She was so close. She grunted as she reached up for a crack in the rock, the salty wind biting in her face. She gritted her teeth, sweat streaming down her forehead as she pulled up her body weight. Her arms were trembling. Just a little further…

She found a new purchase for her feet and grinned to herself. She dared lean back and looked down below her. She knew the ropes would catch her if she fell.

At the bottom of the cliff face, Dorian stood below and watched her. Even from up here she could see the deep lines in his forehead. He cringed as he watched her lean back. She rolled her eyes. She'd been climbing since she was three, she did know what she was doing. Dorian had always been the one to insist on the ropes. She knew she didn't need them and would have gone without them hadn't he made such a fuss. She would have just worn her helmet as usual. Her fate was in God's hand.

She grunted again and placed her left foot higher up the ragged cliff face. She went through the familiar movements three times again before pushing herself up over the edge with a final burst of effort. The long flat grass field and the cliffs beyond it came into view.

She'd done it! A wild grin spread over her face.

She unclipped her harness and collapsed onto the soft grass with a contented sigh, the earth beneath her again. Her breathing ragged and heaving she lay there for a moment, taking it all in.

She pushed herself to her feet and threw her arms up in victory. She whooped with joy and let her head drop back, her chest heaving. Her muscled ached pleasantly. Her cries echoed over the bay before losing themselves over the seemingly endless sea. She breathed in the wonderful sea air and relished the fresh wind whipping against her sweaty face. She removed her helmet and tossed it onto the grass. She plopped down beside it and stared out at the sea, enjoying the fabulous view. She ignored Dorian as he appeared beside her in his usual manner. He didn't sit.

She grinned, proud of herself. The coast had several cliffs and she'd climbed the highest one. She felt like she was on top of the world.

She finally looked up to Dorian. He suddenly turned his head and looked pointedly in a different direction, his arms crossed. She sighed. He was still in a grump from her ignoring his warning and climbing the cliff on her own. She had always complained about his protectiveness of her but truthfully she liked it. No one else would care for her as he did.

She smiled and he peeked at her from out of the corner of his eyes. He abruptly looked away again, staring unseeingly out to sea.

"Oh, come on Dorian!" she said, giving him a little nudge in his leg with her shoulder. "I'm unharmed, see!"

He still didn't look at her but his shoulder lost their tension.

"I can see that, but you easily could have been," he whined, "and I can't exactly catch you, can I?"

She shrugged and ignored the comment, averting her eyes. He was too hard on himself. She would never expect or depend on him to catch her. And she would never blame him for his clipped wings. She looked up at him and watched their faint outline shimmer in the sun, useable unless you really looked. So beautiful, but so broken.

"I wouldn't have fallen," she said truthfully, "and I wouldn't have climbed it if I thought I might. Even with the ropes."

He sighed. He knew it all too well. He'd been watching her climb her whole life, always with that same frown. He uncrossed his arms and lowered himself to sit down beside her. He wore his usual white waistcoat and black trench coat. She no longer felt the wind whip at her back. She didn't have to look behind her to know his wings were draped around her. She couldn't feel their weight but a protected feeling flooded through her.

They sat in silence for a long time, close but not touching and staring out to the sea together.

"Why did you want to come here?" he asked softly, curious.

She suspected he'd been wondering that for some time. Any other person would have been satisfied with a shrug and a simple explanation that it was the highest cliff in the area. But not Dorian. He knew she'd climbed higher and many others like this one. He'd watched her from below every time, appearing beside her at the top. He knew she did everything for a reason.

She might have said she'd simply felt like it or wanted to admire the view. He wouldn't have believed her, but he wouldn't have pushed for the truth either. But not today. There would be no lies today.

"Do you know why I started climbing Dorian?" she asked him, not answering the question just yet.

He contemplated the question silently to himself for a moment. His dark hair swirled in the wind as he turned to her after a long pause.

"Tell me," he said, amused and intrigued. She often wondered how after all this time he still looked at her like that. After thousands of years of existence, he was still curious and amused by a simple little girl. With all her silly, complicated emotions.

