"Fuck off! I swear to God you better fucking back off. I mean it bitch back off!"

"Just calm down, please." A young woman with blonde hair tied up in a bun, forgiving emerald eyes and soft, pale peach skin reached out with one hand to take his. Her cheeks were flushed, her brow beaded with sweat and her once perfect bun had strands of hair springing out in every odd direction. Hey, you wouldn't look your best if you were stood 6 stories up , your back against the brick work and the wind in your face. Why was she all the way up there, with no wires or safety ropes you ask? The colourful gentleman standing at the edge of the gargoyle adjacent to her was the reason.

"I will not calm down!"

"Just tell me why you are up here. I just want to talk, that's all."

"I hate your kind. Talking to me like I am crazy. Do you think I'm crazy!"

"No sir I don't. I think you are someone in need of help. And I am here to help."

"Who's paying you to 'help me'? The police? South City Council?"

"No one is paying me. I don't get paid."

"So, you're one of those do-gooders then huh? Figures." He stepped onto the very edge, looking all the way down. "It doesn't matter. Just one more step and it will all be over."

"No! Please." She begged. She shuffled close and he raised his hand.

"Don't come any closer! I mean it bitch!"

"Please, my name is Joyce. But my friends call me Joy. Will you be my friend and call me Joy? Please? I would like to be your friend, and know your name." he paused, as if seriously considering this for a moment.

"My name is Pete."

"Nice to meet you Pete."

"What do I have to do to make you leave me alone? I just want to jump…"

"No, you don't want to do that."

"Yes I do, or I wouldn't be here."

"No Pete. You only think you want to. Because you haven't looked at the bigger picture. You think that jumping off this very tall building, or killing yourself is the easy way out of what ever is bothering you."

"And you think it isn't?" he spat.

"No, it isn't. It is the worst thing you could do."

"Oh?" he spat sarcastically. "And why is that hmm?"

"Do have any family?"

"You changed the subject." He looked to the ground again.

"No, this is relevant. Now do you have any family?"

"Yeah, a little girl." She saw his ridged frame loosen slightly, and he looked up to the sky. "Little Jenny. She will be 6 this time next month."

"And do you think that jumping off this building, isn't exceedingly selfish of you?" she stepped closer while he wasn't looking, feeling with her hands along the wall. Her pumps slid across the brick ledge and her body was flat against the wall at all times. "Because I think it is, and it is."

"Why?"

"Because if you died, because you killed yourself, what kind of example would you leave your daughter? And when she grew up, hurting and feeling the loss of her father every single day." A tear fell down her face. Her voice quivered as she drew closer. "Not even being able to remember her father's face after only a few years." Her voice trembled now. He looked to her, seeing something in her face. "Would you want her to 'take the easy route out' and kille herself, just like her daddy did?"

"You've lost someone too, haven't you?" he stepped closer to the side of the building.

"…Why are you up here?" he was quiet for a time, before he sniffled and broke into tears.

"23 years. I have been married for 23 years and now? In one day, my darling wife is snatched from me, eaten like a piece of meat, and what? I am supposed to get on with life? Forget her!" his body trembled as his eyes watered. He closed them and she shuffled closer. "I loved her! My darling Susan! It was our anniversary only the day after…and I come home from work to get a phone call that says that while she was with her mother in Nikki Town, she was killed!" he snapped his eyes open and clenched his fist. "Murdered! By a monster that no one can stop! The pain…it doesn't go away. Not even at night."

"It will never go away Pete. But it does get easier."

"I want it to stop!" he sobbed and hung her head. Joy was brave and walked up to him, putting her arms around him and giving him the support that this broken man needed.

"No you don't. Because the moment it stops, you forget. And you never want to forget the one you love so dearly. Almost as much as you never want to lose them." she rubbed his back and looked over his shoulder. A large fire truck ladder silently crept up and she nodded to the fireman waiting. "But if you threw your life away, what would happen to Jenny? Who would love her and teach her, make her remember her mother and what a wonderful person she was?"

"No (sob) one."

"So you see? This isn't the answer."

"No." he whimpered into her shoulder and allowed her to lead him closer to the building, and the fireman.

"Now listen to me Pete." He looked up into her eyes. "I know exactly what you are going through, because I am still going through it. It is hard, it does hurt. But life goes on and so must you. If not for your sake, for the ones around you. For Little Jenny. For your family. For your friends."

"You are a wonderful person Joy." He sniffled as she walked into the ladder box; it slowly lowered to the ground.

"Thank you." She wrapped a blanket around him and handed him over to the local Good Samaritans agency, with a last reassuring smile and a wave.

"You did good Joy. I don't know how you do it but no one does it quite like you do. We had all our people talking to him for at least 3 hours with no luck. 15 minutes talking to you, and he is on the ground again."

"It helps to know what they are feeling, and then you can reach out to them. All anyone like Pete there needs is a willing hand. One person to talk to. If they have that, then none of them jump."

