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.