This is a real sad story, but its full of love. Read at your own risk; character deaths :(

They were partners and neither could imagine living without the other. Their lives were focused on their relationship; working together to make an difference. He loved her and she loved him. Both would risk their own life to save the other without a second thought. It was perfect harmony and the beauty of their relationship was unending.

Only when she trusted in him to tell him, she was dying, and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it; that's when his whole world fell around him.

He couldn't sleep, he couldn't work, he didn't even try to do anything; he just sat and watched her, and she watched him.

This went on for weeks. He held it off because he didn't want to deal with the pain of losing her. She was his best friend, his confidant, always there for him, his biggest supporter, his closest "family." And he just couldn't imagine what his life would be like without her.

Only one day she wasn't there, and his heart fell. He got crazy and frantic, trying to make sure she was okay, to reassure himself she was still alive. But his co-workers told him: his partner had collapsed when she walked in the door today. The last word on her lips as she was loaded into the ambulance, "Carlton."

He broke down. All these thoughts ran through his head:

Why didn't he say goodbye while he still had the chance?

He should have treated her better.

He could have saved her.

He could have spent more time with her.

He never had a chance to tell her how he felt.

He spent too much time thinking about himself, and wasn't there to comfort her.

He hated himself.

And it was all his fault.

He cried himself to sleep that night, because eventually he just couldn't cry any longer. The pain was nothing like he had ever felt before, and there was a part of him that wished he was the dead one, because dealing with this was killing him anyway.

Her funeral was his personal hell. Everybody left him kneeling at her grave, screaming out everything he never had the chance to tell her. He told her all his favorite moments they had shared, what he loved about her. He told her his secrets, everything he had gone through. He confided in her, and told her what he would have done if he had the chance before it was over. He told her how much it hurt, and how much he missed her. He blamed himself, told her what he could have done different. He told her that his life was over, and that she WAS his life. He explained why she kept him sane and happy, and how without her, he was nothing. How he wasn't the man she knew, and he apologized for it. He asked for forgiveness and that she keep being who she was for him, because it was too much to lose her, and he couldn't handle it if he tried. He apologized for his stupidity, and the absence of things he should have said and done. But most of all, he cried. He leaned over her headstone and grasped it with the last ounce of control he had. He told her he wouldn't leave her, and he didn't. He stayed there for a whole day without moving, without sleeping. All he could do was think about her, and how he couldn't live with her gone, knowing he hadn't even gotten the chance to hug her goodbye, to hold her hand and gaze into her eyes one last time. He was broken beyond repair and he needed the suffering to end. He unholstered his gun and held it close to his heart and sighed.

Then with the last ounce of strength he had, he whispered to her, "I can't keep living like this. I'll see you soon, O'Hara." He cocked the gun, held it to his broken heart, and pulled the trigger.

The rest of the police station had found him the next day: gun dropped and blood on his fingers. With his last breaths he had traced her name in his blood with a heart surrounding it. A heart that was incomplete, because he died before he could finish it. They buried him directly next to her, and the station grieved for their loss of the two best detectives they had ever known.

His headstone read:

Carlton Lassiter

1965-2013

Hold your feelings back,

and you shall die a shallow soul.

She was my world.