A/N: I got several requests for more of this story so I thought, what the hell, and updated it so here it is. Thank you to everyone who's been reviewing this, it really makes me so happy since the concept is so completely out there. I really like this chapter and I hope you like it too and if you want to leave a review, that would make me a very happy girl, anyways, enjoy. :)

I know that he's still around. I know this. I just can't see him, but he's still somewhere around here, watching me, because that's his job. You don't just switch off with someone else, swap to another person. That's not how this works. Actually, I don't know how this works. Maybe in special circumstances you can switch angels with someone and that's why Chris has been gone for three days now. He's with another person who takes him more seriously, who lets him do his job and doesn't constantly argue with him, even if every argument is one-sided.

But I don't think that's how it works. I think he's still around here somewhere, but I just can't see him. Sometimes I think I feel his presence, but that might just be my imagination hoping that I feel his presence because it's comforting to know he was watching over me when I couldn't see him. I might even just take his disembodied voice telling me that he's still there at this point, but I'm too prideful so I'm not going to say anything. I simply know he's there, watching me, probably waiting for me to grovel to him or not, I don't think angels would advocate groveling.

When I was in high school, he used to stand down the hallway from me, apparently leaning against the wall. He would look like a high school student, dressed in the same clothes that most of the other guys were in. I don't know if he was trying to go incognito or something or maybe it was just that he wanted to blend in and not frighten me. Still, I knew he was there, always. I can't stress enough how it seems that Chris ages with me, but not really. It's so hard to explain, but it's like, it's like he's growing with me. He always kind of looked like the bad boy when he'd lean there, you know the ones from movies or videos or whatever, the kind where the good girl transforms him into a good guy or some nonsense like that. He was brooding, except now I know it wasn't brooding at all. More like…protecting.

When I was in college, I pretty effectively ignored Chris. He must have still been there, he had to have been, but I ignored him because I just wanted a normal life. I was scared to look because at that point, I'd taken a couple psychology courses, enough to know that seeing people and having seen Chris for a very long time, might mean that I have serious mental issues. Hell, I probably do have serious mental issues. Either way, I knew it wasn't normal and I so desperately wanted to be normal so I just ignored him and went on with my life and I guess that's what I have to do right now because he's not here.

Well, no, he is here, but he's not here to talk to and for the first time in a while, in a long time actually, I feel like I have to wade through my life by myself. I'm still slightly angry that he left, okay, slightly isn't the right word, I'm angry that he left. He comes to me, for the first time in a long time and tells me he is here to protect me, that there's some invisible threat in front of me that I can't see. Then he leaves, he leaves me to my own devices and there's this big scary monster lurking around the corner that I can't see and what if it jumps out and Chris isn't here, isn't manifested in front of me to protect me.

He said he'd always protect me and I'm not feeling much protected now.

Still, there is Paul and I still have a good feeling about him. Whatever Chris thought of him was wrong. I know, logically, that Chris was not jealous, there's no way he could be, but if he's not jealous, what was all that? I just don't understand why he would act like that towards Paul. I don't want to believe that Paul could be the big, scary monster, but he could be and if he is, then who will protect me? But I really believe it's not Paul and maybe Paul is the one to protect me, maybe that's the real reason Chris acted the way he did, because he was giving me over to Paul without trying to make it seem that way. Stupid, huh? I'm just trying to come up with a way to explain the strange events over the last few days.

I'm sitting in Paul's hotel room right now, just hanging out and watching television. We've been hanging out a lot since Chris left and I'm the one initiating the contact. When you've been around a being or person or angel for the past twenty-odd years, you get used to a presence and I've been feeling lonely, though I'm loath to admit it. So hanging out with Paul is the only way that I don't feel alone. I don't think he's complaining because he's always eager to see me so he must really like me and if he does, he won't hurt me.

"Hey, Paul," I say, turning to him.

"Yeah?" he asks, turning his head towards me.

"Do you believe in guardian angels?" I ask him, wondering what his take on the situation is. I'm not going to tell him about Chris, obviously, but I just want to know what his thoughts are. Chris is probably smirking right now, realizing I can't get him out of my head, but whatever, he's my guardian angel, of course he's going to be on my mind, it's not like he's a random person off the street.

"Guardian angels, like an angel that follows you around or something?"

"Yeah, like that, like, do you believe you have a guy named Murray or something watching over you?"

Paul laughs, "I don't know, don't you think that seems a little absurd, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, having some sort of angel walking around with you all the time. I mean, I believe in heaven and that there are angels, I guess, you know, plucking their harps and sitting on clouds, it's a nice thought, but I don't know."

I find myself just a little offended by his words. I don't doubt there's a heaven (not anymore, I mean, I have an angel!), but I don't picture cloud-sitting and harp-playing. That's like one person's vision of nature. I think back to one of my college courses when we read Dante's Paradiso and that story is all about traveling through heaven, but heaven was very vague and undefined. The only prevailing characteristics of heaven were that it was warm and that it smelled good (because in Dante's time that was what heaven was for people, someplace warm and someplace that smelled good), but other than that, heaven was what you made of it really. I think heaven is whatever you want and I feel odd that Paul could be so blasé about it all.

"You don't think you have an angel?"

"I think that like my grandma is watching over me, you know," he tells me and I just nod. "Why are we even on this? You have a near-death experience?"

