His lungs were turning to water in his body. I could hear it in the back of his voice, like the trickle that comes from a cracked water main. His voice had been high and beautiful before the Sickness came. When Solo sang, we could eat real food, bought, not stolen. He let me buy the food because I could get a few credits off by acting like a confused little kid who didn't know how to count. But of course I knew how to count. Solo had taught me.

"Go away." He'd said it to me hours ago. It was the last thing he had been able to get out. I had shaken my head, fat tears rolling down my cheeks, and wiped his mouth with my sleeve. He still mouthed it at me, even though he couldn't say it. Even though he couldn't even breathe, he was telling me to leave him. "I don't... want you... to die... too!" he'd panted hotly, glaring.

He turned his face away from me to cough blood on the ground. That was all he could do now, move his head. His irises shone brilliantly blue against the solid crimson of what should have been the whites of his eyes. His colony palneness had blanched to bone-white. His breaths came shorter now. He spilled out of my lap, all ankles and elbows. I supported his head against my shoulder. It was awkward as hell. It was better the other way around, which Solo had commented on before his throat was stopped by the Sickness.

Solo convulsed, retching. I turned him onto his side, and he vomited a wash of blood. Gasping for air, he rolled his eyes towards me. "Go away," he mouthed, his lips white. I could feel him strain to lift his arms to push me from him, but he couldn't. He couldn't, and that made me cry again, as much as the thick blood on the ground of the alley, because Solo was strong, Solo could push up sheets of twisted metal to gain us access to the most unlikely shelters, Solo could pick me up when I was weak with hunger, Solo could, could, could not...

Solo shut his eyes in despair, and I wiped his lips. I had nothing to give him. Soon he began to shake. I tensed, curling him close, recognizing the end. I had seen it. I hadn't felt it before, though. The shaking, the thundering heartbeat, the harsh, shallow breaths. The small noises. The sweat that stuck to my skin. Holding him like that, I felt death press to me. He breathed out hard and never breathed in again.

I got up and carried him through the abandoned streets to the hospital. That antidote was under heavier guard than the bank's vaults. I'd checked. I lay the tall, thin body tenderly at the door to the morgue and sat there until someone came by. "There's a free clinic down the road, kid," the green-coated and masked attendant said hesitantly, but I shook my head. I looked up at him, blood on my shirt, until the man took my best friend's body away. I cried a little bit, and then I was hungry, so I walked away.