EagleSenior: Unfortunately, this is the last quick update for awhile. This chapter made me need to take a break to breathe.
Pixie1913: But could you live with then knowing you killed someone innocent?
SunDanceQT: The answers are not that far away anymore.
Malexfaith: They're basically the only ones left now.
Mscollywogs: You're 89 chapters in, and you didn't expect to be got in the feels? Lol.
RJRMovieFan: It really is hard to think while panicking. Your brain goes into basic survival mode, but it also doesn't always think the most logically. It's a strange experience.
96itadakimasu96: Don't worry. Everyone else is dying here too. Get it? -slaps knee-

Arrhythmia

What if this is all the love you ever get?
You'd do a couple things so differently, I bet.
What if this is all the love I ever know?
I'd say the words that were so hard to say:
Don't go.
- Snow Patrol

"The church is up ahead," Jesse says.

It isn't an accident that they're being chased. They're being bounced from place to place, being worn down with exhaustion and dread. Aubrey looks behind her into the pitch black. She has no doubt they're being followed right now – but no one is about to be killed in the middle of this road, only intimidated to keep moving. If the three of them could just stick together and run where they can't be seen…

Chloe makes a choking sound beside her.

Aubrey looks at her, and realizes she's having a panic attack - or maybe she's just out of breath from running. If she's feeling anything like Aubrey is, it's probably both. "It's okay." It's not okay. "It's okay." They both know it's not okay. They're down to six now – five if she considers either Luke or Jesse to be the culprit. She slows down to wrap her arms around Chloe – because, fuck the rest of them. They stumble toward the church, legs tired, unable to fully breathe, running strictly on their basic instincts to survive.

The door to the church is unlocked. Jesse swings it open, and when they're all inside, Benji closes it and locks it behind them.

The chapel is empty except for the pews, and Aubrey had never felt more boxed in and claustrophobic. Every wall is trapping her there, leaving her with nowhere to go. She tries to stop, but Chloe suddenly pulls away from her and drags her by the hand down the aisle at full speed. She looks to Beca – who just stops near the back, looking shell-shocked.

Chloe bursts through the side door near the alter so quickly that it nearly swings back and hits Aubrey in the face. What Aubrey had previously thought was a second exit is no exit at all. It's an office for a pastor – a desk, a chair, bibles, and papers scattered all over the place. Chloe slams the door shut behind them and locks it.

"We can't hide in here," Aubrey whispers, sniffling. They'll be found. And there will be no escape.

Chloe takes the flashlight from Aubrey's hand and sets it upright on the desk so it illuminates the room in a dim light. She turns and places her quivering hands on Aubrey's face, brushing her hair behind her ears, stroking the bridge of her nose, rubbing her thumbs across Aubrey's cheekbones, across her lips, over her forehead. "Look at me" she whispers, out of breath.

Aubrey doesn't want to do this right now.

She can't do this.

'Goodbye' is supposed to be for when they're old. Sixty or seventy years from now. It's supposed to be bittersweet, sad and romantic like The Notebook or something.

"I love you. So much," Chloe tells her, "Every part of you. Even the parts that you think people find hard to love." She slides her hands down Aubrey's face, shoulders, arms, until they reach Aubrey's hands. She squeezes Aubrey's uninjured hand as tight as she can as she kneels down in front of her.

Aubrey's chin quivers even harder than the rest of her body, and she finally looks at her.

"Marry me," Chloe says, "Marry me, Aubrey Posen."

It isn't fair. It's not fair. Nothing in Aubrey's life has ever felt fair – and this, this the least fair of all.

Everything Aubrey has ever wanted, even before she knew she wanted it, is right in front of her – and it's so fleeting.

"Me and you." Chloe sniffles. "Together forever – with a house in Queens, and kids we use our Target waffle maker to feed every morning before school, and our cat that you pretend to hate, but I catch you totally cuddling with all the time."

It's not fair.

Aubrey presses her lips together to avoid bursting back into a fit of sobs, and nods yes to everything – even the cat, especially the fucking cat.

Chloe slides Aubrey's ring off her finger then slides off her own. She places her own ring on Aubrey's finger then lifts Aubrey's hand to her lips and kisses it. She stands up and holds out the other ring.

Aubrey takes it and places it on Chloe's finger.

No diamond could ever dream of comparing.

Chloe cups her face again and kisses her – hard. She backs Aubrey up into the wall with her entire body pressed up against her, and holds her there for what will never be long enough.

Aubrey feels lightheaded. From the kiss. From not being able to breath already. From her emotions piling up higher and higher into a mountain that not even crying can diminish. Chloe's tongue parts her lips, and Aubrey is vaguely aware of how absolutely disgusting she is right now. Her nose is running, she's been vomiting, her teeth haven't been brushed nearly enough, her lips still taste like oreos and cheetos. Yet Chloe is kissing her anyway, and she can't pull away. She kisses Chloe back – raw, messy, needy, desperate for each next second.

