"Our Time is Fading: Under Siege" - Part 6 of the Our Time is Fading Series
Title: "Our Time is Fading: Under Siege" (Our Time is Fading series part 6)
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #72 Crawl
Pairing: Buffy/Spike
Warnings: Character death, language, violence.
Spoilers: almost a century after BtVS and AtS
Summary: Hell breaks loose in Corwin's bunker. Illyria finally shows up.
Disclaimer: What do you mean they're not mine? :'-(
"Nobody is dying," Buffy whispered.
"Are you so bloody selfish that you won't begin to consider the consequences of you being on this godforsaken planet?" Corwin demanded.
"You're asking her to give up her life," Spike snarled.
"Her life ended decades ago, before her witch friend decided to break the laws of the universe."
"It was an unnatural death!"
"And so were the deaths of eighty-six young girls," Corwin said, his eyes darting over at Buffy. "Have you been keeping track of the slayers you made? Of the ones who were imprisoned by the GA? The ones that the vampires slaughter like sheep?"
The words stung Buffy more than she liked, remembering the girls that were killed by the First many years ago, the ones she had to let die, and the ones she failed when the new Council didn't launch. "That can't be true. The government wouldn't begin to acknowledge slayers, much less capture them."
"Wouldn't they?" Corwin turned his head towards Spike and before he could so much as blink, Spike's hands were around his throat like an iron vice. It was much harder to breathe while suspended by the neck.
"Spike!" a left hook to the jaw made the vampire move and Corwin fell to the floor, gasping and holding his tender throat.
Buffy stood between both men for a long time as silenced passed, only filled by panting breath. "We can't do this," she said after a while. "Fighting with each other won't help anything. I know I don't belong here anymore."
"Don't say that," Spike pleaded, glaring at Corwin as the man stood up. His demeanor suddenly changed to eerie resolve, reminding Buffy of when he had threatened her with the gun. "You shouldn't listen to him, Buffy. He's expendable."
"People are not expendable," Buffy emphasized to Spike, stunned by his words. "We don't kill humans." There was a lack of something essential, something that gave her a sense of dread now. "Spike…."
The vampire did not look in her direction, almost ignoring her completely. "You watch your bloody mouth," Spike warned Corwin.
"If you don't like what I have to say, you'd better cover your ears," Corwin replied. "Go ahead and bury your head in the sand, but until she dies and stays dead, this problem won't go away."
"Wrong," Spike snapped back curtly. "When she dies it won't solve a fucking thing. Do you really understand how slayers work? Another one will rise. There will always be another slayer when one falls. That is why we have this problem with Chosen children."
"She was the original slayer that caused the split of power in the first place, wasn't she?" Corwin asked, already well versed in his history. "The witch's spell was based off of her and the only other slayer at that time. Those knowledgeable in magic know that destroying the original object of the spell will break it," Corwin continued. "Since both slayers were assumed to be dead, it was also assumed that the spell could not be reversed."
"Too bad Buffy won't be dying anytime soon, then," Spike concluded.
"I'm not letting anymore girls die for me," Buffy stated. "Is there a particular way to reverse this?"
"A natural death would have broken the spell and left the power of the slayer to one worthy potential," Corwin said.
"But that isn't going to happen," Buffy added, wondering if the Immortal had known about the spell all along.
"No, apparently not," Corwin agreed. "It doesn't give me any pleasure to tell you this is the only option, but I won't lie to you. Your time is over on this world, and the longer you try to stay, the more fate will turn against you. But you don't have to die in vain. 'There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.'"
"Charles Dickens," Spike recognized, wondering what it had to do with them.
"Light and darkness have fought to keep balance since the beginning of time," Corwin said, pulling one of the maps towards them. "Right now the light is losing because young girls can't compare to demons and monsters. If you can find this source of evil and take it out, it will ensure that evil will not be strong enough to take over when all of those slayers disappear."
"What will kill a pure evil?" Buffy questioned, looking at Spike.
"Pure goodness, obviously," Spike stated. "Pure light would destroy pure darkness."
"Or they cancel out," Buffy nodded. A clang of metal made her jump, and they turned to notice a previously mounted scimitar still quivering on the floor.
Before anyone could ask, 'what the hell…?' a low frequency vibration became noticeable, increasing to a rumble that set the weaponry quaking and finishing with a muffled impact as an alarm sounded through the room.
