"True love stories never have endings."
- Richard Bach -

Detective Danny Williams has a satisfactory life.

It is vastly different from his life in New Jersey, and after just a few short months on what he can only describe as a pineapple infested rock inhabited by strange people with even stranger customs and tastes, his life is thrown into yet another different direction by a grumpy, coarse and emotionally stunted individual who recruits him for his personal task force.

"How is this my life?!" he laments from time to time, as he barely manages to evade yet another bullet, or is only just pulled from another certain instant of death. But ocassionally he does remember how this had gotten to be his life. Does remember - although usually in a very vague manner which has him questioning his own sanity - bits and pieces of having dealt with some otherworldly creature. Remembers something about Crossroads ...

It's a life filled with danger, with friendships so strong and cemented that he sometimes wonders how he could have ever lived without them, and never a day passes without some form of heart-stopping excitement. Or annoyance with the man who now calls him partner.

Sometimes ... sometimes he remembers his other life more clearly. Remembers his love more vividly. Sometimes something like a hazy yet intense memory will pop up and superimpose itself over a current situation.

When a large hand clamps on his shoulder to draw his attention to something, or keep him from stepping into a dangerous situation, when a deep voice speaks his name - "Danny!" - with that ever present undertone of irritation, his mind skips to a time which appears to be have been in his past, or might even still be part of a yet to be defined future. His mind will skip and the situation - the memory - will change into one in which the hand grabs onto his bare shoulder, fingers digging deep but not deep enough to cause bruising, holding on to him as the voice comes from near his ear, stuttering his name in a sweet and halting manner - "Da ... Danno!" - before the body hovering over him stills.

And every time such a memory comes, unbidden, as clear as if it happened only yesterday, or is about to happen tomorrow, only to vanish as if never having existed, it leaves him feeling a little more empty, a little more hollow.

A little more dead inside.

But then - and how amazing is that! - there are also times when a thoughtful look passes over the face of his partner, a look which seems to question something that remains just out of reach, stays just outside his grasp. Those green-blue eyes will stare into his, a frown between them, his mouth open as if a thought had been on the tip of his tongue and then vaporized into thin air. Long, strong fingers will be clamped around his wrist, halting his motion, stopping him from taking a step which will remove him from his side.

"Danny?"

He will turn back, look into those eyes and smile, putting his heart out for the man to see, placing his love and soul on a silver platter and offering them up just for the chance of having them noticed, of having them acknowledged. "Yes Steve?"

Yes, Steve! Yes! I do. We are. We did. We can!

Only for his partner to frown even deeper, and then shake his head as if to clear it. "It's ... never mind. It's nothing."

And for a moment he will feel devasted all over again, will feel that icy coldness of being dead again. For a moment he will remember those words, spoken in that place where roads leading nowhere converged into a single opportunity of going somewhere, of escaping that realm where the ashes and dust of previous lives were heaped into piles of eternal nothingness.

"This time, he will not love you."

But then, what do demons really know of love?

Oh, they know about despair, know about the emptiness the absence of love leaves in its wake. They know all about how to manipulate those who have given up, who have been left an empty vessel, and how to fill that emptiness with darkness and foul promises.

But they don't know about the real strength of love, know nothing about the power which stems from the hope of loving, of being loved again.

And admidst all those theories, all those suppositions and assumptions, those untruths and near-truths and wishful thoughts, there's one thing Danny Williams is certain of, one thing he knows without the shadow of a doubt.

He knows they have time.

Time he has bought by selling his soul. And as this time passes, he also knows that those empty places in his soul, those vacant spots created by the memories that pop up every once in a while, only to be ripped from him by the claws of some foul creature which had laid claim to them, are now slowly filling in with something neither he nor the demon he sold his soul to had taken into account.

And that is the unshaken belief that love will one day come his way again. And the hope that, in the end, he will not be the only one who remembers.

So as he turns around, he catches the hand that slowly slips from his wrist and comes to rest - if only for a second - on his arm; pats it before it is completely withdrawn.

"It's OK, Steve. I'm sure it will come to you."

And as he gazes into those blue-green eyes, sees the uncertainty that flickers in them as the man in front of him struggles to retain hold of something which still seems to be so far out of reach, he feels the hope and love surge up into him, filling more of those empty spaces. And smiles.

"Don't worry, it will be alright."

The man in front of him nods and then turns away, and he feels the strength of his words, of his conviction, the power of his hope course through him once again. And he knows he is right. Knows that they will be alright.

They have time.