Chapter Text
"It hurts again today," she spoke softly, staring listlessly out the window.
"I'll adjust your medication." He has given up on explaining how she can no longer feel pain. After so many years, it is easier to live in the lie.
She turns to him, and he can hear the soft clinks of the wires and tubes bumping against each other. Her soft smile is dampened by the distance in her eyes. He wonders where she goes when she does this. Perhaps she travels back, to before.
Before, when she was strong and vibrant, kind yet unforgiving. When her love was passionate and intense, like a red-hot inferno that threatened to destroy his very being, and he would let her, knowing she would pull him anew from the ashes.
He does his best to smile back, but every day it gets harder. Some part of her knows it, as a tear runs down her cheek, but that part of her grows weaker. He walks over and pretends to do something at one of the computers.
"That should fix it."
"Thank you." She returns her stare out the window, where the tall dead grass lay buried under deep snow. Is the earth cold in her mind? Or does she see the neatly manicured lawn glowing in the sunlight, with the small garden off to the side, full of sweet berries and colorful blossoms? Does she see the dog who used to roam that yard, whose collar now rests on the mantel?
He should go to work, stick to his routine, but he can't find the strength today. He's tired of seeing the desk across from him, what used to be his, now cluttered with another man's personal possessions. When he sits in front of his own desk, all he sees are the donut boxes from the closed down shop down the road, a picture of police officers he never had the chance to meet, a small tree replacing a dead one, and notes to a man that no longer needed them. He sees a photo of himself, tears in his eyes as he holds his police badge for the first time, and a photo of a wedding, the golden band still resting on his third finger, matching hers. He sees all this, but it is not there. Packed away when his previous partner, best friend, and his father, retired.
Now the items rest in the basement of his own home, collecting dust.
He moves to sit at her feet, careful of the monitors and machines that surround her, regulating the precious fluids that keep her tethered to this plane.
She doesn't react.
She was never one to sit still, always bouncing from one project to the next, happy to learn, explore, to grow.
She hasn't 'grown' for decades. Not since that fateful day when the fates tried to take her away from him. When he reached out to the most powerful man in the world to save the most important person in his life.
A gunshot had rendered her body as unsalvageable, but her mind could still be saved, preserved in a new body, one that does not hurt, or hunger, or tire.
One that does not grow.
She was so scared when she awoke, so confused. She needed time, but he was patient. He helped her, showed her she could still live. In no time at all, she was able to enjoy many of the things she used to do, even from the chair that chained her, the machines that kept her alive.
For years, they were able to be as they were, happy. But, after so long, far longer than she could have possibly existed in her mortal flesh, she couldn't hold onto the light in her eyes. Her mind would wander, and she would forget. Time no longer flowed in one direction, instead rushed through her from all sides, and she could no longer tell which was the right way.
For so long, she would fight to stay here with him. She couldn't abandon him to such a bleak future, where he was alone, in the cold. He knew how hard she tried, but while her body couldn't fatigue, her human mind could, and there was no stopping it. He knew he was running out of time when she would ask when Hank was coming to visit again.
The small mercy granted to him was that she never completely forgot him. She might forget their marriage, or precisely how long they have been together, but she never forgot his love, still devoted to him even if she forgot how or why. Every morning he fears will be the morning she asks the question he dreads most.
"Who are you?"
He couldn't bare it. If she ever forgot him completely, then he would truly be alone. Alone in a world that has moved on without him, left frozen in the snow. God, did he hate the cold.
He knows what he should do, but he's scared. Wrapping his trembling arms around her legs, he allows himself to weep. He cries for the friends he helped to bury. The pets that showed him unconditional love until the end. The man that taught him how to live, even when he had felt like dying, now resting with his little boy, the older brother he hopes to meet. He weeps for the woman in his arms, the embodiment of his heart and soul, trapped in this hellish world with him.
He weeps for himself as he is crushed under the weight of several lifetimes worth of grief.
He jolts when he feels her fingers, artificial as they are, run through his hair. He looks up at her, and she looks at him, her own cheeks stained with tears. The light is flickering, and he knows it's time.
It's all timed, how long they both will have. He can't help but think how cruel time could be. It gave him so much while it gave those around him so little. It marched forward when all he wanted was to go back. Perhaps, there would be room for him in heaven, with his father and brother.
With her.
It is his last wish, his last hope.
She took his hand, skin pulled back. A sense of calm washed over him, the warmth of her love melting the ice-cold fear that flowed through his artificial veins. She held on tightly as her body started to fail her, as did he, focusing on the building heat, the familiar fire igniting under his skin, so intense after going without for so long. She feels it too, and with it, they both will burn, with the hope that they can be reborn once more, together.
As everything starts to grow dark, he is certain he hears the voice of an angel singing his requiem.
"Everything will be alright"