DICLAIMER- Pendergast, Proctor and Constance belong to Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Halo Spencer, Ryan Elmasy and the plot belong to me. -Gadget

Chapter 6 Pendergast's POV

After Halo asked for my forgiveness, he stopped speaking all together; he refused to even eat. Nothing that I or Constance said to him, nothing we offered him, could get Halo to even acknowledge our presence. He was like that for forty-eight hours straight, I just left him alone as Constance and I went about our normal business. Halo would sit in my study, looking through the books without really reading them or he would go outside and spend his daylight hours making snowmen and then destroying them when he was done. As a result, my side lawn looked like a minefield thanks his efforts. I could only wonder what was going through his head, what emotion (for there were many that death awakened in a person) was eating at his heart in those hours he spent out in the snow.

"Will he be alright Aloysius?" Constance said, it had become a familiar question over the past two days.

"In due time I'm sure," It was the same answer I had given her every time but it was all I could tell her. In truth, I wasn't sure if Halo would ever be the same as he had been less than a week ago.

"He seems so...melancholy, heartbroken."

"Halo's heart is broken Constance." I told her. "I have never seen Halo as happy and carefree as he was with Mister Elmasy."

Constance sipped at a cup of green tea, looking out the window as the young man demolished another pile of snow. The expression on her face saddened me and I knew she did see him as she first had. He wasn't a love-interest for her anymore; he was an experiment, an interest of another kind. He was something for her to study, to examine and record the outcome of his actions. If only I had rescued her from Uncle Antoine sooner but I couldn't change the past and my Uncle's murder had not been by my hand.

"He feels helpless..."

An observation a child could have noticed, I was sure, but it was true nonetheless.

"Aloysius, I... There has to be something we can do for him." She said, turning to me, her eyes large and moist with both tears unshed and the ones she had already cried. She was so taken with Halo's story, with his love for a man she would never meet; she felt Halo's pain as if it were her own.

I moved to stand beside her, to look out the window as she was; for the moment I needed to see Halo with my own eyes. He was only a few yards from us, kneeling in the snow. His face was pale and he wasn't wearing any gloves, of course his main magic was that of fire and he had no real need of gloves to keep his hands warm.

"We give him space and comfort when he needs it, until then, it would be wise to leave him alone." It pained me to say those words because I wanted to do exactly the opposite, I wanted to kneel in the snow beside Halo and get him to speak to me. It was dangerous to hold what I knew he was feeling inside, it would eat at him until there was nothing left to feed on. After Helen's death, if it hadn't been for my family's curse, I would never have been able to give shape to the feelings that had taken over me. However, that curse was something I couldn't share with Halo; something I would never be able to share with him.

Constance looked up at me. "I don't think I could do that," She murmured. "His helplessness makes me feel useless, not just as a person but as a woman too. My instincts tell me to hug him and to promise that everything will be better but my mind cautions me against such and action."

"Listen to your mind Constance," I said, perhaps a little harshly.

She turned confused eyes to me. "I worry for him Aloysius, even though I've only just met him, I want to take his pain away."

The phone started to ring, perhaps saving me from the beginning of an argument but I paused to voice my opinion to her. "He's not an orphan child or some stray pet Constance. The best we can do for Halo is to be nearby when he needs us."

I didn't put on a coat before I went outside to get Halo. I wished I had, it was colder than I'd thought it would be. I hated it; I much preferred the weather of my home in New Orleans. Halo was different; he liked the rain and the snow. When he went back to the West Coast, maybe he would be better then; or maybe that was just a hope I couldn't shake loose.

Halo hadn't moved from where Constance and I watched him from the window, he still knelt in the snow. He wasn't doing anything as far as I could tell; he just had his hands hanging limply between his knees. But as I neared, I saw what he had made.

It was an angel, and not the kind where you laid spread-eagled on the ground and wiggled. It was small but still life-like with detailed wings and an expression of peace. There was no mistaking the angel for who it was supposed to represent and it surprised me for more than one reason. Halo was a wizard and half-Sidhe (one of the Fey Folk) and I knew he didn't believe in god and angels or in heaven and hell. That he had chosen an angel to represent his sorrow was baffling.

"Halo," I said but he didn't stir. "Halo, the police have called, your house has been cleared and I'll take you there as soon as you'd like to leave."

His ungloved hand passed over the angel and it disappeared in a spark of flame. I winced, the angel had been beautiful; he stood and walked past me, hanging his head. I sighed and followed him back inside.

The house Halo had lived in with Ryan Elmasy was at the top of a hill on Davis Road; there were only three other houses. His house looked vaguely like a cabin in its design, it had a large front porch with a few chairs scattered around and I could see the large wooden fence that held the backyard from view. There were still pieces of tape clinging to various sections of that fence and other random objects.

"Do you want me to wait in the car for you?" I asked as Proctor parked in the driveway.

Halo shook his head, grabbing my hand and pulling me from the Rolls with him. I followed the younger man into the house, looking at each of his possessions. A worn sofa, an average sized TV, a couple of chairs and bookshelves next to a large stereo. I had been to Halo's house only twice before and ever since Ryan had moved in; it became homier, more lived in. Halo had always had plenty of things and money but Ryan was the one with the style. It looked like he had been the one to furnish their home.

Halo bypassed the living room and kitchen, going straight to his bedroom. I found that I didn't want to follow him into the room he'd shared with his lover but his two-day silence had me wanting to watch his every move. I had to convince myself that he was safe.

Halo stood next to an unmade bed with pale blue sheets and a darker blue comforter. The look on his now tear stained face was one of pure anguish but I couldn't step any closer than my position just outside the door; it was his own internal battle to fight.

Finally he knelt and pulled a worn backpack from beneath the bed and began throwing random things into it. Before he moved to pack his clothes, a picture of he and Ryan together caught his attention and he stopped; staring at the photo.

"Oh god... Pend what am I going to do without him?" He asked me and his normally deep voice was a near whine in the silence of the house.

I was silent; there was nothing I could tell him. What could one do when a loved one passed but go on with their life?

Halo swallowed so hard that I heard it clear across the room and then he looked up at me. "What... What did you do when Helen...?"

"When Helen died?" I finished for him. She was to me all that Ryan had been to Halo. Sun, earth and moon; lover, companion and everything I ever needed. "I felt, at first, like the world was ending. I felt like that for a very long time Halo, a very long time. I couldn't let those feelings control me; I had to move on with my life, because it was what Helen would have wanted me to do. I'm sure that Ryan wants you to be happy and to move on with your life, but not to forget him. Never to forget him, Halo, but to let him live on through you."

He nodded when I finished. "I know of this wizard in Europe," He said, easily changing the topic to one a little gentler on the nerves. "His name's Dumbledore; I'm going to write him and see if he'll take me in, give me a job maybe. He's supposed to be the greatest wizard in the world and... I should be with my own kind."

I wondered why he didn't just find the Sidhe, his real 'kind'. Halo sighed and moved to his closet to pack some of his clothes. I noticed more tears on his face as he gently touched the sleeve of one of Ryan's shirts. He let those tears fall silently.