"Well, at first I supposed it was the same as with everyone else," she begun, "the desire to reach to the sky and touch the stars. To climb and jump and hopefully grow the wings to fly on the way down. The rush of danger. To get away from our silly little lives and see the world. But then of course, everyone learns they can't. That it's all an impossible dream so they stop and give up. But I met you. And everything was different.

"You told me of heaven and you're home. You told me who you were and I wanted to become the best climber there ever was. I wanted to climb the highest maintains and then further because…" she hesitated, not sure he would understand. She wasn't sure she had the words to speak how she felt, "Because I wanted to climb back to heaven with you."

She breathed out, not looking at him. She felt him take a shuddering breath beside her and prayed it wasn't for the worse. She'd never spoken this way before, completely bear and unguarded, even around him.

"I…I thought maybe if I could find a way there…you would be able to go home and be happy again," she finally looked at him and smiled with foreign sadness, "and that, maybe, I could come too."

He stared at her with teary eyes and she wished he wouldn't. She wished he wasn't so sad. She wished he didn't want to back where they'd treated him so badly and kicked him out for not being good enough. He was better than any of them. She wished he saw that too. He was more than enough for her.

He smiled passed the tears, "You wanted to come back to heaven with me?" he asked in disbelief and she nodded shortly. He smiled wider and he moved closer to her. She laid her head on his shoulder as his arm came around her shoulder, pressing her nearer.

"Oh, my darling girl," he said, "my home is right here, at your side. Not in heaven," he whispered, his teeth clenching around the word, forcing it out with effort.

Her own tears stung her eyes. Home. She was his home. She didn't quite believe it. A stupid little girl who threw temper tantrums, cried after her parents and yelled at him that she hated him, who had grown into a stubborn and overbearing teenager was his home. He pulled her even closer.

How many years had he not been her home? Her only home.

"And now? Do you still climb to reach the sky?" he asked and she shrugged, breathing in deeply.

"Honestly, I'm not sure what else I would do with myself. I've reached for heaven for so long...I..I'm not sure what else to do. Like, I know it's impossible but still. I can't help it."

"And is it only…heaven you're trying to reach?" he asked, wincing around the word. She pondered for a moment.

"I suppose not. Ma…maybe my parents?" she confessed.

She loved God and always would but she would never forgive God for what He or She had done to her parents and to Dorian.

"I…I found a picture of my mother the other day," she said, finally answering his question, "she was my age, maybe older. She sat here having a picnic with her sister and her parents," she blurted out, "I didn't even know she had a sister."

"I'm sorry," he said and she nodded.

"I know."

It was long forgiven but Dorian still always said it. Some part of her was almost glad of everything that had happened. For it had given her Dorian. But was he, was all they'd gone through together, worth the death of her parents? Two people she didn't know but would have loved her unconditionally. Two people everyone reminded her she needed and missed most in life. She often asked herself that and never came out with an answer.

"Fourteen years," she said with a sigh.

Fourteen years ago today. She'd only been two. Two years old when the creature beside her had come into her life and cost her everything. They both lost everything and somehow found each other in that mess.

"I love you, human," Dorian said after a long silence. And she couldn't help but smile. It had always been a little joke between them and a gentle reminder. When she'd been younger and misbehaving, he would always mutter the word with distain under his breath. Getting some very strange looks in return from bystanders.

But ever since it had been a term of endearment.

"Love you too, demon," she said with a smile. He squeezed her shoulder and they turned to the view together.

How far they had come. Far from the little girl she'd been, crying over her parents' dead bodies at her feet. And he had never again been the fallen angel with burning eyes and full of hate. Everything between them had started the moment he'd looked upon her small form and gone against his every instinct to kill. He'd taken her hand instead and she hadn't screamed. She'd only stared, mesmerised at his burning wings, breaking and turning to ash. He'd led her out of the house and hadn't let her go since.

She loved her demon and her demon loved her.