White Collar: If I Die Young

Disclaimer: White Collar and all of its characters and locations, etc. belongn to their respective owners; I'm just borrowing. No copyright infringement intended!

Author's Note: This story came around from the prompt "Crimson"; I begged it off a friend, let it sit for about three days, and then decided that Sara needed to get shot. Then it sort of almost exploded on me and demanded to be at least three parts, total. Other two should be up within the week.

Thanks, as always, to my brilliant and ever-patient beta, IuvenesCor (on AO3); any mistakes that may remain are mine, not hers!

Part 1. Crimson

It was supposed to be so simple, Sara thought, staring accusingly at the bright red stain growing across the white of her blouse. (Stupid stain. This was her favorite shirt!) She was supposed to file some paperwork, meet Neal for lunch, and then again that night for something more intimate. There was not supposed to be any problems, any police, any snipers on the roof taking potshots at them! And no crying. People standing behind a police barrier crying from fear was not part of her plan.

Neal wasn't supposed to be crying, either; but in a morbid sort of way, she was comforted by the thought. It meant that she wasn't alone in the world, that there was someone to care about her after she was gone. And that was encouraging.

It was a pity about their lunch, though. She would really have liked to have a final chat (she always did leave things unsaid; but she'd planned to do things differently with him.), enjoying a final glass of wine as she teased him about the Raphael or reminded him that she had never tasted his soup. She would have liked to finish their (unexpected) last kiss; it really was rude of the shooter not to wait until she'd had that, at least.

Sara supposed that it did make sense in the end, though. She'd always known that one of these days her job was going to catch up with her, and she could either quit or go down. She wished it hadn't happened when she was with Neal. She hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

She should have learned, with her sister, that you never really had the time you that you thought you did.

Through a hazy cloud of white noise, Sara could hear the sound of sirens, shrieking and wailing almost as loud as Neal's ragged breaths. Then suddenly he was gone, and there were hands pressing on her chest (Idiots! Did they miss the bullet in her torso?), a mask being forced over her mouth, cold, sharp metal digging around in her insides. Sara was vaguely irritated with the medics; couldn't they see she was dying? Why did they have to cause her more pain when she was a goner anyways?

"Stop it," she protested, or at least tried to. The pain and shock combined were making it hard to tell what was real anymore. But she didn't want them to delay the inevitable, she just wanted to get it over with. She was never one for long goodbyes –

When she felt the sharp jab of a needle in her arm, she was pretty sure she slapped a medic.

The pressure on her chest eased abruptly, and she felt herself being lifted and carried towards a gaping hole that was probably just the ambulance door. (When had they gotten her onto a stretcher?) She thought that she caught a glimpse of Neal's face before it sucked her in; his skin pale and smeared with vivid scarlet and his perfect hair messy and flopping in his eyes. His eyes. She didn't think that she'd ever seen his eyes look so fantastically blue...

...Then she was inside the ambulance, and Neal was gone. The medics were still working on her (Really was hopeless, shouldn't waste the resources.), but Sara couldn't understand them anymore. Their voices and that obnoxious beeping of the medical monitors all became distant, fading, and the faces yelling and worrying above her became disjointed images which no longer mattered. The pain, too, was receding, leaving in its wake a gentle warmth that was almost comforting.

With what little Sara still had in her, she could feel herself drifting, floating away. She looked down again, saw the blood on her shirt (Hope it'll come out.), and stared until the world faded and all that she could see was red. Then white. Then black.