His hand was still outstretched for her, reaching for the only person who understood him better than he understood himself.
She was gone.
She had been there. She had been alive right in front of his eyes with safety but a literal second away before the ground had crumbled and she had fallen.
He lowered his arm, the weight of it strangely heavy, and looked around him. His crew was staring at him, a mixture of horror and pity and shock. Emotions he felt underneath his skin.
He stepped off the platform and strode around the crew, making his way towards the elevator for a place he had no intention. Anything to get away from the platform, away from the empty portal where she should have stood.
She is gone.
She's gone.
She'sgoneshe'sgoneshe'sgone.
With his back erect, he turned on his heel and with great neutral dignity, pressed the button to take him down.
Down like her.
Just before the doors closed, his communications officer stepped in, standing quietly at his side. She waited until the doors closed to softly turn and stop the elevator. Then she looked him straight in the eye, her own filled with tears that he would not shed.
"I'm sorry." She said quietly. She took his face so gently in her hand, and held him as if he would shatter. As if he would fly apart from this new pain, the terrible emotion, and never again be able to put himself back together.
She stood on her toes to reach his mouth and kissed him softly. "I'm sorry." She whispered. And again she kissed the corner of his mouth, then his cheek. "I'm sorry." And she traveled until she had her arms wrapped around his neck, holding him together.
He paused, frozen, unable to consider what was right and what was wrong for him to do. And yet, the smell of her, the feel of her. It was all too much. He leaned into her warmth and held her tightly. He found his hands pressed into the blades of her back, the tips of his fingers digging into her skin, grasping the only person he had left who saw past him to what lay beneath. Without thinking, he let his head fall into the crook of her shoulder, inhaling a scent so familiar it put an aching pressure behind his eyes.
"What do you need?" She whispered softly.
He pulled away slowly and she let him, following his head with her hand until she cradled the back of his neck with her fingers, splaying them to almost cover the immense pain.
"Tell me." She whispered again. "Tell me."
What did he need? Everything and nothing. It meant all the world to him and nothing to anyone else. If it was his choice- but it wasn't. The body he was contained in was not allowed.
"I want everyone to continue preforming admirably." He answered without emotion, devoid of it all as he properly should be. He reached out of her embrace and pressed his destination again. The elevator shuddered slightly and continued on down.
Her eyes searched his before she nodded. "Okay."
Of course, she would understand, but her understanding was more painful than if she had forced him to express himself.
She leaned up again to kiss him, softly in the comfort she wanted to provide, a safe haven he was not supposed to allow.
Before the elevators had come to a stop, he pulled away slowly. As soon as the doors opened, he was out, taking command once again, as if it had not happened. As if he had not seen it.
As if the death of his mother did not make him wish he could die too.