"What is that?" Spike murmured.
"Surface fire," Corwin said. "But we're at least a hundred feet down in reinforced steel and concrete. Nothing can get through."
The next impact was noticeable and seemed to have the structure of the room shaking.
"One hundred feet might be too shallow," Spike grit out, keeping a wary eye on Buffy to make sure she was alright, as more objects fell off of the walls.
"They'd have to be dropping bombs," Corwin said, heading for a control panel.
"Like they wouldn't?" Spike retorted.
"You were supposed to travel under the radar," Corwin growled.
"Just tell me this bunker is going to hold," Spike spat back as the earth trembled again.
"We're in the safest part of the structure."
If Buffy didn't know any better, she'd say that they were in a run-of-the-mill earthquake, but then she could distinctly hear the metallic crash of something very solid breaking above them.
The lights flickered for a brief moment as they all looked at the ceiling, waiting for the next sound. Gunfire echoed down through the shaft, and then the faint groans of men losing their lives.
"Something's killing them," Buffy realized, heading towards the open shaft to better listen, and Spike immediately followed her.
"And you care why--?" Spike asked, stopping short as the body of a soldier flew down the shaft, landing a level below them with a distinct crack. Half a second later a leather-bound woman landed at the edge of their floor in a crouch, holding onto another soldier by the scruff of his neck. She stood up, dragging the live human up with her and stared at Spike for a moment with predator's eyes the color of ice.
With a casually executed one-handed shove, the soldier plummeted into the open shaft. Only a gasping noise escaped his mouth as he fell, and the spikes at the bottom of the pit made an audible noise when they pierced through him.
"He slipped," Illyria stated.
Spike raised an eyebrow at that, swiftly grabbing Buffy's hands before the slayer tried to attack the blue-haired demon. "Hold up, love, that's just Illyria," he said, as another torrent of gunfire made a shower of sparks on the shaft wall, far up near the top floor.
"She pushed that man," Buffy said, only struggling somewhat in her bewilderment.
"He lost his balance," Illyria insisted.
"Never mind her, she's become a bit of a pathological liar," Spike explained to Buffy. "Besides, he was a GA solider. If you haven't noticed, we don't have time to sit and chat about the moralities of killing them before they kill us."
"I vote that we do," Illyria said, glancing back over her shoulder at the broken bodies, which she could see in perfect detail. "They make a satisfying sound when their armor cracks."
"She's just like Drusilla," Buffy stared at the form-fitting leather that completely sheathed the body of the eerie woman.
"Is she?" Spike asked for a moment, and then shrugged a bit. Maybe that was what he saw in Illyria. "What's it like up top, Blue?"
"They set fire to the desert with their planes," Illyria reported. "Their armored vehicles were deployed as well, and many warriors carrying those useless weapons."
At the top of the shaft, they could hear the shouting of orders, and Illyria could see soldiers begin to crawl over the edge of the shaft and make their way down the ladder, and a hundred or more feet was not enough. "We need to get out of here," Spike said curtly. "There are tunnels that can take us as far as the valley and we'll have to arrange something from there." He began to turn away and paused, looking at Illyria. "Have fun."
"I was not going to do anything."
Spike just rolled his eyes and gestured for Buffy to follow him back into the armory. A second later Illyria was gone, but a flurry of fighting had started again upstairs with bullets ricocheting down the shaft and soldiers occasionally dropping like stones.
"Alpha Bravo, this is Sierra Charlie, do you copy, over?"
The radio gave a crackled sound of confirmation as Spike and Buffy passed Corwin. The human began spinning off a set of coordinates while Spike and Buffy scouted for the best weapon.
"Keep it light," Spike advised her as she scanned a rack of claymores.
Buffy was about to retort that she still had slayer strength, but stopped to observe Spike remove the handgun from his person in favor of a more lethal-looking semi-automatic pistol. He loaded a fresh magazine into the weapon and checked the safety before tucking the new gun into the waistband of his pants.
"Are we ready?" Spike asked Buffy as he crossed the room.
"Perfectly," Buffy replied, choosing a broadsword that was sharp enough for her.
Spike spun a couple of daggers into the air with a flick of his wrists, catching them both in each hand and seeming to judge their size. "Keep these on you," Spike advised, passing them to Buffy and selecting two more identical blades for himself. They both tucked the blades away for later use.
