A/N: In between my weeping, I wrote this (or rather during the weeping; I bawled like a baby the entire time). People always say that writing is therapeutic, and if there was ever a fitting time for therapy, it would be after the death of my otp.

I would say that I hope you enjoy this if enjoy was an appropriate word to use, given the situation. Instead, I hope you appreciate it, and that Salex may live on forever in our hearts.

Running. The only thought in her mind was that she must run, keep running until her legs gave out or the ground beneath her feet disappeared, whichever came first. That was the only thought filling her mind, the only thought she would allow into her mind, for she had to keep all others at bay. Prevent the images of him from entering her mind. She could not think about him.

She could not think about anything but him.

She was afraid that when she did finally allow herself the breakdown, the inevitable crushing of her spine under the weight of grief and guilt and loss, she would not be able to stand up again. She knew that he was the one thing holding her up for so long. She knew that some breaks cannot be healed. Not every open wound can be closed. Not every scar fades into the surrounding pink of the new layers of skin.

Not everyone can be saved.

And yet he was the one person she thought she didn't have to save. The entire time, he was a constant, he was indestructible. For all that she was willing to sacrifice for the mutiny and for the cause, he was the one thing she had taken for granted as always being there, always being by her side.

She had always taken him for granted.

She had taken for granted the time that they had. She thought they would have so much time, so much more time. She thought they would have forever. He always spoke of forevers. Whispered them into the crook of her neck, traced words like 'forever' and 'always' and 'I love you' onto her back, onto the column of her neck, onto the soft flesh of her forearm. All while his arm would hold her against him in the dead of the night, a subconscious attempt to protect her, to shield her, to show her safety for the first time in her life. They would lay, tangled limbs and tangled hair, revelling in the sounds of each other's breathing, in the rise and fall of their chests, in the odd squeezes of their hands which served as a silent reminder of the other's presence.

And now, he was breathing no more. His body, once warm and flush against hers, now lay cold and hard and dead as the marble floor beneath him.

Dead.

He was dead.

The words tasted alien on her tongue, even though goodness knows she had spoken them before. Once again, another lover, another loved one was ripped from her heart and from the world, leaving a space in her chest barren and empty save for the shattered heart which kept beating despite the ache. The echo of her erratic pulse filled her head as her fatigued muscles strode across the earth in unrelenting strides, trying to put as much space between her body and his.

His body, which was now likely lying in a body bag in the Division morgue, amongst the others who were no more, amongst the fallen who died as heroes yet did not exist to the world. The thought of his body being zipped into another nameless bag caused her to choke on the cold night air, caused her to finally break. Her weakened legs wavered as her body shook with sobs, tears streaming down her face anew as she stumbled from the path onto the grass to the side. She fell to the ground, chest heaving, body shaking, hands clenching so tight that half-moons of blood rose from the surface of her skin.

She remembered his final moments - their final moments - him telling her to get better, making her promise always to get better. All he had ever wanted was for her to be okay. For her to be happy. And now, he was gone, and she knew that any possibility of happiness was scoured from her future like cheap lipstick from the mouth. She remembered the taste of his mouth on hers, the salty, corrosive memory of their last kiss burned into her memory like hot coals to flesh. She was branded by him. She was his.

And she had never told him. She had never told him how she felt about him, not once had she uttered those three words, the thought of which used to paralyse her with fear but which she would now give anything to be able to say. She thought of all the opportunities she had been given to let him know that, yes, she was his. The closest she had come was saying that he was the thing that mattered the most to her, but those words did not do justice to the space within her that he occupied. Her parting words to him were, to her, unworthy of the man he was, unworthy of everything he was to her, unworthy of everything they had been to each other.

She pressed a finger, stained with her blood and his, to her lips, willing her muscles to feel the smooth contours of his mouth against hers. Her eyes fluttered with the memory of the way he could make the world fade away, how he could make her feel that there was nothing but them. How they were everything.

They were everything.

She realized now, with gut-wrenching certainty, with every fiber of her being, with sinking assurance that he had been her everything. She whispered softly into the night, hoping that the trees would hear her words and that the earth would commit them to memory. She hoped that the silence around her would somehow communicate to the imprint of his soul, prayed that she could let him know what she had known all along.

'I love you.'

And in the wind, the trees almost whispered back.

R.I.P. Sean Mason Pierce. You, and the Sean/Alex relationship, will be sorely missed and forever remembered.