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Author's note: it's time for one of the biggest problems with my stories: fractured continuity. see, i get an idea, and i can usually run with it for a while, but inevitably i get to thinking down the line, and get an idea for something cool that happens, but it happens some time after wherever the solid continuity currently has gotten to. in the worst cases, i get chunks of storylines that just go "this happens, then something or other, then this happens, then i'm not quite sure, then this happens, etc. etc." and i think getting stuff down and confronting myself with the gaps in my ideas will force me to fill them in. and if not, hopefully some of you people will care for the stories enough to berrate me to fill in the blanks. this chapter in particular is supposed to have one between it and the last one. i know what i want in that chapter, but not specifics enough yet to write it. i also thought up this idea, then forgot it, then remembered i again, and thought it better to get it down out of context than to lose it forever, because i liked it the first time (when i had more detail, curse you faulty memory!). anyway, hope you enjoy. also, i'll probably edit this either as details occur to me, or after i fill in the blank i've left myself.

And so that's how it went. I lived with a young man I hardly saw, talked to dead people and generally found the afterlife to be enjoyable, but uneventful. With no job to go to, and not much reason to find one, I occupied my time seeing what the city had to offer, meeting interesting dead people, and generally bumming around. Much as I hated to admit it, I missed my old dull as dirt job. It had been a pain in the a**, and I'd hated every second I had to give to it, but at least it gave my life structure.

This is what I was thinking about when I returned to my apartment in what felt like the middle of the day (with no sun or moon or other method to define time, time of day seemed to be relative in the afterlife, just like everything else) to find my roommate standing in the kitchen eating a sandwich. I looked at him quizzically, he raised an open hand in greeting as he chewed quietly. "Aren't you supposed to be working?" I asked.

He stared at me as his jaw worked on the duty it had been attending before conversation had seemed neccessary. It was an awkward silence, because I had no reason to press him for an answer, and his stare was making me feel awkward. When he finally swallowed his mouthful, his answer was somehow less than satisfying, "I got hungry."

My mouth opened, but nothing came out as I tried to fathom the many ways that wasn't good enough, finally I came up with something, "So what? Death can just declare a lunch break, and people stop dying?" it sounded like a good point.

"Yeah, pretty much," he sounded bored as he took another bite. It looked like balogna.

I stammered as I tried finding a flaw in his brilliant logic. "But people die every second! Just the probability that not a single one of them would have anything lethal happening to them is--"

"Hey," he spoke through the mush of bread nad meat in his mouth, "I'm not greeting any souls, and I'm not bringing any down here. Therefore, they aren't dying. It's a very simple system," he waved what was left of his sandwich at me purposefully.

It was my turn to stare at him, but instead of the gross disinterest he had shown me, I was sure my expression was the b*****d child of confusion and exasperation. "But the numbers. It's just not possible!" I said weakly.

He swallowed, "Alright buddy, you think you know how to do my job? I got an appointment. Get your coat," he headed for the door and waved for me to follow as he popped what was left of his lunch into his mouth.

"But I don't have..." I didn't bother to finish as I walked after him. He didn't even have a coat rack.

As we stepped out of the apartment, I knew we were not on the same street I had gotten to the building from. For one, there was a sun above me. And it felt like it was around noon, between the temperature and the glare on every single car parked along the street. For two, as I looked around, I noticed the building we'd just walked out of was not the one that contained our apartment. "Where are we?" I inquired.

"A city," he'd finished his sandwich, "Near my appointment," he scanned the opposite side of the street. Apparently we were really close. It only took a moment for his eyes to stop on a woman pushing a stroller down the sidewalk. Her head was bowed as she did something to a cell phone in her right hand.

"Her?"

"Not sure. She's going to get mugged though," he nodded his head passed her, at a man who was walking just a little two fast for it to be normal, who was holding one side of his jacket with one hand, and had the other tucked underneath. "What do you think? Knife or a gun?" he looked at me.

"Huh? Uh...wait, what?" I looked down at him, but he hadn't looked away from the apporoaching scene.

"Tsk," he said expressively as I stared at him, "A gun. I always like seeing how people wave around those pissy little things and threaten people. You ever see crocodile dundee?"

"Huh? Uh, no," I replied as I looked back at the two across the street. The man had indeed pulled out a handgun and was holding it at arm's length, pointing shakily at the woman. He was saying something, but wasn't speaking loud enough for me to hear.

"Gimmie yo' munnie. C'mon, gimmie yo munnie," Roger filled in for him. His mock tough guy voice seemed appropriate as the man's hand shook more violently the longer the robbery took. "I got a gun, and that makes me scary. I'm not scared to shoot you at all. Just look how steady my aim is," the reaper's talent for witty satire was as painful as his talent for jokes.

The woman was obviously scared, but didn't seem to be digging into her purse for the man. Finally he seemed to have had enough, as he shouted loud enough for me to hear, "Just give me the god damn purse!" He reached for the item, but the woman stepped back and screamed, putting her stroller part way between her and the mugger. Only a moment after the cry, Roger suddenly turned toward me. I looked down to see he was actually staring past me, I followed his gaze.

