Nil looked more lost than a fly on Jupiter. He was on the brink of tears, like a baby yanked from his mother's grasp.

Then he steeled himself. He pounded his head as if he was trying to jog his brain to work.

He mumbled under his breath the same phrase over and over. "Don't forget."

Luke approached gently and put a hand on his shoulder. "Nil buddy, are you okay?"

Nil stopped himself and turned to Luke. His eyes, once milky white was now dropped in a veil of darkness. They say no one truly has black eyes, only dark brown.

Well then, they haven't looked into the void that was Nil's pupils. It was as if a blackhole sucked up all the light from his eyes—a fall from grace.

"Where are my parents?"

Luke shrugged his shoulders. He was delivered to SGA by Kevin, but little more was said to them about where he came from. "Welcome to the club," Luke said. "We all don't know who our parents are."

Nil took a step away from Luke and distanced himself from the others. "And who are you?"

Luke noticed that Nil seemed a bit too untrusting for a five-year-old. And for a kid who never spoke until today, he spoke pretty eloquently. Then again, he did just eat from the Tree of Knowledge so maybe he gained some extra pre-loaded brain cells in the process.

"We were sent to escort you here to this garden to feed you a special fruit that allowed you to open your eyes and see the world around you."

"But I was fine doing..." Nil stumbled as if the memory of what he did before coming to his senses was flowing out of him. "No, don't forget."

Luke crouched next to him. He didn't remember a single thing about what he saw before he ate the fruit. Now he was witnessing Nil lose his memories of God.

"Say what you saw," Luke said a bit desperately. "Let us remember it for you."

"I can't," Nil banged his aid with his fist and started tearing up. Then he tried rubbing his eyes and squinting. "What's happening?" Nil was trying to open his eyes wide. "I can't..." He started hyperventilating and prying open his eyelids. "I can't see!"

Luke looked to Sirius who rushed to Nil's side. He held his hand out and they started to glow as an aura surrounded him in a white light. Luke knew Sirius was trying to heal him, maybe restore his vision.

Meanwhile Luke was scared. Had he done something wrong? Was Nil supposed to eat the whole fruit instead of a single bite? Did he feed him the wrong fruit? Was all of this part of the process?

"I can't see!"

Each time Nil said that it was a dagger being driven into Luke's chest. He had already squandered his chance to stop Jurgen; he had lost the old Alpha who had been drawn out from his state of innocence, and now Nil was conscious but going blind. Luke took a big L for this mission. As the oldest one due to the absence of Victor, Luke was the responsible adult in charge.

"Sirius..." Luke asked hoping that he would find a way to fix it. He hated that he was powerless to heal this kid he risked his life to bring here.

But as much as Sirius wanted to show he could, the scar on his own face was a reminder that even he couldn't heal everything.

Including this.

Sirius's aura faded and he backed away slowly as if his hands were covered in blood. "I can't...I can't fix him. It's like he was programmed to be blind."

"That makes no damn sense," Luke muttered in frustration. He wasn't angry at Sirius, but at the situation they were in. They were bound to be trapped inside the Garden of Eden where they will all probably die before the cove opened up again.

Luke walked towards the shore and started kicking up sand. He watched as the tops of the cliffs drew ever closer to kissing, sealing their fate. It was like watching a time bomb counting down his demise and he had no way to diffuse it.

As if things weren't bad enough, Luke spotted things swimming inside the cove before the closing gates. The new lake that was about to form would be the home of many extinct species that were coming back from a day trip out into deeper waters, and some of them looked about as big as private yachts. So swimming was not an option.

Trailing behind them were birds, some the size of small planes, no doubt enjoying the ability to fly further and faster on this special day when the cove opened to the wider world that lay beyond the cove.

Luke knew Uriel wouldn't fight the extinct animals forever. They already started to reform, and a couple of Moa were lounging around atop the sand dunes not too far away. Uriel probably slayed them all once more, but that was that. They were now stuck between two fates—die on land or die in the water. Either way they were doomed to get torn, eaten, and then pooped out by ancient animals.

Luke couldn't help blaming himself. "I should've finished him when I had to chance."

Alpha stepped within arm's reach of Luke but didn't make any physical contact. "Then we'd all be dead. You saved us Luke."

"I'm not talking about that, I meant earlier." Luke wished he was allowed to let the monster he was back in the arena to finish the job. At least he would've eliminated the murderous traitor Jurgen.

Luke turned to Alpha and pointed at the closing cliffs.

