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As Dani drew closer to the spot, a warm glow began to creep into view. At first, it looked like the outside of the dimly lit restaurant had been spruced up with a little light diffusion, perhaps a new bulb in the streetlamps that hung overhead. With each passing step, the glow grew brighter and clearer. It wasn’t one glow. It was a series of tiny glows that, together, made a warm pocket of light in the otherwise pitch-black night. They were candles, all of them. White pillars sat stacked on every surface: the ground, the picnic tables, the benches, even the lids of the trashcans. And there, standing in the middle of the glow, was Parker Damhnait – in a suit, no less.

His hair was freshly cut and pushed out of his eyes. His shoes looked polished. There was even a tiny flower – Dani’s favorite – pinned to the lapel. A smile sat on his face, but there was tension in his shoulders, nervousness in his eyes. What was all of this? And how the hell had someone like Parker come up with it? It was the spot where he had found the nerve to kiss her the first time, and it was in this spot that he felt gave him all the confidence he would need.

She looked beautiful to him, even in the middle of the night – pulled, perhaps, from a restless sleep. The past month had been amazing. All of the problems that had been plaguing them since her triumphant return from the dead had been completely erased. On top of that, Taranis had managed to kill Linarite. Dani would never know it, but he had gotten revenge for her. He had single-handedly made sure that the world would never have to suffer the existence of General Linarite ever again.

The feisty girl with pale blue hair and sea green eyes had captured him from the very first time they met. He had never been in a serious relationship before, hardly a relationship at all, and after all they had been through, Parker felt like their meeting was… destiny. It still confused him to feel that way. Destiny, fate – these were terms that he once rebuked, things he tore apart on his blog. Now, after knowing Dani and knowing his senshidom, he could only see the truth of it.

Parker did have a destiny. And he was absolutely positive that Daniela Rymner was fated to be a pivotal part of it.

The moon was a pale crescent in the sky, cast against a backdrop of midnight blue pricked with points of light. If not for the candles, Parker and Dani might have been standing in darkness. The bending flames flicked back and forth with a slow wind. The shadows on Dani’s face danced. In spite of his nerves, Parker smiled. Even with her confusion, she looked at him with love, he thought, and he read it in the lines of her face. Could she read it in his too? There were days that he felt so full of love for her that he thought he might burst.

Parker had been a boy afraid to be loved, or to give love in return. All of the people who mattered the most to him had died, most tragically, or completely abandoned him for their own selfish gain. Dani was still counted in that number, even if she was alive now. There was an entire summer he spent believing her to be dead. Something had changed in him over that time. To Dani, the time she spent dead seemed like nothing. She was in a coma, and then she was better. She didn’t have to suffer that night when he carried her to the hospital. She didn’t have to watch the light go dim in the eyes of the person she cared about before a finger could be lifted to stop it. She didn’t know the crippling guilt that Parker had felt since the day she almost died.

In the summer that Dani died, Parker went across the country trying to escape his thoughts of her, but they were everywhere he looked. One night, when he was feeling particularly sad for himself, he made a list of all the things he wanted to do with Dani that they had never gotten the chance to do. Now that she was back and their relationship was healthy and happy, Parker had made the decision to make good on some of the promises he made to himself. Destiny City could jump out and kill them at any second. Parker didn’t want to have any regrets anymore.

When Dani approached, Parker smiled, reaching out to take her hands in his. “These are candles, Dani,” he said, a tilt to his voice. A joke might soften his nerves, yes? The sensation of her fingers ghosting softly over his own made his heart race and his head calm. Yes, this was how it was supposed to be. This was how they were supposed to stay.

Parker caught Dani’s eyes. “This world is dark and terrible and everyone is probably going to die,” he said. The boy might have gotten better, but he was still a terrible pessimist. The smile did not leave his lips. “I thought a long time about what was most important to me, and what I would want to save if anything. And then I thought about all the things that I might miss out on if something bad happened.” He squeezed her hand. “And then I thought – why wait? I’m tired of putting off happiness, Dani, and you… you are the only thing in this world that has consistently made me happy. You make me laugh. You make me goofy. You are beautiful and strong, and I am lucky every day that we are together. There isn’t a single day that I want to spend away from you.”

One of his hands slipped away from Dani’s. He fumbled in his pocket. “Dani,” he said, eyes warm with everything he had always felt for her, “let’s not put off happiness when we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.” His hand was back in hers. Something was pinched between his fingers. Parker slid a ring gently on to her finger. “I love you, Dani. I love you more than I thought I was capable of loving another person. Will you… marry me?” His fingers entwined with hers, a smile rising wider on his lips.

It was something he had dreamed about asking her.

The ring was small, delicate. Parker had saved for six months for it. He only realized that was what he had been putting his money away for the last month. It was an unconscious action, but when he looked at that sum of money and asked himself what he wanted to do with it, he could only think of Dani -- and a very important ring. His girlfriend was spontaneous; he wasn't. But he tried to be. And he tried to be romantic. This proposal was a combination of his desire to be what she wanted and his desire to never lose her again. Parker didn't see it as a risk. He saw it as a story they would tell their friends over drinks later on, the kind of sloppy, romantic bullshit that he had never bought into until the day Daniela Rymner entered his life.

There had been only two times Parker had ever pictured a proposal. Both were to Dani -- once, after she died, and then once this last month when he decided to do this in the first place. He was cliche in his choices, but he had never been the most original or romantic boyfriend in the world. He thought this was nice and that she would like it. He told himself, "We are perfect for each other. Of course she will like it."

