I have no idea what this chapter is going to be like, so it should be pretty interesting.

~PennStateGRL4eva~

Luce was breathing heavily as she stumbled down the road that she ended up on. It was the late seventies and she was in a small town called Coatesville. She was at the football game for the high school and she saw herself and Daniel cheering in the section that all of the students sat in, Daniel looking like just a regular old human. But all too soon she led him into the tunnel and kissed him, combusting as soon as their lips touched.

As Luce walked blindly through the city, watching people drive by in their cars, celebrating the victory at the football game, her head swam with confusion. She was still bleeding from the starshot and she was feeling so lightheaded she blacked out a couple of times.

When she watched this lifetime's version of Luce kissed Daniel, she saw great hesitation in his movements and knew immediately that he was battling between what he wanted most and what he knew was for the best. But he finally gave in to her; he knew she'd be there again in seventeen years, and then die, and be there again seventeen years later and so on. But then Luce did the math and realized that this was her last lifetime before her own. Daniel didn't know that lifetime would be the last one before the one where she would die for good.

Her heart hurt thinking of that and she knew that she had all of the answers she needed and there wasn't any more reason for her to keep traveling and watching herself die. Still feeling extremely ill and weak, she gathered her Announcer and clutched a streetlamp for support as she attempted to form the door. She saw something white out of the corner of her eye and hastened, scared that it was an Outcast. But it wasn't.

It was Daniel. Only it wasn't the Daniel that she knew, it was the Daniel from the seventies. She was suddenly filled with a warm filling that gave her the sense of strength and power and enough determination to finish making the door, stepping through and landing on the floor of her room at Shoreline in the year 2009.

Shelby jumped down from her bed at the sound of her friend coughing and gagging on the floor. Luce eventually closed her eyes and laid still, but then she stopped breathing. "Oh my God, Luce!" Shelby exclaimed.

She grabbed her cell phone from her desk and dialed her second speed dial. There were three rings before Miles answered. "Shelby, I'm in class!" he said furiously.

"Miles, Luce is here! You and Frankie and Steven need to get here now, something is wrong and I don't know what!" Shelby shouted at him.

"Luce…is here? Oh God!" Miles yelled before hanging up.

They arrived a moment later with Roland behind them, making the small room feel even smaller. Steven knelt by Luce's still form and felt for a pulse, which he confirmed was present. "She is too weak to recover. Someone needs to heal her." He said, looking at Roland.

"No." he said. "We can't do it."

"But what about Daniel?" Shelby asked.

"He isn't here." Miles said at the same time Francesca said, "He won't do it."

They all were quiet as Cam stepped into the room from a shadow. "I'll do it."

"No!" Shelby protested.

Then a quiet voice spoke from the doorway. "I'll do it." Daniel stepped into the room clutching a gold arrow in one hand, moving slowly to sit by Luce's side. He brushed hair out of her eyes and then slowly dragged the point of the arrow across his palm, letting blood flow. He clutched the feathered end in the bloody hand and then shoved the arrow's point into her heart.

The arrow immediately brightened and began to glow. Small lights, almost like fireflies, were floating out of the bow. Daniel's eyelids began to sag as his power left him and just before he looked like he was going to pass out he pulled the arrow out of Luce's heart.

A long moment of silence followed until Shelby asked, "How long should it take to do something?"

"Not this long." Daniel said a strangled whisper.

"Are you sure you did it right?" Miles asked.

Daniel kept quiet and Miles thought that maybe he was thinking, Oh crap, I did it wrong but Daniel never made a move to fix a mistake that he had possibly made. Cam sighed. "He did it right. But it was not soon enough."

The group was quiet again as the truth of his words settled into them. Then Daniel exclaimed, "No! I can still save her, she just did not have enough of my blood, and I still have time!" He lunged for the arrow just as Cam stooped down to pick it up, out of Daniel's reach. Cam grasped both ends and snapped it in half.

"Sorry." He said to the group as he shrugged.

"No!" Daniel shouted, following Cam out to the hallway where he had retreated. "What the Hell are you doing?"

Cam didn't answer, he just continued to walk down the hallway. Sure, he regretted what he had just done as soon as he did it but the sun would still rise tomorrow; even if it was a cloudy day, the sun would still be there.

"Fine, don't answer me! But you have gone too far!" Daniel shouted at him. "The whole bit with Ariane was enough for me to start a war with you, but now…it will be total bloodshed!"

Daniel was searching for ways to get Cam to respond and Cam knew what he was about to say before he even said it; it was Daniel's secret weapon that he used against Cam in every battle and Cam always lost because of it.

"You're still upset that Ariane didn't marry you and you are taking your anger out on me!" Daniel finally yelled.

This was not the usual phrase. Daniel had always left the part about himself out but he had finally figured out what Cam's problem was.

"You love her, don't you?" Daniel asked quietly as he stopped walking.

Cam stopped too.

"Why'd you do it then?" Daniel asked.

Cam glanced over his shoulder before turning to face Daniel face-to-face. "I am protecting you. You can't fight this war as long as she is along."

"You can not be seriously protecting me if you are destroying me. It is not possible."

"You know as well as I do that the war in Armageddon is coming, the signs are becoming more and more evident every day, every week; you need to return to Heaven to prepare." Cam said cryptically.

"You just want me to leave you alone." Daniel guessed.

"I have no other reason to stay here. I'm leaving in the morning." Cam said, turning and continuing down the hallway. He had his hand on the door to the stairwell when he turned again to face Daniel. "You should have listened to Abba."

Yes, Daniel should have listened to Abba. And yes, Daniel knew that the Final Battle was fast approaching, but everything about the Three no longer mattered to him; his angelic powers were gone for a week approximately. He had that long to ensure that he would be barred from Heaven forever. No Heaven, no war. It was that simple.

Daniel walked back to Luce's room, back to his lost love, back to the harsh reality of just how screwed he was. He thought back to the last time Luce had died and how the new song from Annie had popped into his head and he began to hum to himself, "The sun will come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar 'cause tomorrow, there'll be sun." He had so much hope and joy knowing that in just seventeen years Luce would be back.

Now he didn't know what to sing because the truth was that in seventeen years Luce would not be there. Not in seventeen, seventy, seven-hundred…she was gone for good. No more reincarnations. No more hope. And even if the next day was going to be a cloudy day, the sun would still shine. But not after the war. That's why Daniel was resigning. He would not succumb to evil.

Ironically enough, well, I'm listening to the Pandora Internet Radio, and now My Girl is playing. Aaah, irony at its best. Review please.

~PennStateGRL4eva~