He knew her before he knew her name.

The ebony hair on the white pillow.   The pale and nearly translucent skin.  A barely breathing corpse.

It was just like his dream.
He knew this was why he had studied and trained for years to become a doctor.   Just to fulfill this dream.

It was her.   The she from his eight-year-old dream.  The she he knew he was destined to meet.

It didn’t matter that he had married and had two children.    A son and daughter, ages three and six, who loved pancakes and playing in the sandbox where just life props.   His loving and loyal wife was simply a stand-in for the angel before him.

His angel.

And he was going to save her.

The car crash was brutal.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the red Jute clip the angel’s Honda, sending it through the four-way where a Ford waited for the inevitable moment of her christening.

Slowly, ever so sensuously slow, the molded plastic of the door pierced her midsection, followed by wires, metal, and green paint.  Body and head slammed sideways but trapped by the seat belt, providing her the full contact of the incident that lead her here.

To him.

Being O positive, replacing her lost blood, and returning color to the skin would not be an issue.  Rather, he was looking forward to the transformation.   But, her stomach area still had a significant piece of the Ford embedded in it.

Fearing that she would bleed out, the EMTs left that as a present just for him.   He appreciated their thoughtfulness and wondered.   How could they have known that he and he alone should be responsible for saving her life?

She was his angel and he was her god.
She was trapped in a pain-killed induced dream and he was the answer — just as he foresaw thirty-eight years ago.

Their lives were united by destiny… by a mystical artery… by a drunken car crash.

And so, the doctor worked.   He was slow, meticulous, and perfect.

Taking care not to cut too deep, pull too hard, or even to disturb a hair more than he had too, the doctor worked laboriously for ten hours.   Her heartbeat on the monitor became his song.  Beneath the eyelids, she provided him encouragement and comfort.

Sight unseen, he was certain that she saw him.   He was holding her…. loving her… in her unconsciousness.

It would only be a matter of time before fate reconvened and his – their – true life would begin.

But, the wounds were too deep.
Too much blood had been spilled.  He lost his rhythm.  The comfort went cold.  The color would never return.

Dejected, his white scrubs doused in her blood, he left the operating room.
Returned home.   Nodding absently to his wife and children, he went upstairs.

Although unmoving, she was still with him.   Smiling.  Standing no more than a foot away but a universe apart.

He removed Ford shard from his pocket — the last piece of metal he tugged out of her body before she died.   It was sharp and long.   Stained black, it smelled of her

And he went to join his angel.