A/N: I considered adding an epilogue to this several times, and then a prompt fromrjdaae convinced me to. This was originally posted to Tumblr as a ficlet, but I cleaned it up and added a paragraph or two. So go forth and enjoy the angst!

Four years. Four years, tonight. He has been dead longer than she was ever with him, and that thought cuts her to the core. They had over three years together, but they never made it to four. They never could have made it to four. It was fated against them from the very start, from the moment that line of numbers unfurled on her wrist.

Three years, three months, three days. And the hours, and the minutes. And the seconds. Each one of those seconds. And what she would not give, now, just to have those seconds back, to hold him in her arms again and press her lips to his, and promise him the world. Promise him that she would never let him go. Her heart aches just to hold him, just to have him, once more.

They told her it would get easier in time. The priest, the doctor. Mohammed, even, with that aching sadness in his eyes. And yes, it might be easier to breathe and she no longer feels like she'll shatter apart at the thought that he is gone, but it is not easier. She does not miss him any less, long for him any less. Sometimes she still feels him heavy in her arms, his breaths soft against her throat, his fingertips brushing her cheek.

Little Sonja does not have her Papa's eyes, and Christine thinks perhaps that is best. The little girl's life is marked by him enough, by the absence of him, without having her resemble him.

Erik did not know that she lived beneath Christine's heart, but Christine thinks he would be pleased that she has a normal face.

And though a normal face can protect her from the stares of the world, from the stares her father bore and suffered, it cannot protect her from the day those numbers unfurl on her wrist, too.

She does not understand, is still far, far too young to understand what happened to the Papa she never met, but who they visit in the graveyard "with all the pretty flowers" and Sonja sits and traces his name with her tiny fingers though she cannot yet read it. Christine cannot bear to think of the day that she will have to tell her about what happened to him, about how he died to spare her, and to spare Sonja without ever knowing about her.

But Christine's dread for that day is nothing compared to her dread for the day that Sonja's timer comes. Someday Sonja will lock eyes with someone, and one of them will be marked for death from then on. And if Christine could keep her small, could keep her this tiny, precious thing forever, she would. Her little girl does not deserve that pain, should never have to know that pain, and as she burrows her sleeping face deeper into Christine and sighs content in her peaceful dreams, Christine knows that day will come, and it will always be too soon. To live knowing the exact moment when everything will end is no way to live at all.

(And her stomach churns to think that it could be Sonja, her dear, precious little Sonja, that the timer condemns, the very thought too horrible for words. And Christine hopes it is not, prays it is not, but the thought of Sonja having to live through it, having to bear all of that aching agony as she watches the love of her life die, makes her heart twist and it is all too unfair, all too awful.)

Did Christine's father think the same? Looking on her as a little girl? Christine wonders that more and more each day. Perhaps he felt the same. Perhaps he ached to keep her small and safe, but she went and grew up and he died, and never had to see the day that she found Erik.

He would have liked Erik, even with all that meeting him meant.

Sonja whimpers in her sleep, as if she knows that Christine's thoughts are wandering down those old, hollow trails again, and Christine tightens her arms around her daughter, and kisses her hair. And part of her wishes that she could tell Erik about their little girl who is growing up too fast, and part of her thinks that it might be best like this.

If he had known, it would have made everything so much harder. And it was hard enough already.

A/N: I still have several fics ideas (some involving Pharoga) and a similar countdown timer scenario, but if I ever flesh them out and write them, who knows.

As ever, please do let me know what you think! And thank you for the lovely response this fic has gotten. I never expected it to become as popular as it has!