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"When It hurts so much that you can't breathe;
that's when you know you're still alive."
-Grey's Anatomy
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Once she was outside and a few feet away, she slammed into the railing, gulping down giant mouthfuls of air that somehow still didn't seem like enough.
The sun was so bright that it reflected off the waves and blinded her. The cold breeze pricked at her exposed legs, causing the skirt of her dress to sway and her lungs to ache with each frozen breath she took.
She gasped in a few more mouthfuls of air, forced herself to get a grip and wiped the tears from her eyes. Once she was sure she was in control of herself, she spun around but wasn't prepared for the sight awaiting her.
Hector stood just outside the doorway to the ballroom, his hands stuffed into his pockets, waiting for her.
The breeze blew a few strands of hair into his eyes which he shook away as he shifted his gaze from the ground and up to her face. He looked at her apologetically, as if he'd intruded on a private moment, his eyes full of concern and understanding.
For the first time in a long time, she didn't want to to avoid him.
"I was just-"Rachel stammered, wishing her voice didn't sound like she'd just been crying. "Getting some air."
Hector nodded his head, gesturing towards a nearby bench.
Rachel followed him toward it but didn't sit down. She tugged at the edges of her jacket, wishing desperately that she knew how to bridge the chasm between them.
A chasm you created yourself.
Being with him before had been so effortless, as easy as breathing. But now all her baggage prevented her from being the person she knew he deserved.
"I'm going to miss her too." He said gently and she believed him.
"I still can't wrap my head around it. It still doesn't seem real."
"It's hard," He murmured back. "Losing someone you love, I understand."
He leaned against the railing, his eyes cast toward the ocean. The sun caught the lighter flecks in his eyes making them looked like melted honey.
Rachel nodded her head in agreement, swallowing down the lump in her throat.
"I'm sad but mostly I'm just so angry and I don't know why."
"I get that too. You sit there and wish all these people would stop saying they're sorry. Most of them didn't even know this person, at least not the way you did. What are they even sorry about?" He shrugged one shoulder. "And you're angry at her for dying--you're angry at yourself for letting her die."
"Right," She croaked.
"It's okay to feel that way. Normal even."
She could feel his gaze on her face but was afraid that looking at him would make her burst into tears so she pretended to study her hands.
One of his hands rested on the railing beside hers. His fingers twitched and for a moment she wished he'd touch her. She wished he'd embrace her and tell her everything was going to be okay, even if he had to lie to her.
But she had to face the reality that she'd been the one who pushed him away, maybe so far away that he might not be able to make his way back to her, even if she was willing to meet him halfway.
"Just know that it won't last forever, Rachel. One day you'll think of Simone and it'll bring a smile to your face instead of tears. I promise."
"I just want it all to stop."
"It will eventually," He reassured. He studied her eyes--she could see her reflection in his, eyes swollen with dried tear tracks on her cheeks.
"But in the meantime you'll hurt a lot and you'll go over all the things you could've done differently, all the things you should have said, and all the ways you could have saved her."
"I'm sorry but I can't do this," She blurted, pulling away from him. "Please, I can't talk about this anymore. I thought I could but I can't. I just can't." She couldn't bear it because he was right. She did feel all those things. Her body was overflowing with regrets and guilt and with wishing she'd been good enough to save Simone.
She turned to leave but he caught her by the wrist.
Slowly, he released her and tried to find her eyes, unwilling to let go of her gaze once he'd managed to capture it again.
"You need to hear this, Rachel. You need to understand that there's nothing you can do to change the past and that this is a scar you'll just have to learn to carry with you for the rest of your life. There's no way around it."
She shook her head, unable to reply. The tears were so close to falling that she had to turn her face away from him.
Was he remembering the way he'd felt when his father had died too? And Jose? His mother?
Hector had suffered just as much loss if not more than the rest of them.
"And you know what will happen after you make it past all this pain?" His soft voice calmed her. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
After a few moments she finally looked at him, the way his hair tumbled in the breeze, how his mouth pulled up at the corner into a tiny, wistful smile as his eyes returned to the ocean.
