the trip, and Connor managed to get a job where he worked remotely all the time so that life's work wouldn't get in the way of death's work.

Except, it wasn't death's work anymore.  This was now life's work, too.  Whenever they could, they were saving someone instead of helping them pass on.  There was the little girl playing on the jungle gym at the park, who would have slipped and fell funny and broken her neck had Kiera not been there to steady her.  The girl's parents had glared, but Kiera had smiled, imagining this little girl would now live a happy full life when otherwise she would have been gone and her parents would have mourned and who knew what would have come of that.

There was a suicide they prevented.  That one was dangerously close.  They had gone to the location and at first seen no sign of anyone, only to have Kiera look up on a whim and see a man standing near the edge of a building, at which point Connor rushed inside and took the elevator up to the roof to try to talk the man down while Kiera called 911.

There were some where they weren't so fortunate, too.  One person just collapsed and it turned out they had had an aneuyrism.  Nothing could have saved them.  Connor helped them make the passage to the afterlife while Kiera cried quietly.

Another person had overdosed on some drug that Connor and Kiera could not identify.  The dying person had already taken the fatal dose at another location hours before wandering to the only place Connor knew to find them and collapsing from a fatal seizure.

Overall, they managed to save half of the people they set out to save.  And as that first month passed and the second took Connor further away still from the place where Kiera lived, the place he had grown to call home, he started to wonder, despite how good he felt saving people and being with Kiera, he started to wonder how long they could keep this up.

But what kept him going most of all, and what filled him with hope, was that nothing bad seemed to be happening as a result of what they were doing.  Not only that, but Kiera's name had stopped appearing on the list.  He had even stopped looking for it.  He felt like maybe, she was finally free.  Maybe she had escaped Death's grasp for good, or at least for the next several decades until she was old and ready to go.  Maybe fate hadn't been about letting her die, maybe it had been about saving her so that she could save the lives of so many on his list, and in the process, save him.

It was when he was finally starting to come to peace with all of this, that he had another dream.


This time, she was standing on a beach, looking away from him, wearing a thin white dress, the breeze blowing through her hair.  He could taste the salt, feel the rays of the setting sun, and as he reached out to touch her arm, she turned and looked at him.  And she didn't look sad, she just looked... resigned?  Or maybe ready.  Perhaps ready was a better word.  "You have to let me go," she whispered.

Connor awoke with a start once again.  He had only had a similar dream that one other time, and fortunately, he had been able to calm himself and get back to sleep without Kiera being any wiser about what had happened.  It seemed that this time he wasn't going to get off quite so easily.

As he gasped for breath and then started to take longer, deeper breaths in an attempt to calm himself, he heard a familiar voice beside him, the same voice that had just spoken to him in his nightmare of a dream, say softly, "Connor?"

He turned and saw her face in the pale beams of moonlight that seeped through the blinds.  She looked worried and sad, no where near as peaceful as she had been in the dream, and yet, he was so much happier to see her here and alive than as what had seemed to be her as a ghost in his vision.

"I just, had a bad dream," Connor told her, looking away.  Even though it wasn't a lie, he felt like he was lying by not telling her everything.

She must have felt it too, because she touched his cheek and gently drew him back to look at her.  "What kind of bad dream?" she asked, just above a whisper.

Connor shuddered, but he knew he couldn't lie to her.  "It was, a dream about you," he said.  "I think, I think it was about you dying."

Kiera was silent for a moment and then said simply, "I'm not dying, Connor.  You've saved me three times, we've saved others, and my name is no longer showing up on your list.  I'm not dying.  Not anytime soon, anyway."

Connor shook his head, showing his uncertainty and gently shaking her hand away at the same time.  "How can you be so sure?" he asked.

"I don't have to be sure," Kiera noted.  "You can check your list."

Connor shuddered again at that thought, fearing she would be wrong, that her name would be on the list, that the address would be here and now and he wouldn't have time to save her this time.  But if that's the way it was going to be, he at least wanted to know, he at least wanted to... say good-bye... properly.  So he flicked on the light on the nightstand, pulled out that nightstand's drawer, and took out the folded sheet of paper that he put there every night.

When he unfolded it to check in fear for Kiera's name, what he saw shocked him in a way he hadn't expected.

24 hours ago, eight names and dates had remained on this list.  Now it was completely blank.

Kiera must have heard him gasp because she was leaning over his shoulder, looking down at the paper, too.  When the glanced back at her, he saw her brow furrow in confusion.  "What's... what's that?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly.  "It's nothing," he said.  "Literally nothing.  There were eight names here before and now there are none of them."

"What does that mean?" Kiera asked earnestly.

"I honestly have no clue," Connor confessed.  "I've never seen this before."  He sighed and turned slightly in bed to look at her as he lowered the paper to his lap.  "But then again, I've never seen a name get crossed out and the person survive before I met you either."

Kiera smiled slightly at that, taking it as the slight reassurance and comfort it was meant to be.  "Well, maybe we should just accept it as a sign that you won't have any work to do for a while," she suggested, "and try to get back to bed."

Wearily, Connor nodded.  He put the paper back in its place, slid shut the drawer, and turned off the light.  He felt a little better in one way, though much worse in another.  Kiera's name was not on the list.  But what did it mean that no one's name was on the list?  Was he fired?  Or worse, was death hiding from him?  He tried not to think of that too much, and though you wouldn't call it peaceful, he did manage to drift back off to sleep eventually.


The next morning, a Saturday morning, Kiera and Connor both tried to pretend like nothing had happened.  They both had known that the next name on the list wasn't due to pass until the following weekend anyway, so they had already been planning to relax and enjoy this weekend.  Connor was making eggs in the kitchen when a knock came at the door.

"I'll get it!" Kiera called out.  Connor was facing away from the front door, but he glanced over as she rushed by down the hall and gave him a little smile.  Moments later, she was back, the smile stripped from her face.  "Um, Connor..."

He looked over at her, gripping the pan his eggs were in, and said, "Yes?"  His face fell as well as he saw her.  And then when he turned just a little more and looked beyond her, he nearly collapsed.

Right there, standing in his living room, was a man, or perhaps better said, a being, that he hadn't seen in a decade.  This man was tall, with a dark beard and dark eyes, and a long thin scar across his face that Connor was sure no one had ever had the courage to ask about.  He was dressed in all black, naturally, and his face was very, very serious.  You didn't have to see this man more than once to remember him.  Connor knew that he was standing face to face with the Grim Reaper, Death himself, and the way Kiera was shuddering, she must have known it, too, without even having met this Death at all.

"Hello, Connor," Death said, remarkably calm.  "I think it's time we talk."

Love You to Death (Part 6)

Connor froze as he stared down at the paper.  Somewhere far beyond him, he sensed hurried movement, probably the paramedics rushing to aid of an already dead heart attack victim, but he was far more focused on what he saw in front of him to pay it any mind.  He just sat there in silence for probably a minute until he heard Kiera say softly beside him, "Connor?"

He looked over at her and frowned in response to her inquisitive gaze.  "We can't go," he said.  "Not yet."  And he showed her the paper.

He closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat.  She ran her hands over her face, then opened her eyes again and looked over at him.  "Is your boss trying to tell you something?  Punishing you?  Does he really want me dead?"  She sighed.  "If he really wants me dead, why give you the heads up?  Why let you keep saving me?  There are... other reapers you said, right?"

Connor nodded.

"Then why not assign one of them to my case, if he really wanted me to go?  Why keep sending you?"

"Maybe it's a test," Connor suggested.

"A pretty shitty one if you ask me," Kiera noted.  She was looking straight ahead when she said that, but then she turned to look at him again.  "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"The same thing I said I was going to do," he told her.  "Keep saving you as many times as I can."  And they sat there in silence for the next two minutes, Connor holding the paper out between them, until the time scheduled for Kiera's death passed, a thin red line was drawn yet again through her name, and nothing else seemed to happen.

Well, nothing else seemed to happen, until Kiera's name faded and another appeared in it's place, an unfamiliar name, but in the same spot Kiera was supposed to die, only four minutes away.

When Connor saw that, he shuddered, and quickly folded up the paper to put it away, but it was too late.  Kiera had clearly other seen.  As she reached out and touched his elbow, he closed his eyes.

"Connor," she said softly.

He opened his eyes and looked over at her.  He saw tears starting to form in her eyes and it broke his heart.

"Connor is this my fault?" she asked.

He shook his head.  "No, none of this is your fault," he assured her.  "If anything, it's my fault.  I, I care about you, maybe more than I should, but I don't regret it, not for a moment."

