Note: If you thought the switching perspectives were wild before, oh just wait and read this chapter. Don't worry, I'll try to make it as clear as possible. Max's POV will be in plain type, Alec's will be in Italics (now that my computer is behaving enough to use them). This chapter is going to be super angsty, but I promise a happy ending at the last second so don't curse my name, or worse yet give up on me. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, it's against my principles of anarchy.
Think, I have to think right now, but it is so hard. The blood is everywhere, his blood is everywhere. I have to think, remember what I'm supposed to do.
I tear off his shirt and press it against the oozing bullet holes. Oozing, that's good I think, it means that none of his main veins or arteries were severed. White's aim must have been off, two of the shots had furrowed along Alec's sides. Only one of the wounds looks life threatening, it pierces his upper torso, and might have punctured his heart or lungs.
###The pain is so intense, I can hardly breathe. There is too much of it to handle and I fear drowning in the hurt.###
Ages pass as I press down on the whole in his chest. Finally CeCe lifts me off the ground, as a handful of medics lift him onto a stretcher. She and Biggs take me by the hands and guide me up to the infirmary. They hold me tight, prevent me from tripping over the bodies.
###The numbness is overtaking me. Colors swirl over my head, interrupting the grey; they speak to me like old friends. Rachel, and Joshua, Cindy and Sketchy, Biggs and CeCe, but not the one voice that I strain to hear. My ears prick, the words slower now, so that I can here them speaking to me.###
I've sat watching him sleep for three hours. I haven't left his side since he returned from surgery. No movement marks my vigil, he hasn't so much as twitched. He's asleep. My brain shies from the word coma, it can't handle the implications of the words.
His hands are icy in mine, if I can keep holding them I might make them warm, and he might come back. Kate's footsteps blend seamlessly into the beeping of the monitors.
"Will he be okay?"
"It's going to be close Max, he's lost a lot of blood and we don't have enough to transfuse him with." I hold my arm out wordlessly. She just nods in acceptance and begins fussing with tubing.
"Kate?" To my surprise, my tone sounds normal, almost conversational. "I don't think that I could take it if he didn't come back. I think that there is something there, something between us. I spent so long pushing him away, out of fear, and now I may never have the chance to show him."
Soft laughter escapes her lips, and I glance up indignantly. "Here I am spilling my guts to you, laying bare my emotional soul, and you're laughing at me?"
"Well, it's just, everyone knows that."
I splutter, dumbfounded. "What?"
"That you're crazy for each other. Come on, the longing looks he's always giving you. The way you're constantly hitting and touching him. You both have a ridiculous amount of sexual tension going on. Don't tell me that you've never noticed."
Hundreds of memories shot through my brain. Alec patching up my wounds and sticking by my side during the Eyes Only missions that he had so reluctantly agreed to take part in. Every stupid argument we had ever had. The way that he always let me win in fights; even though he had, had the advantage in strength and training. The way he had looked at me when he'd said goodbye, right before the twelve.
Both during the hostage crisis and then the bar-fight, the look in his eyes, the one that had taken my breath away, it had been love. I had seen the love in his eyes and felt it reflected in my own; but I had been far too stubborn to recognize it for what is was. Now my stubbornness might have cost us our chance to be together, now I stood to lose not only his love, but his life.
###He was the last voice to visit me. "I failed us."
"If she is still alive, then you have nothing to be ashamed of brother."
"Our body is damaged, very badly."
"No. I don't accept that. I can't die. I need to see her again. I need to tell her how I feel about her."
"Listen to me then. If you have even a chance of going back, then you must be willing to take a great risk."###
Blood loss started to take its toll, my head drooped softly until it came to rest on the bed, at his side. As my eyes shut drowsily, the great expanse of grey from my earlier dream of Alec, reappeared.
Swathes of grey mist swirled around my legs, shrouding the vast space in darkness. I wasn't sure why my dreams had brought me here again, but the urge to find Alec and to see him again was overwhelming. "Alec, Alec!" My screams were profanely loud in the dimness of my surroundings. Alarm filled me, without knowing why, it seemed a matter of life and death to find him.
"Alec!"
###494's words dropped on me like stones. What he asked seemed impossible, and yet how could I not trust someone who was really an extension of myself. I swallowed convulsively. Somehow, I would trust him. Anything to find my way back to her.
"Alec!" Her voice ripped through the mistiness of the grey with profane loudness. Apparently 494 was right when he said that she would find me. Now I was faced with the more difficult task of passing on 494's words to her.###
"Max!"
"Alec? Where are you, I can't see you through all of this crap?"
"Maxie, it doesn't matter where I am, you have to listen to me. You don't have long here. Pretty soon your body will be waking up, and then you'll have to go. 494 told me what I had to say."
