Disclaimer: You know the drill. Joss's world. My playground.


He could see them from across the room. Talking. Laughing. Enjoying just being together.

He wondered if they knew how wonderful life could really be.

He wondered what life would be like for the rest of them when she was gone.

And she would be gone. It wasn't pessimistic or crass.

It was truth.

She wouldn't live to have children. Or to see her sister grow into old age.

She would never live the kind of life that she had always wanted.

But she made the world safer for those who took that life for granted.

She made sure that the ones she loved were protected. Safe.

She didn't always succeed in making them happy, but she never stopped trying.

And that's why he loved her.

Why he respected her.

Why he could never hurt her now that he knew her.

Why he was sorry he had ever tried.

Because she tried. Because she was who she was and she accepted that. She didn't try to change. She just tried to do her job, to do her best.

She was all there was.

She was all they had.

She was the one.