"No, nothing like that, I was just watching a show about people who think they've seen their guardian angels," I tell him, trying to cover up and I think I've done a pretty good job. Chris would've congratulated me on the fine job of improvising. Then he'd bring up the time when I was fifteen and stayed out past curfew and had to improvise a story to get out of a grounding, which I am happy to say I did.

"Are you sure it wasn't a show on people who needed to go to the loony bin."

My face drops a little bit. I know I shouldn't be mad at that, I shouldn't get offended because if I told him right now that I could see (or used to see) my guardian angel, he's going to think I'm crazy because it is crazy, I can't deny that what I see or know is crazy, but I don't know, it just makes me a little upset. There's nobody I can tell about Chris, not my parents, not my brother, not my best friends, not my boyfriend, there's nobody I can tell. There's nobody that will believe me.

There's nobody I can say that I miss him to.

"They don't deserve to go there, you don't know!" I say, my voice rising at the end, enough to make him look in my direction with surprise.

"I'm…sorry," he says slowly. "I didn't know it was such a touchy subject."

"It's not," I respond, trying to control the decibel level of my voice. He really will think I'm crazy if I push this. "I just don't think that the idea or the concept is out of the question. What is so wrong with having someone there to protect you, you know?"

"There's nothing wrong, I just think that you know, if you're seeing angels, maybe there's something wrong with you, that's all I'm saying, but obviously you think differently."

"I think it's a comforting thought," I tell him and somehow, I think I'm telling Chris too. I look around the room, as if my confessional right here will bring him back. Paul is staring at me, I can feel his eyes, but it's not about him right now. There's still no Chris and I almost except his voice over my shoulder to surprise me, but nothing. I've really done it now, I've really driven him away and now I have to live the rest of my life alone…what am I saying? I'm not even alone right now.

"It is," he says to me and I smile at him.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why it's getting to me," I shake my head. I'm being stupid. I'm not alone, Paul is right here with me and I lean forward to press my lips against his. I'm not trying to tide over any loneliness. I'm not trying to forget Chris, I'm just comfortable with Paul and maybe that was Chris's intention because if he doesn't come back after what I just said, I don't think he's going to come back. He's giving me over to a new kind of protection I guess and I guess I don't need his words anymore either.

"It's okay," he tells me when he pulls away, pecking my lips as he does so. "You obviously believe someone is watching over you, I get that."

"I just like that thought."

"So what do you think your guardian angel is like then?" he says and I think I like him all the more for indulging me like this. He doesn't have to like my stupid conversation, but even with this, he's trying to remain involved.

Of course, he's making me think of Chris so it's a double-edged sword. I can just see Chris leaning over right now, probably right over Paul's shoulder, smirking and smiling and wondering just how I'm going to describe him. I could just lie and say I picture my grandma or some other beautiful woman in a white satiny robe with ringlets for hair and a halo perched atop her gorgeous head. I think Chris's halo is slightly crooked and maybe bent a little bit, just a little. But what if he got hurt if I didn't describe him? Wait, angels don't get hurt, they're not capable so I could lie, I could.

"Mine's a guy," I start with a definite sense of firmness, like this is real and it is and I think I've caught his attention.

"A guy angel, nice," Paul tells me with a slight chuckle, but I'm not laughing.

"He's…gorgeous," I continue and if Chris had an ego, it'd be inflated right now. I've got to stop personifying him. "But then, I think all angels are gorgeous, you know, because their sole purpose is to just be around you so why not make them these beautiful things. His name would be Chris. He'd be slightly annoying, but then, I know I'm slightly annoying so it would be apt if he were too. He'd be funny and he'd look out for me, even when I don't want him to, even when I'm a horrible person, he'd still be there. And I think guardian angels are there just for you, like, it can't be a family member that died or someone who was alive. An angel is someone just for you, made for you, that's why Chris would be very sarcastic because that's how I am. And they'd remember, they'd remember everything about you even though it's annoying that they can pull up any memory of yours and recite it back to you in perfect detail, dialogue and all. But it's kind of comforting too, to know they have that and someday, when they come to tell you that it's time, they'll have a lifetime stored inside them and then you get to spend the rest of eternity talking about it and living it again."

"That's really beautiful," Paul says and I realize I'd drifted off into my own thoughts and had forgotten he was there. I look around again, just in case, just in case Chris wanted to come back and just say he told me so even though he would never say that. He'd probably get a call from God if he did.

"Thanks, I don't know, just what I think, you know."

"It's a really nice thought," he says, then wraps his arm around me again as he turns to the television. "I like that idea. I hope that my angel is just as cool as your angel."

"I'm sure they are," I say, not saying anything like I've heard about your angel because that'd be inappropriate. "So maybe those people aren't crazy then, right?"

"You know, they're probably not."

I smile and cuddle against him, that emptiness waning just a little bit. Paul may believe it was just a story, but at least someone knows about Chris. At least someone else in the world knows that he's out there and that, somehow, makes him a little more real. Like the last twenty-four years really did happen and I'm not crazy. That Chris was really here and not just a figment of my imagination that I decided to banish from my mind, the imaginary friend that finally went poof. Chris was here, Chris is here, somewhere, protecting me and now, even if he doesn't think it, Paul knows, someone knows.

For the first time in days, I think I can feel Chris's presence.