"Weapons are a bit of alright, but we'll need provisions as well," Corwin reminded, ironic with a rifle strapped across his back. He tossed a heavy canteen at Spike glanced warily behind him at the sound of bullets ricocheting through the open shaft, glass in the room shattering as the bullets found their way onto their level.
"We'll follow the tunnel for 1.8 miles east," Corwin said. "The exit will come out by a stream, and our ride will be waiting there."
"Where is this tunnel?" Buffy asked.
"Bottom floor," Corwin jerked his head towards the shaft.
"You're kidding me."
"It's an easy climb," Corwin said. "But one that should be done with both hands," he added, gently taking the broadsword away from Buffy and strapping it onto his back with the rifle so that it could be carried down as well.
Corwin headed for the shaft and Spike tailed behind him. "Come on, pet," he urged Buffy.
They sidestepped onto the ladder that ran past the wide opening to the fourth floor and then began another careful descent downwards. Buffy was sickened to notice the several accumulated bodies that lay broken and bleeding on the long spikes. Most horrifying of all were the agonized wheezes of a man who was slowly dying with spikes impaled through his stomach. It was hard to ignore the stench of fresh death in the first few seconds, and Buffy knew that the thirty-foot climb was not going to end soon enough.
A sound like thunder assaulted her ears and she could barely hear Spike bellow a warning. Buffy kept her head down and clung to the ladder out of sheer instinct, hoping to wait out barrage. A bullet struck the wall so near to her that Buffy nearly felt it, and another sparked off of the wall. Suddenly a sharp, hot pain pierced through her abdomen that made Buffy gasp silently for breath. Her vision blacked out for a moment and when she came to she was clinging weakly to the ladder and Spike was shouting something at Corwin.
"Keeping moving, damnit! Just another ten feet and we'll take a rest. Cor. Stay awake! Don't you care let go of that ladder!" The last sentence came out in a rush as Corwin already began to fall and Spike reached for him, a brief yank of weight that almost pulled Spike off of the ladder as well, but his grip was too weak to hold onto Corwin's dead weight and the man struck the concrete bottom of the shaft with a resolute crack of his skull.
Spike stared for a moment in shock and then turned his gaze upwards to focus on Buffy instead.
"Spike…" her voice came out as a quiet whimper, much like Corwin's dying gurgle as blood rushed into his lungs.
"Buffy," Spike said, senses tuning in sharply to the smell of slayer blood. "Buffy!"
"I don't think… anything important was hit… but I feel weak," Buffy gasped, inhaling a thick breath.
"Sodding hell! Buffy, it isn't far down…."
"I know," Buffy nodded, trying to let herself slip down the ladder one rung at a time. "Please hurry."
Spike got off of the ladder first, and carefully supported Buffy as she came down, pulling her into the safety of the dark tunnel. Her legs weakened and she sank down onto the damp earth quickly and Spike joined her, concern making him seem years younger.
"Buffy," he said quietly, hand pressed into the blood that darkly stained her shirt. She grabbed his hand to press it harder against her, needing the pressure to keep in the blood and to actually feel his hand at all.
"Hold me," Buffy requested. She winced in pain as she shifted slightly to rest against Spike, but it was worth it to feel his arms wrap around her again, his body relatively warm against hers. His palm pressed firmly onto the wound once again, more blood staining the shirt that already bore her essence.
It was strangely comforting to share in the blood, almost as comforting as it was to share in the body contact. But then, it had always been that way when it came to Spike. They had shared in the need for violence and the need for physical contact. Spike had never denied her darker half, the aspects of the slayer that came to dominate every bit of her existence. Killing was part of her nature, no matter how her morality kept her in line, and so was the primitive need for someone to share in that. She wished she had spent less time beating Spike up for his past deeds and more time just feeling his skin against hers and realizing that he could be the One.
"I love you," Buffy let the words go out as soon as they formed in her mind, and she felt Spike press harder against her wound. "It took so long to admit, but now I know it was true from the start, like you always knew it was true. I can't remember all of the things I did to you back then, but I remember that you always pulled through for me, no matter how hard I tried to make you stop. You were the only one who saw all of my darkness and still understood me and you wouldn't leave, even if I tried to force you away. Thank you, for that. I just, I wanted you to know, in case we don't make it, I do love you."
on to the final chapter
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #72 Crawl
Pairing: Buffy/Spike
Warnings: Character death, language, violence.
