A/N: So, I've changed the way this is written. To change POVs, there will be a line across the screen. Please enjoy this chapter, I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages!

Her vision darted from left to right, desperately looking for a phone. The sickening pool of blood was slowly creeping bigger and bigger. Then, she saw it. A few feet away lay a phone, and she scrambled towards it clumsily.

"Cato, stay with me, please," Clove said, her voice cracking. She pressed three numbers into the phone, hard: 911, and held it up to her ear with her free hand.

"Hello?" The voice of an officer filled the speaker.

"Hi—this is—this is serious. I'm at Ca—I mean, I'm at 2 Maple Crescent. A boy's bleeding profusely . . . he needs help. Please, help him, officer . . ." Her voice trailed off. It sounded strained. Full of worry. Remorse. Anxiety.

"We'll send an ambulance and be there as quick as possible." The phone line buzzed and the phone slipped out of Clove's usually dexterous fingers that were now trembling, as she stared at Cato apprehensively. Even if she didn't love him like that, she did care for him immensely. He was her whole childhood.

A girl laughs in his arms,

but she is so distant.

Is this a dream? Is this a memory?

He does not care, he does not care.

He wills to live in the moment,

even if it is so impossibly real,

his mind tells him otherwise.

Is he dead?

He does not care, he does not care.

"Just live in the moment," his mother had said,

and like an obedient boy, he obeyed her.

"Be reckless," she had said,

and the boy listened.

But now that he was older, he had realized

that was not possible.

No, for he cared for this girl,

he cared for her more than himself.

He broke his mother's rules,

because he knew this girl.

This girl was his life.

The blur of the luminescent lights was smeared in Clove's peripheral vision. Boisterous noises, beeping, walking into an ambulance. She didn't process anything. All she knew of was that Cato was dying. The constant war raging inside herself was getting continually larger—she wanted to check on him, but feared the result she would find.

He's not dead.

Startled, Clove looked up. Did she imagine this? Her eyes swept through the room for the person that the voice belonged to, but returned with nothing. She ran her fingers through her dark hair as they sped through the street. It was all her fault. She was the reason for this whole problem. She didn't deserve to have him, all she brought on was disappointment and death. Maybe her dad was right. She should have let no one close to her and remained a ruthless and cold warrior. A child soldier playing by the rules.

"We're at the hospital," a voice dispatched, cutting through her thoughts like a razor blade. "Clove."

She looked up reluctantly at the nurse. "You're not allowed in the hospital. Room, that is. I'm going to room 121, the door will remain open only for a minute maximum." She shook her head, and walked down the ambulance's ramp and into the hospital.

Clove frowned in thought. The nurse's voice wasn't a reprimanding one. In fact, she had hinted her. Why else would she have said that last sentence?

She darted down the hall after the nurse, and then slid across the corridor. The door was closed, a thread of light seeping through the crack at the bottom. She cracked it open to peer through and gazed at Cato on the operation table for an endless amount of time. She couldn't even remember how long she stood there until the doctors cleared the room.

Clove walked in quietly, looking left and right before running towards Cato. A soft sob escaped her lips.

"I'm—I'm so sorry, Cato. I didn't mean to—I mean, I—I—," tears shone in her eyes as she tried to swallow down her fear. He would be okay. He would be.

She looked up at the heart monitor, its jagged lines signaling a heartbeat being steady but slow. She stared at it for minutes, before it came to a stop, and the monitor started to buzz. Her heart skipped a beat. No.

"No! Cato, wake up, listen to me!" She sank against his head, wetting his face with her tears. He was still warm.

"Stop playing games, Cato, this isn't funny! I mean it!"

Her voice rose to a scream, as she sobbed again. "Oh my God, Cato."

She stared down at him, closing her eyes. "I love you so much. I'm sorry." Tentatively, she leaned towards him and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. "Wake up, please."