Down the street from the two of us, a man was running toward the pair. The rest of the street seemed to be deserted, and I was almost surprized the mugger didn't hear the footfalls coming from behind him as the young man sprinted across the street and up behind the mugger. Thinking back on it, his own heartbeat probably drowned out most of the ambiant noise. "Uh oh," Roger sounded almost excited, "someone wants to be a hero." It was true, as the man came up to the pair, he barely slowed as he reached for the hand that was holding the gun. He grabbed the mugger by the wrist and pushed his hand down before the older man had even realised what was going on. But the mugger recovered quickly, jerking his arm across his chest and then up. The "hero" staggered forward, so that he was between the other two, but to one side of the sidewalk from them both. He brought his other hand up to grab the gunman's wrist, to allow him a more natural grip as he tried pointing the gun away from anyone it could hurt. The mugger punched him once in the stomach, and the man doubled forward. He swung to do it again, but his fist was caught half way through the swing.

The two struggled shortly, the woman apparently paralyzed with fear and shock. Roger and I stared on, watching the fight like some cheap show. Suddenly I realized he was muttering something, "No, no, shoot the hero. Shoot the mother. No, no, no, point the gun down," he actually sounded worried. As he alternated between who he wanted to die I wondered what he could be worried about, then it happened. The gunshot was louder than I thought it would be, but maybe I just hadn't heard one in longer than I thought. All three of the people were still for a second, then the younger man brought his head forward and there was a barely audible crack as their skulls met. He let go of the mugger's fist, pried the gun free and kicked the man's knee in the side. He went down and the hero pointed his own weapon at him. He probably told him not to move too, but I couldn't hear. In fact, I wasn't even paying attention as roger ran across the streat. He'd stopped muttering and I could hear him repeating over and over as he ran, "No, no, no, no, no..."

He stopped as he came to the stroller and looked down at its contents. I remember very clearly my thought at the time, "Oh god." The woman recovered quickly after the man had been relieved of his gun. I slowly began following Roger, scared of what I would find once I got to him. I heard the woman finish thanking her savior, who then inquired about her baby. She said the same thing I'd been thinking only moments before as she turned quickly to the stroller, standing opposite of Roger. She screamed. She reached in to the stroller and pulled out what looked like a small ball of blankets. Blood stained a growing circle on the side i could see of the small bundle.

I finally came up behind Roger and looked down in the stroller. A small baby looked up at us both quietly, apparently unphased by both the gunshot and the scream. "That that's," I couldn't even concieve of it, even as I stared down at it.

"The soul of a child," it was the first time Roger had sounded sad since I'd known him. It was the first time I'd seen him without at least a hint of a grin on his face. Death was his job, his purpose, but for some reason or another, this upset him. After a moment of silence from him, and the same moment of hysteria from the woman opposite us, he reached down and picked up the young soul. "Come on," he was quiet. He sounded resigned as he made the simple request and turned down the street.

He walked slowly and steadily down the street, cradling the quiet child, and I followed. I didn't know where we were going, and I couldn't bring myself to ask. The air about him had changed, this was serious now. It didn't take long for us to come to an apartment building, which he entered. He stood in the lobby for a moment, looking around, then slowly he took to the stairs. As we ascended the building, he continually looked around like some easily distracted cat. I almost asked what the hell he was doing, but every time, i caught a glimpse of the small bundle in his arm and couldn't form the words.

Finally we came to whatever floor he'd been looking for, and went down the hall. He turned on his heel in front of one door that was emenating the muffled sounds of its occupants, and entered. I followed, though I was just a bit hesitant about it. Inside the sounds were significantly less muffled, and were most definately those of a woman moaning very loudly. I was worried about why as I followed Roger through another closed door, but my concerns were quickly dimissed. The woman in question was straddling a man on the bed that almost singularly furnished the room, and both were significantly preoccupied.

"Oh god, what the hell, man?!" I spoke up for the first time since the shooting in the street as I recoiled from what should have been two strangers' private moment.

"Calm down," he said, still speaking softly as he approached the pair.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I whispered tersly, though they couldn't hear me anyway. By way of an explanation, he pushed the baby in his arms into the woman's stomach, until it had dissapeared entirely into her abdomen. He stepped back as the soul fully dissapeared, and the woman bent forward to kiss the man beneith her.

He turned and walked up next to me, "What did you just..." I looked down at him quizzically.

"Recycled," he gave me a fragment of a smirk.

"So...you're where babies come from?"

"Just dead ones," he answered. I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand to silence me. Then he waved it over his shoulder as he headed for the door. "There's a cycle to life," he sounded almost scolarly as we made our way through the walls back the way we'd come, "You're born, you live, you die. Happens to everyone. That's why death is the great equalizer, the ultimate fairness, etcetera and whatnot. Happens to everyone." He looked at me and I nodded, so far so good. "Life on the other hand isn't fair, as every parent in the world is aware of. Some people live well, some live poorly, some live happily, some hate their whole existance." Another look, another nod. "But, there are some who don't get to live at all," his tone dropped slightly. No longer just educational, this sounded almost personal to him, "The average human can live between 50 and 100 years, barring terrible diseases, outside influences, or general mortal hazards. Given that, how much can you actually live in only six months? Or a year? Or two?"

He looked at me, and I didn't have an answer. "These aren't just people. They're not even children. These are souls that barely even have a concept of the world around them. They don't know what life is. How can they be expected to adjust to death?" I shrugged at him. I'd gotten hit by a bus. That was hard not to understand. I couldn't even think about what it meant to die so young. "If they don't understand what it means when I tell them they're dead, then they aren't dead," he said it with authority, as though he were trying to impress upon me that no matter what, this was a fact. "That's the first rule of my job." He looked at me, and I looked at him. There was something in his eyes, and in the half smile on his face that made me know he was most definately serious, but he was the same young death I'd thought he was.