Hatchetfield Stories

Until You're Gone

The last one was fluff so here's suffering :)

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-Injury
-Death

-------

"It's like your friend said, you know, the hivemind?" Emma said, breathing heavily as she continued to lose way too much blood.

"Which friend? Bill? Ted? Charlotte?"

"I don't know your friend's fucking names!" Emma snapped. "You take the head out the whole thing goes down." She grunted in pain as she spoke, blood gushing from the wounds in her leg.

"Okay... Are you... Are you coming with me?"

"Paul..." Emma wheezed. "I can't... I- I'm not gonna make it..."

"Then I'll stay. I won't leave you alone."

"Paul..."

"No, Emma, I'm staying. You're not gonna make it, so I'll stay with you, until-" he stared at her, panic building up in his chest as the reality slowly set in. "Until you're gone."

She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing more than a wet cough, and a bunch of blood, came from her throat.

She was dying, and they both knew it.

"You know," Paul began, sitting down next to her, and taking her hand. "You were pretty good in Brigadoon," he told her, despite barely remembering anything from it.

"Paul, you have to-"

"Shhh... Just listen to me, okay? I'll take care of it, I promise, but right now, just focus on my voice."

Emma nodded slowly.

"And I remember coming into Beanies for the first time. You were about to clock out, and you were not happy with having to serve another customer before being able to do that."

Emma chuckled, more blood dribbling down her chin. "Sounds like me."

"What I'm trying to say is... thank you. You didn't know me, but what kept me coming back to Beanies every single day was you. Thank you, for not being an asshole to me like you were to your other customers. Thank you, for saving my life today. You really saved my ass back there, and man, I do not want to end up as one of those... things. I hate musicals."

Emma laughed, her breathing growing more labored. She lay flat on her back, looking up at the stars. "You know, Jane used to be super into astronomy when we were younger. We went stargazing a lot. Of course, I couldn't care less about her 'fun facts', but I enjoyed that our parents let us stay up late so we could look at the stars."

Paul smiled. If he looked past the bar protruding from her leg, or the fact that she was dying, or that this was the actual apocalypse, it was a beautiful moment.

But he was brought back to their reality when Emma coughed again, rolling onto her side to let the blood flow from her mouth. She cried out when her body shook and the metal in her leg got hit by her other leg.

"I know this is probably a bad time, but I like you."

Emma chuckled, rolling back onto her back. "I know, you aren't exactly subtle about it."

"What?"

"Dude... why else would you spend the apocalypse with a crappy barista you barely know. And I've seen how your face goes red when you walk into Beanies. You're not great at hiding it."

As on cue, Paul could feel his cheeks flush, not that she could see it in the dim light of the streetlamps a few yards away. "Emma, I..." he begins, not sure what else to say to distract the dying woman. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you can't get your pot farm. I'm sorry you're dying in Hatchetfield."

When he looks back over at her, her eyes are closed. Her chest isn't rising and falling anymore, her ragged breathing replaced by deafening silence. She's gone.

Paul sat there for a minute, alone with his thoughts, and the corpse of the woman he loved.

By the time he stands up, she is pale, and her leg has stopped bleeding.

Feeling both emotional and numb at the same time, Paul grabbed a grenade belt and the gun the general had given him.

He would have the time to mourn later. Right now, he has a meteor to destroy.