BANG!
The sound of a gunshot is the worst sound in the universe. One shot equals one death. And by the time the sound dies, chances are that the target's life has ended as well, or is at least on its way to doing so.
And right now, as the short lived bang is quickly fading, the truth is painfully obvious. There is no going back.
Everything inside of you is screaming in protest. This cannot be happening. But it is. He was shot.
The small clatter of the shell casing on the floor tells you that this is really happening. It's not just some hallucination. This is real.
'How is it that mere seconds ago, everything was fine?'
You look toward the noise. She is standing there, in her pretty crimson dress, holding the gun, her expression cold, removed, as if she hadn't just shot someone.
You tear your gaze away from her and run to him, your footsteps loud across the bare wooden floor. All you know is that you have to get to him, need to be with him. You need to know that, for however long he has left, he's alive. Just that he's alive...it's...incredibly good. Magnificent. Positive.
As long as you know he's alive, things will be okay. That's how it's always been. Somehow, everything will be alright. But he won't be alive for long. Which hurts. That realization…the realization that this can't be twisted, redone, looped into neat little lacy rows of perfection. This time, right here, right now, is irreparable. It's deadly. Not to you. To him, which is worse, so much worse.
'Get to him. Be with him. Be with him.' That is the only thing going through your mind right now.
Then your arms are around him. "There you go. I've got you...I've got you," you hear yourself saying. It's not much, but it's all you can say. Know that. Know that no matter what happens, I have you. If there is a single person in this world you can trust, it's me. I'll be here for you. I promise.
His face is twisted into a grimace of pain, and suddenly it strikes you how much pain he must be in. What would it feel like to be shot? Fire, most likely. You are familiar with fire. Know what it feels like to be burned. Is he being burned right now?
'Ignore it. Ignore the fire. Please. Don't let it hurt you.'
There is a horrible sensation gripping your stomach, but there is one much worse higher up, in your chest. It shrouds your heart, which is beating so fiercely that it feels it might burst.
'Don't let it burn you,' you will him desperately.
Your throat and eyes are screaming—everything is screaming with the agony of this, and you want to get even closer to him, as near as you can, feel as much of his breathing, living body as is physically possible before he has to be gone...gone...
'Don't leave me,' you think desperately.
Each of his inhalations is rasping and ragged, pushing out against your arms, but at least they're there, and you savor the heat that comes with them, radiating out from his limp form. So limp…he's not making any effort to hold himself up now, none at all. He's turned it completely over to you.
'Let me fix you. Let me heal you. Let me save you…just hang on.'
When Abby told you about the pocket watch, you knew right away, somehow. You knew what it meant. It meant that it was him. That he was here.
'Don't leave me now, I just found you again!'
His eyes stared out in a sort of frustrated disbelief. He isn't looking at you. Why isn't he? He isn't looking at anything, really. His eyes, those beautiful dark blue eyes. They were somewhere else.
'What is he thinking about?' you wonder. Is he thinking about the woman who killed him? He never should have trusted her. 'You idiot,' you think to yourself, arms trembling with the effort of holding him from you, trying to resist the urge to crush him to you and hold him forever, the way you want so badly to do. 'She never loved you, or she wouldn't have done this. I forgave you! You heard me say it. After all you've done, I forgave you! And do you know why? Do you know why!?'
You hear yourself muttering again, saying words that aren't important, they're just to let him know that you're still here, listening. His reaction is to keep breathing, and that's enough. For a moment, you think that this would be enough, for things to just keep on going like this, with your holding him and feeling his lungs work, in and out, let his heart keep pounding. That's what matters, isn't it? As long as he's living. The only problem is, he isn't going to be, not much longer, a nightmarishly vivid fact made all the more real by his next words.
"Dying in your arms…are you happy now?" he coughs out.
'Oh no, of course I'm not happy, you fool…why would this make me happy? Why would it? Tell me, why don't you? TELL ME!' you mentally scream at him.
He has life left, so, so much more. So much more life, beautiful, pure life, shimmering with multicolored gorgeousness, and it's in him right now.
"You're not dying, don't be stupid," you insist, and your mouth can't form the words fast enough. "It's just a bullet. There are ambulances on their way. Come on, stay with me."
"No," he breathes, and it hurts you so badly, so badly, because he wouldn't lie, not to you, not now. Everything is flooding back, a thousand times worse. He's refusing. He's refusing, the stupid thing. You hate him right now for saying that, but at the same time you can't possibly let him die, no, of course not, that would be ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
"A little bullet, come on," you growl angrily, lips drawn back from your teeth, giving him a slight shake to bring him back to reality. There's no way that he'd be so…dumb, so…suicidal.
"I guess you don't know me so well," he whispers, then his eyes widen. Now he's looking at you. Is that the last thing he'll see? Your face?
Don't think that, you can't think that. He's not…he won't do this…he can't…
"Come on." There must be some way for you to make him, to force him to if you have to. "Just…stay with me!" How can you stress the importance of that? You need him to live. Absolutely need him to with every fiber of your existence. And you're not even sure why anymore. It's a blind desire, but a very, very real one. The woman has completely vanished from your mind. She's gone. She doesn't matter. Every single neuron in your brain is fixated on him. You're shaking, and your throat aches as the next words come out with a rough urgency. "Please...please just stay with me! Come on!" You need a way to tell him that you'll do anything, absolutely anything. You're begging, because you're that desperate. He, the dying one, isn't at your mercy. You're at his. He matters more to you than he does to himself, and your only hope is that, perhaps, somehow, you're enough to keep him tied here. "Don't die. Please don't die."
