Not a one shot. Based partially on the novel Looking for Alaska by John Green.
In everyone's life, there is a true-love snapshot moment forever engraved in their mind until they die. His was of her. She was perfect: beautiful, smart, funny, charismatic, and charming. She was the type of person you'd fall in love with even if she was your enemy. Even if it was forbidden. She was truly his "classic Juliet."
365 days.
From the moment he met her, Mal Fallon knew she was the girl he wanted to marry. He knew he was deeply and irrevocably in love with her. It wasn't hard to fall in love with someone like her. The first words she'd spoken to him were funny, sarcastic, and lovable all at once. They'd met nearly a year ago, and he'd cherished every single day since then.
At some point in your life, you'll meet that one person you trust wholeheartedly the second you lay eyes on them. You'll meet the one person you never doubt that you love. Never let them go.
It was just another day, filled with work, responsibility, and goals to others, but to him it was more, much more. It was the day he planned to ask her out.
He walked into the SFPD precinct, slightly less confident than usual, and immediately saw her over by the water cooler; talking to a black-haired lawyer he knew to be Oscar Santos. It was peculiar, the way his eyes always were attracted to her. They could pick her out of a dense crowd within seconds of entering the scene. She just stood out to him: her shoulder-length brown hair, her sparkling green eyes speckled greatly with brown, the way her lips always tilted slightly upward in the right corner like she was dying to smile even when it wasn't appropriate, the way her eyebrows creased often because she was in deep thought. He had kept track of his beautiful brunette partner diligently. That's what you do when you're in love.
It must've been the moment she noticed him and walked away from the black-haired lawyer, who was smirking triumphantly. That was the beginning. When she ran up to him grinning ear-to-ear and threw her arms around his neck. He figured she was finally getting over her ex-boyfriend, Agent Shawn Mallory's death. That is, until she whispered excitedly in his ear.
The lawyer, Oscar Santos, just asked me out!
It must've been that moment that his heart felt like it was weighed down by a thousand boulders. The moment he lost his true love. He felt like he was collapsing, but since he was supporting her weight as well, he stayed on his feet. He wouldn't let her fall. He wouldn't drag her down.
Ever.