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Major was spending a blissful afternoon with the radio, singing along to all his old favorites. Or the brain's old favorites. Or something like that. Olivia appeared to enjoy his singing, based on how it spurred her along in her cleaning and cooking. Her movements went faster the more he sang, and when he offered to help she snapped an immediate "no", which he took to mean he should keep singing because she was finding it motivating.
Along toward mid-afternoon, she was shaking their martinis—within an inch of their lives, it appeared, from how firmly the shaker was moving—and broke into Major's song with a comment. "I have to say, I do think it would've been better if Jeff had shot Tammy."
Major got to his feet, ambling toward her, thinking that over. It seemed romantic to him that Jeff hadn't been able to bring himself to live without the love of his life, not for so much as a moment. But he could see Olivia's point, as well—surely death was better than an unending afterlife of shuffling around with the only thing left inside being a hunger for brains. Still … at the end of the day, he had to come down on the side of romance. He said so, approaching Olivia with thoughts of romance on his mind. "Romero and Juliet," he said poetically.
As his hands closed on her shoulders, Olivia—still shaking the martinis, incredibly thoroughly—said, "You know what I have a hankering for?"
He leaned in, whispering gently in her ear, "I know what I have a hankering for."
"Oh, you …" She turned in his arms, smiling up at him. "I spotted that hot sauce that I love down in the basement. Would you be a lamb and fetch it for me?"
"Your wish," Major murmured, "is my command." He lifted her hand and kissed it gallantly. Take that, Romero and Juliet. Major Lilywhite was all about the romance.
He left her, heading down to the basement, humming as he went, thinking about the evening to come. Olivia in his arms, music on the radio—what more could a man ask for?
Plucking the key to the gated-off area where Jeff and Tammy shuffled along in their shared unlife off its hook, he jauntily approached the gate. "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said to his two fellow former Fillmore Graves employees, "but the little lady has her heart set on hot sauce." He opened the gate, turning to wink at Jeff. Or what had once been Jeff. "Women." Major chuckled, looking at Tammy, who had shrunk back as he opened the gate. "I'm just kidding, Tammy. But if it's hot sauce my Olivia wants, it's hot sauce she'll get."
The two of them closed in on him as he entered their space, sniffing at his clothes. If they were hoping for brains, they were out of luck, Major thought, sidling between them. His brains wouldn't do them any good.
He spied the box on the floor, stooping to open it up and extract a bottle of the desired hot sauce. "Whoops, here we go. Let's hope this will earn me a couple of brownie points."
Behind him, he heard a clatter as the gate was shut. He—along with Jeff and Tammy—turned to see Olivia standing there, outside the closed-off area. "Olivia? What are you—"
"I'm sorry, darling." She was still smiling, but Major thought it was looking a little forced. "I really hate your singing and there a big part of me that isn't keen on being kidnapped."
Major was really wishing that he had brought the key into the gated area with him instead of leaving it in the lock. "Now, Olivia, you know that I—"
She cut him off, the forced smile gone from her face. "I cannot let someone die for my crimes."
And they were back to this. Back to Liv the sacrificial lamb. He admired that about her. Really he did. But he hated it, too, because he was going to lose her in the worst possible way, to people he used to respect, and she was making sure there wasn't anything he could do about it. He thought of his phone, forgotten upstairs in his coat. He wouldn't even be able to call and warn Ravi that she was on her way back to the city.
Liv bent and placed a bundle of brain tubes in front of the gate.
"Don't do this," he pleaded in a last-ditch effort to make her reconsider.
"Who am I if I don't?" Her eyes were fixed on his face, as though she was really waiting for an answer.
"You'll still be you. You'll be alive!"
"Darling, sometimes I think you don't understand me at all," she told him. She forced another smile. "But I would really appreciate it if you'd tell me where you hid the car keys."
Oh, he understood her. He understood her too well. That was the problem. And what she didn't understand about him, and never had, was the lengths he would go to in order for her to be safe and them to be together. In the grand scheme of things, refusing to tell her where the car keys were was a pretty easy decision. "No!"
"Hm." Olivia frowned. "Then that's that." She bent and took a brain tube off the stack she had laid in front of the gate.
"Sweetheart, now really, you're not just going to leave me down here."
"Oh, I most certainly am." She smiled a very superior smile. "But I will send someone back for you."
Jeff and Tammy had closed in on him. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn they were laughing at him for assuming this would work; for hoping that deep down somewhere Olivia loved him as much as he loved her, and that she could be happy with him.
"Olivia, wait!" Major called desperately after her. "This could be the last time we see each other."
That stopped her. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked back at him. "Well. That is very sad, isn't it?"
But it wasn't going to change her mind. After everything they had been together, been to each other, she was just going to walk away and leave him here without … anything. With nothing but Jeff and Tammy and a small pile of brain tubes.
At least she'd left the light on. Major wondered morosely if the bulb would burn out before someone came back to get him. He tried to be grateful that he wouldn't have to watch her die … but he couldn't be. If she was going to die, he wanted to be with her, and she had denied him that, too. Probably he should feel guilty for kidnapping her and dosing her with happy wife brain, but he couldn't be that, either. He'd had to try some way to save her life. He only wished it had lasted longer.