Spoilers: almost a century after BtVS and AtS
Summary: Hell breaks loose in Corwin's bunker. Illyria finally shows up.
Disclaimer: What do you mean they're not mine? :'-(
"Nobody is dying," Buffy whispered.
"Are you so bloody selfish that you won't begin to consider the consequences of you being on this godforsaken planet?" Corwin demanded.
"You're asking her to give up her life," Spike snarled.
"Her life ended decades ago, before her witch friend decided to break the laws of the universe."
"It was an unnatural death!"
"And so were the deaths of eighty-six young girls," Corwin said, his eyes darting over at Buffy. "Have you been keeping track of the slayers you made? Of the ones who were imprisoned by the GA? The ones that the vampires slaughter like sheep?"
The words stung Buffy more than she liked, remembering the girls that were killed by the First many years ago, the ones she had to let die, and the ones she failed when the new Council didn't launch. "That can't be true. The government wouldn't begin to acknowledge slayers, much less capture them."
"Wouldn't they?" Corwin turned his head towards Spike and before he could so much as blink, Spike's hands were around his throat like an iron vice. It was much harder to breathe while suspended by the neck.
"Spike!" a left hook to the jaw made the vampire move and Corwin fell to the floor, gasping and holding his tender throat.
Buffy stood between both men for a long time as silenced passed, only filled by panting breath. "We can't do this," she said after a while. "Fighting with each other won't help anything. I know I don't belong here anymore."
"Don't say that," Spike pleaded, glaring at Corwin as the man stood up. His demeanor suddenly changed to eerie resolve, reminding Buffy of when he had threatened her with the gun. "You shouldn't listen to him, Buffy. He's expendable."
"People are not expendable," Buffy emphasized to Spike, stunned by his words. "We don't kill humans." There was a lack of something essential, something that gave her a sense of dread now. "Spike…."
The vampire did not look in her direction, almost ignoring her completely. "You watch your bloody mouth," Spike warned Corwin.
"If you don't like what I have to say, you'd better cover your ears," Corwin replied. "Go ahead and bury your head in the sand, but until she dies and stays dead, this problem won't go away."
"Wrong," Spike snapped back curtly. "When she dies it won't solve a fucking thing. Do you really understand how slayers work? Another one will rise. There will always be another slayer when one falls. That is why we have this problem with Chosen children."
"She was the original slayer that caused the split of power in the first place, wasn't she?" Corwin asked, already well versed in his history. "The witch's spell was based off of her and the only other slayer at that time. Those knowledgeable in magic know that destroying the original object of the spell will break it," Corwin continued. "Since both slayers were assumed to be dead, it was also assumed that the spell could not be reversed."
"Too bad Buffy won't be dying anytime soon, then," Spike concluded.
"I'm not letting anymore girls die for me," Buffy stated. "Is there a particular way to reverse this?"
"A natural death would have broken the spell and left the power of the slayer to one worthy potential," Corwin said.
"But that isn't going to happen," Buffy added, wondering if the Immortal had known about the spell all along.
"No, apparently not," Corwin agreed. "It doesn't give me any pleasure to tell you this is the only option, but I won't lie to you. Your time is over on this world, and the longer you try to stay, the more fate will turn against you. But you don't have to die in vain. 'There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.'"
"Charles Dickens," Spike recognized, wondering what it had to do with them.
"Light and darkness have fought to keep balance since the beginning of time," Corwin said, pulling one of the maps towards them. "Right now the light is losing because young girls can't compare to demons and monsters. If you can find this source of evil and take it out, it will ensure that evil will not be strong enough to take over when all of those slayers disappear."
"What will kill a pure evil?" Buffy questioned, looking at Spike.
"Pure goodness, obviously," Spike stated. "Pure light would destroy pure darkness."
"Or they cancel out," Buffy nodded. A clang of metal made her jump, and they turned to notice a previously mounted scimitar still quivering on the floor.
Before anyone could ask, 'what the hell…?' a low frequency vibration became noticeable, increasing to a rumble that set the weaponry quaking and finishing with a muffled impact as an alarm sounded through the room.
"What is that?" Spike murmured.
