And the sneak peek I thought I wasn't going to do! My thanks to the overwhelming support. You guys are awesome!

But still, something substantial won't come 'till November. Sorry!

Disclaimer: Disclaimed!

Timeline: Falls directly after the events in Nevermore prequel, The After

'Are you coming, Angel?'

Angel was startled by the noise. She hadn't heard anything for the past hour and a half that she'd been sitting there on the cliff, and any voice, especially this voice, was as far from welcome as anyone's could be.

She couldn't even think about what had happened- it just made her heart hurt. An explosion, the sky on fire, the humungous devastating wave that killed Max and Fang…

All the normal people were dead.

She knew it. There was just no way anyone normal could've survived that, but it was hard to say aloud. That just made it all the more real. Made it hurt more. Made the screams louder.

Especially since she saw it happen.

'No.'

'No?' Lucy's voice sounded confused. They were usually on such good terms.

'No.'

'Why?

'Isn't it obvious?' Angel said softly, turning around to face her friend. 'I caused this to happen. I was the one who killed them. I'm as welcome as Jeb is with the others and everyone knows it.'

She then clenched her teeth angrily and turned back around with her arms crossed around her chest.

Oh not this again Lucy sighed. Ever since she had met the seven-year-old, she didn't know what to think. She could see the future, read minds, and who knows what else, but all in all, she was just a girl who had seen some tough times. Not at all unlike her, who'd been dead for sixty years prior to the second end of the world.

'Angel, no one blames you.' She said in the soft tone her sister Susan often used to use. 'What happened isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault. It just happened, and that's that.'

'I don't believe you.'

Lucy ignored her friend, sitting beside her on the cliff-face, taking one of her shaking hands in her own. After a pregnant pause, a soft hiccup emerged from beside her.

Lucy didn't dare say anything else. She had seen the devastation just the same as Angel had today, but she wasn't the one that had gotten experimented on. She hadn't been the one locked up in a laboratory for the majority of her life. She wasn't the one who had seen what was left of her family killed right before her eyes. Lucy wasn't one to say anything reassuring. That was the Flock's job. That was Max's job.

'Lucy?' Hermione called from a good distance behind them. 'Iggy says he's got the sleeping arrangements ready!'

Lucy sat beside her friend on the cliff, grasping one of her hands firmly like she hadn't heard anything at all.

Angel hiccupped again.

And that was the only sound there was left, crying.

Don't fight back the memories. She thought desperately. Please let me help you.

But she knew Angel wasn't listening.