Dear Readers,

It was 2:00 in the morning, but I felt like I HAD to write something Sam/McKay, because if I didn't ignore my urge to, I felt like I was going to DIE!!! Okay, maybe it wasn't that dramatic. But anyway, here I am, at 3 in the morning, writing this note to you because I just couldn't say no to my muses. Even though they are quite terrible to me and keep making the evil plotbunnies do their ritual dance to the Great Spirit of Fanfiction in which they continually have to sacrifice a fanfic writer (i.e. ME) in order to appease his wrath...okay, do you see how tired I am? I dunno how I even had the energy to write an angsty (VERY--be warned, there is some minor graphic stuff, i.e. blood) oneshot at this hour! Well, at least I got two very good inspirations now: this oneshot, and the idea of the evil plotbunnies and their ritual dance. Hmm, that might become a story one day...

Best Regards from a Bookworm (AND MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!! B/c Christmas technically doesn't end until Jan. 6--it's TWELVE days, people!!),

Miss Pookamonga ;-P

X. Slipping Away

She traced the outline of his face with her fingertips as his head rested limply in her lap. He shuddered, not at her touch, but at the excruciating pain he was experiencing. His eyes were half-closed in a daze, his mouth hung slightly open, his face had the ghostly pallor of a fevered child, and streams of blood poured from deep gashes in his head and side. She had tried to stop the bleeding, applying as much pressure to the wounds as she could, but she had only done so much. Blood still trickled down from his forehead, tracing ominous little paths down the side of his face, and his stomach wound had shown no signs of ceasing its leaking the life out of him anytime soon. She felt so helpless sitting there, watching him suffer endlessly as he clung desperately to each shaky breath. She wanted to help, she needed to, but there was nothing more she could do, and it was tearing her heart into tiny little pieces by the second.

She told herself that he wasn't dying. That each breath could very well be his last, that she might no longer see his face twist into a smug smirk, or a surprised gape, or a sweet, genuine smile. That she might no longer hear his loud gibbering and complaining, his snarky comments being flung at her back, his awkward blubbering when he was trying to say something sentimental but just couldn't get it out right. Years ago, maybe she wouldn't have even cared at all. But now, she suddenly realized with a painful stab to her heart, that she couldn't let go of him that easily anymore. Whether she had intended to or not, she had allowed him to become infused into a part of her soul and impossibly intertwined in her life—perhaps she had even dangled the key to her heart in front of him numerous times, almost willing him to grab it and unlock the love that she was aching to give away in order to find that completeness in herself that she knew she'd misplaced somewhere. Losing him would be like having a sliver of herself cut out of her and wrenched mercilessly away to be tossed into the dark chasm of past time.

He jerked suddenly, making a rough noise in his throat. Instinctively, she tightened her hold on his face and pulled his cold, sweat-beaded head closer to her stomach. He jerked again, this time coughing violently against her. She held him tighter, choking back tears as she felt him trembling with each grating cough, felt some of the terrible pain he felt seeping into her. He wheezed and sputtered, spewing saliva and blood across her stomach, leg, and arm, but she didn't care. She gripped him protectively in her arms, stroking one hand against his hair and thudding the other against his back in an attempt to ease his coughing. She didn't know how long it was before he stopped shaking, before his breath once more eased into a nervous pattern of inhales and exhales, before some of the tension in his muscles dropped away and he grew limp again.

For a few minutes he breathed somewhat steadily against the warm fabric of her jacket, his forehead resting on her stomach, rising and falling in rhythm with each breath she took for him. She continued stroking his hair with the one hand and proceeded to rub the other soothingly against his back. He cuddled against her like a sick, frightened child, cowering at the foreboding darkness and cold around him. He looked so helpless, so vulnerable curled up like that, pressing against her, searching for comfort and relief from his pain. Something in her throat surged, and before she could stop it, a small whimper escaped, and tears began running down her cheeks.

He heard her, even though she didn't want him to know she was crying, didn't want him to have to worry about her in his state. But he turned his head away from her stomach slowly and wearily opened his eyes. He stared into her glassy eyes, his own wounded more by her show of pain than his, pleading for her to be happy again. He tugged at her jacket sleeve and opened his mouth, attempting to say something—but all that came out was a series of quiet choking sounds desperately failing to push their way past his throat and through his lips to form words. Seeing his feeble attempt to communicate with her incited the tears to flow even more freely, and she soon found herself shuddering with sobs. He tried to lift his arm upward to her face, reaching and grasping at empty air, trying to comfort her in his pain. She leaned towards that flailing hand, wanting to feel him, wanting to tell him that he didn't need to comfort her because it was too much for him—he needed to save his energy. But he tried anyway, weakly cupping her cheek in his clammy hand, softly stroking her skin with his own. She lifted one hand and held it against his, then clasped it and brought it to her lips.

"Rodney…" she shakily whispered against his fingers. She tried to choke more words out. There was too much she needed to say, too much she had withheld from him that he needed to know in such a short moment. But, to her surprise, he shook his head, telling her silently she didn't have to say anything at all. One look into his eyes and she suddenly knew that he had suddenly realized everything that she had needed to say. She kissed his hand softly, sobbing even harder as she lowered it to his side and bent over to press her lips to the bloody wound on his forehead. She lingered there, feeling his pulse slow against her lips, unwillingly tasting the blood in her mouth.

When she lifted her head away, he was unconscious again, shivering in a fitful sleep as he danced around the edges of death. She pulled him even closer, trying to shield him from the brink of that cliff, trying to hold onto him just a bit longer.

If only he could hold on instead of hopelessly slipping away.