"When I got here I thought that since I was alive again....I could go back. Just. Not be dead." Was it weird the dispassion with which he said that? Like, have you tried turning it off and on again? "But....I kind of like it here. I like the people here. I like that life isn't so hard."

He wasn't there completely. Not yet. Part of him still wondered if he could go home, what would happen. Could he fix things? Could he make everything alright again? But he'd also started a life here. A real life. One that was his and no one else's.

"It's kind of nice not having to exist for other people, isn't it?" Chris still wasn't sure he could ever escape the fact that he was half-whitelighter. It was a fact that reared its head almost every moment of his life. But maybe there was a difference between ignoring it and accepting it.