Drown

Today it is cold, enough that when she breathes she sees the mist in front of her. Cruel, she thinks. She doesn't want to see it, this irrevocable proof that she is alive. But she is and it's cold and she can't remember how to get warm.

The sky is heavy with the shadow of rain, pressing her to the earth. She's walking alone with dry eyes because it wouldn't have seemed right to come with someone. He was the only person she ever walked these sidewalks with, and now she doesn't even know if she can crawl on her hands and knees.

Some days she thinks that maybe they're all playing pretend. The doors will open and he'll stride in; taste his coffee and make a face. She'll pretend she's not watching him and he'll pretend he doesn't notice. She closes her eyes at night and pretends so hard that it isn't his face she sees that she can't always remember what reality is in the morning. If maybe she's living in a dream, the sort that makes you wake up in the middle of the night, screaming.

She's been on desk duty for two weeks now. The smell of gunpowder still sickens her, and she can't bring herself to work with another partner. She had before, of course, but it was different now. Everything's different now. Her world is spinning out of control; she's falling and she's falling and she can't quite hold on. There isn't anything left for her to hold on to.

She doesn't remember a lot of what happened. She knows there was a gun and she knows that he fell. She knows there was blood – God, so much blood. On her hands and in his clothes and soaking through her skin.

Officer down. Officer down! I need a bus!

Try and stay calm. It'll only be five minutes –

I don't have five fucking minutes!

Detective –

She threw it aside. She didn't have time for that; there wasn't time for anything.

Don't die on me, don't you dare die on me. She hardly recognized her own voice.

Olivia. His breathing was shallow and she almost didn't hear him. Tell my kids – tell 'em I –

I will, she whispered. Pressing on his chest with her jacket. Willing the blood to stop.

And Liv –

Don't talk. You're going to be fine, she lied. He has to be fine. Doesn't he? He has to be okay.

Liv. He was losing.

I know, she told him quietly. I know. She nodded at the question in his eyes. And slowly watched him fade.

She hates that the grass is so green. She hates most everything these days and doesn't try to disguise it. She hates the Captain and she hates her coworkers and she mostly hates him for leaving her. She hates that she's forgotten how to function without him. She would almost think that he had always done her breathing for her. She hates holes and she hates earth and she hates that the fucking sky won't just break over her head, because she's already broken and they've buried the pieces.

She stands at a distance and anyone watching would think she were lost. She's more lost than they could imagine, though not how they would suppose. She can't find her way through the sharp darkness, but she knows where he lies and she knows where she's looking. She realizes dimly that her heart is pounding, but it seems detached, remote. Underneath six feet of dirt. She doesn't go farther because then she would see the truth harshly carved into stone, and she isn't quite ready to believe that he isn't coming back. And now the rain, the rain coming down in sheets, pounding and soaking and drowning grass that's already too green. Blinding her and filling her lungs and she can't breathe, she can't breathe if she's not with him.

(the end)