A/N: A story written for two contests on GaiaOnline, with similar prompts. One of them was 'when love dies' and another was a quote, "I fear your smile and the promise inside," from A Dangerous Mind by Within Temptation. It's kind of a true story with a twist. Lately I've been writing quite a few of those. Anyways, enjoy! And please review with constructive criticism.

It was love at first sight. She was perfect with her button nose, round eyes, pearly-white halo and wings and small smile. I held her in my hands and admired, knowing that she was my new best friend. My partner in crime. Mon amie. Everything.

My hands fiddled with the tag. The tags always stuck together when I wanted to open them and despite my small, delicate hands and fingers, I could be preoccupied for hours trying to open and closing them. Digging my nails into the cardboard, impatient to know my new friend’s name, it unstuck itself and opened.

“Hah-lo!” I exclaimed. That sounds weird. “Like ‘hello?’”

Grandma made that sound she and Mom did when they were annoyed. It never seemed to offend me though.

“Tsk, let me see it,” she said. I held the bear gently and handed it to her. She took it a lot more roughly than I would have liked and looked at the tag. “No, Monica, it says Halo. Your bear’s name is Halo, like the halo on its head.”

“Ooh,” I replied, fascinated still by her beauty. Grandma handed her back to me and I held her tightly against my chest. “Thank you, Grandma. I love her.”

“I’m glad,” Grandma smiled, crinkling the faint wrinkles by her eyes.

---

I ran around my room, tossing anything important to me into the suitcase. Groovy Girls, pyjamas, fake jewellery, paper, pens—as long as I liked it, it was coming with me. I shut the lid and sat on it as I struggled to zip it up. Tears streamed down my face and I was sobbing in between words of complaint.

“They’re dumb, I hate them. I’m leaving to find another family. They won’t miss me, they hate me. I hate them,” I said darkly, pulling the suitcase off of my bed and dropping it onto the ground. I had a tendency to repeat myself when I was angry.

Halo sat on my bed, listening and looking at me calmly, the faint smile still on her face. Although it would have normally angered me that she was smiling, like all my other stuffed animals, I tried to smile back. Halo wouldn’t try to anger me. She always reassured me and made it all better. She was my best friend.

“Come on, Halo,” I said, picking her up off the bed and holding her tightly. “Let’s go. We’re running away.”

I didn’t even try to make it a secret that I was leaving as I stomped down the stairs, my suitcase banging each stair hard. As I passed by the kitchen Mom looked at me quizzically. I gave her my worst look. When I reached the main floor I walked into the family room where Dad was watching TV.

“I’m running away,” I announced. I only really told him just in case he and Mom would have worried, not that I thought they would.

“Sure,” he said, not even bothering to look me.

I stomped my foot on the ground. “I’m serious!”

“Okay, Monica. But if you leave that front door, don’t expect to be allowed to come back in.”

I held my nose high even though the thought of not having a home scared me. Dad didn’t care, Mom didn’t care—what did it matter if I couldn’t come back? “Good,” I said before leaving the room.

It was a surprisingly cold August evening. I pulled my suitcase along behind me, shivering in my thin sweater and t-shirt. Halo was perched on the top of my suitcase. I had been walking for maybe an hour, not exactly sure where I was going. It was starting to get dark and I was feeling scared.

I came to a complete stop in front of yet another house and picked Halo up, holding her tightly in my arms.

“I’m not mad anymore,” I whispered to her. “I want to go home.”

I didn’t notice the silver Taurus that had been following me most of the time I was walking. I also didn’t notice the dog a woman not too far away from me was walking. That is, until it started barking like mad and ran toward me quickly, so fast its leash was ripped out of its owner’s hand. Immediately I panicked and ran in the opposite direction. Dogs were what I was most afraid of.

With Halo held safely in my arms, I ran as fast as my small legs could let me. There was a space in between two houses and even though it was dark with shadows, I ran into it. Tears streamed down my face—I could hear the dog approaching and I’d realized that I had no where else to go.

“Help me,” I whimpered. “Halo, help me.” I dropped to my knees and waited, not really knowing what else to do.

And then suddenly the barking stopped. I could hear a voice in the distance and it came closer and closer.

“Monica! Mona!” the voice called. I wasn’t sure if I should go even though the person spoke my name. I looked down at Halo. I imagined her nodding her head, a sign to tell me to go.

