Part of me is worried. Part of me worries over every passing moment. I can hear the machines from the hospital, even though I've left hours ago, even if I silently vowed that I was never going to go there again.

I couldn't tell him that. I couldn't say that moments were fleeting, and sometime soon, I'm sure one of us would have our last.

I couldn't quite bring myself to completely tear away from him as the sun rose, not without a couple tears glistening in red-rimmed eyes.

"Later," I'd mumbled, breath dusting Randy's forehead as I leaned in to kiss his forehead.

Fingers closed around mine for the briefest moment, as if he knew I might not be coming back. Maybe he knew what I was planning, what I felt the inevitable was. "...do you really have to go? Hai..."

I was already picking my shoes off the floor, lacing the delicate black boots over my feet - I'd let them slip off before crawling onto the hospital bed, because...

He didn't want to be alone. I didn't have the heart to leave him alone, either.

I'd spent most of the night awake, even, trying to get my bearings for when I knew I was going to have to take off.

"Be careful."

I'd been halfway out the door when I'd heard something. Very faint, as if he was uncertain that it should even be said. "...I'm sorry I hurt you. I...love you."

I let the door fall closed behind me, a wistful sigh escaping full lips.

"You only hurt the ones you love, don't you?" Crystalline tears fell, and I grasped, white-knuckled, for my keys.

I want my gun. I want this to be over.

I want a happy ending.

Part of me knows, though. There are no happy endings.

-*-

The sound of my boots against the asphalt, the odd clicking that the heels seemed to have - it was a slight comfort - something constant in the noise, as if it were tied to the machines in the hospital.

As long as my shoes my that noise, the machines would still run.

I would still have someone, something to go back to.