Doctors rushed into the room, staring at the heart monitor and then her. Their eyes were filled with sorrow, whispering sorry. But nothing would make this better, nothing would fix what had just happened.

As if not believing it, she pressed her ear down to his chest, waiting for a heart beat.

To prove her wrong, the heart monitor wrong, the doctors wrong.

To make everything okay again.

...

It took several blinks to revive her sharp vision, but when she did, she bolted upwards. Her face was still tearstained, and she found herself staring at a doctor's vacant face.

"You went into shock, miss. We had to give you a tranquillizer."

That makes no sense, she thought. Why would I have been panicky?

Clove yawned and nodded at the doctor without irreverence, but not quite appreciation either. "Why am I here, anyway?"

That phrase brought her a nervous glance at her. "Well . . . you—you were watching over a boy, and he . . ."

Clove froze, trying to keep her composure. The terrifying memory flooded back to her; it was too vivid to forget.

"Where is he?"

"Well, I was instructed to keep you—"

She shook her head and started again, more firmly this time. "Where is he?"

"Miss, I cannot have you—"

But Clove had already darted to her feet, and made a beeline to the door. Pushing the doctor away impatiently, she ran down the corridor, trying to find the right door number; hair flying into her face. Her eyes glanced left and right, everywhere for her training partner. But he was not just her training partner; he was so much more than that. He was an ally. Best friend. Trainer. Accomplice. Rival. Schoolmate. And most recently, lover.

In her mind, it had taken longer than forever to find Cato, the boy she cared so much for. But in reality, it was only minutes until her hazel eyes landed on the golden-haired boy. She inhaled sharply, and walked in slowly, not wanting to know what had happened to him and yet waiting for his fate all along. As she tiptoed down to his cot, she heard a familiar beep, slow but steady . . . but how was that possible? Holding in her breath, she frowned curiously at the heart monitor. It was beeping again.

A faint smile grew on his lips as he stared up at her.

"Sorry, but you're not getting rid of me this time, Clove." His feeble voice broke, but nevertheless, Cato used all his strength to utter any word at all.

Cato's ears were able to register Clove gasping underneath her breath, and if Cato could've laughed, this was the time.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. How . . . What? What kind of joke is this, Cato? How'd you . . ."

His lips twitched. "Well, according to the doctors, they restarted my heart."

"And to think I gave them a hard time," Clove groaned. She sunk against his strong chest, but even to Cato, it was a burden to remain breathing. He remained silent about the matter.

"I—I swear to God, I am so sorry, Cato. Cato." She murmured his name as if it were a miracle. "I didn't know . . . I—oh God, one minute I was angry, the next you were on the floor when I was about to apologize, and . . ."

Cato could feel her shaky breaths against his chest. She was crying. Tough, fierce, relentless Clove was crying.

"I thought I was going to lose you," she murmured.

Cato gingerly raised his palm to stroke her cheek, as if she were the one who was hurt. In an undertone, he mimicked, "'I thought I was going to lose you.'" Rolling his eyes, he sighed, "You know I'm a fighter, I don't see why you were worried at all, Clove. Stop being cheesy and toughen up."

She laughed, and it sounded so angelic to him. "In a time of vulnerability, you cover it up with wit and sarcasm."

"I don't know whether or not that was a question, but either way, I'm going to respond with a yes to that. I mean, it seems like you were the one who was harmed. And yet this is the girl who simply cheated in our swordfight to win? A disgrace to your family," he said sarcastically. "Anywho, you broke my train of recollection."

"Anywho?" She repeated after him, looking at him ridiculously. "Maybe we have to get you checked for brain damage too."

Ignoring her, he thought out loud, "Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Prior to dying—"

"Melodramatic," Clove muttered.

"—you were saying something to me. I love you, was it?" The question was rhetorical, but caused a faint blush to creep to Clove's cheeks.

"And then . . . oh, and then you did something. Not just something, was it? A bit intimate. You kissed me. There better be an explanation for that, missy. You are dismissed until I have that explanation."