.Time.
Disclaimer: Yeah...no. Still don't own it. *sigh*
AN: I have a mild obsession with interracial relationships. Especially the ones taking place between a mortal and an immortal (elf/youkai/demon/angel/Mi'rin/Spirit/Vampire/etc.). The one element I keep playing with (which a surprising amount of people tend to overlook) is the fact that half of this relationship is going to bite the bucket someday. The other half is not, and that has some very dark implications, which I take far too much joy in. Now there should be no major surprises, and the reason behind the rating should be fairly obvious. And I realize that Zee is not made out of steel. "Titanium Alloy" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
He thought he could stop it, that there might be something he could do. Ro's faith in him was unwavering—she honestly believed that he could save her from anything, everything, and that they would live happily ever after, just like in the stories she pretended not to enjoy. But no matter where he hunted or what he researched, he couldn't stop time.
It was moving faster every day, and it was dragging her along with it. Already her gold hair had faded silver and the smoothness of her face was weathered away into fissures of worry and laughter and age. She was growing old, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He slowed down for her sake, his every motion towards her delicate and gentle. He avoided trouble when she was near, and only told her the mild, watered down stories of his more recent exploits. He altered his own appearance to suit hers—it just didn't seem right, that they should be separated by years after all they had been through together. He believed that maybe, if he was careful, he would be able to coax her through the years.
He was wrong.
On the thirtieth day of April, 2133, her pulse flickered and sputtered before it faded away altogether. He was surprised—he shouldn't have been. Every database he had guaranteed that humans died eventually, that she had lived an unusually long and adventurous life, that death was a natural and peaceful finality, but it didn't matter. She was dead, and it surprised him, and it hurt him, and he wanted nothing more than to make it stop.
He was still clutching her body by the time the coroner arrived, illusory tears streaming down his cheeks and still not bringing her back. It wasn't fair—it was horrible—it shouldn't have ended like this. She was tough—she was strong—she wasn't supposed to die. But when the coroner finally pried her from his arms, he was silent.
Her funeral was on a Friday; that Saturday his world erupted into fire and ash and chips of steel.