The last thing he wanted was for Dana to see that he was crying, but as soon as she touched his face, he knew. Feeling short of air, he reached up to cradle her hand with his. Marty tried without success to pry loose the invisible grip on his lungs. Tears channeled to the surface and poured down his cheeks, an unstoppable current of remorse and despair. Remorse for what he'd done, what had happened to Dana as a result.
There were no fangs or snarls, no wicked claws. No monsters hidden in the cloak of darkness waiting to jump out at them and attack. Just him, and her, against their supposed fates and the rest of the world. In that moment, Marty would gladly be selfish and trade everything and everyone else if it meant her pretty blue eyes would come back to life. He saw the secrets, and he wanted to keep her close; he wanted her to wait out the beginning of the end with him. Nothing less would be acceptable as far as he was concerned.
But when her head dropped heavily to his shoulder, and she leaned her weight fully up against him, he shuddered, eyelids falling closed, as he pressed nearer. Was this what it was, to be alive, at the end of the world? Was this what it meant — to be strong?
Marty didn't want to acknowledge that she was dying. He didn't want to pay her any attention; not out of a lack of caring, but simply because he cared too damn much. Even so, he slid his arms around her shoulders, tugging her protectively to him, and all the while he thought not for the first time, I love you. I love you so much, and I never told you that. You're all I have. And he was all she had, and he was so sorry for that, sorry for that almost above anything else. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair, and he didn't want Dana to die, he never wanted that.
She deserved better. She deserved far better than him.
And between them, millimeters only lay, and then his lips were on her forehead. ❝I love you.❞ That was it. The words were out there. They'd clawed their way up his walls, his feelings overcoming him. But in the space of a breath, in the sound of a whisper, the distance had only further deepened unknowingly, became a cavern at whose edge he stood at all alone. Marty pulled back, flabbergasted, the smooth skin of her forehead unerringly cold, her inert body leaning against him like a leaden weight.
Hurriedly, he lowered her downward onto the floor, feeling a sense of panic, of vertigo; at all he didn't know, at all he couldn't mend. Horror torched everything Marty possessed.
❝Dana...?❞ Marty whispered, equal parts shocked as he was fearful. There was anger, he felt that too, suddenly, in a great rush. At himself, at the puppeteers, who had fucked them all over for some so-called grand, greater design. ❝Oh...God.❞
In the distant part of his brain where he had some semblance of function, logic dictated the signs. Her eyes were glassy. Her skin had taken on a sheen of ghost white paleness that was unlike anything or anyone still apart of the living. But, God, fuck, why wasn't he dead too? Why did she have to die first? And now, he couldn't gloss over her suffering, couldn't forget her bloodtstained face. It was right there, but she was gone.
❝Dana, please. Please. No. No, no, no...❞
Suddenly, he was more lost than he had ever been. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin and escape, but he couldn't. First, his shoulders trembled. Then tears swam in his vision, and he fell down against her, cheek against her temple. Inside that slow and wearied moment, he choked against a sob, nosing his face against her bangs, as though fatigued. But in reality he was desperate for a semblance of closeness, and a want to shield her from the dust thickening the air.
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