How much will you pay for an extra day?"
He asked when the time came to die.
"All of the pearls in all of the seas,
And all of the stars in the sky
— Shel Silverstein, The Clock Man
He pays his dues on his knees on the rocks, in the blood that seeps from sallow skin to dark cloak, in the saltiness that courses through the valleys of his angst-wrinkled face, in the "Anything" that ties him (even for her sake) to him, to his child.
It's a king's ransom for a poor man like him and his tears are worth all the gold that ever has or ever will exist; a king's ransom from a pauper for a queen (and the man she chose as her king- king, not consort, and that distinction cuts him to the quick: theirs is an existence of gilded synchronicity).
What follows is a living-death: he eats and sleeps and drinks (becomes his own guinea-pig again) and lies through his teeth and guards his thoughts, over and over and over again. What little spirit left in him is channelled into eating and sleeping and drinking and lying and guarding; channelled into actions to help her. Though they're worlds and miles and (un)spoken words apart, he is, he supposes, living vicariously through her. Death for himself, life for her. And life (hers, at least, with him) goes on.
But all things must die, and he'd hoped it would be him first.
Not her.
He'd have crushed coal with his bare hands if it meant making diamonds to immortalise her. He'd have set planets alight with his passion if it meant there would be bright lights to accompany her home.
All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put her back together again.
It's a dead pauper's life he leads (and she should have lived as a queen for the ages).