I am warning you now, this chapter is all angsty. 'Tis the downside of killing someone off, I suppose. But it does have a point. The story moves on again next chapter, promise. Thanks to all who reviewed!

We were back at the hotel now, in the lobby. It had been empty when we'd arrived at gone 5 am, but now just under two hours later things were beginning to pick up a little. The receptionist bustled about behind her desk, tactfully ignoring the pointed silence between Paul and me; broken only when Paul half-heartedly greeted someone he knew as they walked between us.

He sat across from me in a stiff armchair, his head resting against the wallpapered wall. I was lying horizontally on a hard sofa, a notebook in my lap. The page was empty, stark white. I had nothing to say.

We were waiting for my mother, who had promised to be in L.A. as soon as she could. This vague promise did little for my inner turmoil but it had forced me to clean my face in the hospital restrooms, and run a brush through my straggly hair. Even after our estrangement, I didn't want her to have anything to criticise.

I dropped my head from where I'd been studying the large revolving door to look at my notebook again. I had so many thoughts running through my head – most relating to this morning's events: Paul's hands in my hair, Kelly's piercing shriek, the gunshot…

As if like a reflex I reached for my pen and stabbed the paper, sending the point through several pages before throwing them both onto the marble floor and crying out in anguish. This woke Paul from his reverie and his head jerked back to a perpendicular position, his ice blue eyes penetrating me. Once this had sent my heart a flutter. Now I was too far in, now I hated how much I loved him when he did not love me.

"Susie," he said, and his voice sounded rusty. I met his stony gaze with my own blank, listless stare.

"Don't call me that," I snapped. "Don't talk to me."

"Suze," he persisted, and he got off his armchair to kneel by my side. "Please, don't shut me out. We need to put on a united front at a time like this." He reached for my hand, but I pulled it out of his grasp.

"United…" I echoed, and instantly my mind flashed back to just several hours earlier, when we'd been just a little too united. I turned away from him. "We killed her, Paul," I said to the wall.

"No, Susie," he said, and I recoiled from the use of my nickname. He snatched my hand into his. "You can't think like that. Kelly, she…" My heart lurched at the first mention of her name. The doctors had been cold and impersonal. Patient is dead. "… she had problems, problems we couldn't have saved her from. What happened tonight was inevitable, you have to know that." I wondered who he was really trying to convince.

"United," I said again, and Paul nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

"I can look after you, Suze," he said, quietly, repeating the words he had said to me right in the beginning. "If you'll let me." There were idiot-proof tabs: sign here, here and here. I looked up at Paul again, and his eyes were there again, urging me on.

I picked up the pen. What did I have to sign away anymore? My livelihood had been shattered just as Kelly's face had been. Let Paul Slater have my life. I didn't want it.

Susannah Simon. I was bored of my own name by the end. Paul's hand closed over mine as I finished the last signature, and he smiled weakly at me.

"I'll look after you," he said again, and he closed his eyes as he rested his head on my shoulder. For a second I felt the same longing again, to be close to him, and with that realisation I jerked my head upwards. I couldn't fall into that trap again. Look where it had left me.

"Susie." I turned around to see my mother there, thinner and older than how I'd left her. But she was still my mother, through the veil. Breaking away from Paul, I got to my feet.

"Mommy," I said into her shoulder, as she stroked my hair. The tears didn't come, but my voice cracked nonetheless.

"Ssh," she whispered, holding me close. "Everything's going to be O.K now."

-x-

On my mother's orders, I went upstairs to sleep. But for what felt like days I lay there on my bed awake, staring at Kelly's empty bed and listening to the dull thud of my heartbeat. I didn't know what to think, whether it was a good thing my mom was back in my life or not. It had been insanity that had led me to that phone box back in the hospital, the same kind of insanity that had resulted in me kissing Paul and everything that had followed. I winced as the corresponding images flashed before me, like an old film reel – the kiss, the scream, the shot…

I turned over, away from her bed, and tried to focus on my heavy breathing, counting the seconds it took for my chest to rise and fall, until my head stopped pounding. I had to get out of this fog; I had to rid myself of this feeling that nothing would ever be the same. But before I could figure out how, I was drifting, finally, to a place where I could pretend that everything was fine.

-x-

I woke some time later to find that it was dark outside, and the only source of light was coming from a candle in the far corner of the room. Paul was sat in front of it on the small, elegant loveseat, head resting on his hands and his eyes focused on that hot, flickering flame.

It was that image, and not any of the others that I had seen in the past 48 hours that had struck the biggest chord. I had seen many emotions on Paul's face – smugness, anger, even desperation as he tried to pull Kelly back from the edge – but now he was emotionless; no crease in his forehead, no sparkle in those eyes. It scared me, and for the first time I realised that he had been there too, he had to be feeling what I was feeling. It was that realisation that led me across the room, clutching the bedclothes to my cold skin, to the empty space beside him on that loveseat. I closed my fingers around his and he turned to look at me, eyes large and empty. Maybe this wasn't enough, just his hand holding mine, but as I leant in to kiss him I prayed that he would never let go.