"But what about..."

That was all Kiera could bear to say.

Connor closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then turned the key in the ignition.  "I have to go do my job," he said.

Kiera opened her mouth for a moment as if she wanted to say something, but then she thought better of it and they drove on in silence.


As they exited the park, they immediately saw the scene of an accident.  Sirens were wailing in the distance, and Connor pulled into a parking lot right near where it had gone down.  "Wait here," he advised Kiera, already knowing that she wouldn't listen.  As he got out of the car and closed his door, he heard the passenger side door close as well, though he couldn't bear to look at her.  Instead, he looked at her watch, which he still had from before, and compared it's reading to the time of death reported for this accident victim.  Apparently the death had not occurred immediately.  Connor looked ahead and saw someone leaning into the passenger side of an open car door, and then he saw that same person reaching for something that appeared to be sticking out of another person's neck.  And Connor had a sudden realization.

"No, don't," Connor shouted running ahead.  The person reaching for what turned out to be a large shard of glass stopped in surprise and turned to look at Connor, a look of terror in the would-be fatal Samaritan's eyes.  "Don't pull that out," Connor urged.  "Wait for the paramedics."

The man who had been about to remove the glass from another man's neck was still looking at Connor in shock, having stopped, for the moment, what he was doing.  Connor persisted.  "Don't touch anything and don't move him.  If you remove anything yourself, he could bleed out in seconds."  Connor felt his own pulse pounding with life as he sensed the injured man's somewhat faded life energy had stopped fading further.  He heard the sirens getting closer.  He checked his watch again.  Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't too late.  The stunned man who had been trying to help looked up at him as if he expected him to do more, so he knelt beside him and looked down at the injured man, whose vacant eyes looked up at him.  "It's okay," he whispered, almost believing it.  "It's going to be okay."

And then, the miracle happened.  In that moment, the moment that man had been supposed to die, the paramedics pulled up, and this time, the man was still alive.  Somehow, he was still alive.  Connor stepped aside and let them do their work, stabilizing the man, and most importantly, preparing to take him off to get the proper care needed for his injuries.

Trembling, Connor took out the piece of paper with this man's name, he assumed, on it, and with a start and a surprising level of relief, saw a thin red line appear on the page, this time through a name other that Kiera's.

Kiera, who had inspired him to try.  Kiera whom he had saved for the third time.  He sensed her presence beside him and held out the paper to show her.  "I think, I think we won," he said softly.  And then he felt Kiera's hand on his and he looked over at her, noticing tears in her eyes, sure there were in his as well, and then he was the one who was opening sobbing and she was holding him and he never wanted her to let him go.


"You have to let me go," her voice whispered.

Connor shot up in bed, a cold sweat overcoming him, and he shivered.  He looked down and looked at her sleeping remarkably peacefully next to him.  He shuddered and then he smiled.  It had only been a dream, a manifestation of his own mind and fears, not something Kiera had really said, not something, he hoped, that she would ever say.  It had been 40 hours since they had tried to save one man and succeeded in saving another.  40 hours since Kiera had convinced him that even if they couldn't save everyone, they should at least try.  And it had all started with him saving her.

He sighed and took a few more deep breaths and tried to lay back down and fall back asleep, hoping against hope that if he was haunted with another nightmare, it would at least manifest as Kiera, and not something much, much worse.

Love You to Death (Part 5)

Sometime later, with the afternoon sun peaking through the blinds of Kiera's bedroom window, Kiera and Connor lay quietly in bed gazing comfortably at one another.  And then the silence was broken by Kiera's stomach growling again.  She laughed.  "Boy, I am really hungry now," she noted.  She rolled over and started to get back out of bed.  "Do you eat?" she asked.

Connor chuckled.  "Of course I eat," he said.  "I'm still a normal human, just with extra... powers."

"I'll say," Kiera noted, shooting him a sly grin that made him blush.  "Well anyway, you want a sandwich or something."

"Yeah, sure," Connor agreed, getting out of bed as well.

Out in the kitchen, Kiera threw some deli meat on some slices of bread and that was lunch.  They ate standing at her counter, mostly in silence, and when Kiera had finished she sighed and said, "Well, as bizarre as this sounds, I guess if I'm going to live I should at least do some work."

Connor chuckled a bit uncomfortably.  "No, not bizarre at all," he noted.  "I suppose I should start looking for another job, assuming I no longer have my previous one."

"How do you do that anyway?" Kiera asked, "the moving around, not getting settled?"

"It's tough," Connor admitted, "but not the toughest thing."

Kiera nodded.  Then she sighed.  "Well, back to living, I suppose," she said.  As she cleared Connor's plate, she looked up at him and asked, "Will you come over again?  Maybe later tonight or tomorrow?"

Connor smiled.  "I'd love to," he said.

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek and then he let himself out of the apartment of the woman he had saved twice now, and whom he could definitely say he was falling for hard.


Kiera and Connor spent the next couple of evenings together.  It was strange.  She knew he was an emissary of death, yet he also seemed like an ordinary guy.  They talked and laughed and watched some TV.  And then, Thursday night, cuddling on the couch, Kiera asked, "Who's next on your list?"

Connor had known this was coming.  He was developing a relationship with someone he had told about his job, someone who had been intimately aware of his job.  Of course she was going to want to know more.  "A man named Charles," Connor said, not having to look at his sheet.  "He dies in a park tomorrow morning."

Kiera shot up in her seat.  And looked over at Connor as he glanced back at her.  "Tomorrow morning?!" she exclaimed.  "And you're just... here..."

"Where else would I be?" Connor asked.

Kiera shrugged.  "I don't know... preparing or something?"

"There's nothing to prepare," Connor told her.  "I just show up, watch, and then help with his passage.  Since this one is in a public place, I'll probably call 911 for show, if no one else does."

"Wait, didn't you contact the police about Mrs. Chase?  Won't the police think it's weird, you calling in another death?" Kiera asked.

"I don't have to stick around," Connor noted.  He sighed as he realized something Kiera didn't know.  "And this is the second to last death in this town that I've got.  In another couple of weeks, I'm supposed to be moving on."

Kiera was quiet for a moment.  "Where does that leave us?" she asked.

Connor sighed and frowned.  "I honestly don't know," he admitted.  "I want to stay, and I really want to make sure you don't end up on a list again, but I just don't know."

Kiera took his hand.  "It's okay," she said softly.  "I mean, I don't want to die, but having faced death twice now within a few days, having essentially made out with death," he blushed a bit at that, and she shrugged, "maybe it won't be that bad."

He looked at her stunned.  "How can you say that?" he asked.

She shook her head.  "I don't know," she admitted.  "I don't know if I believe it, I just, want to feel better about this whole situation, I guess."  She sighed and gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it.  "Do you suppose... I could come with you tomorrow?" she asked.  "I want to see what it's like."

He felt nervous at the thought of that.  She had asked him that before, when he first told her he was a reaper, and he had told her then that she was next on his list.  That was no longer the case.  Was there any reason not to say yes, other than fear that it would terrify her?  But she was strong, stronger than he could have ever imagined a person could be.  She had seen him right after Mrs. Chase already, and yet here she was, letting him hold her in his arms.  "Okay," he said softly.

At that she leaned her head on his shoulder in silence and didn't say a word.  And Connor's mind was racing, fearing he was making a huge mistake with Kiera, with everything, but then in that moment, deciding he didn't even care.


The next morning, Kiera and Connor got together for a walk in the park.  As Connor checked the time on his phone, Kiera offered him her watch instead.  "Maybe I should get one of these," Connor noted trying to say something a bit light-hearted.  "Much easier for checking the time."

As he watched the seconds tick by, he also glanced around the park, watching.  And then he saw him.  The middle-aged man he knew this Charles to be from his online research.  The man was overweight, but trying to get healthy by jogging in the park.  Connor frowned.  Given that no one else seemed to be around, he expected the cause of death to be a heart attack or other similar ailment.  It was sad that someone trying to do better would be taken out by the demon he was trying to overcome, yet Connor couldn't help but reflect that he had seen more heartbreaking deaths than this.  Kiera must have noticed him looking in the man's direction because he heard her whisper, "Is that him?"

Connor nodded.  "Let's sit for a moment," he suggested, steering her towards a bench along the path.  So they sat.  And they waited.  They were holding hands and Connor felt Kiera's squeeze his tighter as Charles jogged by.  Connor looked at Kiera and saw that her eyes had followed the jogging man.  "Don't watch," Connor whispered, and as she looked back at him, he felt it, the initial impact of the man's life energy starting to seep away.  Connor looked past Kiera to where Charles had collapsed on the ground.  He released Kiera's hand, got up calmly, and started walking that way.  There was no one else in the park today.  He didn't have to put on a show of rushing to help.  He just had to let things happen.

