They never told her it would be this way. Cocooned in twilight, between worlds, far from her friends, her allies, her struggles, her battling, her family, and everything that defined her.

At least he was with her, curled around her, cold chest not rising, cool skin of the chest bared, black pants covering his legs. His eyes were shut, and he slept. But his eyes did not move, his face did not change. He did not breath. Vampires could not dream.

She envied him.

Here, between worlds, it could be an eternity for her, waiting for the Call, for the Powers to thrust her into a new world. By being called back, she had been thrust irretrievably out of Heaven, and become their Angel of Redemption, a silver-winged form, born to wage the eternal war against darkness. Light and shadow and dark, forged from things they'd paid their own penance for forging.

And the price to her was mortality, rest, her soul. Her mind. Her body and mind were a battlefield, and when she died, she was to be reborn as another Warrior.

Dying again was a horrific thought, for her last link to sanity depended on her very life.

Her Angel, her redeemed lover, the strong back she watched in battle, the loving and brooding man, her fellow Warrior. Her heart, her soul if she had one.

The Powers grant abilities to girls, and they do not ask a price beyond that, merely that they use them in defense of their race. But for those truly Chosen, there is a price beyond that. The Slayer that sleeps here now has been so Chosen, given the blessings of the Powers Themselves, called to a battlefield beyond the Earth she protects, called with the other great Warrior of her time. It has become her nature to protect, to fight against darkness. The Slayer, woven eternally with her, until she did not know where one began and the other left off.

And so she waited, and her Angel's eyes opened, and he tightened his arms around her, hand coming up to match hers, fingers folding around her small hand, around the ring that was a mate to his own, the key to their link, their promise wrested from the Powers, til Death did they part, and beyond.

She shut her eyes and leaned her head against his chest, and slept while he kept watch.