Hey all. So I've basically run into a brick wall with my other story, but I've been oddly inspired to write an Alex/Thom fic. Hence, this story. I had a ton of fun writing this chapter, because I was really trying to capture the fragmented thought process of Thom's last moments. Hopefully everyone likes it.

Reviewers are amazingly awesome people. They will also get the opportunity to throw rotten tomatoes at Percy. =)

None of these characters are mine. If they were, Thom would never have died. Trust me on that.

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Prologue: Last Words

Pain. That was the first thing that registered. A sharp jab to his chest that expanded with each beat of his heart, until fire encompassed every fiber of his being. He would have writhed in absolute agony if he'd been able to, but all of his strength seemed to have fled his body, and he could only lay weakly on the floor, fighting to breathe. His vision swam, the steel of the walls blurring into a maelstrom of grey.

He tried to focus, but the only thing his mind would latch onto was her. He almost wanted the dark clouds pulsing at the edge of his vision to overtake him, because it was just too much. Because she looked at him with horror in her eyes, and he saw the truth in that moment. I wanted to tell you. Someday. Her words echoed in his mind as he looked up at her, at the tears that blurred the brilliant blue of her irises. The truth was that she had fallen for him just as hard as he had for her. And now he was dying.

That was reality. He was dying. He'd been shot. And the person who shot him was kneeling over him, anguish written all over her features. He felt, rather than saw, another person join them. A flash of betrayal pulsed through him. It was Nikita, of that he was sure, and she was talking. He couldn't hear a word, except the sentence that mattered: "I'm not leaving him."

And just like that, Nikita was gone, and it was just him and her once more, alone, with only his labored breathing marking the passing seconds. Her face contorted and he had to strain to hear the words slipping from her lips. "I'm so sorry." Her eyes squeezed shut, and the pain on her face seemed to match the fire that was eating him alive. "So sorry." She moved, and he couldn't see what she was doing, he could only hear the apology that went with it. "I'm so sorry."

He felt her slip something into his jacket pocket and he understood, a brief flash of clarity in a world that was quickly fading, jumbled together into a chaos he otherwise couldn't understand. She was the mole. She was staying with him. She couldn't leave because she was staying with him. She would still be in Division. No one could know she was the mole. She was framing him. He was now the mole. But he couldn't bring himself to care. He just wanted her to be safe, despite everything. Despite her betrayal, despite the pain, despite the way she had ripped his heart out, despite the way he was now shattered. He was okay with all that, because he saw that she was fragmented, barely keeping herself together. She felt for him what he felt for her, and somehow that made everything okay.

Numbness was creeping through his body, weighing down his limbs, making breathing even more difficult. His vision was tunneling rapidly, but he still saw her leaning down. Her lips touched his, and everything was cold and numb except his lips, because he could feel the warmth from hers, linking him to life. She pulled away and her tears fell on his face.

He had to tell her, somehow. He would never leave her, because she was just too important. A conversation from the past fluttered through his foggy mind.

"Thom. What's it like? To pull the trigger."

"Well, I can tell you what it's not like. It's not like the person's there one minute and gone the next. They stay. It's been over a month, and the girl I killed, the spy, I still see her face. Everyday."

Somehow he choked in another gasp of air, desperation fueling his actions, because everything was leaving him, and he couldn't feel the floor underneath him, and he couldn't see the walls around him. All he saw among the darkness that assaulted him was her eyes. He exhaled slowly, and with that action came his last words: "You're gonna see me."

And then he was floating away, away from this girl, away from his life, away from everything. Her eyes vanished from his vision, and he was alone with the darkness, with only one last coherent thought before the abyss tore away his grip on reality.

Alex.