A cold wind howled through the trees and I pulled my coat tighter around myself to compensate. This was just typical, I thought. That she would choose to go now, when it was so bitterly cold. One last stubborn act of rebellion, forcing us all to stand out in the snow to say goodbye. I laughed, but it rolled into a sob before I could stop it, rattling through my body. I felt like I might crumple in on myself like a sheet of discarded paper, if I allowed myself to. When exactly had my entire existence come to rely on that of someone else's? I wanted to scold myself for being so weak.
"Oh, you're here. Are you coming inside?"
In all my bitterness and over-thinking, I had lost track of time. I looked ahead of me, at the figure standing amongst the blizzard of fine snow, wrapped in a grey coat, that same black and white scarf blowing behind him, and nodded. He held the church door open, and I traipsed in behind him, stomping flecks of muddied snow off my Doc Martens. Somehow, the last four years had aged us both ten-fold. He'd lost some of the brightness in his eyes, his face more gaunt, but he still had the boyish smile I knew Maureen had fallen for all those years ago. Now, the corners of his mouth only turned up ever so slightly. It was still more of a smile than I could manage.
"It's only small but I think... well... there isn't..." he rambled, his cheeks turning slightly pink. I knew what he was trying to say and nodded.
There were less of us each time. Each time we went through this process, there were less of us. Less chairs needed. Less food to order. The flowers became sparser.
I had never expected her to be next. None of us had.
"Collins will have to go on the end. We can park his chair next to this heater," I said, my voice wavering. He had never expected to outlive her, "I don't think he should be coming, not when it's this cold but... well... he wants to be here."
"Of course he does," Mark said, taking my hand, squeezing it.
I allowed myself a moment of sadness, before moving on. We had a lot of things to do, lots to get ready. I was so grateful to have Mark there with me. We had been doing this dance for as long as I could remember, but this was the worst of all, because it was different this time. We could never have seen this coming. Last time we had been in this church, we had both silently acknowledged that the next time we would come here, it would be to lay Collins to rest. His body had been slowly shutting down even then, even as we weeped for Roger, considered the life he had had, the things he might have done if Mimi hadn't left us less than a year earlier. Collins had accepted his fate, just as we all had.
But it wasn't Collins who had died.
We both knew it would make no difference whether he trekked through the icy winds and heavy fall of snow to get to the church; he was going to die either way. We were just attempting to postpone the inevitable. It would have been wrong for him not to be there, like he had been at all the others.
Only Mark and myself would be at his. Benny, if he was feeling well enough.
Rearranging chairs and organising flowers somehow didn't seem so important anymore. I sunk against one of the benches, my elbows resting on my knees as I sat, head resting in my hands. I could feel tears pricking at my eyes, but they barely bothered me anymore. They'd come to belong there.
"Is it really worth it in the end, Mark?" My throat was dry, my voice unrecognisable. He regarded me with the same tired expression. Survivors guilt. The one thing – beyond a deep love, and, at the same time, frustrated resentment for Maureen – that we had ever truly shared, beyond everybody else.
"I don't know," he said quietly, sitting beside me so our knees touched, "but I do know that giving up is the last thing either of us should do. We have to fight. For Maureen. For them."
"I spend all my life protecting people, fighting for people... who is protecting me? Who is fighting for me? Who is going to stop me from winding up alone and afraid?"
Mark didn't have any answers and I didn't expect him to. I closed my eyes, pressed my forehead against my hands. I had a headache building there. I'd had it for days. Six days, in fact. Since the moment I'd had the phone call.
"How did we get here?" Mark mumbled after a long moment, and I turned my head ever so slightly to look at him. He wasn't crying. He hadn't cried at all, not since Mimi. He wanted to be strong for Roger, all the good that did him, and now, for me.
"I don't know," I said, wiping at my eyes, "I just don't know."
The words were redundant. Neither of us had any answers, just a life-long list of questions, and 'what if's, and 'maybe's, and things that would never happen. Of moments our loved ones would never see, and words we would never be able to say to them.
"I have lost three of my closest friends to the same disease. One more is going to die from it any day now," I said, slowly, "and my girlfriend... the only woman I have ever loved, goes out into the snow to pick up take out, and never makes it home."
The words hung heavy in the cold, still church, like a confession. I continued, eyes glistening with unshed tears that I refused to let spill. I had to be strong, like Mark. I had to be. He couldn't do it alone.
"I told her not to go. I told her. We'll raid the cupboards, I told her. I'll cook something. Please, it's so cold out, and the snow... She insisted. God, I wish I never got her that car. She insisted on going out. You know how she is..." I trailed off, "how she was. Stubborn. 'It's fine, Pookie, I'll only be ten minutes.' She's dancing about the apartment, pulling her boots on, shrugging on a fur jacket. I told her not to go. She'd only had her licence a month. That ice, it's vicious Maureen. She won't listen. I yell at her. The last five minutes we have left together on earth, and I'm yelling, trying to snatch her car keys from her. It's like I knew. All along, I knew. And I sat and I waited and I knew she wasn't coming home. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I knew it."
"It was a shock to us all," Mark interjected, his voice low. He reached a hand to touch mine, and I flinched unwillingly. He pulled away.
"I could never have known," I said, nodding. But I still felt it, like it was running through my veins. Guilt. I should have stopped her.
"She wasn't invincible, y'know? She might have liked to think she was, but she wasn't. You know Maureen Johnson... human hurricane. Force to be reckoned with," Mark paused, "she loved you. So much more than I ever knew she had a capacity for."
I nodded, again finding myself mopping at my tear-soaked cheeks. I thought back to the very first time Mark and I had met. Arguing over Maureen, trying to fix her damn sound equipment. I'd told her not to call him, and she'd done it anyway. He had tried to convince me that I was no different from any of the others. I'd loathed him with every inch of my body, not only because he was smug and lively and Maureen's ex, but because he was right.
Somehow, we had become friends.
We all had. Bound together by some unknown fate and understanding that none of us were perfect but we were all trying. We'd parted and reunited and parted again, and then we'd come back together, stronger. And then Mimi had died. And Roger. And now Maureen.
Mark was a decent man. A good man. If the apocalypse was to come, I knew I would want him on my side, weedy as he was. He was loyal and had a good sense of humour and kind, gentle eyes. He could talk me down from anything. The number of times I had decided to end things with Maureen and he had been the one to persuade me to give it another go. He hated her just as much as I did, if not more, but he loved her, too. It was an odd relationship. A constant back and forth. Arguing, fighting, teasing. I'd caught them kissing once or twice, but I always allowed it. Even, a few times, I had considered what his mouth would feel like against my own, soft and warm and without the intensity that came with kissing Maureen Johnson. But I had blinked the thought away.
"We can do this, you know," Mark said, after an uncomfortably long silence.
I turned my head, fully this time, to meet his eyes. He had the faintest hints of a smile on his face, his hands twisting in his lap. He wasn't as confident as his words wanted me to believe. I attempted a smile, but it was like the muscles in my face had forgotten how to move.
"You're a lot stronger than you think you are."
I didn't believe that for a moment, but I wanted to. I lifted my head, and moved to rest against his shoulder, his arm snaking its way around me, holding me close. He was warm, and he smelt distinctly Mark-like, and it was suddenly more comforting than anything else in the world. I could have stayed there forever. He bent his head, and I felt his lips brush against my forehead, my eyes slip closed.
He was right, I was strong, and I could do this. I'd done it before. I had to keep fighting, because nobody else was going to do it for me. And, at least I wouldn't be doing it alone.