Disclaimer: I don't own "Edge of Tomorrow" or "All you need is kill."


The first time he stitches up her wound it is a mess, there is a lot of blood, and she fights to swallow back hisses of pain.

He learns after the tenth—maybe eleventh time.

The thirty third, and all the times that follow, is quick, clean and quiet, and she neither flinches away nor her face changes from her usual expression. He is silently glad. They're both tired so the time in the shed, however short, acts like a much needed break before the chaos that follows, and he likes to pretend that it is akin to a small getaway from all the hustle and bustle…of war and death.

She doesn't shut up about the helicopter keys, so by the forty second time he hides them and finds the coffee and learns that she takes hers with three sugars and he tries to make this moment last just a little bit longer.

The forty fourth time is when she realizes they have been here more than once; that this wasn't his first time anymore, the sugar—of all things—giving him away. She is furious, but he is just so tired of seeing her die over and over and over again.

He tells her that he wishes he didn't know her. The look of remorse that flashes through her face before it is replaced by cold determination shows him that she, at least, understands. But it is never enough to stop her from starting the helicopter. He watches her die again.

During the next few resets, he lets her drink her coffee black.

The fifty ninth time is different. Special. She realizes that they are on another reset, because he forgets and slips and gives her the sugar again. But this time they must have done something differently. Maybe it was something that he said. She still starts the helicopter and they still get attacked. But she lets him hold her hand and she tells him her middle name before the life goes out of her eyes and the wave of mimics swallow them up.

After that reset he thinks he can't do it anymore. He approaches her like so many times before just to walk away; her challenging expression (Do I have something on my face, soldier?) overlapping with all the times her lifeless eyes stared back at him. Again, again, and again. It never seemed to get easier looking at her. In fact it got harder with each time—the two hundred and thirtieth so much more difficult than, say, eleventh.

So he walks away.

For a while, he stops trying to get to the training room altogether. He sometimes wonders if she lied about her name.

He fights alone. Tries to fight all of them on his own. And he makes it, finally makes it to the dam. He can't help but hope and wish, just to have that shatter like an illusion. It is the first time he dies of drowning.

He shoots up awake. He is afraid. He runs to her and they are again partners. For a while they don't train and they don't fight, but he wastes so many resets just to get to the General, just to get him to talk. He is tired and fed up.

On the way to Whitehall for the fifteenth time, he asks her if her middle name is Rose.

She glares at him in irritation, but he simply looks her in the eyes. He feels his sanity slipping away and tries to find something to grasp at, otherwise he thinks he will break. Maybe some of the despair bleeds onto his face, because her eyes soften.

She looks back to the road and he recognizes that look and knows that she is no longer here with him—lost in her own memories. He turns slightly away to give her privacy, but he can still see at the corner of his eyes when she nods, and for the first time in a long while he feels content.

He lets his eyes slid shut, burning this moment into his memory.

He is glad he gets the chances to know her.


AN: Thanks for reading! This is a stand alone one-shot. I might update with more drabbles, which might or might not be tied to this one.