Author's Note: Spoilers for final episode. Warning for mention of blood. See End Notes for more information.
There is red on his hands.
It slicks and slides over his skin, paints him with sickening colour. There is so much of it, and the sight of that red welling between his shaking fingers and soaking into her dress turns his stomach inside out. He tries to remember something, anything about basic combat medic practices, but his mind can only think of the words he never said.
What a fucking time to recall every moment he should have said something.
Every moment he wanted to say something.
Even before he saw her as more than just Rachel, she had been a force of nature to him, unrivaled in her uncanny ability to strip away any obstacle in her path with tenacious zeal. He hadn't known how to deal with her then, other than to treat her with respect and stern politeness, but he had quickly become educated on the formidable terror known as Dr. Scott.
They had danced their dance, and then he'd missed a step; the respect and something else they'd orbited for months had spun them away into opposite sides. He had closed himself off, she had turned fierce. Ruthless. Or perhaps she'd always been that way, and he'd given her the excuse, the push to act out on her deepest nature.
He's never going to forgive himself for that.
Because wasn't it he that told her to do what was necessary? Hadn't he backed her unyieldingly into a corner and struck a low blow at her from his high position? He knows there are no words to form an apology grand enough to make amends for what he has done to her, and looking at her now, he is terrified he will never have the chance to try.
God please, not her.
I can't do this again.
Her fingers are cold and her eyes are dark as she attempts to bull her way into the role of doctor again, but that just twists up a part of him he doesn't know he had; she is fighting, she is losing, and he can't stop it.
He is a goddamn hero among heroes.
She is the god that granted them all life.
Yet here she is, shivering and cold and pale beneath his hands, and he and his unsaid words are worthless. Her voice comes as a cracked whisper to him, instructing him, guiding, but they both know they are only borrowing time stolen the moment that trigger was pulled. He thinks, in some recess of his mind, that he should feel Anger, or at least Disgust, but all there is to fill him is Fear so great it numbs his body and thickens his tongue. Anger would come later, he is sure of it. Anger and Guilt and a fury unlike any on the James had ever witnessed.
Darien was taken from him.
She has been stolen from him.
He knows he shouldn't imagine her as already gone from his life. He knows he should have hope and cling to the idea that someone would come, and someone would help and someone would save her; he looks at her ashen face and the tears in her eyes and he knows there is so little time left for anything save a handful of words he needs to say.
He chokes on his ragged breath as they are finally freed.
I wasn't ready.
I didn't know how to say it.
I'm sorry.
She smiles at him then, a wan thing that is nearly missed. Her words are failing her, but he understands; she knows he wasn't ready, and she knows he is sorry. Sorry for pushing her, sorry for squandering their trust, sorry for not being sorry soon enough. The red under his hands is slowing, and his heart nearly stops at the thought that this untamed woman, with her biting wit and ruthless nature, will be irrevocably gone from his life. And he had only just managed to offer reparation for the damage he'd done to them.
He thinks he can taste a salty wet on his lips.
Her chest falters under his fingers, and he knows their time is gone.
Without any thought, one of his red-stained hands lifts to her pale face, trailing colour across her cheek as his fingers trace her curves. She is trying to be brave, but he sees the last light of terror in her eyes, the fight and fear to cling to a life that had been snatched from her; he expects nothing less than that fight, for her to face horrors and whip out her arms and say do your worst.
But death is final.
And she is afraid.
So he leans in and for only the second time, places his lips against her skin. And suddenly his voice is found, and he whispers all the things he could never say, all the things he had swallowed down from Fear. He is a coward, confessing to her while her blood thickens on his hands, but he is terrified she will never know.
He is still murmuring litanies against her chill skin when he realizes she no longer breathes.
He can't look at her, can't see those challenging eyes grown dim.
Now, Anger sets into his bones.
Now, he will spill red of his own.
Author's End Note: Well...that happened. I do so love to torture Tom. I am sure Rachel will be fine and this is a simple way for the writers to keep her in the general area of Tom. So have no fear. She'll be back.