A week goes by, and then another. She guides souls during the day and charades as a human at night. Evenings spent at Tim's side lose their joy as the specter of the inevitable hovers ever closer. The borrowed time gives up some of its shine as the days pass, but not nearly to the point it had been before she'd given him the rest. Barring an unforeseen tragedy, he still has months.

Then it is midway through the third week after Zoe's warning, and the world comes tumbling down with a single gunshot.

She is not there when it happens, although she senses its occurrence just moments before. It's a lucky (or unfortunate) strike from a gunman that Tim is pursuing; the bullet goes clean through his leg, succeeding in severing the artery in his thigh. The firefight continues, and the other officers pursue him while Tim crawls behind his patrol vehicle. He has concealed the wound from his co-workers. With a rush of adrenaline overpowering his pain sensors, he mistakes the injury as minor. It's only when he's alone that he realizes something is desperately wrong.

She arrives as he calls for help, his voice sounding scared and pained over the radio. Even with all the loaned breath still in his body, Tim gets closer to death with every pump of his heart. Lucy would remark on the irony if it were not agony to see him suffer.

And agony, it is. She'd witnessed countless deaths, some peaceful, many not, and is as affected by Tim's fatal wound as if it pierced her put-on flesh.

He's going to die alone. She feels him think it, the fear so loud it pierces her like an arrow. She only ponders it for a second before she resumes her human form, not caring if she's seen by anyone else when she suddenly manifests just a few feet away from where he lay. Her presence is the final comfort she can give him in his last earthly moments.

It pains her to see his irises unfocused and wild with fear, and she shushes him as she crouches in front of him and takes careful hold of his face.

"Lucy," he whispers weakly.

She tries to smile, but it's thin. Strained, it pulls at her cheeks unpleasantly. "I'm here, my love," she says, then touches his mouth.

It's too early to be his last breath, she knows. Even his waning strength would have allowed him another two minutes of life. Consequently, the gem she forms is larger and, being made entirely of borrowed breath, looks opalescent. When pressed, it appears in her palm like a large, oval moonstone. She's never seen such a last breath before, as beautiful and unique as the man to whom it belongs.

"Come to me," she says and pulls them both into the midnatural realm.

Tim rises from his body and sees her with the eyes of his soul. At once, she knows it's different from the others. Never before has she sensed recognition in the gazes of the ones she guides to the afterlife. Never before has she looked into eyes she knows, and have them know her back. This experience -being seen in her true form by the one she loves- is unnerving, but not unpleasant. It's precious, in its way, and she commits as much of it as she can to memory, knowing what time they still have together is brief.

"Lucy," he says again, and it's a joy to hear her name on his lips one more time without his voice sounding weak.

She smiles, but again it's thin, a failed attempt to conceal her breaking heart. "Yes, Tim?"

"What's happening?"

"You were shot. You didn't make it. The life you lived on earth is over."

He doesn't appear shocked by the revelation, just nods his acceptance before wondering, "Then why are you here?" She doesn't speak, and he puts the truth together quickly. "I can't believe this."

"I'm an angel, Tim," she reveals at last. "I always have been, and I've been watching you for a long time."

"How long?"

She's almost afraid to say, worried it will upset him, but she's not about to hold back now at the very end. "I was there the night Beau Andrews died." Surprise crosses his face as he remembers that night. "I was there for Armando Diaz, for your mother. I comforted you the night Isabel overdosed. I have watched over you for the last fifteen years of your life, and," she fortifies herself with a deep breath, then reveals, "I saved you almost five months ago when I first appeared to you as Lucy Chen. That was the night you were meant to die, and I extended your life. Now, I'm here to take you."

"Take me where?"

"To eternity." Lucy holds out her palm, revealing the moonstone-shaped gem. "It's your last breath. It's how you get passage into the everglow."

He does not take the jewel, his eyes remaining on her. He is the first of any soul she's guided that does not appear even slightly fearful when he beholds her. "Why me?" he asks.

"There's a host of angels who guide the dead. I've done this for many humans."

"No," he reaches for her hand and closes it, curling her fingers around the stone. "Why me ? Why did you appear to me? Why save me?"