Kiera, on the other hand, did not seem to think this way.  As Connor was walking towards Charles, he saw her bolt past him, clearly on her way to try to help.

Connor realized in that moment that he should have expected this.  He should have realized someone who was not a reaper and who was as good and kind as Kiera would want to help, even though this man was supposed to die.  Connor knew the rules.  He knew they had to be followed.  But Kiera didn't know that.  And of course she didn't know that.  He had saved her twice, after all.  Did he even really believe the rules had to be followed?  As he thought all of this, he also started running down the path after Kiera.

By the time he caught up, Kiera was already kneeling over the fallen man, administering chest compressions.  "Call 911!" she shouted, looking up at Connor as he arrived.

"Kiera, I..."

"Just do it!" she shouted.

Connor sighed as he glanced at the watch she had let him borrow.  One minute to go.  He got out his phone and dialed.  "We have a collapsed man in the park," he said, giving the address and then quickly hanging up.  He glanced at the watch again, but immediately realized he didn't have to check the time.  He could feel what was happening.

Connor's eyes reflexively grew dark as Charles prepared to draw his final breath.  Connor knelt down beside Kiera, who was still pounding away, trying to save this stranger, tears streaming down her face.  Connor put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked over into his darkening eyes and stopped.  Then Connor turned his attention to Charles, whose face was twisted in pain and eyes just faintly blinked at the reaper kneeling before him.  His face formed a question that only Connor could hear, and in answer, Connor whispered, "Yes."  Then the man called Charles seemed to relax.  His face grew calm and his eyes closed.  Connor gently touched Charles' head, and then Charles was gone.

Connor closed his own eyes as well, let out a breath, and then stood up.  He looked down at Kiera, still crouched on the ground in stunned silence.  "Let's go," he advised.

She looked up at him, frozen.  "How...?" she began.

"This is how it happens sometimes," he said softly.  "Quietly and alone."

"But, but he wasn't alone," Kiera noted.

Connor shook his head.  "No, he wasn't."

Tears were filling her eyes.  "So this is what you do?  What you really do?"

"I try to give them peace," Connor confirmed.  "As much as I can."

Kiera stood and looked at him.  Sirens were starting to wail far in the distance.  "Why did you say yes, at the end?" she asked.

"I wasn't sure if you heard that," Connor admitted.  He sighed as he took her hand.  "He wanted to know if his family would be okay, and I said yes."

"How could you know that?" Kiera asked.

"I didn't really know," he said, "but I made my best guess.  Charles had a really good job, and his wife works, too, so money shouldn't be a problem.  He has plenty of friends and family, a good support system.  And no one else in his family is on my list, so I'm hoping they won't have another death to deal with any time soon."

"How can you approach it so... logically?" Kiera asked, tears threatening to spill out of her eyes.

"I don't know," Connor said.  "I guess just, time and experience."  The sirens were growing closer and he said, "we really should go."

Kiera nodded reluctantly as she cast one last look at the lifeless body behind them and let Connor lead her away.  As they walked briskly back to the car, she said in a hushed tone, "I just wanted to save him."

"I know," Connor said.

"I wanted to save someone else like you saved me."

"You can't save everyone," Connor pointed out.

"No," Kiera agreed.  "But you have a list.  You have a list of people who are going to die.  Doesn't it feel right to at least try?"

Connor looked over at her as they stood there in the parking lot on the opposite side of the park from where the ambulance he could no longer hear running its siren must have pulled up.  "I, I don't know," he said, for what felt like the 100th time in conversations with Kiera.  "When I was first given this job, it was emphasized how wrong that was, how I should never, ever do that."

"And yet you saved me," Kiera noted.

Connor nodded.  "And yet I saved you."

"Do you regret it?" Kiera asked, and he wasn't sure if she meant saving her or not saving others, but either way, the answer was the same.

"No," he said.  "It's scary and dark sometimes, but no.  I don't regret anything I've done or had to do as a reaper."

She leaned over and kissed him.  "Do you regret meeting me?" she asked.

"Of course not," he immediately replied, having hoped she had realized he was answering that question as well in his previous response.

She smiled.  "You know I'm going to have to try to save them, right?" she asked.

He sighed.  But then he realized, why not?  Nothing bad had happened yet from saving Kiera.  And she now wanted to save others.  Maybe that was a good thing.  Maybe it was all part of a plan.  "Okay," he agreed with a little smile.

She beamed at him and ran around the car to get in the passenger door.  As he slipped into the driver's side, he got out his sheet of paper to refresh himself on who was next.  As he looked at it his heart sunk.  Charles' name was gone from the list, and in its place was listed, "Kiera Jones" with the current day's date, an address just outside the park they were in now, and a time of three minutes in the future.

Love You to Death (Part 4)

The rest of the weekend Kiera spent at home, trying to act normal, doing some reading, watching a little TV, but mostly unable to stop thinking about what had happened and especially unable to stop thinking about Jason specifically.  She had been interested in him, liked him even, before all this went down.  Was how she was feeling about him now strictly because he had saved her life?  Was it an overreaction from going from being afraid of him to being in his debt?  Or was this how she would have eventually felt anyway?  She tried to calm herself down, to think it through, but it was impossible.  She wanted to see him, to talk to him, to figure it out with him.  But she also didn't want to rush things, or him.  If whatever this was that had formed between them could work, she wanted it to.  She decided that as much as she wanted to rush across the hall and into his arms, she was going to make him make the first move.

This is why she was overjoyed to answer the knock on her door Monday morning and see him standing there.  He looked nervous but hopeful, and like he had something important to say.  She smiled.  "Jason," she said, "come in."

She gestured, welcoming him in warmly.  He walked beside her and as she closed the door behind him he said, "I should probably tell you Jason isn't really my name.  It's just one of my aliases."

He smile faded just a little.  It made sense, really, that given what he did he wouldn't use his real name.  Yet it also made her feel wrong somehow to be having these feelings for someone who had lied about his name.

"My birth name was Connor," he continued.  "Connor Adams."

"Connor Adams," Kiera said softly.  She laughed, "Adams and Jones," she reflected.  "Not very original last names."

Connor shook his head.  "No," he admitted.  He sighed.  "But there's something more important I wanted to talk to you about."  And he drew out a sheet of paper and held it out to show her.

It appeared to be the same paper she had seen in his hands Friday night when he had stopped her, when he had saved her.  But now, instead of "Kiera Jones 12:46am" and Friday's date and address where she had been, it said, "Kiera Jones 12:07pm" with that day's date and the address where she worked.

"I looked up the address," Connor said.  "It's home to Lee Design.  I'm guessing that's where you work?"

Kiera nodded, not taking her eyes off of the page.

"Can you work from home today?" Connor asked.

Kiera nodded ever so slightly and said softly, "Yes, I suppose I can do that."

"Good," Connor said.

He turned and started to walk away, but Kiera sensed his movement and looked up.  "Jas- I mean Connor wait," she called out, reaching a hand out towards him.  He turned back to look at her.  "Is this going to keep happening?" she asked.  "Is my name going to keep showing up on that list."

He frowned and looked at the ground.  "I don't know," he admitted.  He couldn't bear to look at her.  He felt like his heart was broken.  This woman he had saved, this woman he found he cared for, might even be starting to love, and he didn't know what to do with her.  He had always known what to do in the past - go to where the paper said, help the soul cross over, whether it was peaceful or tortuous, that was what he'd done for the past decade of his life.  And now he was going against that, going against everything he was supposed to do, be, and stand for.  And yet all he cared about was her.

There was silence and then she said, so softly, "Will you... stay with me?"

He looked up, heart pounding, still unsure what to do, even with such obvious prompting.  She apparently took his silence as a desire to say no, because she continued, "I mean, if you have to go to your day job or..."

"No no, it's not that," he said, quickly shaking his head and taking a step forward.  "It's just..."  He sighed and stepped forward again.  "I just, I don't know what's going to happen.  And I don't know what we are.  And I just don't know what to do."

"That's okay," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder.  His instincts were to recoil from such a touch from someone he was supposed to watch die, but he couldn't.  "Just stay with me today, please.  I want..."  She sighed and closed her eyes.  "I want to hear about what you do."

When she opened her eyes again, there were tears in them and without thinking he reached up and wiped one away.  She laughed awkwardly and removed her hand from his shoulder.  "Let me call my boss," she said.  "And then we can talk."

