A/N: Quotes from Hamlet...well, from Ophelia.

Afterwards, he finds that he has bits of glass and gravel crushed against his knees; all the salt that wounds could beg for.

He hadn't even remembered being on the ground. There was only Donna, and blood.

Opie has seen bodies, bodies and blood on the ground. Even, he has put them there.

But not like this.

Donna used to laugh with her chin tilted up. Used to make Opie find that shy grin he didn't wear out a lot. Charming's a hellhole, but nowhere has a bluer sky.

She used to believe that, so did he. They could ride for miles and he could find words in that slow sure way he had, no smooth-talking like Jax, just enough to tell her how he loved her.

He loved her.

She used to believe that.

In the moments of running, of disbelief, it's like his stomach's tearing up through his throat, like he's going to flip over, or the world is. He's a foul-mouthed man, always has been, always will be (what will he be now?), but he just keeps running God, Jesus, God, over in his head.

Donna liked to go to church, back when they were happy.

Father, son, and holy ghost. Three bullets in her head. Opie hears a sound like screaming, realizes it's his own voice.

God, Jesus, God.

Jax is with him. Opie can feel him, hear him. Ope and shit, shit, shit, in Jax's voice.

Opie can't see him. Can't see anything.

Anything but her.

She doesn't visit him for the first three months that he's inside.

Jax comes instead, every other week. All lying smile and honest eyes. "She's just staying with her mom for a bit, Ope. She'll come 'round."

Every night, Opie lies on his cot, and thinks, she's never coming back. And the fear splits him open, wider and deeper than guilt did.

Her blood's still flowing. Still thick, warm, leaking over his hands like blood has a hundred times.

(Just not like this.)

If she'd gone to her mom's, pissed as hell and never coming back—

She wasn't angry with him when she died. She would have lived if she had been. Love gets you killed.

He met her when he was seventeen years old, and he was selfish. He loved her.

Damn selfish.

The house is full of stinking casseroles and old ladies sweating and crying and mussing his kids' hair.

The kids—

It's moments like those that wake the pain up out of the deadness, find some living blood in cold flesh. His stomach's empty, finished crawling up out of his throat.

Jax comes, lying smile, lying eyes. Can't quite keep it up, though, those lies. That golden front.

He'd stay if Opie asked him too. Stay in a heartbeat.

No more heartbeats. Opie tells him to go.

Ellie has her eyes, Kenny has her smile.

Opie has nothing left. There's only blood, and Donna, lying on the ground he doesn't remember, with her chin tilted up.