She can hear him yelling.

His voice, her name, echoing endlessly around the building, around her focused mind, and she tries once more to shake the chair a little left. Her movements are stiff and she can feel the dried blood caking her skin, can feel the ghost of the needles jammed in her hand, can feel the fire burning up her leg, except it's worse than fire because she's been on fire and this is definitely not that.

She can hear his voice saying her name and she can't tell if it's in the present, if he's getting closer, or she's imagining the way he used to wake her up on Saturday mornings, with his words tickling her ears and the soft kiss to her shoulder.

She can't let him die, that much she knows, and was that the point of all this? Did they know she would feel this way, and that's why it will hurt all the more to watch when his blood splatters the doorframe as he falls to the ground in front of her?

If the gag were just a bit looser she would tell him not to open the door. She would tell him to kick down a wall or swing in through the window or maybe there's a door some miles behind her, a back door to this putrid prison. She would tell him not to come in at all, to leave her here and save himself. She would tell him she loves him for the last time, just in case he didn't listen.

Because he probably wouldn't listen, dammit, and she knows because of the number the fights they had about responsibility and folding the laundry when asked and the laundry was still never folded.

The gag isn't loose and his footsteps sound as panicked as she feels. She can't let him die and there's a hand on the doorknob and is it wrong to hope it's him, to see him one last time before forever is cut short? Is it cruel to want to die in his place and to make him watch the life drain away? Is it more torturous to know the pain she will put him through when she takes this bullet instead?

Maybe this is love, she thinks, and love is weird.

The door is starting to move and it's now or never, it's taking a chance and making a choice, maybe praying for a second it's the right one.

It's pushing with all possible force and throwing her weight and the chair tips and –

Fuck, it's loud and fuck, that definitely hurts more and there's blood, fresh and red and new and this is love, she decides, and he has her blood on his face, her blood on his hands.

She wants to go quickly so maybe he won't be disillusioned with chances of saving her, and he's untying the braces and shackles and chains and he's so warm that just knowing who she's leaving behind shoots her through the heart all over again and she focuses on how much worse that feels, the brokenness of her and how helpless he must feel, as a distraction from bleeding out.

He has her in his arms and this is how she wants to go, out with a bang, and hopefully he'll see the apology in the pain.

His hands are gentle on her hair, caressing her cheeks, and her name falls from his lips with salt water, each drop a hole tearing through the universe.

Love is sacrifice.

She did it for Saturday mornings, for hot pancakes and soft kisses and the way he would hug her from behind and rest his head on her shoulder. She did it for the time they had and the time she wishes they had and the time they never will, for all he meant and all he means and for the way he would call sometimes when he was drunk and read sad poetry into her voice mail.

She will die here, right now, looking at the stars in his eyes, as long as he knows she did it for love, she did it for him.