Alpha cut him off. "Even if we tried, I wouldn't be able to fly that fast, especially while carrying three people."

"Then what about just one? Take Nil, get him to SGA, let the Dean know what happened. Imagine, with us trapped, Jurgen can return to SGA disguised as Victor and continue wreaking havoc from the inside."

"I won't leave you," Alpha said, "or Sirius. Housemates don't abandon each other."

Luke had an inkling that Alpha wouldn't budge. The way he stood, arms crossed, firm and defiant, he was not going to allow the group to split up. All aspects of his personality may not be wired like a seven-year-old anymore, but he was still just as stubborn as one.

So Luke turned to Sirius. "Sirius, can you teleport past the cliffs?"

Sirius looked like he had about as much energy as a dying star. But still, he remained optimistic. "Maybe, but there's no guarantee I won't come up short and make us hit the water. I'm drained."

Sirius did look paler than he did before. The bounce back from his own sword did take a toll on him and trying to heal Nil didn't help either.

Meanwhile Nil's quiet sobbing wasn't adding a positive spin on the mood.

"So we just sit here and wait till the gates open again in what...three months?"

No one said anything, because it looked like that was the option. Luke sat down on the beach as some of the creatures started to waddle to shore. First came the cute turtles, then the crabs, and soon the sea monsters. Although the smaller creatures didn't attack them, they did give them some dirty looks, and those crabs pinched those pinchers as if signaling they'd soon all have their heads guillotined.

"Looks like you failed," said a disappointed deep voice behind him. The air hovering above his back was warm and inviting, even in Luke's despair.

"I know," Luke said. "He got away."

Uriel sat down besides Luke as if he had all the time in the world—guess that comes with the perks of being an archangel: immortality. "You know for a guy who just saved his friends, you look remarkably depressed."

"You said to just succeed and not to entertain the option of failure," Luke mumbled. He held out his hands, summoning a flame in one hand and a spark of electricity in the other. "You trusted me with these powers and yet I'm still too weak."

Uriel's voice lowered to a whisper. "Your friend Alpha over there is virtually transparent and yet got poisoned. Your other friend has about every power imaginable and yet he injured himself with his own sword. Power alone doesn't make people strong. It's the will that supports power which makes people unstoppable."

"But I wanted to stop him."

"Exactly, you wanted to stop him. Some burdens aren't solely yours to carry. Did you even consider asking for help?"

"From who? Everyone was busy. Alpha was injured, Nil was unconscious, Sirius was protecting both of them, and you were buying us time."

"And what about God?"

"What about Him? You said it yourself, He left you with a poetry line before leaving."

Luke could tell that he might have pushed it too far. Uriel was silent for a moment as his mouth stood expressionless. But the fire around him turned a tad bit hotter than normal, even if it was just for a second. "Just because I don't see the Lord doesn't mean He's not listening."

Luke clenched his fist. Yes, he was Catholic. Yes, he believed in God. Yes, he attended an academy whose mission was to fight on God's side during the apocalypse. And yet, Luke found the idea of asking a mute God for an answer—for help—was laughable at best.

But Uriel read Luke's doubt before he could even voice it. "As the old adage goes, the Lord speaks in many different ways. Words, gestures, actions, these are just three of the many ways the Lord speaks. But I found that sometimes He speaks the most through silence."

Uriel stood up and turned to the others. Luke looked back and they were all kneeling before Uriel.

Uriel ordered them to stand. "I am not the Lord, only his servant. There will come a day when I will be the one kneeling before you."

"Why?" Sirius asked standing back up. "Why serve us?"

"Because when you grow up in a world where sin is a choice and you still choose good, then it makes you all the more amazing." He extended his arms. "Now come, let us leave this place."

Luke stood up. "But the cliffs..."

"We still have thirty seconds before they seal shut."

Luke looked at the distance between the beach and the cliffs that were practically making out now. It was easily five airport tarmacs away. Then he checked his hourglass watch where he could count the number of particles of sand left.

But Luke didn't argue. He and the others gathered in front of Uriel's robe. Luke had flown with Uriel before, and although he was fast, he didn't think he was fast enough to make it past the gate in thirty seconds.

Again, Uriel seemed to read his thoughts. His face became youthful and plastered onto it was a cocky smirk. The soft sizzle of his white fiery wings morphed into blue-purple voltage. "Thirty seconds? I only need three."

And like a bolt of lightning, they tore through Paradise Cove and didn't even have the chance to kiss the Garden of Eden goodbye.