It is the first time she's even been asked a question she cannot surely answer. She stammers over a reply. "I… don't know." She thinks back to the first time she saw him. "I guess at first I was awed by your love for your friend. And then with Armando... and your mother…" She finally lands on the truth of it after another minute. "I watched you mourn person after person, and never once did you lose your compassion. Never once did you lose your love. Your heart remained soft, even though you put on a brave face for the world." She reaches for him, allowing herself to touch him, and is a little shaken when he does not feel warm like he had as a human. It feels like she is touching pure light, but that light is also solid. "I just wanted to be seen by your eyes once before you died. I never expected to love you, Tim. I didn't even know I could." Lucy offers him the gem again. This time, he takes it, and the portal opens at his back. A moment later, Zoe joins them.

She does not seem surprised to see Lucy and Tim standing so close in the midnatural, but her eyes linger on Lucy before acknowledging the man in front of her. "Tim Bradford. I've been expecting you."

Tim does not acknowledge Zoe's greeting; rather, his eyes remain on Lucy's face. "Are you coming with me?"

She offers him a sad smile, given through tears. "My place is here, not there." She squeezes his hand, hoping she sounds and appears more encouraging than she feels. "Go. You'll be reunited with your mother. With Beau and Armando. With Isabel."

Though she tries to let him go, his hold remains fast, desperate as he intertwines their fingers. "I'm scared."

"You don't need to be. The worst is behind you."

"No, the worst is in front of me," he replies, and then he does something she's never seen a person do as they stand outside the doorway of eternity. Tim cries. His tears come slowly, and he tries to will most of them away, but a few of them escape despite his efforts, welling over the cornflower blue of his eyes and spilling onto his face.

She reaches for him and wipes the tears away with her free hand. They sparkle over his cheek like a prism where her fingers land.

"You're telling me I have to leave you behind," he says, his voice shaky. "How can I do that? How can you ask me to do that?"

"It's what we're made to do, love. We were never meant for more than this. We were never ours to keep." She caresses his face again -like she had when he lost Isabel; like she had a hundred times since- and once more, anywhere her fingers linger a hundred little rainbows shine. "Those weeks when you knew me as Lucy Chen? That is all the heaven I'll have. That is the closest to the everglow I will ever come." She closes his hand around the stone. "Remember me there, all right? Please, say you'll remember me."

He kisses her once and against her mouth says, "I don't think any man could forget you once he's loved you, Lucy."

She prays it's true.

Time has marched on in the natural realm. Medics are attending to Tim's body when Lucy returns, but she knows there is no hope for his revival. His soul is already gone, safely in the afterlife.

"Please be careful with him," she begs as they carry him away, but no one hears.

She guides the dying. Her nights are no longer filled by the man she loves, her days no longer spent counting down the hours until she sees him again. Lucy devotes herself to the souls she sees to the everglow, and every time Zoe steps outside the portal to welcome a spirit, questions about Tim bubble up to her lips.

But she never asks; the pain is still so near to the surface, and so present is the worry that despite his promise otherwise, Tim has forgotten her. She wouldn't blame him if that were the case. Reunited with his friends and family, he probably had all the love to sustain him for the next hundred lifetimes. She had been only a blip on the timeline of his life, a disruption; an aberration. Everyone else had known him longer, better.

It's what she tells herself, but her words are no balm.

A year goes by, and her anguish is not diminished. Anytime she meets a human with blue eyes, she is overwhelmed by longing.

Twenty years pass.

Lucy feels every single one and dreads the thought of eternity like this.

The gem is bright pink and translucent. It reminds Lucy of a piece of candy, and there's a moment where she wonders if the child she's helping will be tempted to put it in her mouth. The little girl -her name is Dahlia- does not, just turns the stone over in her hands as the door to the everglow opens, and Zoe welcomes her inside.

Lucy watches her go, wordless as Zoe lingers outside the portal. She places the child's last breath into the fabric of her shawl, then looks at Lucy.

"How are you doing?" she asks.

It's the question she's been dreading for two decades, and tears are instant in her eyes. She slumps to the ground, hands over her mouth as she cries quietly.

