The time has come. Over a month has gone by and she knows that her niece has little to no more time to live. It has been long since she has met Nolan. While Aoife has been ill for a fortnight now, he has not visited her for long and all she learns is that he has left. She hopes he will return to be with his sister during her last moments. After all, Aoife deserves it. She deserves it as much as she does not deserve to die. She is so young and innocent. So cheerful. She spares no further time perched upon her willow. She runs, her white gown billowing in the wind, trailing after her as her feet fly across the cobblestones.

She can hear hushed whispers already. She hears a woman and a man. She hears a boy's frantic speaking. She knows she will be seen or heard if she walks in now, but she abandons all reason. She cares no more for the fear of her people. Of the four of them, three know her anyway. She has come for Aoife and Aoife alone. She pushes the door open, hesitant to know what will meet her eye. She has seen it happen, but she does not know if she can stay and watch it come to pass. She believes herself to have been a coward all along for running away from the dying. Now she knows how hard it is to stand watch, knowing that the inevitable end of a life is too close for comfort. The grief will be too near, but the feeling of helplessness will be all-consuming. Crippling.

Nolan is not there, but he is the least of her concerns now. Aoife lies on a bed, cushioned up against the only pillow they could afford. A cool cloth is placed upon her head for want of a better remedy. No one has seen this happen before. They have seen fevers and bled patients to cure them. They have seen people die of pox. They have heard of such deaths too in their town- deaths from a disease without cure- but even they know that she is too far gone. It has been a fortnight since Liam noticed that something was really wrong with his daughter. Coughs were common enough in town, but even he knew that they were not supposed to produce specks of blood. She had often refused her food, saying she was not hungry. Her appetite had shrunk to minuscule quantities. She had asked him to eat instead, and he had obliged, but now, seeing her reduced to skin and bones, he knows that it has been an illness all along.

Liam had all but seen his daughter off at the door the other morning when he noticed that she looked too tired. Dismissing it as an effect of her recent sleeplessness, he had merely led her to the bed and gently told her to rest for the day. Little had he known that she would never get up from there. It had not taken long for her health to rapidly deteriorate. The amount of blood she coughed up increased at a frightening pace. The frequency of it was dangerous. He did not know how long his little girl had been hiding it, but seeing her like this had been nerve-wracking. A few days later, she had cried to him, clinging on, saying that she was hurting all over. The next thing he knew, she had been breathless.

Bláthnaid cannot watch from afar anymore. She moves into the house and sits quietly beside the dying girl, her palm gently caressing her face. A small smile comes to Aoife's face and she clings onto the banshee's clothes. The touch alone scares Bláthnaid because it would mean that Aoife is much closer to joining the dead, but she smothers her fear, not wanting to worry the girl.

"You came, Cara."

Bláthnaid knows that the people in the room will hear her if she speaks, but she does so anyway. Her only care now is the girl who lies dying.

"I would do anything for you, child. If I could take your place, I would."

"Then it is time, is it not?" Aoife asks her softly.

Bláthnaid feels herself choking from the grief, but she closes her eyes, her answer clear to see.

"It hurts, Cara. I do not want this. It hurts so much. I am so tired. If I die, will it stop?"

Alma cries out. "Why do you speak so, Aoife? Why do you speak as though you die? You speak to someone else but can you not fight for us, Aoife?"

Aodhán is on his knees next to her, his gaze more pleading and sorrowed than ever. He talks to her now. The day he had let her in, he stopped trying to hide his feelings. He is desperate to stop her from dying, even if he knows that there is no hope.

"We just got you back, Aoife! You cannot leave like this!"

She does not answer him. She merely turns once more to Bláthnaid but her words are for all to hear. Each word comes out after a struggle, raspy and hoarse, but she tries nonetheless.

"I... I was h-h-happy. I got my f- family.... Love... thank you."

There is a long quiet as each of them bid their farewells. All the while, Bláthnaid stays, holding Aoife's hand tightly, pressing it close against her body. A few times, Aoife tries to suppress a bout of cough, but it returns with a vengeance. Cough after cough racks her body, and each time, she gasps for breath. Each time, she grows weaker and the light in her eyes fades a little more. She chokes on her own spit and blood, her struggle painfully long and cruel. She inhales in quick succession, each breath shorter than the last until finally, her face contorts in excruciating pain. She shudders violently, and goes still.

Her face is a mask of peace that one only finds in death. Her blood-spattered gown is the only thing that moves, for she is dead. She is in pain no longer. Bláthnaid still grips the lifeless hand as Alma's cry echoes in the little house. Aodhán still denies the truth while Liam numbly pulls a sheet over her unmoving body. The banshee does not wait for her grieving brother to address her as she bends over Aoife and presses a kiss to her cold forehead.

"Farewell, child. Find the peace that I never did."