Connor nodded.  "I think I would like that," he admitted.  She smiled and his heart melted.


After Kiera hung up with her boss, she brewed a pot of coffee and brought a cup out to each of them to sip on the couch.  "Normally I would drink this at work," she said, "but I've got better stuff anyway."

Connor nodded and took a sip.

"So, how exactly does it work?" Kiera asked after taking a sip of her own and setting her cup down.

Connor considering asking her what she meant, to delay having to answer, but he already knew what she meant and didn't want to insult her, so instead he said, "I get the names on a list for about 6 months at a time.  Usually a name every week or two.  I show up where it says when it says and the person dies and I make sure their soul goes where it needs to go."

"And how, how do you do that?" Kiera asked, her eyes growing wide as she watched him.

He set his cup down and said, "It's hard to describe.  It's more like this feeling comes over me and that's what pulls the soul out and sends it on its way.  And when I do that, it's like I'm giving a little bit of myself to the person who's just died, helping them on their journey, helping them realize what's about to happen, without even knowing myself what's in store for them.  But I can feel it, in a general sense, where they're headed.  Like with Mrs. Chase it was bright and peaceful.  She even thanked me in the end.  But with some..." he shuddered.  "Some have been really, really hard."

He felt something then and looked down to realize she had placed her hand on his knee.  He hesitated, but then he placed his own hand on top of hers.

"I can't even imagine that," Kiera said softly.  "My mom is a nurse, so I sometimes overheard her talking to my dad about losing patients and how tough it was, but she always had that hope that they were in a better place.  To know that sometimes they aren't..."

"Yeah," Connor said, feeling tears well up in his eyes.  "It really, really sucks."

Kiera was silent for several seconds and then, pulling her hand away said, "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have asked you to talk about this."

Connor shook his head, wanting to reach for her, to touch her, to hug her, something, but too afraid.  "No, I'm glad you asked," he said.  "I've never been able to talk about this with anyone before.  None of my friends, if I even really had friends as much as I have to move around.  Not my parents.  Not even grim."

"Grim as in..."

He nodded.  "The grim reaper, yeah.  I only met him once at the very beginning.  He's the only reaper I know.  He contacts me and tells me what to do, with the paper and all, but even though I've wanted to talk to him, to ask him how he does it, how he's been doing it for centuries upon centuries I just... can't.  I mean, he's immortal and despite what I am and what I do, I'm not.  I'm still going to die some day.  My parents, by making this deal, just bought me time."

"How did they even know this was a deal they could make?" Kiera asked gently.

Connor shook his head yet again.  "I don't know," he admitted.  "I sometimes felt like they wanted to tell me, but not really, so I didn't ask.  I just know that I was really sick and I suddenly got better and then Grim shows up telling me I have to work for him for the rest of my life. My parents were there, too, nodding enough to tell me this was for real and well... that's that, I suppose."

"Wow," Kiera said softly.  "That really, really sucks."

He laughed, just a little, at her echoing of his early sentiment.

"Yeah, it does," he agreed.  "But it's not all bad.  There's a certain peace in death, especially a good death that results in a well earned rest.  I get to see that, and that, I think, helps me come to terms with my own mortality, but still... sometimes I do wish my parents had just let me go when they had."

"They loved you," Kiera said.

Connor nodded.

There was silence again.  Kiera and Connor both thought back to the talk they had had Friday night, or more accurately, early Saturday morning.  Kiera asking why Connor had saved her.  Connor, then known as Jason, saying he thought he knew.  Connor felt tears welling up again, and he wiped them away.  He took a deep breath and let it out again and said, "Well, enough about me, tell me something more about you."

Kiera laughed nervously, reflecting on just how bizarre this whole situation was and after thinking for a moment, started to tell him more about her childhood, pets she'd had, places she'd lived, how she became a designer, so many of the little things that made Kiera who she was, so many of the little things that, as she talked, Connor saw his future self adoring completely.


They talked for hours, not about death, but about life, about each other, about their work (in Connor's case his "day job") and their passions.  It did come up that Connor supposed he was fired after having missed work for an entire week, at which point Kiera apologized and Connor assured her it wasn't her fault, even though they both knew it was, just a little.  But they didn't care, neither of them.

The time went on as if it was nothing until Kiera felt her stomach growl.  "What time is it?" she wondered, looking at a fancy watch she was wearing.  Connor glanced over and saw it said "12:05".  In a start, he took out the paper he had brought over and looked at it.  Kiera peered at it, too.  It still read the same as before.  "Well there's no way that's going to happen," Kiera said.  "My work is definitely more than 2 minutes away."

Connor laughed despite himself.  He had feared that something would have changed, that Kiera was still going to die, right there in front of him, but she was right, the time and address were the same and there was no way she would actually be there at that time.  She held up her watch next to the paper and they watched the seconds tick away in silence.  12:06... 12:06:30... 12:06:45... 12:07:00.  Within a few seconds of Kiera's watch ticking past 12:07, the same type of thin red line they had seen Saturday was drawn through her name, the date, time, and location, and nothing else happened.

Kiera breathed a sigh of relief despite herself, and laughed like only the living can.  Then she looked over at Connor and asked, "How long can we keep doing this?  How many times are you planning to save me?"

She was smiling, but he was fully serious as he looked into her captivating eyes and said, "As many times as I can."

She smirked a little and rolled her eyes at that.  "Cheesy," she pointed out.  And he laughed, too, and then she was hugging him and he was kissing her.  Before he fully realized what was happening, she stood and took his hand and led him away into the dim light of the hallway that led to her bedroom.  He happily followed.

Love You to Death (Part 3)

By the time the cops arrived back at the apartment building, Jason was gone.  He knew better than to stick around.  He had needed to leave a location on short notice before, though never quite like this.  After knocking on his door and leaving a door hanging instructing him to give them a call, the police officers who had responded to Kiera's call turned back across the hall to look at Kiera who was standing nervously in the doorway, now dressed in "day time" clothes rather than in a nightgown and robe.

"So what now?" Kiera asked.

"Without more to go on, there's not much to be done until we can make contact with him," the taller cop, who appeared to be in charge, told her.  "We left a note for him to call us."

Kiera scoffed.  "And how often do they actually do that?" she asked.

"More often than you might think," the cop said.  "Especially if they think it was just a misunderstanding."

Kiera shook her head.  "No way was that a misunderstanding," she told them.  "The creep claimed to be a reaper, and said I was going to die.  Plus, Mrs. Chase."

The shorter cop stepped forward and felt compelled to say, "We know you've been through an ordeal, ma'am, but preliminary examination indicates that Mrs. Chase died of natural causes."

Kiera wanted to say, "Natural causes my ass," but instead she just stood there awkwardly and uncomfortably.  There was a moment of silence and then she asked, "So what am I supposed to do?"

The tall cop spoke up again and said, "If it will make you feel safer, you may want to stay at a friend's house or have a friend come stay with you.  Other than that, if you ever feel unsafe or threatened again, don't hesitate to call us."

"Though you won't believe me," Kiera muttered.

"What was that ma'am?" the shorter cop asked.

Kiera frowned and shook her head.  "Nothing.  Thank you for your time."

As she closed the door behind her, she considered what she should do about work today.  Call in sick?  Be honest with her boss about what had happened?  Suck it up and try to go to work?  At least if she went to work, she wouldn't be here.  And although Jason knew what she did, he didn't know where she worked.  Unless he really was a stalker.  She shook her head and shuddered.  She just couldn't believe it.  And even more, she couldn't believe that she had wanted to believe his ridiculous story.


Kiera did decide to go to work after all.  Most of her co-workers got a simple, "No, I'm fine," when they noticed that she seemed a bit distracted, but one of her better friends, Monica, got more of an explanation.  In a secluded break room, Kiera broke down and told Monica all about what had happened.

"Wasn't that guy even at your party the other week?" asked Monica, who had also been at the party.

Kiera nodded.  "Yeah," she said.  "And he was the last one to leave."

Monica shuddered.  "Creepy," she said.  "To think he was so crazy."

Kiera shook her head.  "That's the worst part," she admitted.  "He didn't seem crazy.  Even while he was claiming to be a reaper, he didn't seem creepy or crazy.  It wasn't until he threatened me directly that it was like a veil was lifted and I realized what was really going on."

"You didn't want it to be true - that he was crazy," Monica suggested.

Kiera just nodded and wiped a tear away.

"Well if it will help, you're welcome to stay at my place for as long as you need," Monica said.

