Hello everyone and welcome to this new fic! This picks up where the end of The Crow (the original 1994 movie with Brandon Lee). It is a bit AU regarding the ending of the film. Please review/comment or drop me a PM if you have any questions or concerns I can answer. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it.

October 31, 1994

"Eric!" Katherine's head snapped up, eyes sweeping around the graveyard. There was no around, or at least no one near her mother's grave. The bottom of her white dress was tinged with mud, brought on from the onslaught of rain. Halloween was the night when the veil between this world and the next was its thinnest and every year the witch came to speak to her long-deceased mother. Tonight, the topic seemed to be why Katherine Rose was still single or had yet to give her a grandchild.

The twenty-three-year-old rolled her eyes where was she supposed to find a good man in Detroit of all places? That would all have to wait though because as she was leaving, someone needed her help. There was a man who was greatly injured lying against a gravestone. Her vet instincts kicked in and she rushed to his side. "Shelly?"

The name caught her off guard, as it was carved into the stone behind him. Trauma can do some weird things to the brain. She crouched beside him to examine his would, through and through his side. Seems to have missed major organs, need to clean wound and stop bleeding. "Can you stand," her voice came out more Irish than usual, a stress reaction.

His brown eyes searched her face, brow furrowing. "You're not Shelly."

She let out a bit of a scoff. "No, sorry. M' names Katherine Rose. Can you stand?"

The man groaned and pushed himself up, Katherine looped his arm over her shoulder and started to move him forward. "My car isn't far; can you make it?"

In lieu of an answer he started to shuffle forward, seemingly egged on not by his wound or by her help but by a crow that would hop forward every so often and caw at him. Weird motivation but I'll take it. The crow also seemed injured but she would take care of it after she got the man taken care of. What would her mother think if she could see her now, taking a random man and his pet crow home from a graveyard. Her poor Irish-Romani heart would probably give out. After a great amount of struggle (and almost dropping him a few times) she finally got him into her beat up 1986 Acura Integra. The crow perched on her dashboard and cawed at her, almost commanding her to go faster. Harbingers, so bossy. The radio played some grunge band she couldn't quite recall the name of. He looked like he was starting to nod off so she reached blindly and slapped his thigh. "Ay! Don't close your eyes! That's bad. Talk to me, tell me about," she paused what should she ask him about? "Shelly, who is she?"

He blinked over at her. How did she know that name? "She is-she was my fiancé."

Katherine rolled her lip between her bottom teeth. "Tell me about her when she was alive?"

He thought for a moment before answering. "She was wonderful. She lived in every moment, nothing was trivial. She cared about people in a way that most don't."

Katherine smiled and pulled into her car port. "She sounds lovely," she walked around to his side and opened the door. "Can you stand?"

The crow cawed at him and he pulled himself out of the sedan and looped an arm around her shoulder once again. "Why are you helping me?"

She paused for a moment, biting her lip again. "It's what I do, I can explain more later right now we need to get you patched up okay?"

He nodded and they slowly, but surely, shuffled into her small house and laid down on the couch. She started gathering some supplies. "You're going to need to remove your top so I can get to the wound. Do you need me to do it?"

The man started to pull at his shirt trying to lift it over his head, but with a pained groan stopped. "You'll need to."

She nodded and moved quickly to his side and quickly cut through the stretchy black synthetic material. The wound was clean and didn't seem to be too large at either entrance or exit which was good for her. "I don't have any anesthetic, would you like some whiskey or something to bite down on? We have to cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding."

"Both," came his grumbled reply.

With quick precision she poured whiskey on the wound and handed him the remnants of the brown liquid. The hiss he let out frightened her a bit, not because it was loud quite the opposite. He chugged a good bit of the whiskey and nodded at her. She handed him a leather belt which was quickly placed between his teeth. With a deep breath she picked up an iron she had plugged in nearby and looked up at him. "I'm sorry."

Without further delay she pressed the hot iron to his abdomen with one hand and used the other to attempt to restrain him. His spine arched off the couch, every muscle contracted in pain. Katherine removed the iron to inspect the wound, the iron had done its job leaving behind the smell of burning flesh. "I'm going to need to get the other side, can you move?"

He did so without question, exposing his back to her. He was covered in scars and barely healed wounds. What have I gotten myself into? She braced a hand on his back and pressed the iron against the wound again, leaving it for a bit longer this time. Once it was all done she applied antiseptic, applied gauze, and wrapped his abdomen in white cloth. "Lay on your back and keep your knees up. Can I get you anything…er…"

"Eric," he rasped pushing himself into a laying position. "And no, thank you."

The crow, which had been quiet up until now let out a loud caw and came closer. "Oh yes, I'll take care of your wounds as well."

It squawked at her and spread its wings for inspection, she chuckled Smart bird. Once her hand met the crow, however, she was assaulted by visions of all that had come to pass. Eric and his fiancé's death at the hands of a local gang, Eric's vengeance against those gang members and their leader, and the other people he had killed. The balance must be maintained. THE BALANCE MUST BE MAINTAINED. She gasped and jerked her hand back and stared at the crow with wide eyes. "Is that why he's still here? The balance?"

Another caw was her answer. So that's why she was lead to him, as a witch it was part of her job to maintain the balance between this world and the next. He had taken more lives than he was supposed to, lives that were not marked for his vengeance. "Why me though?"

You want a life. You must save his.

"Ah," her blue eyes swept up to the prone figure on her couch. "So be it."

That's it for the first chapter! Let me know what you think 😊