"You'll be okay, I know you will."
There was a Max before there was an Alec, but there wasn't an Alec before Max, he knew he had to go.
"Let me do this. You're going to be free Max, really free and happy. You'll find love Max; you're too loving to everyone else to not have someone love you back like you need." She screamed and railed against him until she couldn't stand to yell at him anymore. She saw the decision made steadfast in his eyes and she collapsed in his arms, tears screaming her defiance and resignation to his choice glistened from her face. She buried her head in his chest as she clutched onto his shirt as if it were a lifeline.
He held her shaking form close as tears cascaded down his own morose visage. "Shh baby," he cooed as he stroked her hair, "You'll be alright. You'll be okay. Be strong for me. Smile for me Maxie."
He should have tasted freedom. If there was someone who deserved it most, it was Alec.
He was wrong though. Max couldn't be Max anymore without him. He had changed and shaped her life in so many ways since he stepped into her cell that first night. A time and place where her heart beat without his was unfathomable, but here she was, alone in her existence.
This is why she didn't let people into her life, and never had she let someone in as deep as she had allowed Alec to. She was open and vulnerable to pain and heartbreak, and in her short life she knew of those two too well for someone so young and beautiful.
She shook with sobs, her body weak and shaking, dismissive to outside forces who tried to move her. Why she had let him go she couldn't understand, though deep down she knew he would have gone anyways--with or without her acceptance. At least she said goodbye, gave him heart as he walked away from her. But her freedom was overrated. She felt lost and boxed in and unable to move. Chained to her room by her grief, she hadn't left it since he did.
Her throat hurt, her muscles ached, her eyes that once held light and joy when she was in his embrace were bloodshot and swollen from her endless tears. She was cold and the only touch that could have brought warmth would never return to this realm of reality.
His scent grew faint. She felt sick. She inhaled him at every opportunity trying to memorize every part of his being that remained his only legacy.
People came in and out whispering words meant to soothe, but only fuelled her melancholy. What was worse was that with every new body his comforting aroma that once permeated throughout the house was replaced by another.
A week, they told her, since he had passed. It felt like eternity. The seconds dragged on endlessly and the darkness in her life did not seem to lead to a light. Buried under a sea of sheets in their bed where their love had been consummated she closed her eyes in hopes of seeing her fallen lover in her dreams.
He visited her when she fell victim to her own exhaustion.
The cold that had taken over her senses disappeared and she was in the arms of the one she mourned endlessly. She buried her face in his chest and brought her arms up as he held her wholly like a small child curled up in his embrace.
She looked up into his bright face smiling down at her and she felt complete again.
"Alec." His name came as a reverent sigh as she revelled in his presence. Her surroundings were vague but he was clear in her vision and that was all that mattered. She wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled fully for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.
"Maxie." He whispered her name as if it were a sacred word, and then tilted her chin up to look deep into her gaze before finally meeting her lips in a soft sweet kiss.
Her breath was stolen from her lips when they finally parted, still locked in each other's grasp.
"Max, baby, you've got to be good for me."
Tears formed again, and fell silently.
"How can I be okay? How can you ask me to do that when you're not with me anymore?"
He wiped her tears away with his thumb, and Max nuzzled her cheek into his hand as he caressed her face.
"Maxie, you've got to be okay for us, for our baby." His hand drifted to her abdomen, "I'm so sorry; I should be there with you." His breath hitched and his own tears fell as he buried his face into the crook of her neck as he inhaled her scent.
"Baby?" Then she knew. She placed her hand on top of his own above her stomach looked up at his face as he nodded smiling with tears.
"Alec? Is this real, or is this all in my head?" Her words came out in an anxious whisper her eyes wide with hope.
He smiled. "Of course this is happening in your head, Max, but that shouldn't make it any less real."
Her face broke into another smile so bright his heart was bursting with joy. "All my love, all of our love will be in this baby Max. You've got to live again, for him and for me and for you."
"Okay."
She closed the distance between their lips once more and when they finally parted she awoke into reality, still buried in a pile of blankets in the bed they once shared. But she could still taste his lips on hers; feel the goose bumps that had risen in wake of where his arms had travelled on her skin, and finally the heat of where their hands had been intertwined over her womb where she knew their child grew.
Years would pass by and she found love in the smiling face of the bouncing boy with the mess of dark curls and mysterious green and gold flecked eyes. Their son grew and Max learned to smile and live life again. He heard endless stories of his father, felt the love of his mother and grew to be as beautiful as his parents. He knew of his history, but never did he endure the pain and hardship as the generation before him had, he knew his father's sacrifice. He was happy and that was all that really mattered to Max for all of her life.
And one night a grey haired, wrinkled, but ever-elegant Max went to bed; the same bed she had been loved in, mourned in—but always found comfort in—and she found herself in the familiar embrace of her lover. Youthful and strong once more they held each other close revelling in the utter fulfilment of being with the other piece of their heart, this time for always.