Sorry this is 7 reviews and like a year overdue, guys. I love you all, and I appreciate the support you have shown me immensely. This one is fairly short (1.4k), as it's the end of the first part of this story. The next half will follow a different format (re: point of view) and be written in a more classic style.

You had exactly six minutes and forty-three seconds, they told me.

It wasn't enough to move. It wasn't enough to stop it. It wasn't enough to do anything but brace for impact and realize you were probably going to die.

It wasn't enough.

You shouldn't have done it, Mags. And I shouldn't keep holding it over you that you did because, really, how could I ever expect anything else from you?

They say you could've avoided this, could've stayed awake and conscious and not fallen into this coma. But stupid heroic you just couldn't resist, could you?

If you'd hit it straight on, they tell me you would've gotten away with little more than a few broken bones and an ugly scar or two. If you hadn't hit the brakes at the last minute, hadn't turned the wheel to put yourself into the line of fire instead of the both of us, you would have been okay. If you hadn't made a stupid split second decision and shielded me by putting yourself even more in harm's way, then we could have been together right now.

Because as much as I like to pretend you're still here and that I'm not just talking to a mindless body in a sterile hospital, I know you're not. And you know what the worst part about that is, Magnus? I don't know if you ever will be again.

I like to think we would have been okay if you hadn't done why you did. I like to think we would have patched ourselves up and laughed over the scars years down the line, hand in hand with rings on our fingers and the two point five kids you've always wanted. I like to think we would have had that, Magnus, I really do, and I'm sorry for the fact that I've always been too much of a realist to really believe that.

Because that's the better story, isn't it? The one where the only thing that's come between us is something as classic as a car crash. As simple. The better story is the one where I sit at your hospital bed in tears for months, holding your hand and loving you back to life, until you wake up and I fall all over myself trying to tell you how much you mean to me. How much you've always meant. The better story is the one where you wake up and I'm crying tears of joy because it's all I've been hoping for for months. The better story is the one where this fixes things, where it brings us closer together, where we find the beauty in each other out of the horror of our situation.

But the better story isn't necessarily the true one.

The truth is, we were struggling. We had so many issues festering between us, unaddressed because communication happened to be one of them. We fought all the time and spent more time being angry and hurt by each other than we did being happy and in love. We pretended we were great and managed to convince even ourselves of it in the bright light of day, but after dark, when all the lights went out and left us with nothing to blind ourselves to how bad things were, it was painfully evident that we were so far from it we'd forgotten what it meant.

We both knew it. We both saw it. Neither of us said anything about it.

I was going to. Did you know that, Mags? I doubt it.

Don't do this. Whatever you're about to do, about to say. Please don't do it.

I had a plan, or at least as much of one as I could bring myself to form. I was going to do it when we got back from the party — you know, after the drive we never finished — almost as soon as we'd stepped in the door. I knew the second I opened my mouth you'd shoot me down and try to stop the conversation from happening because that's what you always did whenever it was something serious, but I also knew that if I didn't do it then, it would only get worse.

It had been getting worse for years. Forever. Since the day we'd met, the day we went on our first date, the day we broke up. Since we got back together and pretended all the reasons we'd broken up in the first place weren't there anymore.

I love you, Magnus. You know that. That was never up for question. But I couldn't spend the rest of my life like that and I knew you shouldn't have to either, no matter how much you might try to. Or want to, because God knows you were never the kind of person who could let go of something, no matter how bad it was for you. It's the reason you've never successfully quit smoking.

I thought it would be hard. I knew it would be. I'd prepared for the lump in my throat trying to keep me from saying the words and I'd planned a thousand ways around the dropping of my stomach, the tightening of my chest. I could never say the words, though, not even in the mirror when I was trying to get it right. I could barely stand to imagine the whole scenario for more than a second.

I'm not sure why. It wasn't that I was afraid to be without you, afraid of what I knew had to happen. Maybe I was just afraid of hurting you, as I knew it would, and thought for a moment that it was better to hurt you a little bit every day than a lot all at once. That it was less devastating to slowly pick each other apart than to tear each other down in one fell swoop.

But I think we both saw it coming, didn't we? Because no matter how much we've always loved each other, it hasn't been enough for a long time now. Or maybe it never was and we were just too blind to see it before.

You were just too blind. I think I've always seen it. I've always known, in the back of my mind, that this wasn't going to work. That, if it did, it was going to end up killing us both. You were blind and I was good at ignoring things until they went away or demanded my attention, so we spent years sitting next to each other with matching wounds, infected and festering through all of our limbs, until eventually we'd be forced to decide whether to amputate parts of ourselves or each other. I always chose myself, and you always chose me, too.

I was going to breakup with you. But I bet you'd guessed that already, hadn't you?

Please, please, please, Alec. Please, if you haven't been able to hear me all this time, then please just listen to me now.

Do you know how many hours I've spent sitting here beside what used to be you, mulling that thought over in my head? I don't. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. It's been months, Magnus. Did you know that?

Wake up, Magnus. Please, please, fucking please. Come on.

I'm sorry, I am. This isn't how I wanted things to go. I mean, of course it isn't, who would want this? I just… I guess maybe I kept holding out for something to change, or get better, or suddenly stop hurting so much, but it hasn't. I can't do this anymore, Magnus.

I can't sit here and pretend you're still inside that mangled body they've marked with your name. I can't sit here and tell them I'm your boyfriend when I was so close to being just another face from your past, so close to never having come here at all. I can't pretend it's all okay anymore, Mags. I can't. I won't.

I love you so much I can't breathe around it sometimes. I don't want you to think I don't. But this-

I have to, I'm sorry.

Fuck, no.

Because you had six minutes and forty-three seconds from the moment the car crashed to the moment you lost consciousness and it wasn't enough to fix us.

I love you, Magnus, but there's only so much I can live with.

If you ever wake up, come find me. Or don't, I guess. I'm not sure it would change anything if you did.

The next chapter goes up at 115 reviews (18 new), or when I feel like it's been a way too significant amount of time, if that doesn't happen.

(If there's like 18 overnight like last time then, yeah, no. I take that back. It will take at least a week to write it.)

I love you all so so much and am constantly astounded by the love you guys show me in return. It's crazy to think that I started posting on here when I was just about to start high school, and now I'm just about to start university. Damn.