He's unconscious in my arms as I carry him out of the post office, but he's alive. I can feel his labored breathing, and I can hear his heart beat.

He looks terrible, and beautiful at the same time - hurt, badly hurt, but still living.

For a year.

The clock has started to run already, from the moment I left the oracles. He smells different than before, and I know that they have spoken the truth. The Doyle who was returned to me is fully human now.

I can take him to the hospital; without his demon, it is safe for them to treat him. They won't be able to diagnose the deeper problem, but they can treat the burns and the other injuries.

They won't understand why his health will start to fail, over this year, but I will. I'll have to watch him die again, but slowly this time.

Without his demon, he is weak, incomplete. The part of him that he hated most was still a necessary part, and without it, ultimately he will not survive.

I'm not sure whether I've done the right thing, or the cruelest thing that I've ever done in a lifetime filled with unspeakable cruelties.

But I know that I could not have turned aside this chance, this year.

Why? How can I explain something to Cordelia, and to Doyle himself, that I don't completely understand?

No, I'm lying to myself. I know why, even if I can never tell either one of them.

I do know why.

May all the gods and Powers forgive me, I know.

"They did what?"

I tore my eyes away from Doyle for just a moment to glare at Angel, but then I had to look back at Doyle again. I couldn't stop looking at him.

In a hospital bed, out cold, he looked even thinner and paler than I remembered. At least he still had a face, burned though it was. I'd been afraid, when Angel first told me, that they had brought him back with his whole face burned off.

That would have been beyond gross. Even the oracles weren't that cruel - or were they?

Angel repeated softly, keeping his voice down: "They took his demon half away. The way that...." he paused, then went on. "The way the Beacon killed him was by separating the human from the demon. That literally tore him apart. That was what we saw. His whole body breaking apart." He had to stop again.

Finally he continued. "He couldn't survive without both, and they claim they couldn't put him back together."

"Humpty Dumpty...." I whispered, still staring.

"So, when they brought him back, they claim that they could only bring back the human half or the demon half, not both."

Gazing at Doyle, he went on: "I don't think for a moment that they couldn't have done anything they wanted to do. But that was the only offer they would make."

"But if he couldn't survive..."

Angel nodded grimly.

"They say that he may live a year like this. No more."

"Oh my God." I shook my head. "No, they couldn't do that. They wouldn't do that."

"They did."

I couldn't stop what came out of my mouth then, even if I should have. I snapped at him, "Did it ever occur to you that he might not want to be brought back that way?"

One of Angel's famous super-guilty, haunted looks was my only answer.

"Go call Harry," I said.

"What?"

"You heard me. Go call Harry now, tell her he's alive. Tell her the rest, too."

Still, he didn't leave, like he couldn't believe that I was giving him orders. Too bad.

"Go!" I gave him a little push for emphasis. "Let me have a couple of minutes with him, okay? Before he wakes up."

Finally, Angel seemed to get it. He nodded, and left the room.

I walked slowly over to the bed. Doyle looked like a whole roomful of demons had stomped all over him, which wasn't too far from the truth, I guess. I sat down in a chair next to the bed, and tried to gather up enough nerve to touch him, if I could find some part that wasn't too burned or bandaged to touch.

His hands should have been a lot worse off than they were. I guess the oracles must have moved that damage over to the demon half. I reached out just one finger at first, to touch just one finger of his, one that didn't look too bad. It even felt okay, like a regular finger on a regular hand and....

Whoops, I was losing it. Knew I would, too.

Didn't help one bit to know.

Before I even knew it, I was actually on my knees next to the bed, me! I never do that. Well, not that way. But there I was, and it wasn't just my finger on his finger any more, it was my mouth on his hand and I was going to cry. Damn it. Not fair.

Not fair at all.

And then I gave up trying not to cry, and just let go.

Oh, God, Doyle. Getting you back and then losing you again. This is gonna hurt.

Why did he do it?

But of course, I know why.

The worst part is, I'd probably do the same stupid thing.

The first thing I noticed was, the pain had stopped.

The second thing was to correct that. It hadn't stopped all the way, yet. It had just quieted down from the kind that makes you scream to the kind that only makes you moan a little, where you can still think around it, more or less.

I wasn't complaining about the change.

Even with my eyes closed, I knew I was in a hospital. There's a smell only hospitals have.

But a hospital meant being alive, and that didn't make sense.

I mean, I'm dead, right?

Next thing I noticed was how weird I felt. It was more than hurting, although the hurting was there, sure enough. It was more than weak, though there was plenty of that, too.

But hurting and weak and being in the hospital all kind of naturally went together, and since being alive was part of that package, that wasn't one to complain about either.

No, this was something different. It had to do with the way I smelled that hospital smell, and the faint smell of Cordelia's perfume - smelling them the way I would have when I was a teenager, before the demon kicked in and changed everything.

My senses felt dulled, somehow, like I was getting the world through a thick wrapping of gauze.

Someone was holding my hand, or.... no, not holding it. Somebody was.... crying on my hand?

And then the part about Cordelia's perfume finally clicked with me.

My eyes felt like they had been gummed shut forever. I half-opened one eye, and then had to wait a minute while the clouds swimming around in front of me started to clear up.

I didn't have to see her face to recognize Cordelia... or to know that something was still very wrong, even though, somehow, I was alive.