Kiera smiled gently.  "That would be nice, thanks," she said.

"Sure," Monica said, reaching out and gently touching Kiera's arm.  "What are friends for?"

Kiera forced another smile, feeling a little better, but still not feeling like she could fully explain how she felt to her friend.  What are friends for?  She had thought she and Jason were friends, maybe even had the potential to be something more.  And now?  What had she been thinking?


Jason checked into the motel using one of his other identities just after 11:30pm that night.  He wasn't sure what to think about what had happened.  Why had he done what he had done?  Why had he told her the truth?  He'd even had time to think, to come up with something else.  Or he could have just flat out denied everything to her and if the cops somehow got involved anyway, he could have made her look like the crazy one.  After all, Mrs. Chase had died of natural causes.  He had just been there to help her in the moment of her passing.  What he did was beyond nature, beyond observation.  No one would have ever known he had been there, had Kiera not been there to see him.  And even then, he could have fixed it, he could have made everything right, if only he hadn't chosen to tell her the truth.

What had he been thinking?  What had Kiera Jones done to him?

Nothing.  She hadn't done a thing.  She had just been herself.

Jason took out the sheet of paper with his instructions on it.  Most of this particular sheet was blank, the mention of his previous souls having faded when their life energy left this plane of existence.  But the next name was still there, plain as day:  Kiera Jones.  With a date of the coming Friday night/Saturday morning, a time of 12:47 am, and a location just outside of downtown.  Jason's notes from the grim reaper never told him how the person was going to die, but given the time and location, Jason was fairly certain a drunk driver was going to be to blame.

Going to be to blame.  He could still stop it, he could.  He had never even considered that before.  It had been so instilled with him not to mess with death, not to interrupt, that he had never even considered an alternative.  Ironic considering his parents had opted to cheat death to get him this gig, but it had been made very clear to him that this life he had now was the only way to avoid an untimely demise.

For his parents, it had been a direct deal that was made.  They hadn't realized what they were doing.  They had acted in love, though he sometimes wished they hadn't acted at all.  Now that he realized all that a life as a reaper meant:  seeing so much loss, never being able to stay in one place for too long, having to deal with tough passings that nearly pushed the merciful ones out of existence in his mind, he didn't want to put someone else through that, especially someone he cared about.

But he didn't want her to be just another one of those tough passings either.  He was sure she would go to heaven, so it wouldn't be that kind of tough, it would be more tough due to thinking of those she would leave behind.  And if he was being entirely honest, he would count himself in the list of those she would be leaving behind.  Even though there was no way he could say he really knew Kiera or could even be considered a friend of hers, yet somehow she had touched him in a way no one else ever had.  She had cared, and that made him care, too.


Kiera stayed with Monica until Friday evening, at which point she decided to try returning to her apartment.  She had heard nothing from or about Jason, though she wasn't sure how he could contact her short of finding her at work.  When he returned home, she was somewhat relieved to see that the "contact us" hanger the cops had put on Jason's door was still there, indicating he hadn't been home.  "Or," she thought immediately after, "he just left it there to make me think he hasn't been home."  She decided to shake that thought out of her mind and gave Monica a call after getting back into her apartment.

"Yeah, I think I'll be okay," Kiera said over the phone.  "No, I don't think he's been here."  She listened to Monica's response and laughed nervously.  "I don't know if I'd quite say a celebration is in order, but... oh what the heck.  Sure, why not."

And thus, Kiera made plans with her friend Monica to begin the night that would end in her death.


Jason was back, not at his apartment, but at the intersection where Kiera was scheduled to die.  He had scoped it out earlier that day, trying to figure out exactly how things might go down, but there was really no way to know until the moment it happened.  He checked his phone.  12:44am.  He felt his pulse quicken.  He still didn't know exactly what he was going to do.  He supposed he wouldn't know until the moment it happened.  He checked his phone again.  12:44am still.  These three minutes were going to feel like an eternity.


"I really should go home," Kiera was saying on their way out of the bar.  "I'm getting tired."

"Oh come on!" Monica whined, leaning on her friend.  "Just one more stop!"

Kiera laughed.  "What happened to you being the designated driver?" she asked.

"Pffft, I knew you wouldn't drink that much," Monica said with a dismissive hand gesture.  "After that first drink when you looked over with me in sympathy... You said we could switch!"

Kiera laughed again.  "And you agreed," she pointed out.  "Some friend you are."

Monica draped her arm over her sober friend.  "Yeah, yeah," she said.  "Now take me home!"

"Shhhh," Kiera urged.


It was the shout of "take me home", that caught Jason's attention.  It wasn't Kiera's voice, but he looked that way anyway and saw two women walking towards the intersection where Kiera was scheduled to die.  One of them was Kiera.  She hadn't seen him yet.  If he wanted to do his job, he would hide now, get out of the way, let what was about to happen happen.  He glanced back down the street and saw the woman who wasn't Kiera run on ahead, Kiera still following behind at a normal pace.  He glanced at his phone:  12:46am.  One minute.  He knew now what was going to happen.  Kiera's friend was going to run across the street ahead of her, missing the oncoming car, only to have Kiera follow slowly behind her and be struck dead.

Heart pounding, he ducked behind the corner.  He watched the other woman run on down the street, actually glancing both ways before crossing the road, perhaps not as drunk as she had seemed.  As soon as this other woman was safely across the street, Jason stepped out, running directly into Kiera.  "Jason!" she screamed.

"Kiera, I..." Jason began.

He didn't know what else to say, and fortunately for him, he didn't have to.  From behind him, he heard the squeal of tires as someone slammed on their breaks and the other woman screeched, "Kiera!"

Jason didn't take his eyes of Kiera, as her eyes grew wide.  "Jason," she managed to whisper.

He heard shouting behind him and finally turned around.  Kiera stepped around him to look into the road where she would have been had Jason not stopped her.  There, she saw a bright red car, stopped halfway down the road from where the red light it had just run had been, and Monica banging on the side of said car shouting, "You could have killed someone!"

"But I didn't!" an angry voice shouted back.

Without saying another word, Jason took a sheet of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and looked at it in surprise as a thin red line was drawn through the text that said:  "Kiera Jones, 12:46am."  That was new.  That had never happened before.  He looked up just in time to see the red car drive away, hoping against all hope that he hadn't just traded one life for another.

"What the hell?" he heard Kiera say beside him.  He looked over, and saw Kiera staring down at the piece of paper he held in his hand.  Apparently she had also seen that ghostly line drawn out of nothingness.  Then she repeated a bit louder, "What the hell!?"

She looked up at him.  He felt tears welling up in his eyes.  She was alive.  She was still alive, and grim hadn't come.  Was this really... was this really going to be okay?  "You're alive," he said softly, barely above a whisper.  "Kiera Jones, you're alive."


As they walked across the street extremely cautiously, there seemed to be no words to say, but Monica certainly had a lot to contribute.  "That's the creeper!" she exclaimed pointing at Jason as soon as he appeared before her.  "He said he was going to kill you!"

"I misunderstood," Kiera said simply, as she looked over at Jason.  That look.  That look of... could it be trust?  Even after what had happened, how could she possibly believe him?  Yet, apparently she did.  All it had taken was a thin red line.

"But... but..."

"I'd really like to go home now," Kiera said with a sigh.  "But I don't know if I can..."

"I can drive," Jason offered.

"Oh hell..." Monica began.

"Thank you," Kiera said.  "That would be very sweet of you."

"What the..." Monica tried for another sentence, but didn't get all the way through that one either as Kiera and Jason had already started walking on down the street.  Monica protested with grunts and half sentences the whole way, but once it became clear she had no living clue what was going on, she quieted down and apparently decided to keep a very close eye on the two of them from the back seat.


Monica protested again when Kiera had Jason drop her off at her house.  "You call me the second you get home to let me know this creep hasn't gotten to you," she said.

Kiera laughed despite herself.  "Yeah, of course I will," she promised.

With Monica out of the car, they drove on in silence.  What was there to say to the man who had just saved your life?  What was there to say to the woman who had just led you to defy death itself?  Neither of them had anything to say.

When they got back to the apartment building, the first thing Jason noticed was the hanger on his door.  He gave a little snort as he took it off the handle.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," Kiera said.

He turned to look at her, not realizing how close she still was to him.  "It's okay," he said.  "You thought I was crazy."

Kiera nodded.  "I did."

"And now?" Jason asked.

She shook her head.  "I just... I mean..."

Jason reached out and touched her hand lightly.  He wasn't good with people, he knew, but somehow he was starting to feel good with Kiera.  "Let me show you something," he suggested.