I stood up slowly and walked carefully out of the alley. “Yes?” I called.

“Mona!” Mom came rushing to me, holding me in her arms. “I was so worried! Don’t you ever do that again!”

“Y-yes Mommy!” I cried, a fresh set of tears pouring down my face. “Halo told me to go to you!”

---

“I don’t think you should be sleeping with stuffed animals anymore,” Mom said one night two years later when I was seven. I gasped and held Halo tighter to my chest.

“But Halo protects me!” I protested. We were inseparable

Mom sighed. “Monica, do any of your friends sleep with stuffed animals?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Everyone does. Why wouldn’t they?”

“All I’m saying is that you’re going to regret it when everyone else doesn’t have to sleep with stuffed animals and you do.”

I frowned at her as she kissed my forehead goodnight.

“Goodnight, Monica.”

“Goodnight, Mommy.”

She headed for the door.

“Mom?”

She stopped.

“Yes?”

“You forgot to say goodnight to Halo too.”

---

The waves pushed the boat back and forth, making me sick. The heat was unbearable. I couldn’t wait to get onto the land.

“I’m sick,” I whined for the hundredth time that day. We were on a boat tour on Lake Ontario. I had a towel draped over my head with my head resting on my Dad’s lap. It didn’t seem to help one bit.

“Don’t worry Mona. We’re almost there,” I heard Dad’s voice reassure me on the other side of the towel.

Mom was rubbing my shoulder. It felt good but in no way helped.

“I want Halo,” I mumbled.

I’d discovered something new about my stomach. I could do ‘the wave’. Halo was propped on my stomach, staring at me with her round, shiny, black eyes. I was telling her about the boat ride the day before.

“So, you see, it was really horrible and I don’t like boats,” I explained. “It was all wavy like my tummy, but worse than what you’re getting.” I could imagine her nodding.

The doorbell rang and I sat up, knocking Halo to the ground. I didn’t stop to pick her up, unlike what I would have done when I first got her. She wasn’t as important now, it seemed. Someone would pick her up is what I thought, and it was true, someone always would.

Rebecca sat down on my bed with her new snowman stuffed animal, Snowflake, and I had retrieved Halo from the ground in my kitchen and now sat with her on my head.

“You know what?” Rebecca began. “Snowflake is a magical snowman.”

“Really?” I asked, amazed. “What kind of powers does he have?”

“She. Snowflake is a girl. But she won’t have any powers for another seven years. Mommy said that the tag said so.”

“But seven years?” I asked. “We’ll be…in seven years we’ll be…” I tried to add it up in my head, but I couldn’t. “That’s a long time. Do you think Halo has powers?” I took Halo off of my head and placed her beside Snowflake.

Rebecca looked at Halo hard. “Well…” she began, “I think she probably does. You’ve had her since you were five and that means she’s special. So in seven years she’ll be lucky too.”

I nodded. “Halo’s an angel. She’s my guardian angel.”

---

The Swifter Duster wiped clean any traces of dust on my shelves. Not that I was really trying that hard to clean—it was one of the things that I hated to do most. And I was very thankful that my dad isn’t one of those creepy dads who take out gloves and check if something is properly dusted with their finger.

I reached the widest shelf in my room, the one that I only ever dusted the visible part of. I could see little dust bunnies behind a few books lined up atop of it. For health purposes, I decided that I should probably get rid of it. I pushed the Swifter further than usual, wiping clean any evidence of cleaning-negligence. When I was finished and about to turn away, something in the back glinted in the light. I stared at it, trying to determine if it was the eye of a creepy spider or just my imagination. Slowly I see the shape of the object and realized that it was no spider. My hands stretched back to grasp it and I pulled it forward.

Dust matted the used-to-be-white hair and the frayed and floppy wings. Her black eyes still bore their shine and her smile still remained on her face, despite how long I had desolated her.

“Halo,” I whispered, staring at the Beanie Baby, nearly unrecognizable from the day I got her, nine years before. And at fourteen, I remembered that she should be magical. Looking into her eyes and staring at her small smile I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me. The days when I was a young child were long gone and so was my deep love for my best friend. And as I stared at her, remembering, I could feel my heart breaking into two. What happened?