Blaze

"Otto, Otto, they're onto us, an Inspector's been around... He knows, about you, and Charlie, and us, we have to get out of here, Otto, we have to start fresh-"

" ... I'll be right home."

Sometimes he thinks it would be easier to go to jail than to have to live with this charade. Sometimes he just thinks it would be so much easier to stop running, give himself up, and let what would happen happen.

But it wouldn't change the current predicament, and, besides, he had made a pact. And now he is stuttering his way through a goodbye, like a schoolboy unaccustomed to talking to pretty women.

"I-I..." Otto pauses and tries to gather his thoughts. "To be honest, I rather wish I didn't have to go, but..." he trails off. "There's no going back."

"No," Angela says softly. She sounds contemplative, almost wistful.

Otto's heart aches for her. All he had ever wanted was right in front of him. But now he can't have it, and he'll never have it, he knows, he'll never have... her. He has his wife instead, and she is beautiful, kind, and companionable, but... she's never been his wife. Not truly.

"I wish I could tell you," Otto says shortly, "what's happening... what happened... the truth," he clarifies. "I wish I could tell you that every day, but..."

Angela shakes her head. Her hair bounces gently; he wants to reach out and stroke it, bury his face into it and whisper dear things into her ear. He isn't able to do that, with her. They're barely five feet apart, but there's a distance between them that is uncrossable. "No," Angela says. "No, some stones are better left unturned." She pauses, too. "Well, I wanted to... to thank you, Doctor, for the opportunity-"

"Don't thank me," Otto interrupts. "Goodness knows you'll be here ages to come. You're a good nurse, just like Jean was. Better, maybe."

"Doctor Powell..."

"Otto," he corrects, without thinking, and then internally cringes. "Sorry," he adds quickly, because he'll never be Otto to her again, only Doctor Powell, colleague and a forgotten case of a slight touch of love.

She smiles thinly. Otto won't forget that smile. He wants to break and tell her everything because of that smile, but it's because she smiles that he cannot. It's because he made a pact with a Elizabeth that he can't tell, it's because Charlie would go to prison for murder, especially now, but it's also because... well, if Otto told Angela the truth, she wouldn't smile any longer. And Otto knows he just can't handle that.

He'd rather a world without her than a world without her happy.

But still, hopes hang tenuously on and his next words are unbidden. "I hope you remember me."

Her smile is more genuine this time, but her eyes are infinitely more sad. "Oh, I could never forget you, Doctor Powell."

His mind flashes back to Angela's kitchen, after the pageant, where he had taken her hands and kissed her full-on the lips, remembers the way that she melted beneath his touch and the taste of something sweet, perhaps wine, perhaps soda pop, perhaps tea, on her lips, and the soft sigh a puff of warm air into his mouth and it was bliss. For a singular moment, it had been perfect.

He'd waited for a lifetime for that perfection, but now he was just walking away. He couldn't let perfect be marred by disaster, after all.

"I will miss you, Nurse Wilson," Otto says shortly, extending his hand. This is all that they can have now, a miniscule touch of fingers under watchful eyes and she'll be gone from his life like smoke.

Angela smiles ruefully and takes his hands, steadily, firmly, and hangs on tightly as they shake. Otto can't stop himself from brushing his thumb against the back of her hand as he pulls away, but if she notices, she doesn't say.

"Goodbye... Doctor Powell."

He nods. "Be happy... Angela," he says quietly, and then he turns away, towards the train and a new life, very much wishing that, despite a wife and one child, and another on the way waiting for him, he could stay here with Angela until, together, they were extinguished for all eternity.

The buggering ending of Breathless made me so angry. I wanted Otto to be with Angela. I mean, half of me respects him for staying with Elizabeth after what he did, albeit an accident, but the other half of me says, dude, why you wanna stay with her when you're clearly in love with someone else? But, you know, I can't figure out a way to get them together even in fanfiction, so I just did a scene like this. xD

I do not own Breathless. Thanks for reading!