A/N: Oh the feels.
I am so sorry.
BECAUSE THE FEELS.
*sobs*
Time seemed to slow, and Spencer found himself stuck in a frantic haze, just hoping that this would end differently.
The wound in his shoulder throbbed with each rampant beat of his heart, his warm blood trickling through his clutched fingers, dripping down and leaving a thin red stain where one hadn't been before.
He clenched his teeth, forcing himself to ignore this pain as he focused on her.
Only her.
His team stood behind him, guns out and at the ready. He could hear them as a distant noise, words and mumblings, something that wasn't as important. She was the only thing he could see. Her wide, lovely brown eyes, the pink flush in her pale cheeks, the smooth locks of dark-brown hair that framed her beautiful face to absolute perfection.
All this time, he'd imagined who she was, how she'd react to seeing him for the first time…and how he'd go about seeing her.
He'd decided long ago that it didn't particularly matter to him what she looked like. Because she was already the most beautiful girl in the world. And more than anything, he wanted her to know that.
He wanted to reach out across the distance and pull her into his arms. He wanted to hold her close and never let her go.
In this time-stop, he saw the life they could have, the life they should have, the life he so desperately wanted her to have with him.
He wanted to spend every waking minute of every single day telling her how much he loved her. Proving to her that she was as deserving of total happiness as anyone else in this world.
That she had a place by his side, if she would have him.
He envisioned a future for the two of them, in which he saw two brown-haired children running through the field of colored flowers. He would pick them up and carry them to a wonderful cottage where he would set them down just inside of its white gates. They would run to her, and she would lift them up, hugging the young boy and girl against her warm body, kissing the tops of each of their heads before letting them loose.
And then she would look up at him.
Their eyes would meet, and an invisible spark would pull them together without a sound. In a moment, she'd be in his arms as he would be in hers. Their lips would touch, and he'd be lost in her.
Forever lost with you.
But time caught up with him. The shouts of his family behind him, the terrified look in her eyes as she found herself wanting what he had seen.
Thomas Merton.
"Who—who is Thomas Merton?"
Then, her voice, and the last time he would ever hear it:
"He's the one thing you can never take from us."
The one thing you can never take from us.
Reaching across the room, he found her one last time.
Will you have me?
She was his.
I've loved you from the beginning.
She knew.
You were already the most beautiful thing in the world to me.
A single tear cascaded down her cheek.
But you knew that.
She had.
And in the next instant, she was gone.
Forever lost without you.
