But you saved me.
Yes.
Why?
Carrie didn't look again. She didn't mourn. For some reason, she felt like she had already mourned. Only her tears were left now and they seemed to fall involuntarily.
What could she expect? She had woken up a dead man and he had come back changed, just a shell of his former self. Like very little of him had actually been back. And he had felt it.
Why, he had asked. The word echoed in her mind. Every time his eyes had met hers, he seemed to be asking her the same question, over and over again. Why bring him back ? Why live like this? And even now it haunted her.
Why?
She had been selfish. She brought him back for information. She brought him back because the thought of losing him scared her. And because she loved him. Too late for that.
She could hear the wailing of sirens in the distance, signalling ambulances drawing very near. Dar had probably called them in, to try and save his protege, just in case. But it was already too late.
The President was shaken. She was trembling as she straightened herself up in the car. And then she, too, saw the slumped figure in the driver's seat.
"Is he dead?"she asked.
"Yes," Carrie answered. He wasn't really alive to begin with.
"He saved our lives!"
"Yes." He had always saved her. Always.
"What was his name?"
Carrie struggled to say it. Like so much was contained in that name. Like her life depended on it.
"P-Peter Quinn."
As she said it, she felt it again, the lateness of it all.
She had seen the glimmer of a future with Quinn, once. He had declared his feelings for her, once. Once upon a time, Quinn was the only one who stood by her through thick and thin. He had seen her at her worst and not flinched, once. And she had loved him back, once. It all seemed such a long time ago.
And so late.
She also felt a sense of relief that it was over now, at last.
The paramedics had arrived. Two of them opened the driver's seat and the others checked up on the President and her. Another asked something and the President replied, then pointed to the seat in front of her.
They took his body into the van. They were saying something to each other and there was a sense of urgency as they hurried with him. Was there a faint pulse still? Were they trying to save him? Hoping to revive a dead man, again? She wanted to stop them. Let him be, she wanted to say.
Someone escorted her into a car, away from the scene. She let him and didn't look back.
A year ago, she would have given anything, clung to the faintest hope, if it meant he was alive. Not this time. No matter how much it killed her, this time, she would let him go.
She didn't look, didn't mourn, didn't hope.