(A/N): Just want to say THANK YOU AGAIN for your continued support and loveliness. It's so hard for me to gather the motivation to write sometimes, and I rarely feel like I know what I'm doing (basically I'm an enormous mess with access to a word processing program) but you guys have been incredible. Thanks for being you and for taking the time to read what I write, despite its numerous flaws. You're all invited over for fine cheese and champagne~

...

...

She walks out.

It's very unseemly to walk out, she knows, she knows. The doctor will think she is a monster; the nurse-receptionist's face will contort into a sharp curl of disgust when she tells her friends at the coffee shop after work. It's wrong, worse than wrong, but she can't—

So she walks out, the door standing gaping open as if in astonishment behind her. The air is thick, the humidity perfectly preserving the olfactory evidence of an ordinary day: Diesel fuel, 72% carbon- 9% over the purported regulatory limit, bread: fresh, gyros: not, the perfume and perspiration of townspeople going about their business not reeling, not—

She circles the hospital, glances up at the protruding ledge. Considers. Wants to for a moment. Won't.

She doesn't want this to be happening.

It is. an irreconcilable stalemate.

...

Jane is, as always, impossible. "I could come over," she wheedles.

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"He's really…" Skye breaks off and releases the air clenched in her lungs with undue force.

"He's my brother-in-law, I want to see him."

"Please, just not today."

"Can you put him on the phone, then?"

Jeffrey is prone on the sofa, wrapped in enough blankets to warm the whole of Baffin Island, reading a fading copy of The Silence of the Lambs. When he sees Skye looking, he whips off his tortoise shell reading glasses and blinks at her. Ever vain her Jeffrey is, despite how becoming she finds them. He raises his brows and nods toward the phone.

"Fine," Skye says, crossing the room. "I'm handing you over."

"Thanks. We'll see about next week?"

"Maybe. Probably."

"Alright. And Skye?"

"Yes?"

"It'll be alright."

Skye's throat tightens.

"It's difficult now, but—but he's Jeffrey. And this is just age. This is what bodies do, once they reach a certain point. They begin to—" Jane falls quiet.

Decline, says the silence. Degenerate. Fail.

Skye cannot bear to think of that. Not now. "I'm aware," she murmurs without bothering to conceal the icy note. "It comes for us all."

"No, I'm trying to make you feel better, not worse, you idiot. Don't be so melodramatic. I'm only saying—"

"Me," spits Skye, "Me? You're the melodramatic one. I'm the logician. The pragmatist. Taciturn to the very core."

"I'm very sorry to break it to you, sister of mine, but you are missing apathy by a mile." Jane ignores Skye's sputter of resentment. "Goodbye, then. I'll be in touch."

The phone goes into Jeffrey's outstretched hand. Skye stalks out to porch and grabs the railing like it's her lifeline, swallowing a gag, fighting the sting of tears building behind her eyes. She punches the unforgiving wood once, twice. And after the fifth go, she sits down on one of the rickety old law chairs with her feet in the snow and her head in her lap. She realizes that the world has irreparably tilted and shifted and she's not even trying to hold on anymore. She has willingly slid off and is flailing in the starless wind swept darkness, the rising bile burning her throat.

...

Pt receiving care at Grant Med Center 3x a week. Reported by primary nurse: easily aroused to alert and fully oriented state with voice. Patient indicates with verbal communication that presently he has no needs and no pain or distress. Respiration uneven, slightly labored. Pt is receiving humidified oxygen 28%, 6 liters, via oxygen mask. SaO2 97% on continuous pulse oximetry 2x daily. Compazine 1 mg IV. Breath sounds are course, with diminished air flow bases anteriorly and posteriorly. Suction and ambu bag, set-up are at bedside. Instructed to call for any needs; pt's wife (Penderwick-Tifton, Skye) verbalized understanding.

...

On Tuesday, Skye takes one bite of a muffin and throws it in the garbage.

On Wednesday, she tries stomaching coffee and finds it unbearable.

On Thursday, she disposes of two partially bitten apples and an untouched serving of a tuna salad.

She has no appetite. Of course she doesn't; she learned that during her parents' deaths. Funny how that all comes back.

No, not funny at all.

...

"You don't read any of those science journals anymore," Jeffrey observes one morning, over crumbling toast and watery hospital eggs.

"I find it difficult to concentrate."

"Why?"

She stares at him, pointed. He rolls his eyes.

"That's an asinine reason and you know it. If you stop living as usual because of me, you'll get all resentful and that'll make everyone completely wretched." Jeffrey grins at her. "You think I stopped composing when you got hit by that oncoming vehicle and the doctors all thought you were going to bite it? Of course not."

Skye laughs: uncomfortably, reassuredly. "Bastard," she whispers, a tremor of tears in her voice. "You know what I mean."

She places her mug of bitter Darjeeling on the side table as Jeffrey grabs her wrist, fingers tightening over her ulna like a warm, human vice.

"Skye—"

His fingers aren't limber like they once were, nor smooth, nor supple, nor beautiful. But they are strong. Winding around her wrist with the grip of someone desperately struggling to be normal, to be happy and nonplussed and blasé, while fighting the current of desolation beneath. "There are…" he runs his thumb over and across her palm, "…Certain things I do not say."

"I love you's not one of them," she replies, smiling at him through her lashes because his eyes are aglow in a way they haven't been for decades.

Jeffrey squeezes her arm again, a tight pulse of affection. "I mean, there are certain types of things I do not say…"

"Such as?" Skye drapes her free arm across his stomach and tucks her head into the camber where neck meets shoulder.

He breathes in, breathes out. Fingers trembling slightly. Jaw tense. Pulse thrashing against her skull. "Ask me when I knew," he blurts, and Skye gazes up at his pallid complexion, bemused.

"When you knew what?"

Oh, she realizes a beat later, feeling a faint curl of heat in her stomach at the way he is staring at her now, eyes awash in emerald and stardust, unsmiling and positively radiant. That.

"When did you know?" She asks, unnervously.

"Immediately," says Jeffrey. "I knew immediately."

He isn't lying. She would be able to tell.