Nothing But Time

Overture

Death was supposed to be cold. Your limbs freeze up and stiffen, blood stops flowing. The colour of your face drains away until everything is pale and still, your eyes become sunken, hollow... everything is supposed to be cold, still, motionless. There should be no rushing in your ears, no gasping for breath, no hacking cough, no clinging to someone you had only met that day--although, could you really feel her against you? She was dead, after all, as you were about to be...

H.G.'s last words were quite possibly the most embarrassing he could have chosen. Should he have been given a chance to go back and do it over, he would have thought of something better. Something less... embarrassing. However, dying in Lenore's arms, he didn't quite mind as much. He hadn't noticed how comforting she was earlier, when she was all sass and sarcasm, but being held against her, head against shoulder, it was nice--well, as nice as it could be when he was dying.

There was a moment, right as his eyes shut, as he felt the last breath leave his lungs, where he was sure he was floating. He knew it was implausible, the mere thought of his body floating up through the roof of that damned manor enough to make him wish he had the energy to laugh. But it felt like it, truly, as though a hand was grasping at his chest and pulling him up, up...

And H.G. Wells' eyes blinked open.