Author's Note: A little short, but such is life :) Thanks so much for the feedback. I hope people are enjoying this as much as I like writing. Tomorrow is a 12-hour day for me, so we'll see how much progress I make on the next part. You guys rock for sticking with me, though :)

Part Four

"Mick, self-flagellation does not look good on you, my friend," Josef announced at the end of their weekly poker game. Mick rolled his remaining vials into his pockets.

"What?"

"Don't 'what' me, kid," Josef swilled down part of his winnings. "You're deep into your semi-annual self-loathing marathon and it's not fun for anyone. Least of all me."

Mick thought about denying it, but decided not to waste his time.

Once Beth had been bandaged and bundled into bed, Mick had headed back outside. The sun slanted bright on the suburban sidewalks, casting no shadows on the front stoop when the P.I. deposited a carrier containing a hissing, yowling cat on the doorstep.

As soon as the feline was indoors, the windows were latched, doors securely shut, the garage door closed and every possible means of escape for cats or kids locked tight.

And Mick felt himself locked out of that world, knowing it was all for the best. She was almost past the time of believing in magic and make believe, when Mick could just be part of a surreal dream that bled into waking life.

Holding on to the belief that his absence rather than his presence was better for the girl, Mick stepped away. He counted on her mother's letters, which came even more often after the last rescue. Those life rafts kept him away from her and let her Guardian Angel drift away.

This time he lasted weeks, sometimes months, without succumbing to the urge to check on her. He removed the framed school photo of her from his desk, which had been the one external concession to his burgeoning fixation. Client assumed it was his daughter and he didn't bother to correct them.

Next the old letters were folded, put back into the envelopes and put in his wall safe, along with the files from Beth's case. He kept a stash of photos in the filing cabinet, for the nights that lasted into forever. But he didn't go back to her.

The weeks stretched to months and the months into years and with the blur of time that came with immortality, two years had passed. Mick had lived in darkness for two more years.

Then the invitation came, bearing garish yellow and pink swirls and the grinning faces of some group, "New Kids on the Block," inviting him to "Beth's birthday bash at the beach." Ten years old. A decade of her in the world. A blink of an eye for him, yet he'd seen so little.

And that was went his "self-loathing marathon" began, the night of poker at Josef's. His friend had almost had to bodily drag Mick to his penthouse and once there, everyone knew he was in a mood.

"Mick, this is going to be a very bad decade if this is how you plan to spend it. I'm all for how crappy it makes your poker strategy, but you have to find something else. Bite her, bleed her, whatever. Move on," Josef instructed.

"I'm trying. I don't know if I can."

"Figure it out."

Mick closed his eyes and tried to explain. "The night I killed ... the night Coraline died, it's like gravity moved for me. Coraline wasn't holding me here anymore. This little girl was. And nothing matters more than her. Not being able to be there, to protect her, to see her – it's like being banished from the sun all over again."

"Wow, Mick, that's really creepy," Josef stood from the table and hit the buzzer. "I need a drink."

"Josef, she's a kid. It's not…" Mick pinched the bridge of his nose, fending off an imaginary headache. "I know how weird it sounds, but she is how I know that I've done something with the time I've got. I see her and I just want her to see me."

"Not gonna happen, Mick," Josef took an uncharacteristically soft tone. "Children don't need to know there are really monsters under the bed. They find out how awful the world can be fast enough. Let her be innocent for as long as you can."

"I know," Mick stood to leave.

"And try not to make the rest of us suffer as much as you in the meantime, okay?"

One week later, as Mick let the bone chill of the freezer carry him to oblivion, Beth was in the ocean, laughing, letting waves crash over her. She let herself be buried in the sand, built sandcastles and collected keepsakes from the water's edge.

Her gaggle of friends burnt their feet on the sand, piled plates high with hotdogs and chips and let themselves race through the exuberant energy of childhood. By the end of the day, everyone was tiredly packing up the beach house her parents had rented for the weekend. Grown-up voices floated from the kitchen and Beth knew this would be her only chance to do what she'd planned.

Her mother's paranoia had faded with time, but not by much. She had forbidden Beth to leave the house without telling her, even to the yard. It had taken a solid six months of whining to convince her parents that a beach birthday was absolutely essential to turning ten. She'd wheedled, she'd connived and she'd flat out begged.

In the end, they took a long weekend and Beth had her party at a beach far enough away from her house that she had never been and one she was pretty sure she couldn't get to again on her own.

What her parents didn't know was that Beth had more important things that party plans on her mind. Quietly leaving her friends to collect their wet suits and salty towels, she grabbed the shoebox from her suitcase.

Most of the stickers were peeling, the glitter faded. But everything was in there, the toys, the books, the notes.

This had to be done by the light of the day, she was sure. In fact, the brighter the sun, the stronger Beth's resolve. She didn't think she could do this at night, when she remembered better.

The box tucked under her arm, she took a shovel from the collection of tools on the side porch and took off down the beach. When they had been running up and down the sand, she found the spot. Under an overhang, behind a stretch of beach scrub. Far from the house, past the reach of the tide.

Beth set the box in the shade and started in at the sand. Sweat poured from her and she tried to hurry. Eventually her mother would notice her gone.

Finally, the hole was deep enough for her satisfaction, three feet or so, past sand and hitting soil. Beth picked up the angel box and opened it for one final time. She ran her hand over the treasures, the marbles she never played with but loved to hear clinking against each other, the books she'd re-read with a different voice in her head, the half-dead bear that had lived on her bed before Bogart.

She dropped the lid back on and set the box into the hole.

Either sweat or tears burned her eyes as the dirt went back in. Her arms screamed with the effort, but Beth packed the hole firmly.

"I have to go, okay?" she whispered. "And I can't come back for you. You try not to miss me and I'll try not to miss you anymore."

She ran back to the house and didn't look back.