"Surface fire," Corwin said. "But we're at least a hundred feet down in reinforced steel and concrete. Nothing can get through."
The next impact was noticeable and seemed to have the structure of the room shaking.
"One hundred feet might be too shallow," Spike grit out, keeping a wary eye on Buffy to make sure she was alright, as more objects fell off of the walls.
"They'd have to be dropping bombs," Corwin said, heading for a control panel.
"Like they wouldn't?" Spike retorted.
"You were supposed to travel under the radar," Corwin growled.
"Just tell me this bunker is going to hold," Spike spat back as the earth trembled again.
"We're in the safest part of the structure."
If Buffy didn't know any better, she'd say that they were in a run-of-the-mill earthquake, but then she could distinctly hear the metallic crash of something very solid breaking above them.
The lights flickered for a brief moment as they all looked at the ceiling, waiting for the next sound. Gunfire echoed down through the shaft, and then the faint groans of men losing their lives.
"Something's killing them," Buffy realized, heading towards the open shaft to better listen, and Spike immediately followed her.
"And you care why--?" Spike asked, stopping short as the body of a soldier flew down the shaft, landing a level below them with a distinct crack. Half a second later a leather-bound woman landed at the edge of their floor in a crouch, holding onto another soldier by the scruff of his neck. She stood up, dragging the live human up with her and stared at Spike for a moment with predator's eyes the color of ice.
With a casually executed one-handed shove, the soldier plummeted into the open shaft. Only a gasping noise escaped his mouth as he fell, and the spikes at the bottom of the pit made an audible noise when they pierced through him.
"He slipped," Illyria stated.
Spike raised an eyebrow at that, swiftly grabbing Buffy's hands before the slayer tried to attack the blue-haired demon. "Hold up, love, that's just Illyria," he said, as another torrent of gunfire made a shower of sparks on the shaft wall, far up near the top floor.
"She pushed that man," Buffy said, only struggling somewhat in her bewilderment.
"He lost his balance," Illyria insisted.
"Never mind her, she's become a bit of a pathological liar," Spike explained to Buffy. "Besides, he was a GA solider. If you haven't noticed, we don't have time to sit and chat about the moralities of killing them before they kill us."
"I vote that we do," Illyria said, glancing back over her shoulder at the broken bodies, which she could see in perfect detail. "They make a satisfying sound when their armor cracks."
"She's just like Drusilla," Buffy stared at the form-fitting leather that completely sheathed the body of the eerie woman.
"Is she?" Spike asked for a moment, and then shrugged a bit. Maybe that was what he saw in Illyria. "What's it like up top, Blue?"
"They set fire to the desert with their planes," Illyria reported. "Their armored vehicles were deployed as well, and many warriors carrying those useless weapons."
At the top of the shaft, they could hear the shouting of orders, and Illyria could see soldiers begin to crawl over the edge of the shaft and make their way down the ladder, and a hundred or more feet was not enough. "We need to get out of here," Spike said curtly. "There are tunnels that can take us as far as the valley and we'll have to arrange something from there." He began to turn away and paused, looking at Illyria. "Have fun."
"I was not going to do anything."
Spike just rolled his eyes and gestured for Buffy to follow him back into the armory. A second later Illyria was gone, but a flurry of fighting had started again upstairs with bullets ricocheting down the shaft and soldiers occasionally dropping like stones.
"Alpha Bravo, this is Sierra Charlie, do you copy, over?"
The radio gave a crackled sound of confirmation as Spike and Buffy passed Corwin. The human began spinning off a set of coordinates while Spike and Buffy scouted for the best weapon.
"Keep it light," Spike advised her as she scanned a rack of claymores.
Buffy was about to retort that she still had slayer strength, but stopped to observe Spike remove the handgun from his person in favor of a more lethal-looking semi-automatic pistol. He loaded a fresh magazine into the weapon and checked the safety before tucking the new gun into the waistband of his pants.
"Are we ready?" Spike asked Buffy as he crossed the room.
"Perfectly," Buffy replied, choosing a broadsword that was sharp enough for her.
Spike spun a couple of daggers into the air with a flick of his wrists, catching them both in each hand and seeming to judge their size. "Keep these on you," Spike advised, passing them to Buffy and selecting two more identical blades for himself. They both tucked the blades away for later use.
