His touch is cold, always cold, but the pain stops her from caring. She can no longer tell if he's just holding her shoulder, holding the bloodied cloth against her skin, or if he's holding her together.
In her tears she whimpers that she can't do it anymore, and her hands tremble with every breath. He kisses her forehead because he knows she can, knows she will, and continues to keep her from falling apart.
They are running out of time.
Warpath is screaming outside and Logan is screaming on the table and a voice is screaming in her head: she has to focus- focus because everyone is dying.
If she pretends they are going to escape, if she pretends this is the same as every other time and not the last chance to save them all, if she pretends she is angry instead of afraid, the shaking almost stops.
Tears roll faster and there's his cold touch, wiping them away.
He whispers in her ear words she never wants to forget and stands to walk to his death once more. The Professor watches him pass, her gallant hero riding into his doom, and they share the nod of understood sacrifice. She stifles the sobs rising in her throat- she needs to stop him, to stop Bobby, because as much as she tries to push the thoughts away, she knows what happens next.
But she has to focus.
Focus because the thunder of loss has grown louder.
He dies in a shatter of ice, shards of the clear crystal sliding across the floor, a sound that stabs at her insides because she knows she won't see him again. Even in the New Future, even if this works and they all live, saving the universe means losing him for good.
He's not going to come back, not as her Bobby. Not ever again. And she'll never know the difference.
It's breaking her to pieces.
The Sentinels come to kill her but it doesn't matter; she's already dead. She cries and beneath her last seconds of focus, she holds onto a futile hope.
They are out of time.
