He paced the waiting room for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last two hours. The worn out twenty three year old kept his eyes trained on the bleached tiles moving beneath his feet. His shaggy bangs fell into his dull green eyes, eyes that were normally bright with a fiery spark. Helpless was too mild a word to describe how the fragile young man looked. From across the room a raven haired guy watched his friend await news on the woman in surgery. Beside him sat a quietly sobbing red head that looked to be about the same age as the other two visitors.

"Joseph Parkins!" The boy with the black hair yelled. The boy looked panicked for a moment and then dropped into a stiff hospital chair like a block of solid lead. A flash of regret instantly crossed the other man's features as he noticed his friends crestfallen face. With a resigned sigh he retracted his statement.

"Pace away Joey, pace away." Joey stared listlessly for a moment, then heaved himself out of the chair and regained his previous momentum to expel his nervous energy.

"Do you think he's okay Danny? He's beating himself up too much." The meek voice of the red head sounded loud in the eerily quiet waiting room. Danny looked over at the girl with a quiet sigh and transferred his hand from inside hers to around her tiny waist.

"He'll be fine Jilly. As soon as Danielle wakes up she'll yell at him for worrying and he'll spend hours fussing and fretting while she glares. It'll be just like any other day and we'll have wasted 3 hours here for nothing." The boy soothed. The red head was oblivious to the waver of his voice that indicated how unsure he was of his own words. A large three printed on a white pad of calendar paper loomed over the pacing man. His eyes kept straying back to the date, reminding him of just how perfect the day hadn’t been. He watched as a receptionist walked over to the calendar and ripped off the offending three, tossing it lightly into a wastebasket. He looked down at his watch to see that midnight had indeed come while he nervously awaited news. He started absent mindedly toying with the this gold band on his finger.

“Hey Dan. Do you know what today is?” He croaked. The other boy turned his head and shook it no. Joey continued, “It’s June 4. It’s my anniversary. I’ve been married to Dani for one year, one amazing….damn….year.” The end of his sentence was choked with sobs as he dropped to the floor, not bothering to drag himself over to a chair.

Carefully disentangling himself from the sniffling girl beside him, Daniel moved over to his fallen friend and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t we go to the chapel. You can pray that you wife doesn’t kill the nursing staff when she wakes up.” The broken man didn’t have any fight left so he stood dejectedly and waited to follow Daniel.

“Jilly, do you think you could go find some coffee or something? I’m asleep on my feet here and I’m positive both of you could use a cup. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” He questioned his fiancé. She gave a meager smile and walked from the room as Daniel walked with his friend in the other direction.

The chapel was nothing special. There were four rickety wood benches on both sides of an aisle and a small raised area in front that acted as an alter. To one side was a table stacked with bibles and on the opposite side was a mess of candles to light for the sick or dying.

The two friends walked slowly to the front and took a seat on the pew. Joey bowed his head a started a prayer. Daniel silently sent up one of his own, praying that his twin would be okay. It was only when he heard poorly concealed sobs that he looked up from his pleading. He wrapped one arm around the trembling frame of his brother-in-law and held tight while he tried to stop his crying.

"For twenty years I've prayed to him. For twenty years I've put my faith in believing that everything god does is for a reason, for our own good. This isn't right. This isn't fair." He wheezed.

"You have to keep believing Joe. Everything is going to be okay." Dan whispered. Wrenching himself from the other man's grasp Joey rocketed to his feet, his face transforming from sadness to anger in under two seconds.

"No!" he shouted. "I believed for twenty years. If he'd listened at all I wouldn't have gotten that phone call tonight. That driver wouldn't have hit her. A doctor would have come out by now to tell me I could take her home. My wife is probably dying and this "higher being" is doing nothing. Don't tell me to believe." He spit the words higher being like in was burning his mouth to say them. He turned and stalked out of the sanctuary while Daniel hung his head and heaved a heavy sigh. They'd all be devastated if something happened to Dani but somehow, he didn't think Joey would be able to recover. He removed himself from the bench and made his way back to waiting room only to see a pacing Joey and a slightly frightened Jillian.

