She doesn't weigh much in my arms. She's small, and soft, like a bird, but she's also bloody, like a soldier, and she keeps slipping out of my grip. The pontoon is too heavy for both of us, but the ladder can take us piggy-back. I drift back to my rambling over the sniper's scope, keeping myself calm so that my hands wouldn't dare tremble.

I knew this was about to happen. Things like this always happen; I'm cursed and she was marked. Snipers should work in pairs, because it gives them the advantage they need to cut an enemy off, and we'd been in that ideal position, and I'd hesitated to fire. Even though all the cards were in my hand, I'd frozen, because I was convinced I would hit her.

I should have fired. I shouldn't have made the kid do it while I trembled and froze and ordered him around. It was an easy shot. I mistrusted myself.

Mistrust in yourself leads to hesitation, and on the battlefield hesitation gets you –

"After we get back safely," I tell the girl in my arms, "I'll take the opportunity to ask you out."

She doesn't reply for a moment. Then she does. Even though she's close to my face her voice sounds as if it's coming from another world. "What…?"

"In saying that, I'm asking you out now," I say, gritting my teeth and hoping it looks enough like a smile to fool her. There was no kidding anyone otherwise about this, least of all her. There wouldn't be much romance in whichever afterlife mythos had it right. Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, Elysian Fields, or born to suffer all over again, or painted over in the blackness of non-existence and devoid sensation, impossible for anyone to imagine.

She stirs very slightly, and her hand crawls up my arm like a spider.

"Don't…don't take this the wrong way," she begins. She's using the tone her brother loves to use in situations like this – even though they're not blood related, I see his face in hers for a second. "But you're too old…How old are you, anyway? You look like you could…you could be my grandfather, if both you and your kid got in there pretty quick…" She raises her head in a small, birdlike movement, and laughs sleepily, trying to remain conscious. "And you're not bad lookin'…not anything like that, but you're still old. So."

"So I'm rejected, huh?" I ask her, in mock bitterness. She stares up at me. The glasses might just be clean pieces of plastic rather than lenses, but it distorts her eyes, makes them peer at me distantly.

"Why would you…want me, anyway?"

She's finding it hard to breathe, pausing to gasp every other sentence. It gives her gravitas, like an actor giving a speech.

"Why would I want you?" I echo, then answer, holding her closer. She's still warm. I don't want the warmth to pour out of her, and unconsciously loosen my grip in case it flows into me. "There's your brother in you. And he is…he's the best man in the world. So therefore, all bets are on you being the best woman."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," I tell her. There's footsteps coming around the corner. A guard, clearly too deaf or too stupid to listen to his orders. His oblivion is what kills him; that, and my bullet. Emma winces as I pick her up again. She doesn't seem like she's even really noticed that I've just killed a man for her. I wonder if she's playing dumb or if she's slipping away that fast.

"At this stage…" she says, hoarsely, "…at this stage, it doesn't matter if I agree or not."

"Don't say that! Emma, you have to –"

"Are you turning me down?"

"That's enough, Emma."

"I just said 'yes', and you're –" she coughs out a mouthful of blood, which mists over my arm like a razor burn. " – you're already changing your mind?"

The elevator whirrs around me. I set her down in the corner. She looks like a ragdoll.

"No," I tell her. "Where should we go?"

"Your bed," she says, and snorts at her own weak joke, and then closes her eyes as she starts to take the question more seriously. "But not straight away. We'll go there once we've gone down to watch the boats on the river. It'll be sunset, and the birds…they'll be wheeling around in the sky, and the sun will be so low we won't be able to look at them properly without burning our eyes. It'll be cold, but it'll be peaceful. We won't think about…war, politics, soldiers, murder…anything like that, following us around everywhere. They won't recognise us, because they'll be convinced we're both dead. So we can live on, silently, and no-one will interrupt us. Then we'll go home, knowing that we can't be controlled." She looks like she wants to move, but she doesn't. She's too weak. "It will be…perfect."

"Perfect?"

"Just…" her eyes snap open, "just lose the beard, okay?"

I touch my chin. "Anything for you."

She snorts. "You're too good to me. And then we'll go off, and get married, and have a hundred children, every single one of which will be nearly as butt-ugly as you."

"Sounds like a plan," I laugh back at her. She starts to join in, but her eyes close again, and she spits a little blood onto the metal floor, and I can't stand to joke about it any more. "And the world will be better. There'll be just a little more love, and a little less hatred. Love can't boil the skin off your bones with its weapons, or leave good men slumped and bleeding. Humans weren't meant for love; they're intended to simply pass on their genes, like mindless animals, with anyone they see, anyone they can. And yet, somehow, love is what separates us from monsters." I sigh. "Loving someone you could hate is like looking into the sky and knowing there's a planet out there with life crawling and burning and thriving away on it, too far away for us to ever reach, but still there."

She slips a little onto her hand, bent backwards at an unhealthy, uncomfortable angle. "I don't…understand you."

"No one does," I say, taking her shoulders and folding her arm back the way it should be. "Just keep still and don't worry yourself over it."

"What's your…" she swallows, and I can imagine it's only because she doesn't want to spit out any more blood and see it for herself. "What's your name?"

I'm flooded with a million answers and pick one she'll like.

"David. My name's David, Emma."

"David…" she repeats, smiling. "It's got a nice…ring. You…you look like a David. Suits you very much…"

I can't get her to say anything else as I hold her upright by the computer. She types, silently; then I lie her down, and she sighs as she bleeds away her life and waits for the disc to come.