Serenity pushed her ice cream away from her.

So that’s what happened to angels who stayed around.

They were hunted down like dogs and tortured, hurt. They were killed. They were destroyed, and apparently, it was painful. She knew there was a reason she had left the area she’d lived with Oliver. She knew there was a reason she didn’t feel okay in crowds.

She just didn’t know this was it.

“Why don’t they warn us?” She asked, gasping. Suddenly, the apartment felt small. Too small. She couldn’t breathe, and she reached for her throat.

“Breathe, Serenity,” Wrath’s deep voice reached to her through the darkness that was spreading through the room. “Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.”

She didn’t listen. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She was going to die. That’s what this came down to. She was going to die, to be destroyed, and no one could save her. No one could help her. They were going to destroy her.

They were going to kill her.

“Serenity!” Wrath’s voice suddenly was loud, and close, and she looked at him. His hands were on her shoulders, and they were both in the living room. How had they gotten here? She didn’t remember getting up from the table, didn’t remember leaving the kitchen.

“I can’t, I can’t,” she sputtered, shaking her head. Wrath pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.

“You can,” he said. “And I will be here, Serenity. I will protect you. I will watch over you.”

“I need to paint,” she whispered, and he let her go. She went over to her easel and picked up her paintbrush. She cried as she began to work on something new, something she’d never made before. The tears slid down her cheeks silently as she moved the brush over the canvas, over and over and over again.

“It’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

Wrath laughed. “Could’ve fooled me.”

She glared at the painting, but didn’t turn to see him. She wasn’t scared. She was terrified. She also didn’t want him to know that about her, didn’t want him to realize what an effect this was having on her.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “To be scared. We’re all scared sometimes, Serenity. It’s what we choose to do with that fear that matters.”

“That matters?” She spun around, paintbrush still in hand. She glared at him because right now, he was the one telling her about all of the evil in the world. She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want it to be true. Right now, Serenity wanted, for the very first time since she’d cut off her wings, to just go home.

She just wanted to be home.

“The only thing that matters is that I made a choice, Wrath. I made a choice to be human for a man I loved and he left me.”

Wrath’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly, but he didn’t react. He just stood there, waiting, watching her. His big arms were crossed over his chest, but he just looked at her. He was more patient than anyone Serenity had ever met, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about that.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I loved him. I wasn’t even supposed to be on Earth, but that’s never mattered, has it?”

Wrath shook his head. Serenity was sure he’d had his own adventures on Earth as a demon. Sneaking onto the planet wasn’t exactly difficult for an otherworldly being.

“We fell in love and I…I didn’t want to live without him. I didn’t want an eternity without him. I wanted to be on Earth with him, to have babies with him, I-”

She stopped talking because the sobs boiling in her throat threatened to spill out.

“I want you to be happy, Serenity. I want you to love again.” Oliver took her hand and squeezed. He was weak, and she was broken.

“I will never love anyone the way I loved you,” she whispered, crying as she watched him. He looked so small in the giant hospital bed: nothing like the man she’d fallen in love with. Cancer had stolen so much from him, but it was going to steal just a little bit more.

“You can learn to love in a different way,” Oliver promised, and the smile he offered was full of hope, of joy. “I have loved you so much, Serenity. You have made my life magical. You have made my soul sing.”

She dropped to the floor. She couldn’t handle these memories. Not right now. For so long, Serenity had kept them locked up, tucked away. For so long, she hadn’t wanted to access those memories. Not because she didn’t miss Oliver, but because missing him hurt so very deeply.

“He loved you,” Wrath said simply. “And you loved him. That’s how it was with me and Harmony. We were completely in love, and then she was gone, stolen from me. It wasn’t fair. The world isn’t fair, Serenity. The world is dark, but you don’t have to face the darkness alone.”

Serenity looked back at the painting she had started, at the dark strokes she had made on the canvas. It looked angry, violent: nothing like her usual paintings.

Then again, there was nothing usual about this day.

“When I first became human, I didn’t have a choice,” Wrath said. “I didn’t choose to cut off my horns and there was no one waiting here who loved me. When they sent me here, all I could think about was the fact that this was the place where Harmony died. This was the place my darling was stolen from me, swept away. This was the place where she had been, and then she was gone.”

“What did you do?” Serenity whispered, not looking at him. She kept her eyes focused on her painting. She concentrated on holding her paintbrush tightly, on not letting it fall to the ground because she knew that if she dropped it, she would be done. She wouldn’t be able to pick it up again. She wouldn’t have the energy or the heart, and painting was the only way she could deal with any of this.

“The only thing I could do. I tried to live.”

“In her honor?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“I met you, didn’t I?”

Serenity was quiet when he said that. Maybe she’d just never learned how to take a compliment. She wasn’t sure. She did know one thing, though, and that was that Wrath was unlike anyone she’d ever met. He was a mystery, even to her, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

She turned back to the painting and began to touch the canvas once more. This time, she stared at it with the power of a thousand suns, with the burning sadness of someone who had lost everything.