David rejoiced as he was reunited with his wife, and see his child alive, joy overflowed from his heart, as tears too flowed down his cheeks. John Doe was laid back onto his bed with a small smile across his sleeping face.

Things were not however perfect. As the days turned to weeks and turned to months the loving couple discovered an ugly truth. After noticing that their daughter was not really as mobile as she should have been, they took her to a pediatrician. After a day of many tests, it was discovered that little Rip Van Winkle had a small tumor in her head.

The tumor was pressing up against the part of her brain that processed sight, rendering her entirely blind by this point. Inoperable the doctors had called it. It was some time before Clara and David came to grip with the situation. So, Clara in her desperation, thought back to the day that her life had been saved. She took Rip to work with her, hoping and praying for one more miracle.

Clara made her usual rounds, welcomed back by everyone who knew her at the hospital. Between taking care of Rip, her worries about the future, and her work itself, when it finally came to her break time Clara was exhausted.

Clara made her way to the place she had passed a dozen times in the few hours she had worked today. She had expected differently, for it to have just been a hallucination, but still from that man she saw an aura of green and gold. He had been moved since she had taken her maternity leave, he now had a room with a view all to himself.

Clara moved a seat over to the side of the man who glowed but only in her eyes. She held her daughter, Rip, in her lap and the stress overcame her as she slipped off to sleep in the chair.

Rip stirred from her own sleep. Darkness greeted the eyes of young Rip, as it had every day. However, for the first time she saw something, a light. She tilts her head; she cannot remember having ever seen before.

The light is green and gold. As she turned her head, she saw on the bed John doe sleeping peacefully, the light seemed to emanate from him, and everywhere his light touched she could see. For the first time she saw, she looked around and saw the room she was in.

Curious Rip crawled from her mother’s lap up onto the sleeping man’s bed, over to and then onto him. Young Rip was on all fours upon his chest, with her tiny hand she reached out and touched his face. His eyes flickered open as he smiled his warming smile. With his smile the light radiating from him grew even brighter. He raised his arm up and place a hand upon Rip’s tiny head, rubbing it much how her father did.

John Doe leaned forward and spoke to young Rip “I see there is something of me within you…” He paused for a moment as he looked over to Clara sleeping peacefully on the chair next to his bed. “Like your mother, but I also see your days are rather short. That will not do.”

The smile returned as he spoke, “Live, Love, and…” He stops for a moment moving his jaw awkwardly as if he had something stuck in his teeth. He spit out something pink, about the size of a jellybean to the floor, “May your days be as plentiful as the stars.”

The light grew in intensity until it was blinding, though only Rip could see it. Rip cried out, as the light was too much for her eyes that had only just seen today. The cries of her daughter caused Clara to open her eyes only to immediately close them again at the intensity of the light.

John Doe felt even more of himself being taken, used up, but it mattered little to him. In his mind eyes he saw the number of day’s that remained on this little girl’s life, and he watched as that number increased.

Her life’s duration was increased by one day, by two, by four, by eight… The number of days added to her life grew exponentially. The days of her life quickly grew far beyond the limits of any single human lifetime. He watched as the days of her life all at once stopped their growth. In his minds eye, when he thought of the time she had left, it was no longer a number, but an infinity sign. She had crossed the threshold and become like him, immortal.

Clara stood up and took Rip into her arms as the light returned to what it had been previously. As Rip blinked and began to settle down, she saw as the world around her that had grown so bright only to return to the darkness she was so accustomed to seemed to slowly brighten. His light seemed to spread farther and farther. In her eyes it spread until she could even see the buildings across the street, and then the birds in the sky.

Clara was worried what had just happened, she held Rip out to check her over only for her cries of delight and the clapping of her tiny hands to startle her. John Doe leaned back once more in his bed and before he closed his eyes again, he turned his head to Clara, who was staring back at him. Then to her child who was looking at her laughing, and clapping.

“She can see.” Clara raised her right hand to cover her mouth as the tears begin to form and flow down her cheeks. He turned his eyes to the little girl in her mother’s arms once again and before the darkness took him, he heard a squeaky, childish voice, "Tank you."

John Doe smiled as he closed his eyes and leaned back, a deep breath, amd as he exhaled the darkness took him once more.