Diclaimer: Well the chocolate covered pretzels are long gone, so I really don't own anything now.

Well here is the second part, as promised, hope it's not too bad.

Man, it's weird, death-fics are like the most angsty fics ever yet I didn't feel like it was angsty fic at all while I was writing it. Maybe it was the music selection I was listening at the time. Dave Matthews always has mixed results when it comes to inspiration. Whatever.

btw: Stay or Leave by DMB is the perfect song for Blah Blah Woof Woof

Anywayz.

Fortune's Fool

Part II

By Toblerone

She is next to me in an instant. She rips off her jacket and presses it against my gaping hole (ouch) and I can hear her muttering swears under her breath. It's a nice jacket, leather, so I can understand why she would upset about having to ruin it.

Alright Romeo, here's your chance, say some poetic last words. Tell her how she saved you, over and over, even if you didn't even realize it at first. Tell her how when she threw her arms around you and told you that she'd seen and ambulance and that it had scared her, it made you think that maybe there was something in this broken world worth living for. Tell her how there were mornings where you only got up because there was some slight chance she would show up for dinner that night. Tell her how you couldn't sleep for days after she stole your poem because what did it mean! Tell her how you would have done anything to bring her back when she died, anything. Tell her you'd kill for her, you'd die for her… oh wait you did… and you will.

Tell her that you love her… Again.

"Max-" but I interrupt myself with some harsh coughing. Damn it, can't I even die eloquently? There's a metallic taste. Blood? That's new.

"Hold on," she's looking around, frantically, and I wonder if they've found some new entrance point, "Where the hell are all the goddamn medics! Where the fuck are they!"

As she continues to shout for someone (to take me off her hands) I am once again surprised by the intensity of my own longing. I haven't been this close to her since I ran my gloved fingers down her back, lingering on her naked skin as long as awkwardness would allow. Now, I am once again unable to see anything but her. It seems I am trapped, as I always am, in staring at her in some sort of wonder. The shape of her face, the glow of her skin, the slope of her neck, all ensnare my gaze. I can smell cherries and vanilla and Max, and I think that this might not be such a bad place to die: next to her.

"Joshua!"

Joshua? What? Oh, for crying out loud! Every time I get her alone someone else has to take her away! Can't she be mine for five fucking minutes! Is that too much to ask for? She was my family before the whole fucking lot of you escaped, can't you understand that? She sat close to me on top of that rusty old building and she told me I was her family. Don't any of you get that? Don't any of you understand? We were family. We were goddamn it!

Don't you get it? She was my savior first!

But then she was falling on to the forest floor and my family was gone. She was dead. I sat on my couch and I vowed that I'd kill, I'd murder, I'd do anything to destroy the place that had taken her from me. Then she was alive! In my arms! Breathing! Alive! Touching me, kissing me. Then I was on the floor and she was gone. She was gone again, to take care of all of you, her new family.

Not that any of that makes a difference now.

I cough again, there's more blood, and I realize there isn't time left to brood. I have to get it out now. The speech, the words are all you have left Cale – quick, while there's still air left in your lungs.

"Max, I hafta-" damn it, can't breathe.

"Don't-" her face is tight, fearful and sudden hope grips me before I quickly beat it back to the dark corners of my heart. She does not love me. She was never mine. I realize this. I know this. I must not hope. I will not let my selfish delusions consume me in my last few moments of clarity.

"Damn it Max, just let me-"

"No Logan! We are not going to do this," then her voice lowers, she looks away, and I'm unsure if she even realizes she is still speaking out loud, "Not you, damn it, not you, they won't-"

"Max!" I grab her covered shoulder and she looks back sharply at me, "I love you."

"Logan," her voice is soft and I find myself trying to explain.

"I know," damned coughing, "I know you don't need – don't want me to, to," I'm not making any sense but this confession is all I have left, so I push on.

"But, I just can't help myself. I can't. I tried to stop it, tried to forget, to end everything," I'm not really sure what I'm talking about anymore.

"Logan-"

"I'm weak. I love you," I'm gasping now, trying to get it all out, staring into her big brown eyes, "I can't stop it. A person can't just change the way they feel, I can't just get over it, it's not something I have the ability to do, emotions don't turn off like that, it doesn't-"

"Logan, please-"

"I should have kissed you,"

"What?"

"On the beach, you were so close, and you were looking at me like I was there, like I was the only one there,"

"Logan," her voice is hushed and I feel her gloved fingertips brush my cheek before they retreat fearfully.

"I should have kissed you. I don't know why I didn't – I should have just-"

"I love you,"

What?

"What?"

I don't–she just–what? It was a hushed whisper, it could have been anything—

"I love you Logan." She crying. My Max is crying? When did she start crying?

The fingertips are on my face again and I feel them trembling.

She loves me?

"You," I breathe deep, trying to calm myself, "You love me?"

"Yes," I've never seen her like this, never heard her voice break like it did just now, "I always have."

I am filled with an intense urgent need to touch her, kiss her, grab her and hold her in my arms.

She loves me!

"Max," my hand reaches out before I can think but she catches it in her gloved hands before bare flesh can make contact.

All of a sudden we're not alone and I feel myself being lifted. A flurry of moment, pairs of hand and a bizarre feeling of vertigo hovers around me as I stare, transfixed at her.

My Max. My love. My family.

She loves me.

"Max," all I have left is her, her face, scared and bare, her love, her life.

"I'm sorry," she whispers and I have no idea why. How could she possibly be sorry for anything.

I don't have the sense or the energy to protest as they transfer me to stretcher and start to move me away from her, but I grab her hand and hold on and to my amazement she stays with the stretcher. She stays with me.

She loves me.

But then she is gone and there is metal and bright lights and movement and confusion and voices muttering and yelling.

The voices flitter back and forth and sometimes I can understand and sometimes I can't.

"An ordinary with gunshot wound to the-"

"Thirty year old white male-"

"Jesus. It's Logan-"

"We're gonna need a transfusion-"

"Did Zine ever get that defibrillator working?"

"Who?"

"Do we know how long he was Bleed-"

"Are we going to need it?"

"Max's guy-"

"Shit-"

Why is she sorry? She has nothing to be sorry for, or ashamed of, because I know who she is.

She loves me.

What shall become of the poor mortal now? He knows the truth but what difference could it make. The pathetic human is not saved by love. How could his fate be changed by the utterance of three incredibly tiny insignificant words?

She's always loved me.

I don't want to die. I don't.

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand that I yet know not?

Always.

Funny how life turns out.

She loves me.

"CLEAR!"

Omg, that was wierd. What will happen next?

Please review.