A flat-line.
A dead story, silence where there was laughter, emptiness where there was love, all the possibilities in the world shattered into tiny pieces. Something were there used to be more but it's up and died and is no more.
A blip.
A mountain of challenges, a glowing light of new life and hope, a myriad of new chances and encounters. The smallest speck of light in an otherwise forgotten and abandoned black room.
A heartbeat.
A living, breathing man, built of desire and fear and hope and loss and everything in between. Coated in his own blood, a swirling ball of energies and all that makes up a human, complexities and quirks and love and hate.
A story.
A final act of desperation, of necessity to try and right to wrongs, even before the lightning struck.
But this story is already dead.
Or, at the very least, too broken and mangled and ripped to pieces to ever be healed properly; no this is just a mirror of a story that once was but can't ever be again, because one of the halves has finally let go of the past and moved on to the present, while the other, still pining in grief, will manage to move foreword given time.
But this broken story is all that Sam has to cling to, so that's what he holds onto as he spins around the cosmic drain, letting the presence of her ground him down until he can stand on his own two feet.
Heartbeats.
Blip blip blip blip.
Relief swamps her from where she lingers in the back of the room, staring blankly at the monitor that shows the rise and fall of life. But there's a bitterness at the back of her throat as the picture before her wavers and she is suddenly picturing an entirely different man surrounded by doctors and his own blood. It's like a knife to the heart and chest, a sharper and more pronounced pain then the throbbing fear she had felt earlier.
Covering her mouth with a hand, she feels ill and she blinks frantically to clear the picture of a bleeding soldier from her head.
Andy and Sam's story is just that.
A story.
Nothing more.
A thing of the past.
Andy and Nick's story, however…
It's still wet ink and clean paper, just waiting for new words to be written. It's the smell of spring rain and new growth, of healing both their scars from the past and of easy, simple trust.
So, when she makes her way from the glaring and bloody room with colt like steps, after she is swarmed by other officers asking from the status of their fallen, she finally looks him in the eye.
He looks away quickly, but not before she sees the tears there, signs telling her that he believes this is the end of them.
Letting the doctor inform Frank of Sam's relatively stable condition, Andy ducks her head and worms her way expertly through the sea of bodies until she stands before him. He stands stiff and tall, body ready for the blow he is expecting.
It tears her heart.
It takes a moment for her to find her voice, but when she does, the words just flow out. "On the way over, I told him a story of how we used to be. How he used to make me feel like the most loved person in the entire world. How it felt as though nothing could ever happen," she takes a breath at how he flinches, feels her own limbs twitch in response. "But I realized something in there. That's all me and Sam are anymore. We're just a story and I don't think that can ever be fixed. I don't think I want that fixed either," she huffs and shuffles, well aware of his now laser intense gaze bores into her skull.
"Nick, I think I … love you," she whispers hesitantly, desperately searching his face. His expression goes blank. She freezes.
Then light explodes across his features and tears of a different sort appear.
Then he's kissing her, his tears mingling with her own, like the world is ending.
"I have something to show you," he whispers when they break apart, foreheads resting on one another.
Turning, he picks up his discarded vest and shows her the inside, hands trembling slightly from the onslaught of emotions. As she reads, she runs her fingers gently over the silver lettering, as if tracing every word into her heart as well.
When she looks up, she frankly beams, even through the trails of liquid on her cheeks.
With that, the quill settles onto crisp paper, and begins.
.
I have mixed feelings about the finale. Non of them are pleasant. I just... can't go there.