She sent a questioning look to Danny as she handed him his coffee but his look plainly told her not now. They sat and sipped their liquid caffeine while Joey's anger dissipated and turned back into depressed worry as he continued to pace the white halls.

It was almost three before the doctor came to inform them of Danielle's condition.

"I need to speak to the family of Danielle Parkins." Immediately all three snapped to attention and crowded the doctor. There were shouts of I'm her...husband, brother, and sister-in-law respectively. The doctor looked pensive, as if he wasn't sure which one to give the information to. Finally he sighed and addressed all three of them.

"Danielle had extensive injuries. Her legs were crushed, a rib punctured her lung, and her spleen and liver both ruptured under trauma. There was a lot of internal bleeding. We've done all we can but we don't expect her to make it another hour. She's stable enough for you to go see her but I would keep it quick. I'm very sorry." The crushed expressions of the family's faces was the part he hated most about this job but he'd drawn the short stick on this girls case.

The doctor led them down the hall and allowed them to enter the room. Twenty-three year old Danielle Parkins was pale enough to match the sheets she lay on. Her long tendrils of midnight black hair were messy and matted with blood. Her mangled body was hidden by the thin sheets and her hand rested lightly on her stomach as she stirred. Despite the deep gouges on her face and the condition of the rest of her body, her hazel eyes were still as clear and beautiful as ever.

Joey took a few quick strides that found him at the edge of the bed and instinctively, she reached for him. He grasped her fragile hand in his larger ones and a serene smile spread across her face.

"Hey." Her hoarse voice rasped. He was barely holding the tears at bay as he responded with his own voice cracking hello. She frowned.

"Are you okay?" She asked. Joey was torn between laughing at the irony and strangling her for always putting other people above herself. He settled for nodding his head slowly and trying to smile.

She spent the next ten minutes talking with her twin and his fiancé while her husband sat on the edge of the bed and held her as best he could. She started coughing violently for a moment but she seemed to get it down to a controlled wheeze before the nurse could come rushing in with sedatives. The other occupants of her room tried to falsely assure her that she was fine but she shut them up with a fierce, almost murderous glare.

"I'm dying, not dumb. Nurses have big mouths. It's hard not to hear them gossip, even if I'm flitting in and out of consciousness." She stated rather bluntly. The three weren't really that shocked, dying or not Danielle was still Danielle. The problem was, no one really knew what to say after that. Her brother came over to hug her trying not to cry and walked sullenly from the room. With a dry sob and a soft hug, Jillian followed him. It was only when they were alone that Joey finally let the tears fall from his already puffy eyes.

"You were right. There isn't a god." He choked. She gave him a wry smile and shook her head lightly.

"No, I was wrong. There is a god. He gave me you." She whispered. "I did a lot of thinking before you guys came in. I prayed, but not for me. I don't have the right to ask him for anything for myself. I asked him to watch you. I asked him to make sure you moved on with your life and that you were happy after I was gone. Can you promise me that you'll do that? Can you promise me that you'll move on?" He wasn't sure what to say.

"I can't make that promise. I can't guarantee that I'll ever be happy without you. I'll do my best but I'm never going to be entirely okay." He sobbed. She just smiled.

"You will be. He gave you to me so I could see the kinder side of humanity. So I could see that there really are good people out there. You don't need me. You never did. You're not going to forget me, I understand that much, but after a while I'll just be one of those memories that you can't quite remember but you know is there. That's how it should be. I love you." Her sentence got more strained until the final declaration was almost inaudible. He heard it though.

He hesitantly leaned down and pressed his lips firmly to hers. A moment before she drew her last breath he whispered to her "You're a memory that's never going to fade. I'll love you 'til the end of time." The steady, unbroken beep that issued from the monitor a moment later seemed to break his heart in two. She was gone.