When I awoke, I was not sure how long I'd been unconscious. I'm pretty sure it was only a few moments. I could hear people talking, and the horse was screaming. My left arm was just one big throbbing mass of pain. It'd likely been broken, but I didn't see any bones sticking out. I could see Lunette, she's face down on the cold, damp, somewhat muddy street a couple of yards away. I began to crawl over to her, then stopped and screamed. At least I think I screamed, it's entirely possible I may have just made my face into a rictus and squealed like a stuck pig.

My left arm was thoroughly broken and swelling up like a sausage just above my elbow. Significant bleeding inside the skin there, but the pressure would likely keep me from bleeding out in the near term. My vision was blurred with tears and mud as I flopped down on my belly and reached out with my right arm and pushed with my feet, laboriously dragging and propelling myself toward Lunette. As my tears cleared the mud and mess from my eyes, I could see that she's still breathing, but her cloak is torn off, and there's some blood seeping through the dress on her back. More worrying for me, is the seepage coming from her mouth and nose as she was flung to the ground and landed face first. It's not looking good. I was too slow with my shove. I managed to get my working arm in position so that my right hand could reach her arm. There was no blood spurting out that I could see, nor was it spreading quickly across the dress, so my vast experience from medical dramas told me that there are probably no arteries severed. But if that barrel shattered my arm, then even the glancing impact of that mass likely did significant internal damage to cause the bloody lips and nose. Again, based on too many days stuck in a hospital and watching House, ER, even those CSI shows, plus a general understanding of physics. My thoughts were wandering again, and I needed to focus, even if my head was stuffed with wool and cotton.

I couldn't lose her.

Not that I "had" her, but I couldn't lose her anyway.

If I can make my body heal me from its reserves, it should be possible to heal someone else. Just because it'd never worked for me so far doesn't mean it couldn't be done. I've never had this level of motivation. I should be able to transfer my energy to her. If I could send off sparks and flames, then what was stopping a heal burst or healing flow? She deserved a chance at life, whole and hale. I’ve lived one full life, and even if I only recently learned how to get out of my funk and appreciate this life, it’d be worth the risk. Worst case, I knew that I have yet another chance at life. I have no idea if this is the only life that she'll have. It’s also the only thing I could think of being able to live with.

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Watching Lunette die wasn’t on my list of things I was strong enough to carry. I just couldn't do it. I didn't have the gumption to face that now, when I'm just barely finishing up finally dealing with the last batch of losses, since I spent so long hiding from them.

I don’t know how my wife did it with me in my last life, maybe someday I’ll get to ask her. Perhaps I won't. Right now, all I know for sure is that death, for me, is not the end, but a transition. I did believe there is something more to everyone than just our bodies. We have bodies, but we are souls. I think it's a transition for everyone, but somehow and for some reason I got another few shots at it with my memory intact. The gripping hand is this: I'd rather risk dying or even die than risk knowing I didn't try and have her gone. I could take the loss of no longer seeing her, as long as she has a chance to live, and I did everything I could.

All this flashed through my head surprisingly quickly as I touched her arm, our bodies lying on the mud splashed pavement. Fighting against the pain and the scattered thoughts, I focused on one image. I visualized her as she was a moment ago, laughing, smiling, vibrant, whole. I could feel her pulse, faint and slow under my hand, but was it becoming stronger? I couldn't tell. I could feel my own pulse, throbbing in my broken arm. I drove past those feelings and I poured everything I could wrap my will around into that image of her--all the power, the love, the fear, the hope. Everything. I felt tendrils like ice in my veins. My left hand grew numb, andmy arm stopped throbbing. I kept pushing. My sight had begun to fade, but I heard a sudden gasp of breath from Lunette where there'd been near silence. My head spun and my ears rang. A shrill, high pitched shrieking sound echoing in my head like I was in a small tiled bathroom with a small child screaming. I hear voices, but they are all jumbled up. My vision faded out and everything went dark. And then cold… so … very … cold.

{Evaluation is commencing...}