"Or hang themselves or drown themselves. You have stopped a lot of suicides. And the elderly work you do is inspiring. Oh and Joy?" She turned to face him. He was the Samaritans Boss Mr Grubs. He was her boss, but she didn't get paid. She was a volunteer worker at an agency filled with willing people to go out and help in the world. He had a large D front and looked a lot like Yajirobe, with no hair and a blue business suit. Not to mention the bright yellow tie. "Don't think I didn't over look the serious breach of safety regulations back there. Climbing up the building after him? Are you crazy! You couldn't have been killed! You could have slipped and-"

"But I wasn't, and I didn't." She smiled and put her hands on her head. "My hair is a mess…"

"Typical. You don't even care if you are in danger as long as you save your guy, do you?"

"Some things are worth the risk. And saving a life, is." Joy felt her pocket buzz and she took out her phone. "Hello?"

"Hay TV star extravaganza!"

"Mike, what are you talking about?" She chuckled and stepped into her car. She held her hand over the speaker and turned to her boss Mr Grubs. "I will be at work tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is your day off."

"No it isn't. I don't have days off." She smiled her heart melting smile, and he sighed at her.

"You are an angel sent down from heaven you know that?" she smiled and closed her car door.

"Sorry, what was that Mike?"

"I said, your little Spiderman stunt after that spp (Suicidally Prone Person) was all over the news!"

"Oh no…" she saw a news van right on cue park up in front of her. A man with shiny, gelled back hair and black moustache, followed by two men with a camera and speakers, surround her car. The man with the moustache knocked on her beetle car window and she smiled sweetly. Even when she saw a microphone in his hand. "Mike, I'm going to have to call you back."

"Understood Joy. Over and out."

"Bye." She put the phone down and lowered her car window. "Can I help you sir?"

"Wow, what an honour! The modern day Wonder Woman/ Mother Teresa herself! In the flesh!"

"Oh I wouldn't go that far." She smiled politely. Please don't go that far.

"Oh but our public would. You have saved a man from the claws of death today, and that pregnant teen last week from drowning herself. How is she by the way?"

"She's-"

"Good Good." she frowned. He didn't even care. "So what is your next goal? How do you know where to find these mentally unstable people? How do you talk them into sanity? What do you say to them? Is it true that you yourself have felt the sorrows of a loved one and so can connect to these people? Do you have any comment on your actions today?"

"Please I really have to go." She smiled politely and started to close the window.

"Please! Who pays your bill! Who funds you!"

"No one. I do this for free."

"Why?" she frowned even more, but not because she was angry. She didn't get angry. She was upset and pitied him for not understanding something so pure.

"I do what I do because I can and I should. I have the ability to help people, so I do. I can help people, as I should and can. I have the ability to help people where no one else can, so I have a duty to help them."

"So in your own way, you are being a super hero?"

"No, I just want to help people."

"So do you get any perks from your line of work? How much do you earn a job?"

"I told you, I don't get paid. I do this willingly, freely. There shouldn't be strings attached to good acts. And what do you mean perks?"

"You know, handsome men or women, fame, glory etc etc."

"What? Oh gosh no. I don't use what I do to get anything. Neither do I ask for it. And what do you mean women?"

"Well, these days…"

"No, I do not go after those kinds of perks."

"Then why do what you do? You don't have any power from it, no fame; I don't even know your name, why do you do what you do? Why do you go out every day and go out of your way, for other people you have never met before? Or hardly know?" she felt like a piece of meat before a den of starved lions. He was like a vulture picking at her, making her feel very intimidated.

"Because that is the kind of person she is." Joy smiled when she saw Mr Grubs stand between her and the over enthusiastic journalist. "She happens to be one of the minorities in this world. You know them? The good people with no ulterior motives."

"But."

"Now listen you!" he pointed at him. "This woman is a miracle. She smiles your worries away; she is always open and gives her heart and soul out to those who have lost all hope, with no fee or repayment. That's right, for free. Joyce Ilarius is a living saint. And I will not have you and your king hound her down. Now leave!"

"But!"

"I said leave!" Grubs gave her a wink and she nodded gratefully, and drove off home.

"What a day." She slouched into her crummy little apartment. She wasn't rich, and she wasn't a student or anything so she didn't get a student loan for a nice place to live. So she lived in the poorer, but cheerful side of the City. It wasn't a slum, but it wasn't the Ritz either. Her one person apartment had a small kitchen to the left, a small TV and comfy chair in the middle, and a door to the right to the single bedroom. Joy sank into her comfy chair and closed her eyes.

She had done it again. Another life saved. This brought a smile to her lips and she very easily slipped into a safe slumber.

This was one girl, who had no problem sleeping at night. Not with the good she did. She was so tired; she didn't even turn her TV on and watch the follow up to her 'rescue' today. Because if she had…she would have seen the interruption by a large Biological Android, the perfect weapon that had killed so many and had a hand in driving that poor man Pete to the edge of that building today. But she was fast asleep.

So she didn't know anything about his tournament announcement whatsoever. That, she would learn the next day…