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.