It took her a minute but she was finally able to choke out a meager,"What?"
Hector chuckled lightly. "You'll realize that life hurts. Damn it, you'll realize that sometimes it hurts a lot."
He paused. "But the important thing, Rachel, is to continue living it. Because you've been given this amazing gift, to be alive, and you can't waste it. And when that happens, you'll want to live life for them more than anything else because in some way, that will mean they get to go on living too. Through you."
Rachel made an awful sound-half between a laugh and a sob. She shook her head, wiping the tears from her eyes.
How could he know what went through her mind even before she shared it with him? How could this man know the exact words that would make her feel better when nothing else could?
"You're going to be okay." He said a few moments later. "I know you will. You just gotta keep it together until then."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know you." His familiar lopsided grin decorated his face. Her heart clenched with a foreign feeling, a feeling she hadn't felt in a long, long time.
"You just gotta be brave and tell yourself every day that you're okay until one day you actually mean it. And if there are days that you can't find the strength to do that, you come find me and I'll remind you. You hear me? I'll remind you."
"Thank you," She said, looking at him with a softness in her gaze.
Maybe there was still something left between them to salvage. Maybe in some way, she'd always need Hector more than she cared to admit.
But he was such a good man, a great man and it would be selfish of her to take him when all she could offer him in return was a broken, damaged girl who would put his life in danger more times than she could count. It hardly seemed fair.
He was everything she wanted and more but she was so much less than he deserved.
"Hector, thank you. You don't know how much your words mean to me."
She wanted to say more-so much more-but she wasn't as good with words as he was. She wasn't poetic, she didn't have the answers to life like he seemed to. So all she could do was press her lips together and hold in all the things she wished she knew how to express.
"I got you something." He said after a few heartbeats. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, tangled object. He opened up his fingers, revealing a thin strip of metal with a blue shimmering rock that twinkled under the afternoon sun.
Rachel reached out to touch the necklace she'd given Simone for her fifteenth birthday.
There had been a man who lived back at the compound, his name had been Harold. It'd been a mission of Harold's to find all sorts of metals and crystals within the caves and form them into different things-bracelets, necklaces, rings and things of the sort.
Rachel remembered going to him once and asking him to make two necklaces for her. One with a beautiful blue heart-shaped crystal, the other, shaped like a brain.
Because Simone had always felt so deeply and loved so freely, Rachel considered her the heart of their little duo. She, on the other hand, had always been reserved, forever the voice of reason to Simone's untameable emotions. The boring brains of any operation.
Of course her pendant had come out looking nothing like a brain, instead resembling a bumpy oval and she'd lost it on a scavenging trip when she was seventeen but Simone had kept hers all these years.
"Dr. Everest saved it. I thought you might want it."
Rachel threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. For a few moments he didn't react.
Slowly, his body relaxed and soon he wound one arm around her waist while the other cupped the back of her head, giving her hair a few gentle strokes. For a second, however small it may have been, all that mattered was Hector and this kind gesture that was so much more than she deserved after the way she'd treated him.
The moment passed far too fast and reluctantly, she pulled away.
"Will you?" She asked, gesturing to the necklace as she lifted her hair. He took it into his hands and brought it around her throat as she turned, clasping it behind her neck.
The heart moved against her chest as she breathed, like a second heartbeat that belonged not to her but to Simone.
It made her feel a little better, having the pendant to remember her by and as proof that maybe-- just maybe-- she didn't have to say goodbye to Simone entirely.
Hector smiled at her. A smile that made her heart clench with how much she cared about him. No, she realized it was more than that. The feeling she'd felt before and felt now was love.
She loved him.
She loved Hector.
If only she had the guts to tell him that.
"I have to get back to training now." He explained. "But if you need anyone to talk to, just know I'll be around."
"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."
His hand reached up towards her cheek and she closed her eyes, waiting for his touch.
But it never came.
When she opened her eyes she saw his hand shift down to her chin and tap it with his index finger.
"Keep your chin up." He said to her and then he gave her a small, departing smile.
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A/N Does Hector make your heart flutter like he does mine? How do you feel about Simone being gone?