"Weapons are a bit of alright, but we'll need provisions as well," Corwin reminded, ironic with a rifle strapped across his back. He tossed a heavy canteen at Spike glanced warily behind him at the sound of bullets ricocheting through the open shaft, glass in the room shattering as the bullets found their way onto their level.
"We'll follow the tunnel for 1.8 miles east," Corwin said. "The exit will come out by a stream, and our ride will be waiting there."
"Where is this tunnel?" Buffy asked.
"Bottom floor," Corwin jerked his head towards the shaft.
"You're kidding me."
"It's an easy climb," Corwin said. "But one that should be done with both hands," he added, gently taking the broadsword away from Buffy and strapping it onto his back with the rifle so that it could be carried down as well.
Corwin headed for the shaft and Spike tailed behind him. "Come on, pet," he urged Buffy.
They sidestepped onto the ladder that ran past the wide opening to the fourth floor and then began another careful descent downwards. Buffy was sickened to notice the several accumulated bodies that lay broken and bleeding on the long spikes. Most horrifying of all were the agonized wheezes of a man who was slowly dying with spikes impaled through his stomach. It was hard to ignore the stench of fresh death in the first few seconds, and Buffy knew that the thirty-foot climb was not going to end soon enough.
A sound like thunder assaulted her ears and she could barely hear Spike bellow a warning. Buffy kept her head down and clung to the ladder out of sheer instinct, hoping to wait out barrage. A bullet struck the wall so near to her that Buffy nearly felt it, and another sparked off of the wall. Suddenly a sharp, hot pain pierced through her abdomen that made Buffy gasp silently for breath. Her vision blacked out for a moment and when she came to she was clinging weakly to the ladder and Spike was shouting something at Corwin.
"Keeping moving, damnit! Just another ten feet and we'll take a rest. Cor. Stay awake! Don't you care let go of that ladder!" The last sentence came out in a rush as Corwin already began to fall and Spike reached for him, a brief yank of weight that almost pulled Spike off of the ladder as well, but his grip was too weak to hold onto Corwin's dead weight and the man struck the concrete bottom of the shaft with a resolute crack of his skull.
Spike stared for a moment in shock and then turned his gaze upwards to focus on Buffy instead.
"Spike…" her voice came out as a quiet whimper, much like Corwin's dying gurgle as blood rushed into his lungs.
"Buffy," Spike said, senses tuning in sharply to the smell of slayer blood. "Buffy!"
"I don't think… anything important was hit… but I feel weak," Buffy gasped, inhaling a thick breath.
"Sodding hell! Buffy, it isn't far down…."
"I know," Buffy nodded, trying to let herself slip down the ladder one rung at a time. "Please hurry."
Spike got off of the ladder first, and carefully supported Buffy as she came down, pulling her into the safety of the dark tunnel. Her legs weakened and she sank down onto the damp earth quickly and Spike joined her, concern making him seem years younger.
"Buffy," he said quietly, hand pressed into the blood that darkly stained her shirt. She grabbed his hand to press it harder against her, needing the pressure to keep in the blood and to actually feel his hand at all.
"Hold me," Buffy requested. She winced in pain as she shifted slightly to rest against Spike, but it was worth it to feel his arms wrap around her again, his body relatively warm against hers. His palm pressed firmly onto the wound once again, more blood staining the shirt that already bore her essence.
It was strangely comforting to share in the blood, almost as comforting as it was to share in the body contact. But then, it had always been that way when it came to Spike. They had shared in the need for violence and the need for physical contact. Spike had never denied her darker half, the aspects of the slayer that came to dominate every bit of her existence. Killing was part of her nature, no matter how her morality kept her in line, and so was the primitive need for someone to share in that. She wished she had spent less time beating Spike up for his past deeds and more time just feeling his skin against hers and realizing that he could be the One.
"I love you," Buffy let the words go out as soon as they formed in her mind, and she felt Spike press harder against her wound. "It took so long to admit, but now I know it was true from the start, like you always knew it was true. I can't remember all of the things I did to you back then, but I remember that you always pulled through for me, no matter how hard I tried to make you stop. You were the only one who saw all of my darkness and still understood me and you wouldn't leave, even if I tried to force you away. Thank you, for that. I just, I wanted you to know, in case we don't make it, I do love you."
on to the final chapter