A/N: No prompt for this angsty drabble.


Desperation; all consuming, whole. It was riddled in his voice, in her irises, in his grip, in the vein that throbbed in his neck.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke; hoarse from crying or pleading or some combination of the two. "You... you can't leave."

Her eyes, large pools of the truest blue, are inexplicably sad. "I have to."

"But you've already done enough," he protests, wildly racking his brains for even the most far-fetched excuse, anything to keep her there, with him. "You've done more than enough- more than anyone else would have done, you've sacrificed-"

"Shhhh."

He shakes his head, mutely, unwilling to yield to acceptance, unwilling to let himself understand.

Her hand comes up to cradle one side of his face- her skin is papery soft. Already, he realizes, she has a trace of something ethereal.

Then again, she always has.

"I'll miss you." His voice is barely more than a whisper.

"Oh, darling, I'll miss you too." Her voice cracks at the end of her proclamation; a crack in the perpetually brave face she kept up. "I'll miss you."

He leans in to her touch, eyes closing, his face turning to hers as hers did the same; then, simultaneously, they paused, when all that separated them was a breath.

"Look for me in the sky," she whispers; and when he opens his eyes, she is gone.