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The following morning, the boy woke in a fog, the sounds of the previous 24 hours softly pushing through to the forefront of his memory. People arguing, a metallic click-whir of machinery, seeming to resonate into the ether itself. And underscoring it all, knifing through the haze of the anesthetic was the ratcheting clackclackclackclack and then the soft tick-tick-tick of a fist sized spring being wound and then slowly beginning to unwind. He slowly sat up in bed, the fog lifting in his mind. He looked down to his bare chest, and there, directly above his sternum, sat the small X-shaped scar. He took a deep breath, and quieted his mind. Sounds from outside faintly echoed in his flat, mingling with the muted gold of early morning light. He shut out the sounds of shopkeepers opening stalls, of pages running to their first assignments, and of the occasional pedestrian out for an early morning constitutional. Then he heard it.....felt it more, really. Deep within himself, at his very core, he felt the pistons moving, the small gears turning, pumping his lifeblood through his veins. And powering all that, he heard that familiar tick-tick-tick, the spring slowly unwinding. He touched his hand to his chest, tracing the lines of the scar. Slowly, and for the first time in days, he got up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Stumbling a little, he made his way to the window and looked out at the slowly waking city. Smoke poured from chimneys of forges and bakeries alike. Horseshoes clattered on the cobblestones as the shrill whistles of great iron and steel steamers pierced the air from the river a few miles off. Through all this, his mind wandered. There was so much life to live in one month, so much to do, to get ready for. Where would he start? Well, that answer was obvious to him. He would start where everything in his life always began. With her. He remembered his last night with her, before the incident, before his real heart had been so broken. He remembered her last words to him before he walked away that evening.
"You truly are amazing."
He didn't agree, didn't see anything special or amazing in himself. But now, now he had a chance to try.

***

A pair of sad, almost ancient eyes watched the boy slowly leave the old red-brick townhouse, and make his way down Ellington St. The mind behind those eyes studied him, appraising the strength of his heart and the content of his character. Had anyone been able to see them, they would have seen hope flash in those eyes for a split second. Then they were gone, along with whom they belonged.

***

Twenty nine days later and the boy had lived so much, had faced demons and devils, wars of the spirit and mind, and had truly lived. The boy knew that the heart would be winding down now, that it already was. The soft tickticktick of his heart had slowed, and the boy lay in bed, exhausted and alone in the hours before dawn, drifting in and out of sleep.  It was there that those sad and ancient eyes found him once again. The angel slowly crept towards the boy's bed, pulling back the hood of its grey cloak. Voluminous copper and brass ringlets cascaded down its head and neck, and pooled around its shoulders as it quietly contemplated the boy in his fitful sleep. The angel had followed this boy for nearly thirty days, had been with him through the thick and thin of his every adventure, and yet the boy knew not of his presence.
     The angel had seen his courage, his strengths and his weaknesses, and above all else, his love. His love for his fellow man, for his life, his friends, but most of all, most of all his love for the girl. And it was that love precisely that spurned the angel on to do what he did next, something he had never done before and would never do again. The angel slowly used his power to reach into the boy's chest and wind the clockwork heart, winding it and winding it until the spring was taught. With the heart so wound, the boy would live another sixty years or so. But that wasn't the only gift the angel bestowed on the boy that night. As he worked, he etched every cog, every gear and spring, every jewel and piece of the clockwork heart with a single word. The girls name. Every beat, every tick and whir, every click and snap resonated with her name, and the boy's love for her. Upon the boy's waking, he felt energized and aware. He knew not where his good fortune had come from, but he dared not question it. Racing out the door and down the street, he ran and ran at speeds no man has yet matched to this day, coming to rest only in front of an average door on an average street. When he knocked, the girl answered the door and was delighted at who she saw there in the door way. The boy pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply, and she responded in kind. He looked into her eyes and quietly whispered "I love you", and she gasped a bit, kissed him again and said "I love you too". And the angel saw that it was good, and he was pleased.