I feel it all slam into me. Hitting me in the chest.

I'd spent the last fifteen months, especially since Doris' Op, working myself ragged. Only letting my brain focus on missions and tactics and training. Until the only time I had not working, I was so exhausted, I could do nothing but plummet into a blissfully thoughtless, dreamless sleep. Anything to stop myself from thinking about palm trees and beaches and surfboards and loud haoles. Until now.

I blame Danny.

I didn't realize it would be so different this time. I never missed anyone before. I never once pulled a well-worn photo from my pocket to look at, even knowing how much my chest would hurt at the act. Fuck, this is 'just' my best friend and his kid. Once again, I wonder how the hell guys with actual families do this? How did Freddie do this? Fuck, I'm pathetic.

My heart was always kind of shrivelled and hard. At least, it could be when I needed it to be. Like it should be now. I wish it was. Freddie's had always been thrown wide open, even while we were working. Just like mine's been the last few years.

I thought it would be better after I left, when I had escaped the suffocating weight of the Hawaiian sun and Danny's... just Danny. But after fifteen months, it still isn't any better. It got worse. Well, fuck Danny. Fuck Hawaii and that goddamn five year vacation I took that ruined everything. I'd kept my body fit, but forgot to maintain the mortar on my walls and they'd crumbled to the ground.

That's the real reason I left. Humpty Dumpty didn't fall; the whole fucking wall collapsed and now I'm scrambled and no one can ever put me back together and I've got no idea what to do with all the pieces. I spent my childhood and early adulthood being taught the importance of walls and how to build and maintain them. I spent my entire career honing them into the best fucking walls in existence – better than the goddamn pyramids, thank you very much.

Then Danny breezed into my life and I got rusty and Danny took advantage, and went all Jersey on them. Now I'm buried alive, suffocating in the rubble. My chest fucking hurts. But I can't go back. The rubble will crush me. It already is. I tried to pull away from them but it didn't work. No, I'll stay here, where it's safe.

The pain in my chest shoots through my arteries. Stabs me in the leg.

Weird metaphor, but okay.

I remember back to that old woman's apartment we used for a surveillance gig one time, telling Danny things that I've never told anyone. Hell, things I barely acknowledged to myself. Things that had nothing to do with people trying to kill or torture me. Just the things that, you know, made me into the epic screw up I am today.

I remember telling Danny about my father, about how he molded me into his own image – a man obviously fiercely protective of his family, but at the same time, equating emotions as weakness. I remember telling Danny about that damn talent show. I remember all the other times – too many, but not enough – that I've willingly torn apart my heart and shown him its contents as they pool on the ground around me in a sticky mess, staining my cammies. Every single one of those times has been vomit-almost-inducing hell – even thinking about it now makes my stomach churn – fuck, actually I'd really like to puke right now, but something tells me that's not a good idea – but at the same time, they had been the most freeing, wonderful moments of my life. Sounds kinda fucked to me.

Danny is so free with his feelings. He taught me that emotions weren't weakness, but that still doesn't mean I'm comfortable with them. But if I could tell anyone anything, it always was and always will be Danny; not Cath, not even Freddie. Danny scaled my walls on the first day we met without even trying and once he realized what he'd done, he just got to work trying to tear them down completely, without cracking that fragile eggshell.

Again, I'm not sure about that metaphor.

Funny the shit that goes through your mind when you're dying.

I look down at the dark pool growing around me and suddenly the world crashes back down on me. The thwump thwump thwump of copter blades. Ack ack ack of gun fire. Yelling. Blinding sun. Excruciating pain starting in my leg and shooting through the rest of my body. I should probably do something about that. First aid. Find cover. Return fire. Call for help.

I don't do any of that. As I feel the pool grow around me, I just... feel nothing else. There's no more guilt. No more tug-o-war. No more responsibility. No more anything. Peace. Just the one thing I could always count on: finding cover, running away to die alone.

A/N: Sorry for the shortie this time. And as for the end... don't worry, guys!