She looked at him suspiciously.  "Okay..."

He handed her the door hanger, then turned away towards his front door.  He glanced around quickly to make sure no one else was watching.  It was after 1am by now.  He was pretty sure no one else was watching, but he just had to be sure.  Then he took a deep breath and walked right through his front door without opening the door.

On the other side of the door, he learned that those doors were not nearly thick enough to block out a pretty woman shouting, "What the hell?"

He unlocked the door from the inside and opened it.  "You're going to wake everyone up," he said, remarkable calm.

"You just... you...."

"It goes with the job," he noted, stepping back into his apartment.

She followed him in, shuddering.  He closed the door behind her.

"Why on earth did you not just do that Tuesday morning, when I came over here before?" she asked.

He frowned.  "Honestly, I don't really know," he admitted.  "I was already going against all the rules I'm supposed to tell you by telling me what I really am.  I guess I just couldn't bring myself to really prove any of it."

"Are you... are you dead?" Kiera asked, eyes darting about nervously.

Jason shook his head.  "No," he assured her.  "But I should have been.  Over a decade ago, I should have died, but my parents made a deal to save me."

"Like, like you just saved me?" Kiera asked, walking over and sitting down on the couch.

Jason sat down beside her.  "Not exactly," he said.  "They made a deal.  I didn't even ask permission."

Kiera nodded, though she didn't really understand what he was saying.  How could she understand anything right now.  She had just watched this man walk through a solid door.  "I think I'm going to need some time to process this," she said.

"Yeah, I get that," Jason said.  "This is new for me, too."  She looked at him in confusion, and he explained, "Saving someone I was supposed to reap.  I've never done that before.  I don't really know what happens next."

"Is... is someone else going to come for me?" Kiera asked, eyes widening.

"I don't know," Jason admitted.

"Are they going to come for you, like punish you or something?"

"I don't know that either," Jason said.  "There have been threats about what happens to reapers who step out of line, but I don't have any first hand knowledge.  I'd think that whatever was going to happen would have happened by now, but I really don't know."

There was a long pause after that and then, "If this is your job, what you have to do, then why... why did you save me?" Kiera finally asked.

Jason sighed.  "I didn't even know if I was going to," he admitted, "but now that I have, I think I know the reason why."

Apparently Kiera knew, too, because before he could make a move, she had leaned over and was kissing him.

And then she was pulling back.  "I'm, I'm sorry," she stammered.

"Don't be," Jason urged, "that was..."

"Amazing," she finished.

He nodded.  "But maybe..."

"Maybe we should wait until it's been more than an hour since you saved my life?" she suggested with a hint of a smile.

Jason nodded again.  "I hear circumstances like this can do strange things to people's emotions."

"Don't want to do something we'll regret," Kiera noted.

"Besides, weren't you supposed to call your friend when you got home?" Jason asked.

Kiera jumped up from the couch at that, a genuine look of worry on her face.  "Oh shoot, I was!" she exclaimed, her expression softening a bit.

Jason laughed awkwardly.  "Well you'd better go home and do that," he suggested. Standing up as well.

"I will," Kiera agreed.  Then she stepped forward and gave him a hug.  "Thank you," she whispered in his ear.

"You're welcome," he whispered back.  And then they parted ways, both hoping that this wasn't yet to be the death of them.

Love You to Death (Part 2)

Miss Kiera Jones slowly opened her eyes.  As she stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom, the first thing she thought was, "What a weird dream."  The second thing she thought was, "Was that a dream?"

It had been Monday evening, but she couldn't remember actually reading to Mrs. Chase, as had been their tradition for the past couple of years.  Had she been so exhausted from work that she had gone straight to bed and forgotten the sweet old lady?  Had regret over missing their engagement for only the second time ever been what led her to have that horrid dream?

Kiera glanced over at her alarm clock.  5:02AM is said.  Still just over an hour before she would normally be waking up.  She still felt tired, but she wasn't sure if she could go back to sleep.  Something was nagging at her.  Well, a memory of someone.  She couldn't remember talking to Mrs. Chase at all that past evening, but she remembered talking to Jason.  Thinking all the while how crazy this was, she got up out of bed, put on a robe and slippers and pattered over to her front door.  She hesitated as she reached to the handle, but then with a sigh of resolution, she swung open the door, marched across the hall, and knocked on her neighbor's door.

Much to her surprise, the door almost immediately swung open.

There was Jason looking not nearly as surprised as she would have expected, but instead nervous and perhaps a bit distressed.  "Um..." was all she could manage to say.

Jason frowned.  Apparently, "um" had been enough.  "Come in," he said, stepping back and gesturing for her to enter.

This was when Kiera finally thought twice about what she was doing.  What was she doing?  If it had just been a dream, then she was going to look really foolish coming over here to talk about it.  If it hadn't been a dream then she very well might be walking into the apartment of a man who had just murdered a helpless old woman.  Either way, she definitely should not go through that doorway.  And yet, she walked right in anyway.

"Would you like some coffee or tea?" Jason asked.

Kiera glanced nervously around and crossed her arms over her chest to keep her robe firmly shut.  She realized she had never seen the inside of Jason's apartment before, and in fact he had only seen hers that past weekend, unless he had sneaked in, like a stalker or a serial killer would.  As she looked around, she reflected that it didn't look like the home of a madman.  His apartment looked remarkably ordinary.  There was a couch and a medium sized TV and a few seemingly random landscapes on the walls.  As she looked around the room, her eyes returned to him and she remembered he had asked her a question.

"Oh, no thanks," she said.  She chuckled nervously to herself.  "Actually, I don't even really know why I'm here."

The relief on Jason's face did not reassure her, though her words seemed to have reassured him.  "Bad dream?" he suggested, almost hopefully.

Kiera eyed him suspiciously and remained standing even as he sat down on the couch.  "Yeah, something like that," she muttered.

He smiled, just a little.  It wasn't a creepy, "I've got you" kind of smile, it was more of a "thank goodness she doesn't think any worse of me" smile.  Did he... did he like her?  If he was a killer, was that good or bad?

"You know," Jason said, "sometimes dreams aren't what they seem."

"Sometimes people aren't either," Kiera replied, watching him carefully for his response.

He frowned again at that, then folded his hands in front of him and looked down at them.  "That's definitely true," he said quietly.

Now was the time.  She should just go.  She should get out while she could.  But she couldn't go.  Why couldn't she?  Was it dumb curiosity, the fatal trait of the feeble feline?  Or was something more going on here?  Either way, with a sigh, she realized she was in too deep, or at least perceived herself to be in too deep, to just walk away.  So instead, she walked over to the couch and sat down next to him.  She immediately felt a strange sense of deja vu, and then realized this was not unlike the party, when he had sat on her couch next to her after everyone had gone, and she had at least half imagined they were about to kiss.  This time was not like that.  This time she needed answers.

It was as if she didn't even have to ask.  She just looked over at him and he looked back and tears welled up in his eyes.  "I'm so sorry, Kiera," he said.

At that she leaped up from the couch and pointed a trembling finger at him.  "I knew it!" she exclaimed.  "I knew it wasn't a dream!"  She slowly backed away, but not nearly so much as she should have had she really been afraid.

He stood up, but he didn't approach her.  "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, frowning, but somehow managing to keep it together.  How was he keeping it together?  He didn't know.  This woman, this beautiful, perfect woman, could not be thinking anything good about him right now.  Why was she still standing here?  Why wasn't she running away in terror?  Probably shock.  And lack of understanding.  How could she understand?  How could anyone really understand what he was?  Hell, he hardly understood it.  "The police were here hours ago," he said.  "They took her away.  They'll notify her family.  She went peacefully."

"Like hell she did," Kiera exclaimed.  "I saw you.  You were there.  You did nothing.  Well, nothing after.  What... what did you do to her?"

"I helped her."

"Like hell..."

"No, like heaven."

Kiera scoffed.  "Are you trying to tell me you're some sort of angel or something?"

Jason looked her over.  What was she doing here.  She clearly didn't trust him.  Why had she come over here?  Why hadn't she either kept to herself like nothing had happened or done what he had feared she might do and call the police to at least report him as acting suspicious.  She didn't know that everything was smoothed over with them.  She didn't even know he had already called the police before he just told her.  Possibly she still didn't know what all had happened after she had fallen asleep.  So why was she here?  He had already told her what he was, but either she didn't remember or didn't want to or was giving him a second chance.  A second chance to tell the truth, she was probably thinking, when in fact it was a second chance to come up with a convincing lie, because the truth, she would never believe, would she?

