I only just sensed Gene pulling me up from the pavement, gently coaxing me to walk along the pavement and into a small scrubby area of park, his broad hands guiding me with the utmost care and respect. For a fleeting second I wondered if they were going to slide down to my arse, but they stayed where they were and Gene simply sat down beside me and threaded his fingers through mine.
"Bolly. Just know this much. You don' 'ave to choose me- in fact, if it gets you back to your daughter, then I'm tellin' you not to. She needs you more than me, an' I've 'ad a good long life, done everything I wanted to apart from turn back time an' stop myself marryin' the ex."
I gave a tiny snort of laughter, meeting his eyes, seeing the seriousness in his gaze and the love for me, bared in his bright irises, caring and selfless, his never-wavering want to do the right thing burning steadily.
"Please… don' choose me just to keep me alive, Bolly. If your little girl needs you, go to 'er."
I bowed my head, my emotions scattered all over my aching chest. This man was ready to give up his life for me to be reunited with Molly, but I would be killing the man I loved for a future that I didn't know existed.
Was I really prepared to give Gene up for the tiny, ever-thinning chance that I would get back home? And, to that, was I ready to leave this time, the time I had thought I would never see again, for something I didn't know would become mine?
Molly's eyes, envisaged by my own mind in front of me, searched my face as I took a deep breath in, the now fading scene of whisky and cigarettes and what Gene always termed "man-stink" slinking into my senses. I closed my eyes hard, trying to block everything out; maybe, if I pressed down hard enough, it would all rewind and none of this would have happened. The choice was so awful, and so impossible, that I didn't know what to think, what to say, how to keep my heart beating through the sheer confusion and injustice of it all…
"We're losing her."
I tried to open my eyes, forcing them open with my mind but my vision not changing at all; the world still remained hidden behind a sheen of darkness, an impenetrable cloak of black that refused to be blown aside for me or anyone else.
"What do you think, Doctor?"
"We've done all we can, Mr White. It's make or break time for her. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but from what we can see, she's unlikely to make it through the night, and if she does, there will be serious health complications throughout the rest of her life; she might be permanently hospitalised after a couple of weeks of snatched freedom. There's also a strong likelihood that she won't be the woman you once knew; this sort of trauma to the brain will never heal itself, and the damage may have changed her personality, erased her memories. Anything could have happened in there, and there's a very strong chance that we'll never know the extent of the damage that's developed."
Evan's strangely distorted, tear-choked voice found its way to my ears, frail and quivering; it broke my heart to hear it, so terrible and weakened, all hope faded from his normally warm and jovial tone. My heart ached to reach out to him, for my fingers to grasp his and hold them tight.
And then it flooded back in a sea of rage and betrayal: his affair with my mother, the very woman who had given birth to his goddaughter, the wife of his best friend; his deception of me for so many years, never telling me the truth, assuming he could keep it from me forever. Now hatred and fury battled with my love for him in my gut, their primed swords clashing, the emotions swirling in my stomach like a giant, pungent vat of lava.
Did I really want to go back to 2008 just to live, once again, with the man who had lied to me for most of my life?
A doctor's voice interrupted my thoughts.
"Her pulse is weakening, Mr White. I'm sorry, but she'll be gone by sunrise."
His words faded in the sterile air around me; the darkness swirled, brightening abruptly. I ripped open my eyes, the world around me burned into my eyes, sharpening as I took it in, the blurred details shifting into sharp focus.
Gene's hand on my back gently pulled me back onto the bench; his expression worried, he waited for me to speak, sensing my shock and uncertainty, unsure of what had just happened.
For me, all there was was the burning knowledge, lodged and growing like a tumour in my brain, that I would never get back to Molly.
Turning, I fixed my gaze as calmly as I could on Gene's, taking in the vivid blue, the gentle flicks of grey and the darker surround, the eyes I knew so well, the eyes I had missed so much in these last couple of torturous months.
"I'm going to die in 2008, Gene. I'll be dead before sunrise, in my coffin before Molly is twelve and two days old. The doctors told me."
Something like hope began to creep into Gene's eyes, but was quickly smothered.
I smiled suddenly, something like a leaden weight being lifted from my aching shoulders, a boulder of decision and responsibility smashed into a billion tiny pieces with the hammer that was the doctor's words.
"I don't have a choice any more, Gene, and if I do, it's death and oblivion, or life and- and you."
Gene's expression didn't change at all; he was watching me, waiting to see what I would do, what my decision was.
My smile grew as I turned and threw my arms around him.
"I choose you, Gene. I choose you."
And then the curtain of darkness returned with a muting swish, dancing over my senses as I plummeted down, down, down, to a place I didn't know but welcomed with open arms.
A/N: I hope people like the choice Alex made… please remember to review, because it really, really makes my day! Honest, I do a little happy dance every time. *does happy dance and knocks webcam off monitor* Damn! Anyway, as I said, please review, and thanks for reading! Jazzola :) *tries to put webcam back on monitor and groans as it falls off again*