'If you won't live for yourself…live for me. Please, please live for me.'
"What's the alternative? Stay alive...and spend…the rest of my life…imprisoned with you?"
That hurts, too. Each word is its own individual weapon, the blade of a knife, and many other things that you don't want to think about right now, not because such a recollection would be too painful, but the opposite—any of them would be blissful, cheap avoidance of what's really the danger here. Imprisoned. You wouldn't imprison him. Why can't he understand that? You'd never do such a thing.
"But you've got to, come on," you plead. Your breathing is shaky, uncertain. Every inhalation is a strain. You don't want to have to breathe right now. You just want him. To be able to concentrate every particle, every atom of your body and mind and soul on him. "It can't end like this." Everything's aching, your stomach and your heart and your throat and even the space behind your eyes, which are smarting harder than ever. "It can't end like this," you insist, because it can't. This can't be it. It's impossible. Not a word you tend to believe in, and yet…a true one. If a single thing in all the world simply cannot happen, it's this, right here, right now. How you wish you could reverse time, and go back right now, with him, as children—not a care in the world. Just the two of you…playing, laughing…you're both older now. And you're here, and he's dying...he's dying…
"But you've got to, come on. It can't end like this. IT CAN'T! You and me," you choke, "all the things we've done…" You trailed off. Images, memories race across your mind. A hot streak races down your cheek, forming into a warm drop near your chin, and you make no attempt to wipe it away. You don't pause to think about what it is, because the name doesn't matter. It's nothing more than the pain materializing, that terrible pain. You grit your teeth together, holding back something—a sob, a scream...a release…what it is exactly doesn't matter, not really, because you can feel its definition deep down inside you, amidst the chaotic whirlwind of feelings inside of you right now. It's getting harder and harder to breathe. It's like you have to force your lungs to make each movement, in, out, like there's a blockage in your bloodstream that prevents the oxygen from getting to where it needs to be.
He does nothing. Just keeps watching you, almost smiling, but just a little bit. You know that he's not listening. Not really. Not in the way that matters. Then something inside of you snaps, and you scream the next word, teeth bared, moving from begging to threatening, insisting, demanding that he do what he has to. What he has to.
"Live!" Your whole face feels hot with the frantic power of your command. Do this. Anything it takes. I can repay you, I swear.
He's not flushed. He's not crying. He's cool and relaxed, pale, even though you can't feel any blood on him, and now there's a smirk on his face, one that shows his teeth. His eyes are less wide than before, slowly slipping shut. "How about that," he slurs, and for a moment, what he must be seeing flashes in your mind—your own face, twisted into a mess of desperation and fear, red and tear stained, staring at him as if your life depends on it…it doesn't, which isn't fair. Of course it isn't. Nature isn't kind enough to kill you when you want it. Instead, you'll be forced to keep going on after this, after he's gone.
He takes another long, shaking breath, lets his eyes widen for a full second, so that you can see every minute, pristine detail of them—the little hairs and strands of blue interspersed with gold, chocolate and even fern green, brilliant with life. Life—it's there, and you take that instant to drink it in, just to feel it and revel in it, because it's there. But it won't be for much longer. But right here, right now, it's there, and you're staring into it, and it into you. Then the last of his energy is gathered, spat out in two little, monosyllabic, perfectly clear words.
"I win."
He groans as his breathing elevates, harsh and rapid and violent, not perfect, not pretty, but rough and real. And yet the words coming out of him…you already know what they are. An afterword. An epilogue. Just a little bit tacked on to the true end. "Will it stop? The pain…will it stop?"
'I can stop it for you!' you want to wail. You should be able to. You should. You try to think of how to save him, but your efforts are useless now. Useless, meaningless, because it's already happening, those last breaths are hitching up in his chest…you can feel the pounding of his heart, its heat bleeding through the fabric of his shirt into your arm, and for just the briefest fragment of time, your pulses are thrumming together, identical, each essential for the life of the other…
You see it at the same time you feel it. He tenses up, then relaxes, and his eyes roll back gently, lids falling shut over them, even as that beat is gone, leaving yours stranded, alone, abandoned.
Because there's no way to retrieve him.
Ever.
You're gathering him up to you, his shell, and burying your face into his hair, not caring about how it might look, just feeling him, pretending that he's still there, that you aren't holding a corpse. You knew that this precious life would be gone soon enough. And now it is. Vanished. Left. He left you. He left you because he didn't care enough about you to stay. Because you weren't worth it. And now you're alone. You'll never, ever stop being alone. Rocking him back and forth, you let something escape you, brief, but powerful, a wordless cry of…whatever might be the very, very worst emotion there is, beyond words, beyond anything.
He was hope, perseverance, love, power. He was laughter and smiling and everything good that there is in the universe—everything bad, too, but who cares about that when it comes with its opposite? He was everything. Absolutely everything.
And now he's gone, along with all he carried with him. And you're alone.