"I can't do this anymore, Zoe," she says mournfully. "It's too much."

Zoe crouches beside her, her hand gentle on Lucy's back as she shushes her. "Oh, Lucia. I know. Death can be so merciless."

"It's not just that," she says, wiping beneath her eyes with the knuckle of her forefinger. "I miss him."

Zoe gives her a crooked smile. "Lucy. What did you think I meant?" She pauses, then says, "You know, the everglow isn't just a place. It's a being, and as a being, sometimes what it needs changes."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't keep my eyes on the inside all the time. People need things, and I'm not always able to help them."

"What could someone possibly need in the everglow," she wonders.

Again, that knowing smirk from Zoe preceded her reply. "Well, there's one soul who has not been satisfied for his entire twenty-year stay. I doubt he'll improve unless I can give him what he wants."

She looks away, her gaze falling to the ground. "I thought for sure he'd forget me by now." Even though she'd asked him not to; even though he said he wouldn't.

"Because humans are fickle?" Zoe shakes her head with a laugh. "Not Tim. You were right to take notice of him. He's special."

"I know," she agrees. Then, Lucy says, "What do you want me to do?"

To that, Zoe hands her a gem. It is oval and white, and she recognizes it instantly as having been Tim's. "Your toll, ma'am."

She takes the stone, rubs her thumb over it as she thinks. "What does this mean? Does this mean I'm not an angel anymore?"

"You'll never stop being an angel, Lucy. Think of this as retirement."

They both stand to their feet, and Lucy returns the gem. Her passage to the afterlife. Standing at the entrance to the everglow, she hugs Zoe. "I don't know what to say."

"We have forever, Luce," Zoe replies. "I'm sure you'll think of something eventually."

A home in the mountains. Of course, he'd chosen a home in the mountains.

Lucy can see the outline of his cabin in the high distance, partially obscured by wispy clouds. It's not so much "in" the mountains as on it; not nestled nicely in a valley between two peaks, nor where the grade was less steep and more forgiving, but quite literally on the mountain. A cabin he built into the cliffside. It would look precarious in any life but the afterlife. As it is, it overlooks the entire summit. Others traverse the trail up the peak; some are ascending, some descending. All make the climb without gear, and no one seems to tire or fatigue during the climb. As she climbs, a face she recognizes crosses Lucy's path; Tim's mother is making her way down the mountain, and she runs towards Lucy with open arms.

"He'll be so happy you're here," she says to Lucy, her face joyful. "He'd started to lose hope."

It is the affirmation she needs to finish the climb; that he's not forgotten her, and that she's still wanted and needed as much as she wants and needs him.

The rest of the climb seems to fly beneath Lucy's feet. It is not long before she is at his door, raising her hand before pausing. Should she knock? Or should she enter? She decides to walk in unannounced, wanting to see the surprise on his face for herself.

The door creaks as she opens it, alerting the tenant within of her presence. She recognizes Tim as he sits in the corner. He is sitting on a large couch, a book in his lap. He does not look up as she enters.

"Did you forget something, Mom?" he asks without raising his head.

She watches him for a moment, a puzzled smile on her face before she speaks.

"I didn't forget anything, and neither did you," she replies, and at the sound of her voice he looks up. He looks up and sees her, and it's like her heart can beat again the moment his eyes are on hers; like it lay dormant in his absence and roared to life beneath his stare. The book falls from his lap, landing face down with a thud as he springs to his feet and rushes towards her.

"Lucy," he says, but she shushes him before he can say more.

"I've been waiting a long time to ask you a question," she whispers as he grips her waist tightly. Her hand slides over his chest, resting over the place his heart had been in his human life. It is silent now; no pulse thrums beneath her palm, and yet she knows he is just as alive as he had been on earth, if not more so now. "Tim Bradford, what are you doing for the rest of forever?"

His lips find hers, and she has her answer. Eternity is inside this kiss. The everglow was the afterlife (or at least the entrance to it), but this -the circle of his embrace, his touch after years of aching for it- is paradise. This is everlasting peace.

This, Lucy knows for certain, is heaven.