AN: For myjilyromance, Amy, who gave me the song prompt Crash by Sum41.

His mind races.

His heart, too, but that's not important. That can end any time. It is ending. But… you know what's not? You know what he doesn't want to end? That familiar smug flip of her hair, the first time he heard Harry cry, the last time he saw Sirius. Many other things. It's like skimming last minute through a book he has to return now. So steadily frantic it's almost calm. His heart can't even keep up. His soul starts humming goodbye, but he can't bring himself to say it. To think it. The fast beats are irrelevant. That'll be over soon anyway, and it's despicable, he doesn't want to leave, but… but if there's any kindness left in this world, maybe his mind will keep racing forever.

I'll hold him off.

Should he say something else? I love you, maybe? Because he does love her. Lily. He loves her a million times over a million different lives. This one's ending a little too soon, but hey, maybe it won't. Few seconds left. Survive this and there's infinity beyond that threshold. Maybe he'll get that porch thing. You know; rocking chairs, white flimsy hair, the beach maybe. She'll be wearing glasses, too, and he'd tease her endlessly about it, but there'll be nothing more he adores in the world. Lily's in love with the sound of waves crashing on the shore. He loves the woods more, he always tells her, but her head thudding gently down on his shoulder, drifting asleep in the ocean breeze and the warmth of his arms—that's not so bad either. They can still have that, right? Grown-up Harry visiting them every once in a while with his little tykes. Little James's and Lily's flying around in their little brooms, icing on their noses. Sirius still beating him in wizard's chess. Remus sending his homemade biscuits over. The porch thing. He and Lily have always called it the porch thing. Maybe, somehow—gods exist, don't they?—he'll survive this, make it out alive even without his wand—where'd he leave it again?—and he'll live to the height of the annoying husband he's bound to be.

Husband. Ha. On his way to hell and he still reels at the fact that he got to marry her. Lily Evans Potter. Unbelievable. What if all the good in the world reserved in his name has run out for that one big favour?

He's never thought about what his last words should be. I'll hold him off. Not quite historical. But it's not something you sit down and think properly about anyway. Especially not in a war, when every last one of your best friends could be uttering theirs out there all the bloody time.

Still, it would be fantastic if he came up with something a bit more heroic.

He racks his brains. Let it race, let it race…

Chase down that horizon; it goes forever. Circle the world with your thumb and index finger. Kiss her lips when she looks up at you, hand still on the telescope, meteors dancing in her eyes. Pretend you're holding her hand. The porch thing. Keep thinking about the porch thing.

Seven seconds left. Six. Five. Four…

I love you. I love you, Lily. Run. Live. Please live. I love you.

Maybe last thoughts count. It's silly, but he's almost sure she hears it; the words pound against the sides of his head, struggling to reach a few steps behind him, ghost breaths lingering on her skin, ghost fingers tucking that stray strand of hair behind her ear one last time.

I'll hold him off.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

She hears. She does. It's the delusional, stubborn, 'arrogant toerag'. It's magic. It's milliseconds of desperate insanity before he goes.

He sees her smile in the light of the moon. It floods his vision, saturates the looming view of the cloaked nightmare coming forward. He whispers Lily in his head, propels back through the rustle of hushed midnights, with little Harry asleep nearby and silver summer stars coming down to curiously peek at them through the window. Lily, he whispers in the dark, kissing her neck, drawing her close, and she smiles, that tired knowing little smile teetering on the edge of sleep, eyes already closed and heartbeats in no hurry—

There's a flash of green. James Potter's strings are broken before the memory traces a similar smile on his lips.