"Alec? What are you talking about, where are you?"
"Look, this is very important. I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen. All I know is that you'll be faced with some kind of decision, and if you do the right thing then I might be able to come back."
"Please. I'll do anything, whatever you need. Just tell me what to do."
"Listen Maxie, you're about to leave so just listen. Whatever happens, you must remember that in order to die, we must live, and in order that we might live, we must all die."
###As I passed on 494's message I felt her presence begin to fade. Silently, I prayed that she had heard my last words and that she would make the right decision. The pain was slowly slipping away from my body, and realization dawned on me. I knew now, what she would have to do. If only she would have the strength to do it.###
"Max, can you here me?" Kate's voice cut through the last shreds of unconsciousness, effectively separating me from the dream. I looked with confusion at my arm, now bare of needle and tubing; I knew that I hadn't given anywhere near the amount of blood that I was capable of donating. "Max, I don't know how to say this." Dread and understanding fill me at once.
"Judging from this MRI, he's barricaded himself in his subconscious. We knew that this might inevitably happen. Manticore's scientists found that this was a danger of the twelve. As a necessary part of the training, the subject is trained to remove themselves from pain so that they may become more capable fighters. Unfortunately, when the damage is as great as this the subjects could not cut themselves off from the pain. Because the subject is bound by the principles of their training, they will continue to attempt to subjugate the pain even when there is too much to handle. They will struggle against the feelings, until their own consciousness becomes buried with the pain."
Bile filled my mouth. The implications of her words settling over me. "What does this mean for Alec?"
"Without a mind to control the body, the body must rely on autonomic functions for its survival. Due to the amount of damage to his heart, his body is going into shock. Perhaps with the proper equipment, I could give him more time to recover. There isn't much I can do for him, with what we have."
"That's it?"
"Basically, as the person who was," she cleared her throat softly, "who is, closest to him, you have a decision to make. His cardiac rhythms are breaking down. I can defibrillate him; but I have to warn you that he would be stuck like this. There isn't any chance that he'll recover from this state; so he would only be living for a time until his nervous system shuts down, or…"
"Or you could just let his heart stop, let him stop." Tears sting the corner of my eyes. I would give anything that I had to trade places with him. Fear fills me, for his life, and rage, for the man who did this to him; but beyond that I am filled with understanding. In order to die, we must live, and in order that we might live, we must all die. His words echoed threw my head, spoken in the beloved tones that I might never hear again. I had to let him go. I had to trust to my instincts, that I would look into those hazel eyes and see Alec staring back at me from them again.
Filling with the resolve which has been missing from my actions for so long, I look Kate in the eyes. "Let him go. He deserves dignity."
She looks into my eyes with surprise. "In order to live, we have to die. Besides Kate, anything is possible." Confusion bathes her face, but she wisely accepts my words.
###Floating on bliss. The pain is gone, replaced by a light sensation of floating. "Alec, don't give into the feeling. That is the mistake which the others made. Pain is necessary to life, embrace it. Remember who and what you are fighting for." 494's voice wakes me from my dreamy state. Focus, to lose my focus could be deadly. Through my tenuous hold on my body, I feel my heart begin to weaken.###
The beeping of the monitors becomes frantic and irregular. Tears run unheeded down my cheeks. Kate's hand moves to unplug the machines, but I shake my head haltingly. Within me is the bravery to see this to the end.
###Shudders pass through me, chilling me. The omnipresent surface of the Grey begins to fade to black. Black fades to white, white to brown, brown to a brilliant rainbow, to violet and indigo. Colors shift flawlessly from one to the next, through every color in the crayon box. Finally, I am surrounded by the red of blood. My heart is pierced, and the blood runs free and clean and pure.###
High pitched whistling floods the room like the screeching of an avenging banshee. My eyes stare straight ahead, anchored on his unmoving face. The whine stops suddenly, as Kate pulls the plug from the wall. My hands clutch one of his cold ones, and the seconds pass by like hours.
###Pure, radiant light, beyond a color, fills the space. "The way before you is one filled with pain, and sadness my brother." 494's voice is no longer flat and harsh, but calm and gentle.
"You know what my decision is."
"Then I will take your place in the Grey." He reaches out his hand and takes my own identical one. Pulling gently on my arm, he reverses our positions. "I expect you to take care of her in my stead."
"Always."###
The door slides shut as Kate leaves me alone to say goodbye. Tears flow freely, drenching his shirt. I squeeze them shut to stem the flow; only to start in shock as a broad, calloused thumb traces a line along my cheekbone and brushes away a single tear.
*Epilogue to follow.