Previously on Saving Grace: She wanted to live.

“I hear you.”

It was Connor’s voice, but he couldn’t possibly be here…and yet, she could feel his breath against her neck as his arms wrapped around her, pulling her up, out of the darkness. She heard a whoosh as the stirring of great wings shifted the air around her. The creature screeched below them but she could feel herself being carried higher.

“Grace, open your eyes,” he whispered, his hand brushing back her hair from her face as she looked up into familiar, blue eyes.

“You left…” She murmured, eyes narrowed, watching the powerful, black wings carried them through the sky.  Maybe she had died.

“I came back for you.”

He had. Connor had saved her from the abyss, from the death that the creature had told her was her fate, her ultimate end. She could not help the tears that trailed down her cheeks as she realized that this was it, it was over. It was all over.

She was alive.

His thumb wiped away her tears. She could feel his lips press against her forehead as she closed her eyes again, memorizing this moment, the start of her freedom. “I’m taking you home, Grace.” Home. She almost couldn’t remember what that was. All she knew was the campus, Piper…Alex.

“Will you be there?” She risked looking into his eyes, but he wouldn’t look at her. He had that sad look in his eyes, the way he would look at her before, when they first met—but it was different now. He looked pained. “What…are you?”

“I’m you, Grace,” he paused, looking back at her, blue eyes capturing her in that moment as they were descending towards a building that was slightly familiar. Something was beginning to click within her.

She had been here before.

“I’ve always been you.” They were in the hospital as his wings folded, allowing them to drop the last few inches to the tile floor as he lead her by the hand down the winding halls. They went unseen by those around them.

There was no one to noticed Connor and his black-feathered wings pulling her at break neck speed towards an unknown destination as if her life depended on it.

As if their life depended on it.

“Then, you are like Piper, a part of my personality—will you merge with me too?” She needed to know while she could, before he left her, before it was too late.

“A part of you yes, but more than that,” Connor pulled her into a room with a lone hospital bed where a body lied prone…Her body. Grace took a deep breath, unable to comprehend what was before her. She thought when he said they were going home that they would…well, go home.

But there she was, her body, pale and weak looking against the white sheets of the hospital bed, hooked up to machines that were keeping her alive.

“We don’t have much time, Grace. They are going to pull the plug on you.” She had never seen Connor actually look afraid before. His hand was shaking in hers as he stared at her body, looking back at her. “You need to save us.””

“What will happen to you, when I…when I go home?”

“I’ll be here,” he murmured, his hand over her heart. “I’ll always be here.”

Another deep breath, steadying herself as she followed his gaze toward the hospital bed, toward the girl she would become once more. “I’m going to be alone again,” she whispered, hugging herself. The cloud on her memories was beginning to lift.

“You’re never alone, Grace,” he led her toward the bed, holding both her hands in his. “You will always have us. All you have to do is remember me.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I’ll see you at the end.”

The end. She nodded, slipping her hand out from his, finally realizing just what she had to do. “I’ll miss you. All of you.”

“I know.”

She crawled unto the bed, looking back at Connor one last time as she began to hear voices in the distance, approaching the room. The last thing she heard as she sank into her body was Connor’s voice calling after her.

“Don’t forget, Grace Lynn Crowe. Never forget.”

She woke with a gasp, jerking suddenly as she sat up. Grimacing as she jostled cords, her eyes flickered to locate the source of the beeping, finding the heart-rate monitor beside the bed, and on the other side a boy sat in a chair, staring at her with wide, blue eyes. He made to stand, walking over slowly as he raised a hand before lowering it, seeming to decide what to say, or if to say anything at all. He had strawberry-blonde bangs that fell in a fringe over his eyes.  The rain pattered against the window, casting playful shadows over his cheeks.

“Hey,” a warm, tenor voice that was too much like him. It was too soon. “You’re awake.”

“You’re not Connor,” she said, surprising herself by the sound of her own voice. It was so…raspy.

“No, I’m Noah, your neighbor,” the boy said, staring at her the way Connor used to, searching her for something. “Here, have some water.”

She nodded, murmuring a soft thank-you, taking a small sip from the glass he handed her.

“Who’s Connor?”

“Someone I used to know.”

Her mother broke into tears when she found out that her daughter was alive again and her father smiled, eyes glistening from unshed tears as both of her parents embraced her and Noah stood off to the side, watching the family re-union before her father invited him to talk, to catch up with them as they sat together around the hospital bed.

She had been comatose for an entire year, there was a lot for her to catch up on.

In the years to follow, Grace took up painting again and she and Noah spent more time together, becoming fast friends—and later on, lovers. The two married later on, a spring wedding in a small chapel, surrounded by friends and family; they went on to have children and grandchildren of their own and Grace lived a long, full life.

In the end, she was slipped away in her sleep, peacefully and with open arms, no longer running from death, but walking towards the bridge to the white gates where a familiar young man waited for her, right where he told her he would be.

At the end.