He sighed and reflected that some people never learn.  "I'm a reaper," he said, repeating the words he had said just a few hours ago to this very same person.

She sneered.  People handle shock and anger and grief very differently, Jason reflected.  That was one thing he knew very well, but he wasn't sure he had ever seen such fire before.  "Like the grim reaper?" she asked.

He shook his head.  "No, that's THE reaper.  I'm just a reaper.  I guess you could say I work for him."

She placed her hands on her hips.  This was so surreal.  That he would be caught with her and compelled to tell his story.  Really, it was remarkable that in all these years, he hadn't really been caught yet.  Usually he was so careful.  He learned about those he was going to help before the time came to help them.  That was half the reason he had moved here, to learn things in advance.  Well, Mr. Smart Guy, then why hadn't you known that Kiera would be in that apartment last night?  Or somehow, had you known and you wanted her to be there?  Had you wanted this conversation to happen?

"How does one get a job like that?" Kiera was asking.

"Your parents love you very, very much," Jason said, fighting to keep from crying, "or at least they think they do, and they make a deal with the devil, so to speak, to save your own life, and in return, you have to spend the rest of your existence helping souls pass over to the other side."

Surprisingly, Kiera didn't scream or run or get more snarky.  Her hands fell from her hips and she looked him straight in the eyes.  She looked blurry, though.  Damn.  Was he really crying?  He reached up and tried to wipe the tears away and when his sight cleared a bit, it appeared she had moved closer to him.  She had actually moved closer to him.  Who was this woman anyway and how...?

"But you said heaven," she said softly, catching him off guard.

Jason nodded.  "Yes," he confirmed.  "I suppose a 'deal with the devil' isn't right.  It's more like a deal with fate.  Fate decides when life ends and where it continues after.  Mrs. Chase got to continue somewhere happy, somewhere you would call heaven."

"How do you know?" Kiera asked.  She was just a foot away from him now.  How had she gotten so close?  Why was she letting herself get so close?

Jason closed his eyes.  If she was getting close to do something to him, then let her.  If she killed him, maybe everything would turn out okay.  But he knew she wouldn't.  He already knew that wasn't who she was or what she was doing here.  "I felt it," he said.  "I can feel it every time.  Mrs. Chase was nice, but it isn't always, it isn't always so nice."  Just after he finished speaking, he got a start and jumped a little.  He opened his eyes to see she had reached out a hand to touch his shoulder.

"Next time," she said softly, "will you show me?"

At that he broke down.  He collapsed back into the couch and just started sobbing with his head in his hands.  "I can't, I can't," he muttered over and over again.

When he collected himself to look up from the tears, he saw her sitting beside him.  Why was she still here?  Flee!  Get out!  Run while you still can!  But she didn't, she just sat there, hands on her knees, staring at him as she naively asked, "Why not?"

He shuddered.  Maybe now she would strike.  Maybe now she would lash out, attack him, kill him, possibly save herself.  "Because the next name on my list is yours," he said.

And there is was.  Now she had leaped up.  Now she was moving away from him again.  He was amazed she had stayed this long.  "Are you, are you threatening me?" she asked.

"I swear I wish I was," he said meekly, "because then I could take it back, then it could be changed, but as it is..."  He shook his head, looking down, and then looked back up at her, "Kiera Jones, you're supposed to die."

And then she was gone.  Out the door, back to her apartment perhaps, or maybe outside.  Either way, he knew they would be here soon, the police or maybe some psych ward employee or something.  It didn't really matter.  He could just phase out and escape.  He could finish his task and move on.  Kiera would be dead and he would be free and he would move on to the next town where they sent him.  It wasn't the end.  It really wasn't.  Jason wasn't even his real name.  He would be fine.  Except he wouldn't be fine.  He knew deep in his soul that if he were the one to reap Kiera Jones, he would never be fine again.

Love You to Death (Part 1)

"I'm Kiera," she said with an expectant smile as she held out her hand that wasn't carrying a grocery bag.  She seemed only very slightly winded after climbing the three flights of stairs to the floor that she and the man she was addressing appeared to share.

The young man with the dark hair and green eyes glanced over her cute dimples and long blonde hair quickly before lowering his gaze to her hand, which he then shook.  "Jason," he said simply and quietly.

"You're new here," Kiera noted, releasing his relatively weak shake from her firm-by-comparison grip.

Even though it was a statement, he answered as if it was a question, "Yes."

"Well if you ever need to borrow a cup of sugar or your internet goes out or anything, just hit me up," she said.

He looked up to see that she was still smiling pleasantly.  "Yes," he said again.

She nodded and her smile flickered just a bit, but then it returned as she said happily, "See you around then."  She raised her hand in a little wave.

He smiled, just for a moment, as he waved back.  He started to turn towards his door as she turned towards hers, but he glanced back as she fumbled with her keys before slipping the right one into the lock, turning it, and then leaving it hanging there as she turned the handle while deftly avoiding dropping her groceries.  It was only as he was opening his own door that he realized he could have helped her, but even if he had realized it sooner, he probably still would not have.  Helping people with their groceries, especially Miss Kiera Jones, was not why he was here.


He continued to see Kiera from time to time over the next weeks.  She always smiled pleasantly and gave a little wave.  He politely waved back, and usually managed a smile.  It was one of the times that he didn't quite smile that she started to look a little worried and asked, "Are you okay, Jason?"

This question took him completely off guard and he didn't have time to veil his surprise.  "No, I mean, yes," he stammered.  "W-why do you ask?"

She shrugged.  "You just looked... uncomfortable," she noted.  Then she frowned a bit more and lowered her gauze.  "I don't mean to be rude," she said, in the softest voice he had heard her use to date.  "I'm sorry."

"No, don't be," he quickly said.

She looked back up at him and managed to smile just a bit.  "Okay," she said.  She paused for a moment, and just before it became awkward she added, "I know we don't really know each other, but if you ever need to talk to someone..."

"I'll keep you in mind," Jason agreed.

That seemed to cheer her back up a little.  She gave a little smile and nod and turned back to open her door.

As Jason entered his own apartment and went inside, he immediately shut the door behind him and leaned against it as his pulse raced and he took deep breathes to try to calm down.  "The last thing I want is to talk," he thought.  "I really need to stop running into her," he mused.  And then his next though was, "Well then why don't I?"


For the next few weeks, Jason took his own advice and made a point not to return home at the same time Kiera did.  It seemed their schedules had been somewhat aligned, so he started both leaving and returning home about half an hour earlier.  It worked for the most part, until one day when Kiera apparently had decided to switch her schedule up as well.

"Hey, were you on vacation?" he heard her familiar voice behind him ask as he reached for his door.

Jason turned back and cringed just a little as he said, "No."

She looked slightly puzzled.  Her happy dimples faded as she cocked her head slightly to the right.  "Oh," she said.  "I just hadn't seen you in a while."

"Change in my work schedule," he fibbed.

She didn't seem to think anything of it and moved on to say, "Oh hey, I'm having a party on Friday if you want to stop by.  No need to bring anything.  Just a few friends coming over.  Some music, some party games.  Should be a good time."

"I need to get up early on Saturday," he lied again.

"Oh."  He noted that she had used that word to start her response for a third time now.  She didn't seem to notice it herself.  She just shrugged and let her dimples return with her smile as she said, "Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me."

"Thanks," he said, and he turned to re-enter his apartment, too nervous to glance back.


The night of the party came and Jason couldn't sleep.  It wasn't that the music from across the hall was too loud, though it was loud enough that he could hear.  It was that hearing it reminded him of all that life and vibrancy and how much he was missing out on.  It was only 10:30, but he had already been laying there for half an hour, having hoped to drift off to sleep before the party really got going.  Now, he feared there was little chance of that, so he got up out of bed, threw on a pair of jeans and tennis shoes, and sauntered over across the hall.

His knock on the door was met by a smiling Kiera whose countenance immediately dropped when she saw them.  "Oh my gosh, Jason!" she exclaimed.  "I'm so sorry.  Are we being too loud?  I can ask them to turn the music down."

He couldn't help but smile.  "No, actually, I decided to come over and hang out, just for a little bit."

She seemed puzzled, again did that thing from earlier in the week where she cocked her head slightly to the right, but then she shrugged it away, smiled and said, "Yeah, of course, come on in."

In the next few minutes, Jason was introduced to several people whose names he immediately forgot.  He tried his best to smile politely and shake any hands that were offered him, but he had a hard time not continuing to glance over at Kiera.  What was he doing here?  Why had he come to this party?  This was a dangerous thing he was doing.  He knew he was way out of line.  But he just couldn't help it.

