"I love you Jodie," Ryan whispers to himself as the air around him churns endlessly, a void of dark colors opening up around him. Its dark, and at the same time it is bright. Around him the souls of the lost shift endlessly through a cycle of calling out for help and calling out for loved ones. Entities swim through the air with malicious glee seeming to radiate from their beings. Ryan is scared, oh yes, but more for the woman he loves than for himself. He let her go into the void alone, even with that damned belt he knew things would not end well. They never did when it came to Jodie. "I love you." He waits for what feels like hours upon hours, staring out at the endless array of curling black smog and bright lights that danced among it. He can only hope she isn't trouble.
Both the dark and bright elements of the void begin swirling quickly, the ground beneath his feet shaking. He looks around, confused as to whats happening until he catches sight of the void seeming to draw into itself. Souls and Entities being sucked back as if the void were a vacuum sucking up dust. He watches in amazement, as the entire thing seems to grow impossibly large before crashing inwards on itself, becoming nothing.
Then the light becomes too much and Ryan has to close his eye.
When he next opens his eye he looks around in a daze. He's dizzy from the sudden atmospheric change and the optical illusion that made the room look so much bigger. He stands on shaky legs, weary of any injury he may have obtained. He looks around for Jodie, wanting to congratulate her on saving this world, and to take her in his arms and never leg go. When he spots her his smile drops, his heart racing. She's on the ground a few paces away, and she isn't moving. He rushes to her side with a cry; "Jodie!"
She doesn't move, she isn't breathing.
"Jodie?"
He sinks to his knees and cradles her in his arms, breath coming out in quick pants now. Why isn't she moving? There's no way she can be dead! He holds her close, searching for any sign of life, any at all. But she still doesn't move, her head lolling to one side.
"Jodie wake up," He hates the whine in his voice, but there's good reason. He knows she's dead now, can't bring himself to do anything besides hold her in his arms hopelessly, waiting for her to pick her head up and crack a wise ass joke at him. Or maybe just say hi. Anything but lay there with her eyes closed and her mouth parted but breathless, body limp.
"Jodie wake..Jodie wake up"
His desperation increases, Sobs wrecking their way out of his body as he curls protectively over her. She's gone. But he can't stop himself from sobbing, and muttering soft words to her. Voice nothing more than low breathlessness. Rocking her back and forth in his arms to the beat of every sob that forces its way from him. After all they have gone through, after all they have done together. From the first time they met up until now. Ryan had thought Jodie was invincible.
"Jodie wake up!"
He was wrong, oh god he was wrong.
"No...oh god no"
He recalls the last mission they went on together, remembering the cold he felt sitting there on the ocean side with her. He told her he loved her, pleaded for her forgiveness. Kissed her, thinking that would be the last time they ever saw each other again.
"Jodie wake up..."
And before that, when he sent Jodie on that mission and she nearly died to carry out an order she never would have gone through with otherwise. He was so afraid he had lost her then.
"No..."
Back to their dinner together, when they laid together in bed, soaking in each others warmth and love.
"hey, come on, Jodie..."
All the way back to the first time he saw her, a fiery teenager who didn't want to leave her home...Ryan holds Jodie in his arms, and replays his memories pf her, over and over until he knows he cannot stay beside her any longer...
"I love you Jodie," He whispers one final time.
