Not again.

Not again.

Not again.

Deep down, he knows it's not his fault. He knows that it's all in his head. He wasn't driving the train. Even so, it doesn't stop him for thinking so. It doesn't stop it hurting.

This time is different, he realises. With Cal, it was overwhelming and raw and like a punch to the gut. This time, his insides are churning with sorrow and shock and a prevailing sense of injustice. He feels numb, and yet, as he takes in what exactly happened to put his wife in that hospital bed, guilt begins to rise up within him.

It takes everything within him not to tell them to never stop trying to save her, but he knows. He knows that if Dylan tells him that it's too late - that she's too far gone - it's the truth.

"She's gone."

All the strength that he had somehow summoned from within him as he told them to stop seems to vanish, the words sticking in his throat as the gravity of the situation seems to hit him as hard as that fucking train. The numbers dotted around the clock are hard to make out through his tears, but he manages to choke out a time of death. 15:17.

She should have been walking down the aisle to meet him by now.


He ends up thinking a lot as Dylan speaks to her parents.

What had he done to help her? Nothing. He hadn't learned anything from Cal, his own brother.

He hadn't been there for Fenisha when she needed him most. Just like Cal.

He'd been stupidly nearby to Fenisha as she was dying, and he didn't realise it in time to comfort her. Just like Cal.

He had promised himself that he would never put the people he loved in jeopardy ever again... and yet, here he was, sitting in that uncomfortable seat and wishing that he could have done this whole day differently.

Fenisha's father asks him not to leave her alone. Of course he agrees. He's seen it too many times over the years - when a patient dies, it's as if a bomb goes off within their family and friends. He wasn't the only one hurting, he realises that.

So, he sits on the side of her bed, and takes her hand in his.

He knows that they did things kind of strangely when it came to their relationship. An one night stand, a pregnancy, dating and not dating, having Bodhi, trying to co-parent, to finally making a real go of things, and then the proposal and wedding. Even now after everything that's happened, he doesn't think he'd change a bit of it.

They were going to get married, and then they would become a little family. Him, her and Bodhi. He'd get a few years of pure happiness, and then he'd pass away with his little family by his bedside. That was the plan.

Plans change.

It was supposed to be him going first, and just when he was getting the news that his Huntington's results were better than he imagined, she was dying.

He didn't want more time if it means that she loses hers.

He wants to share his life with her for as long as he has, and just as they are beginning to, it's been ripped away from them.

"It is the only life I want... and now it's gone."

He breaks down then. Fenisha's gone. The mother of his child is gone. The woman he loves is gone, and there's absolutely nothing that he can do about it.

He wants her back, and he wants Cal back.

Ethan Hardy doesn't want to be alone anymore.

Maybe that's why he wakes up in a hospital bed a month later to see his brother's stupid cocky face staring back at him - his brain trying to compensate for the giant hole in his heart. A hole once ripped open that was just beginning to heal when it was ripped open again. Maybe he's finally losing the plot, but in between the confusion and shock and disbelief, Ethan feels the tiniest sliver of happiness emerge from deep within, because just when everything's falling apart and collapsing around him, his brother's come back to protect him from the pain.

The hole in his heart gets a little bit easier to breathe with, because Cal is by his side... even if no one else believes him.

Funny how you realise how much people matter to you when they're gone.