Chloe feels her face, her neck, her collarbone. She slides her hands underneath Aubrey's shirt, letting them travel from her lower back to her shoulder blades then back down, around to her churning stomach, her aching ribs, underneath her bra to rest on her breasts.

Aubrey follows her lead – tracing every part of Chloe's body, rememorizing it to take it with her. Every hill, every valley, the scar on her forehead, the smooth expanses of skin across her back and stomach, the dry patches that appear on her arms every year as fall draws closer and last through the winter. She's scared to forget what Chloe feels like – even if after death, Aubrey has no sense of it anyway. She reaches down to unbutton Chloe's pants, and Chloe's hands immediately go for hers as well. They can barely get each other unbuttoned and unzippered, trembling hands, quivering fingers, fumbling through the rush of it. Aubrey's pants and underwear are finally pushed to just below her butt, and the gun falls to the floor. She nudges it away with her foot, then pushes Chloe's pants down too.

Aubrey kisses her so hard, it almost hurts.

She wishes there was time to slow things down – to feel, to really feel. Instead, they rub their hands back and forth as quickly as they can, hard, at varying hastened speeds, in various erratic motions, hitting some areas that are pleasurable and some not so much – some that almost make her want to stop. Their knuckles keep crashing, arms keep getting in the way of each other. And Aubrey finds herself getting more worked up than she's ever been – climbing higher and higher, never quite reaching the top, continuing to crave the most intense kind of discomfort she has ever felt before. Just one more second.

Chloe hits her climax first. Every muscle in her body tenses, and she pushes herself harder against Aubrey, her fingernails digging so deep into the back of Aubrey's neck that they probably draw blood. The sound she makes is one Aubrey has never heard from her before and never wants to hear again – something between a strangled yelp and a devastated moan that gets caught in her throat and stops too soon.

Aubrey holds off. Once it's over, it's over. She's hovering on the edge, so close, too close, trying to bring herself back down again, feeling like she's being electrocuted – in the way where you know you have static electricity and purposely keep touching metal, it hurts, but you can't quit doing it.

Chloe breaks the kiss and presses her lips to the space beside Aubrey's ear. "Let go, Aubrey."

Aubrey shakes her head.

Chloe nods. "Let go."

Aubrey will not let go. She will never let go.

Chloe slows her hand, and Aubrey thinks she's going to leave her like that – stuck in the tension, drowning in all of it, still trying to cling to her even as she's pulling away. She throws both arms around her, gripping the back of her shirt, shaking her head against her shoulder, because Chloe can't just leave her like this. Chloe can't leave her like this. "No."

"I have you." Chloe finds a slower, steadier, more purposeful pace – one that doesn't hurt, one that's gentle – because Chloe is so gentle, has always been so gentle, the only gentle thing Aubrey has ever had – the only one who doesn't try to scrub her heart with sandpaper just because it appears hard from a glance. "I have you. Let go."

"I can't."

"Aubrey, I have you. Let go."

"No."

"You don't need these walls with me, Aubrey. You don't need to block me out from the parts of you that are hurt, or the soft parts, or the parts you think aren't good enough. I already know, and I love all of you, Aubrey. That's all you need to hold on to. Let the rest of it finally go. Don't you dare say goodbye so far away from me."

Chloe isn't the person Aubrey wants to die fighting against.

They're saying goodbye.

Aubrey's legs give out. All of her nerve endings go into overdrive. She doesn't know if her cry is pleasure or anguish. The wall slows her down. She hits the ground with Chloe on top of her – painfully, awkwardly, their pants half down, preventing Chloe's range of movement landing on her lap.

Chloe has her even in the embarrassment and awkwardness of it all. She maneuvers herself up onto her knees and fixes her pants, then pulls Aubrey to her knees in front of her and helps her fix hers too. Then she hugs her. Tight. So tight, Aubrey thinks she's going to smother against Chloe's shoulder. One arm around her back, her other hand in Aubrey's hair. Holding her like that until they both stop gasping like fish out of water.

Aubrey holds onto her until Chloe pulls back first and holds Aubrey by the arms to look at her - to see right through her at everything that makes her - the joys, the sadness, the fears, accomplishments, self-doubts, wants, needs, strengths, vulnerabilities, the loneliness of never being seen - all of it.

Aubrey needs a moment to just be - alternating between accepting and pushing away the grief.

Chloe gives her until she's ready, rubbing her hands slowly up and down Aubrey's arms.

"It's not fair," Aubrey finally admits out loud and shakes her head.

Eight years she had with Chloe, and she never knew there could be relief in exposure.

What if this is all the love you ever get?
You'd not worry so much about counting your regrets.
What if this is all the love I'm ever shown?
I'd not be so scared to run into the unknown.
- Snow Patrol