Then he saw her eyes when the ring slipped on to her finger, and his stomach fell.

Dani began to panic, grew intense. It was nothing like he had expected. She did not leap into his arms. She did not tell him how she felt exactly the same. She said: "Parker, no." The love in his eyes burned up into sadness, disappointment. He tried to let go of her hands and took a step backward. Her touch hurt, but she kept his hands in her own.

She kept talking, babbled at him about her reasoning. His eyes watered and then cooled, became emotionless. A flare of anger, shock, or pain would roar in them for a quick flash and then fall back beneath an apathetic layer. Parker's defense mechanism had always been his apathy. It was like flicking a switch for him. One minute, Dani was nestled right up against his very soul, and the next, she was driving a dagger into him. The only reaction was to shut her out, shut her out so that it didn't hurt so bad.

But it did hurt.
It hurt almost as severely as the night she died.

Then, that night in the alley, she had been taken from him. But here? Now? Dani was making a choice. And that was a choice that put distance between them, distance Parker so badly wanted to obliterate. He was proposing a merger of identities so that they could grow together until the day that they died; she was proposing separation under the guise of companionship.

Parker pulled his hands away from hers. "No, Dani," he said, face hopeless and helpless. "I do want to marry you. You just don't want to marry me. That is the way that things are." Words bounced and tugged at his lips, threatened to break free.

Surprise had been expected, shock even. But a rejection? Parker and Dani were on different pages about their relationship, and this was the first time he had realized it. Looking at her now, it was like she was a different person. The hurt she caused in that simple refusal was enough to make him resent her, to reject her right back. How could he trust her with his heart for the rest of their lives if she wasn't even sure she wanted that now? Parker had been sure of it since they first met. He needed someone who could feel the same way.

Parker took another step back. He knocked over a candle. White wax splashed against the concrete, stained the side of his shoe. "When you think about the future, am I there with you?" he asked, voice quiet and low.

Fair. Not fair. His eyes darkened. He had laid his heart out for her, and she was calling his actions unfair. No -- unfair was loving somebody so much that it hurt, depending on someone like you had never depended on someone before, and then having them reject you at your most vulnerable point, to make all that love and trust and caring suddenly feel obsolete. Parker was finding it increasingly difficult not to cry.

Then Dani tossed the ring to the concrete. The ring he had saved for. The ring that he skipped meals to afford. The ring that he hoped to look at on her finger every day for the rest of their lives together.

Parker knew they couldn't have a big wedding. He knew he might not be able to give her all the things that he knew she deserved, but he also knew that he had never felt a love like this before. He knew that he had watched her die once before. He knew that they were teenagers trapped in a horrible situation, and all they had was the strength of each other. Dani was a life raft in a swelling sea that Parker had hooked his arms around to survive.

Without her, what would he be?

Dani was crying, and for the first time, it wasn't hard for Parker to keep himself from reaching out to her. Instead, he knelt slowly to the ground, pinching the fallen engagement ring between two fingers, and then stood just as slowly. The black velvet box emerged from his pocket. He tucked the ring back inside and then shut it with a sharp snap.

"It's not enough for me," he said quietly, eyes on the ground. "Maybe you see us together? Maybe." Air pushed out of him, a defeated, deflating sound. "Maybe isn't good enough for me, Dani."

The black box slipped back into his pocket. One hand raked through his hair. "I mean..." he began, voice dividing into sad laughter. He glanced upward, tried to keep the tears from forming. "I am... an idiot. I am such an idiot. For thinking..." He let his hand fall to his side. It slapped against his leg. "All these candles, this suit, all of this -- and you never wanted any of it. You don't want me. You just want... you." He shook his head. A tear fell. He sniffled sharply against it.

Parker imagined that Dani would leap into his arms, that they would kiss, that they would laugh as they cleaned up all the candles, that they would go tell her parents together, and then she would move into his place. He had never known what it was like to have real parents. He had grown up too fast, too soon. Dani hadn't, not like he had. Perhaps it was this more than anything else that forced them to such opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to this one singular question.

No matter the reason, Parker and Dani stood divided, and it was a gap that didn't seem capable of closing. "Everyday, one of us could die. Hell, you already did once, Dani." His head kept shaking. "We are not on the normal teenage timeline. We never have been, and I just -- I don't know." Another tear fell.

Parker took another step away from her. He didn't want to dissolve into pain in front of her. "I can't... be open to hurt like this, Dani. If I am wrong about you now, then maybe I'm just wrong about you, period. And--" A shuddering sob split his chest. His breathing increased. He fought to maintain control. "I won't set myself up for disappointment. I won't be some temporary thing that you're just going to grow up and away from some day. I'm not okay with being a maybe to you." One hand clenched at his side.

When he looked up at her then, Parker echoed defeat, pain, loss. "I would rather be alone," he said grimly. Parker squinted his eyes, squeezed some tears free. "I was made to be alone, right? That is what I believed. I am not..." Too painful, too much. He shook his head, backpedaled. "No, Dani. We can't just date. That's not enough for me. And if it's enough for you, then you aren't who I thought you were, and we aren't..." His chin quivered. He felt like a disgrace.

"Then we aren't anything either."

Emotion swam around him. Parker was at a loss. His heart had been ripped from his chest and then crushed under the foot of the only person he had ever trusted to hold it. In the flickering candlelight, Parker turned on his heel and marched into the darkness.

And then he just ran.