"Hey, can I offer you a drink?" Kiera asked him after this initial round of introductions that just seemed like a blur.  "We've got beer and wine and if you aren't into alcohol, there's lemonade and iced tea as well."

"Tea would be good," Jason heard himself say as if he were an outside observer.

Kiera nodded.  "Okay, great," she said.  She took one step away and then gestured for him to follow.  "This way to the kitchen."

Jason followed her as she navigated her way through the crowd.  It wasn't a huge crowd, but big enough to make Jason a little uncomfortable.  He glanced around, but saw no one he knew.  That was a bit of a relief.  As they entered the kitchen, the crowd thinned out, as apparently most everyone was already well supplied with beverages.

As Kiera pulled an empty red solo cup from a stack and poured him a drink from a pitcher she asked, "So, Jason, what do you do?"

Jason froze.  It was such a basic, natural question.  Why had he not thought about her asking it?  And how had he not been prepared to answer?  He panicked for that moment, but then realized he was worrying for nothing, as he had a perfectly reasonable answer.  He collected himself by the time she turned back around.  "Thanks," he said softly as he took the cup from her.  Then, more loudly in answer to her question, he said, "I'm an accountant."

She didn't cringe or wince or anything you might expect a pretty woman to do in reaction to such a bland answer.  Instead she just nodded and said, "Yeah, my uncle's an accountant, too.  Do you like it?"

He shrugged.  "It pays the bills."

He hadn't meant for that to be a joke but she laughed as if it was, and it wasn't a forced laugh either.  She seemed naturally amused by what he had said.  She nodded and smiled and said, "Right on."  Then she turned back, grabbed another cup, and poured some tea for herself.  "To accountants," she said, raising her glass in a toast.

Before he really had time to think, he found himself raising his cup to meet hers and then pulling it back and taking a drink at the same time she did.  He realized he was thirsty, and downed almost the whole cup in that one long drink.

"Wow," Kiera said, not rudely, still smiling, as he came up for air.  "You know there's no alcohol in that, right?"

This time he laughed, just a little.  "Yeah," he muttered.

"Would you like some more?" she asked.

"Yes, please."

She smiled a bit more as he said please, and she set her cup down as she took his from him and turned to get his re-fill.  "So uh, what do you do?" he heard himself asking, again without thinking.

She turned back, smiling, as she handed him his cup.  "I'm a graphic designer," she said.

He was actually surprised by that.  "No kidding?" he asked.

She laughed.  "No kidding," she said.  "Why, do I not look like a graphic designer to you?"

He blushed.  "No, I mean."  He sighed.  "This is really wrong of me," he said, "but I've only met a couple graphic designers before and they were, well, dark, like short dark hair, dark nail polish, kept to themselves.  I guess I just assumed."

"Not everyone fits into a mold," Kiera said softly, no longer smiling, but not frowning either.  She just looked very sincere.

"No, I know.  I'm sorry."

She shrugged and smiled again.  "Don't even worry about it," she said.  "Come on, let's go have some fun."  And before he realized what was happening, she had taken him by the hand and was pulling him back out into the main room where the party was at.


It turned out that according to Kiera, "having some fun" consisted first of a trivia game, at which Jason was actually not half bad, then of something called "Cards Against Humanity", during which Jason was very uncomfortable, and then a round of kareoke, in which Jason resolutely refused to take part.  But he watched the others take their turns, and couldn't help but note that Kiera was the best by far.

"You rock," he heard himself say as she sat down beside him, regaining her breath after belting out a stirring rendition of "We Are the Champions".

She smiled, and gave a wheezing laugh, still being a little out of breath.  "You're too sweet," she said, and he glanced down to realize that she had taken his hand and gave it a little squeeze.

It was two hours later that Jason realized the two of them were still sitting on the couch together though everyone else had gone.  They had been talking about Kiera's job as a graphic designer, or rather, Kiera had been talking and Jason had been listening, when suddenly Kiera glanced around and laughed as she noted, "Everyone else is gone!"  Then she looked a little worried as she asked, "What time is it?  Didn't you have to get up early?"

Jason frowned and felt his heart pounding.  Did he tell her the truth, or...?  "No, I lied about that," he said.

She returned his frown with one of her own.  "Why?" she asked.

He felt his palms growing sweaty and his pulse racing even faster.  He never got this nervous in other... difficult situations.  Why was he so nervous now?  Well, he kinda knew.   "I'm just not very good around..." He let the thought trail off.

"Around people?" Kiera asked.

Jason just nodded.  He felt like he was going to cry.  What was he doing here?  This was not where he was supposed to be.  He should just get up and leave.  But he didn't leave.  Instead he just sat there and looked away.

Looking away was not enough, all it did was lead Kiera to touch him, to place her hand under his chin and try to pull him back to look at her.  He closed his eyes, not wanting to, knowing he couldn't, but then wanting to.  Wanting to so bad.  He knew if he opened his eyes he was lost, so he kept them closed as he stood up and turned away from her, tears now welling in his eyes, but not wanting her to see.  Why should he care if she would see?  "I'm sorry," he managed without completely breaking down.  "I can't."  And then he opened his eyes and rushed to the door, leaving a stunned Kiera behind him.  Needless to say, he ended up not being able to sleep at all that night.


Jason spent the rest of the weekend locked up in his apartment, thankful he had plenty of food to make it through.  His biggest fear was that she would come knocking on his door asking if he was okay, but she didn't.  He knew she cared, he had seen such goodness in her eyes, so he could only conclude that she realized he needed space.  She was good.  So good.  It wasn't fair.  It wasn't fair at all.

By late Sunday night, he had recovered enough that he was confident he could go to work the next day, and return, and do what he knew had to be done.


Monday, instead of coming home early, he stayed out late.  He actually went to a bar, something he almost never did, and had a drink alone before returning home.  It was just after 9pm when he returned to the apartment building.  He checked his watch to make sure the time was right before he took a deep breath and walked in.

Jason didn't walk into his apartment that evening.  He walked into someone else's.  He walked into a the apartment of a little old lady named Mrs. Vivian Chase who lived on the ground floor because she couldn't do stairs anymore.  He walked in in the darkness, where no one would see, right through the wall.  Jason walked in because Jason was a reaper, and Mrs. Vivian Chase was the next name on his list.  She was dying, tonight, and Jason had to collect her soul.

It was peaceful, in her sleep.   He watched her go as she sat in a rocking chair in her bedroom, with a book in her lap apparently having fallen asleep while trying to read.  He didn't know in advance how they would die, just where, when, and the name.  He was thankful it was peaceful.  He wasn't sure he could bear it any other way.  Her eyes did open right at the end, but she didn't seem scared.  She seemed calm.  And she smiled at the young man with the dark hair and the now glowing black eyes as he touched her head and let her go.  As her spirit rose, he heard her whisper, "Thank you," and it was the most beautiful thing he could have hoped to hear.

As Jason's eyes returned to normal, he closed Mrs. Vivian Chase's and wiped a single tear from his own.  He felt okay.  He felt like everything was going to be okay.  That was before he turned, left the bedroom and entered the hallway to see to his horror, Miss Kiera Jones standing right there with a novel of her own in her hands and her eyes wide in a horror she didn't even fully yet comprehend.

"You - what the - Jason?"

"Kiera, I, what are you doing here?"

"I come to read to Mrs. Chase," Kiera said.  "We're friends.  Monday nights, I... You know her?  She didn't tell me.  I..."

She seemed puzzled as she pushed past him to enter the bedroom.  "Kiera, don't," was all he could manage before she entered the room behind him.  He should have run.  He should have gotten the hell out of dodge.  But he didn't.  He stayed.  Why did he stay?  He stayed and he heard Kiera scream.  Then he turned and went into the bedroom.

Kiera's eyes were wide with horror, horror more fully realized now, as she reached out a trembling finger and pointed at him.  "You!" she exclaimed.  "What did you...?!"

"I'm a reaper," Jason said matter-of-factly.

She backed away from him.  "Not what I was expecting to hear," she managed as she dropped her book to the floor.  He approached her and saw she was about to scream again, so he went incorporeal to cross the distance faster and then touched her lightly on the head.  His touch didn't kill, that wasn't how it worked, but it did offer a sense of peace to the dying.  For the living, it put them to sleep, just for a few minutes.  So as he touched Kiera and let himself become solid again as he caught her before she fell to the ground, he wondered to himself, what the hell was he supposed to do now?