I tried to hold the tears in, but they wouldn't stop coming. I wanted to scream, "I wish I could stay here with you!" I wanted to say, "Shadow, you're the love of my life! Never forget that!" But instead I just kept silently crying. I turned my head away whenever he looked over, but there was no hiding our misery. He forced himself to a sitting position and began to pull on the cords that protruded from his skin. "Shadow..." I muttered, wondering what he was trying to accomplish. With a grunt, he ripped them out and immediately climbed onto the bed next to me, where he grabbed my side in an embrace and kissed my cheek. "Shadow." I repeated.

"Don't talk. Just, don't try to talk." I sucked in a breath and we continued to lie silently. After a while, I decided not to resist and hugged him back. "I know you're crying." I wiped away some of the tears from my face in reply.

"It's not like you've never cried before."

"I know." When I finally looked over at him I realized that his cheeks were wet too. "Maria, I'm not willing to spend time in a hospital room. It won't work for me. Not ever, but especially..." Not finishing his sentence for obvious reasons, I took a turn at filling in the silence.

"I respect that. And I know just where to go." I yanked out my own cords and got up quickly - too quickly. "Ah!" I fell to my knees.

"Maria!" He tried to get up but was very slow. His side was obviously causing him a lot of pain.

"I'm fine." I said, "I just stopped my flow of morphine. Give me a minute." Slowly, I got back to my feet and a nurse walked in.

"What are you guys doing!? You need that morphine or you're going to be in a lot of pain!"

So ten minutes and two new IVs later, Shadow and I were pathetically strolling down the hall. We walked at a slow pace on our way to my room. I guess the intention of going back to my bedroom was to try to forget what was happening. "So they got that bullet out of you?" I asked to form some conversation. We were always so quiet together.

"Yeah. Numbed me from the neck down and pulled it out with a pair of tweezers."

"Gross. Did you have to watch?"

"Did I have to watch? I think you mean 'did I get to watch'. And yes. It was cool." I made a disgusted face and he smiled. "Please, don't make me laugh."

"Okay."

We were halfway down the hallway when he stopped dead in his tracks. "My poem!"

"What?"

"I-I... what happened to it?" He couldn't remember. "Oh no..."

"It's okay! It's okay!" I tried to comfort him. "Do you remember what it said?"

"Umm... Not really. Just a few lines. I worked so hard on it..."

"Just tell me the first few lines! I'm sure they'll be great and you'll remember the rest later."

"Umm... Okay. Later. Let's get back to your room first."

"...If it makes you feel any better, I wrote a poem too, and I also lost it. Wait, did we leave those in the hospital room, the first time we were there?"

He gasped. "Be right back!"

"No, I'm coming with you! I want to get my paper too!" We stumbled back to the infirmary and searched the room. It didn't take me long to find my poem where I had left it (and forgotten where it was) which was in a drawer from the bedside table. Shadow found his, a balled up sheet of printer paper, under my bed where it had fallen from his hands when he went to kiss me before the nurse walked in on us. Smiling with relief, we began our trek back to my room.

Twenty minutes later we were entering my room. No one had talked the entire trip and I shut the door behind us.

"Who's reading first?" Shadow asked with a bit of excitement.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing seemed to come out except a series of gibberish. No! I thought to myself, No, no, no! I didn't want my last real word to be "too". I wanted it to be "Shadow".

He watched the concern grow on my face as I spoke nonsense. Running up to me, he said, "Oh, shh! It's okay! It's okay!" Now it was his turn to say those two words. "Shh! Just, don't try to speak! D-don't try to speak!" His eyes began to get shiny and wet, and it hurt even more than not being able to speak to see tears drop from his eyes. It was torture to see him cry. I didn't want to, but I cried with him, and he pulled me to the ground with him. There, we sat down on the carpet and held each other, but I didn't forget about the poem in my hand. I gripped it so hard that the paper crinkled and he responded, "Don't worry about that! I'll read it myself, and it'll be wonderful! I promise! Please, don't cry. Don't cry..." He let me rest my head on his shoulder and continued to beg me not to cry, but it made me cry more to see what pain he was in. And to think I had caused it all.

Suddenly, I broke away from him and ran to my bathroom. He didn't move, didn't ask what I was doing. Just sat there on the ground where we were, his hands shaking as I gave him a last glance before slamming the door and vomiting into the toilet. I flushed the white appliance and grabbed some mouthwash from under the sink, swishing it around in my mouth as I looked at myself in the mirror. There were dark circles around my eyes and as I leaned my head down to spit into the sink, I saw something that horrified me. There, hanging down around my face with the rest of my hair, was a small strand of grey.

"What?" I whispered, yanking it from my head. I stared at it in the light of the bathroom. I had actually found a grey strand of hair on my head. And I was twelve.

"Sometimes that happens under stress." Shadow responded, watching me from the doorway.

"Hey!" I yelled angrily, not having noticed him open the door. "Stay away from me! STAY AWAY!" I grabbed a bar of soap and threw it at his head. For some reason, I was furious.

"You can speak!" He exclaimed happily. I threw the mouthwash at him. "Hey, I thought mood swings came before vomiting."

I gasped. "They got it wrong. They got it WRONG! MAYBE I'LL LIVE AFTER ALL!" I began to jump up and down, but slowly stopped when Shadow narrowed his eyes at me. He looked confused, and at the time I didn't get why. Then it hit me.

"Oh, wait, there they are. The mood swings." I said softly. "The order doesn't matter. I'm going to die anyway." I sat down on the toilet lid and tried not to cry anymore. He walked over to me and pushed the hair away from my face.

"If it makes you feel any better..." He stopped, obviously trying to think of something. "I'm sure there are worse diseases on Earth."

Something sparked inside of me, and for some reason it reminded me of the poem pressed tightly into my hand. It was now just a little ball of white that I had shoved into my palm so I could hold the container of mouthwash from earlier. I had never let go of it. "Let me read this to you."

"Alright." He smiled, taking me by the wrist and leading us to my bed to sit down. I held it in front of me and read,

"When I'm alone in the dark,

You are my spark.

Your eyes, their fire

Are much to admire.

I never want to be without you

And my feelings for you are so true.

Even under the spell of disaster

We have proved ourselves Love's master.

When I drift off into a blessed sleep

I'll always think of our connection, so deep.

And as I watch you from under my halo,

I'll smile down at you Shadow, my hero."

"Beautiful. Maria, that means so much to me." He replied warmly, clapping his hands.

"I'm glad you liked it. I didn't think it'd be too great because to be honest, I wrote it in a few minutes."

He chuckled. "Okay, my turn." He unwrinkled his paper and took his time to smooth it out. He looked nervous. "Ahem."

BOOM!

"Oh my God, not another explosion..." I grumbled as Shadow threw the door open frantically. He took one look through the hall and ran over to me. "What are you-" Once I got a good glimpse of the hall I understood his strange reaction.

"Don't look." He said, trying to cover my eyes. I pushed his gloved hand away. I had already saw him. The scientist who's head was bleeding out on the floor. A soldier in a navy blue helmet and a GUN uniform was running down the hall in the opposite direction.

I began to gag as Shadow ran over to the man and pointlessly checked his pulse. Without directly saying it, he just looked over at me with a pained expression. He then shook his head. I probably would have thrown up if I still had any food left in my stomach, but instead my vision began to blur and I fell to my knees. In a frantic outburst, I yelled at him, "What's happening!?"

He slowly crossed the hall and looked at me. We were about the same height now. "I don't know." He replied simply, "I don't know anymore."