Title: Hello

Author: CarthsLostPadawan

Rating: PG-13 for suicidal themes and language

Summary: Milo Pressman deals with the passing of his love, Raineigh McCayle, while staring down the barrel of a 9mm.

Disclaimer: I don't own Milo, but Raineigh and Gwen are both my characters. This is AU, so please bare with. :)

The streets of Los Angeles were soaked with water, mini-rivers flooding the sidewalk from the heavy downpour. Most citizens were inside on nights like this, the beaches vacated for local clubs and bars. However, there was one who found solitude in the chaos.

Milo lay on his back within the grass, water washing over his body and drenching his clothes. No matter how hard it poured, the rain had no chance to erase the red stains from tears on his cheeks. He moved, leaning his shoulder against the side of the white marble tombstone, letting his fingers trace over the words.

Raineigh McCayle

May 4, 1987 to April 26, 2007

More angel than the world will ever know.

His lips mouthed the writing, his eyes closed. The words were memorized, which they very well should have been with he having demanded –and paid- for the proper burial. Her green-hazel eyes gazed back at him lovingly, hand running down his stubbled cheek. Chin up, Pressman. The sky's always bluer after a good hard rain. She whispered, kissing his forehead.

"Damn you!" He cried out, kicking out with his leg as if the physically move the haunting visions away. His tan skin quivered from the damp cold, his lip soon following suit though he couldn't be sure it wasn't from his hysterics. "You had to… you had to be the hero. You couldn't let me help you!"

There was no hope for me, love. Only in death did I find the final redemption I needed. The silk voice came again. He sighed heavily, crawling so that his could sit on his haunches and stare at her gravestone.

"My love would have saved you." He whispered, running his fingers down the cold marble, imagining it to be her cheek.

Love is what got me here in the first place, remember? The tears slowed for him, his breath slow and deep as he willed himself to calm down.

"I love you." He breathed, his hand trembling.

No… you don't. But thanks for saying it. Kind of makes the transition less scary.

Milo's brow furrowed and he chewed his lip absently. He wanted to ask her what she was talking about, how there could be any changes while she was dead, but he already knew what she was talking about. His heart ceased for a moment, his breath hitching in his realization. "You can't leave me."

You're a big boy, Pressman. Live life, stop dying for a corpse. She began and he could feel a spot of cold by his ear. I can't hold your hand forever, it's been a year.

He closed his eyes, feeling her presence become more faint, the tears returning to his eyes to create rivers of their own once more. "I'll follow you… I swear to God! So help me, I will follow you!"

In one movement, he pulled and cocked the 9mm that had been resting in his waistband. Your place is not with me, Milo. Don't do this to me. Raineigh's voice pleaded, the last half partially drowned out by a clap of thunder. The rain poured down harder against his skin, his hair slicking down and sticking to his forehead, his eyes stinging as the gel from his brunette locks leaked out into them.

"I love you, damn it!" He began, pointing the barrel to his right temple. The gun was cool to his skin as he pressed it firmly to his skull. "I loved you, even… even after I found out the truth. I wanted to fix you! I would have hid each and every damned body for you!"

There was no fixing me… this was a cross I needed to bear alone. She admitted, her voice a soft whisper within his mind now. The thunder roared again, this time more violently. Don't make yourself just another of my victims.

His chest heaved, his fingers clenching around the handle and trigger as if the tighter he held it, the harder time she would have getting away. He could feel her presence, slipping like sand through his fingers. "This death will be blood on my own hands, not yours!" He growled, almost angered at the fact that she could be so egotistical about his. "I can't do this alone, Raineigh."

You were never alone, Milo… Her breath was nothing more than a whisper in the wind now. I love you…

His eyes widened as he realized that the voice was gone, that Raineigh had left him once again alone in this cruel place. It was now more than ever that he felt cold, his hand shook, his grip readjusting. "I'm sorry, Raineigh. But I can't."

Had his cell phone not gone off at that minute, he could have pulled the trigger then. In fleeting delusional thought, he was convinced it was her. Picking up the phone with his free hand, he placed it to his other ear with a tear-choked "Raineigh?"

Part of him believed that there would be some sort of white noise phenomenon on the other end, that he would hear the voice of his beloved and she'd tell him that she'd never leave. However, this voice was different, holding an old familiarity to it. "Milo… where are you?"

"I don't need this, Gwen… not now." He growled, closing his eyes and attempting to summon his courage again to do it. In his mind's eye, he could see Raineigh waiting for him on the other side, tear-stained cheeks risen with the smile that graced her full lips.

"Milo… put the gun down. Please, this is not the way." She recited calmly and he wondered how she knew he had a gun at all.

"What the hell do you care, Gwen? You and Doyle would rather my dead, what does it matter if I do it myself!?" He was back to his hysterics, screaming into the phone. The sobs that racked his body nearly shattered him, he couldn't tell if he was even crying anymore. He had nothing left to give.

"Milo… I care. Please, she couldn't have wanted you this way. Milo, put the gun down and come back to CTU. We can talk about this and –"

"This has nothing to do with you! You don't know! You have no idea what the hell it's like going back to my bed knowing that was the last place she slept, the last place we were together, before I lost her!"

"You're never alone, Milo. She'll always love you." Milo froze at these words, unsure if it had been Raineigh who had spoken them just then or Gwen. "Put the gun down…" She whispered in hushed tones behind him. He didn't move, didn't budge. Slowly, she inched closer to him, placing her hand around the barrel.

For a moment, he tightened his grip trying to bring himself to just pull the trigger and make a short job of it, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. The gun slid from his grip, Gwen unarming it and putting it in her waistband behind her. The agonized cries that racked his body then tore at Gwen's heart, making it hard for her to keep up her hardened professional exterior.

"Shhh…" She calmed, awkwardly holding him as he fell back against her long slender legs. He turned, wrapping his arms around them, sobbing into the denim fabric and drenching them with the rain. They stood together like that for a moment, she running her fingers comforting through his hair and holding him as he cried his soul into her jeans.

"How did you…" He began after a long while. Gwen shook her head, her raven pigtail braids dripping with rain water. She looked down at him, smiling softly as she understood his question fine without him finishing it.

"I don't know… I just, I guess I just had a feeling." He gazed up at her, staring into her own jade eyes and realizing for the first time how much she truthfully reminded him of… Of her. Could that have been what attracted me to Raineigh in the first place? "Come on… let me take you home alright?"

He reached out longingly again for the stone, before reluctantly getting to his feet. Stumbling, he had to brace himself on the wet marble to keep from falling back to his knees. Gwen put an arm around his waist, urging him to put his weight on her shorter frame. They walked slowly, solemnly as if going through a funeral procession.

"Gwen," He spoke suddenly, his voice rough from tears.

"Yeah?" She didn't look to him, keeping her eyes straight forward and her shoulders squared. She didn't know why, but at that moment she felt she needed to be strong for him.

"Thank you."

It was a bittersweet moment. It didn't matter anymore that they had never been able to become more than friends in Denver, nor did it matter that they had made enemies in L.A. Though the circumstances were meek, they had reestablished a connection both thought had been buried years ago.

And Milo realized that he truly wasn't alone in this world. With one last bit of faith, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to live through the pain of another day. He hope with every fiber of his being that Raineigh was right.

He'd hit rock bottom, it could only get better.