The pain in his throat was unbearable, but worse still was the shock that registered inside Jacob as Emma lowered the knife. How could she betray him like this? He had thought that she loved him. For several seconds time seemed to stand still. Everything stopped. He didn't want to die. He wasn't ready to die. Emma wasn't moving, she just stared at him, with an almost pitying look in her eyes. Jacob found himself thinking inexplicably of medical school and what it would have been like to go back to his old life, and then of his father whom, Jacob realised, he would now never be able to make his peace with. His last thought before he slipped away, was of whether his parents would even want to attend his funeral, should Emma ever allow his body to be found.
Jacob opened his eyes, he was lying in a bed which felt oddly familiar even though he hadn't slept in it for so long. He sat up and immediately recognised the bedroom. It was the house he and Paul had lived in, the one next door to Sarah. The house which held so many wonderful memories for him, a large majority of them involving the bed he was currently lying in. He heard movement in the bathroom and began to panic. A second later the door opened, Jacob's mouth dropped open and he gave a huge sigh of relief. Paul was standing in front of him wearing nothing but a towel and an amused expression.
"Been wondering when you would show up."
Jacob didn't answer, he leapt out of the bed, walked over to Paul and threw his arms around him. Everything that had happened before with Joe, Emma, his parents stopped mattering. The only thing that mattered now was that Paul was here, back in his arms.
"I'm sorry." Jacob whispered. "I love you. I love you so much and I should have told you before. I should have said it every day. Back at the farmhouse I was so scared, scared of Emma finding out I had never killed, scared of her finding out how I really felt about you, scared about what was going to happen to us. Admitting that I was in love with you, even to myself, became another thing to worry about so I just tried to pretend none of it was happening and I am so, so sorry."
"It's ok, it's all ok." Paul assured him. "We're safe now. No one can hurt us here."
Paul wrapped his arms tightly around Jacob, they stood there for several minutes, both unwilling to let go. Finally, Paul led Jacob back over to the bed and they both sat down.
"What is this place?" Jacob finally asked.
"Heaven," Paul replied. "Or Hell, depending on how you look at it I guess. It was awful when I got here. I didn't know how you were doing. Whether you had ever made it back to Joe, or if the police had caught up with you. I kept telling myself that you had to be alive, because if you died you would come here, but then I kept wondering if maybe you wouldn't come here, if maybe it was just me that this place meant so much to. I couldn't bear the thought of never seeing you again."
"I would have always found you." Jacob murmured.
"What happened? After I..." Paul trailed off.
"I got back to the mansion, Joe got Claire. But things are going wrong, not the way he planned. He lost Joey, Roderick took him, I went to help get him back. But I couldn't do it, he's just a kid, never should have been caught up with any of it. I made sure the FBI got him. They were onto us by then, we all had to leave, I knew we were going to get caught if we carried on, so I told Emma... I told her I wanted out. She couldn't accept that."
"Emma did this?" Paul asked incredulously.
"Slit my throat, all because I wanted to leave. I missed what we had when we lived here. A normal life."
"Well then, I will do everything I can to make your afterlife as ordinary as possible." Paul leaned over and kissed Jacob.
"I've missed this." Jacob smiled. His first real smile since Paul's death. "I always loved you, you know."
"Glad to hear it," Paul smiled back at him. "I always loved you too."