4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

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SHE IS ABOUT to leave when he wakes up.

They've spent a third of the day together but it is still not enough. When his other self does not need her, he needs her. But now, he sees something like premonition on her face—a hint of fear in her eyes, masked by a brave smile.

Seeing him awake, she reaches out to brush his hair back. Her touch is gentle, too gentle, and he doesn't miss the way her fingers tremble. "Go back to sleep," she says softly.

He catches her hand before she can withdraw it. Dread prickles down his spine—he knows what day it is. Today is the day his other self will deliver the Antigen, and she will go with him. But today is also five days before he'll wake up in the Dark Ages.

He knows, he knows, that something will happen in these five days. Something that will result in her not being in his future. No matter how much he tries to change it or stop it, it will happen. But he'll be damned if he doesn't at least try.

"Don't go," he pleads. He'll get down on his knees and beg if that will stop her from leaving.

"I have to. He's leaving to deliver the Antigen soon, and the docks are a dangerous place. I have to follow him to make sure that he's safe."

Panic bubbles in his chest. Always, always, she is putting him first, with a complete lack of preservation for herself. He should be grateful for that, but swift frustration directed at his other self blinds him.

"Forget about him!" he hisses, pushing himself up and raking a hand through his hair in agitation. "Forget about me! I'm alive, aren't I?"

"Yes, but—"

"You are the one who's missing in the future. Not me. I've made it through the Dark Ages and survived, but you may not have. So why won't you just listen to me for once and stay here, where it's safe, instead of going out to protect that sorry bastard who couldn't even protect you in the first place?"

She flinches; a flash of hurt glimpsing her face that he thinks he might've finally done it. Finally hit a raw nerve and pissed her off. Everything's been so utterly perfect between them that him fucking it all up was only an inevitability. He opens his mouth to apologize, only for her to speak first.

"You know that's not how it works," she says quietly. "You can keep me in this house until the past catches up with the future. But if I'm not there in the future, then something will still happen that would take me away from it. The zombies could break in, or the government could send a bomb squad to this town. Anything could happen."

He falls silent at that. He knows she's right, damn her. But that doesn't make it hurt any less. He wants to wrap her in his arms and carry her off somewhere, far away, where nothing—nothing—can ever hurt her.

"But even if I can't fight my fate, I can still make my own choices," she adds, when he doesn't say anything. "And I'm choosing to go with him to the docks. Because even though I can't keep myself safe, I can still keep him—you—safe."

He closes his eyes and drags in a painful breath. Is this what love entails—to let the one you love go, even if it kills you? He feels it already—every fissure of his heart ripping apart even though he hasn't lost her yet.

Slowly, he opens his eyes and exhales. "Just..." Don't go, don't go, don't go. "...try to come back to me, alright?"

She closes the spaces between them to press her lips to his. He kisses her back—hard, bruising, desperate—drugging himself on the taste of her tongue and the softness of her lips. When at last she pulls back, he makes a strangled sound in his throat and tries to follow her.