And So I Die

Evan Cross.

October 20th 1980 - February 12th 2013.

You will never be forgotten.

Loved for all time.

The world has become a hazy daydream, blurring the lines between fiction and reality as she rests her head in her hands and allows herself to drift away. Only once she's fully submerged in the darkness of her thoughts does she finally hear his voice, no more than a tender murmur resonating across all of time and space. Dylan's never believed in ghosts before, and part of her is convinced that it's nothing but her own disturbed mind and desperation playing tricks on her, yet the depth and emotion that lies behind his words is something that not even she could fake. It drives her crazy. Maybe she is crazy. Maybe Evan's death has finally pushed over the edge, a line she never drew and never wanted to cross.

Nothing much seems to make sense after the accident. Most days she feels like she's on another level of consciousness, rising far above the crowds of commuters and the static pulse of dull, ordinary conversations to reach her silent shadow-world, where nobody hears her cries for salvation. She's left bound to the nightmares shifting in their sleep, frightened and screaming and all alone.

Almost all alone. Soft whispers brush her skin, electrifying her veins. Cold shivers snake through her spine. Fingers trace gentle patterns across her cheeks. It's his way of trying to comfort her, she knows, relieving the guilt of abandonment by assuring her she's not so alone after all. His presence is still there with her, intertwining itself with her very heart, and so she'll cling to it until the day arrives when a ghost isn't enough to sate her anymore. Already, despondency is setting in; her search is fuelled by a yearning so tangible she could almost reach out and touch it, an unfulfilled, restless need for the love that used to drive her. His touch is the only thing that can heal her now, and it's the one thing she can't have.

Without him, she's living nothing but a half-life, a cursed life, because he's what makes her whole and he's gone, he's not coming back this time. She's still struggling to come to terms with it - she's lost him, she's never going to see him again - but that doesn't mean her pain is any less real, and it doesn't do anything to ease her aching soul. It doesn't mean that she's not being torn apart on the inside, the one place left where nobody can see just how broken she really is.

Dylan, I love you. More than anything, I wish I could be with you now to hold you and comfort you, but I can't, and it's killing me from the inside out. Stay strong, my love, hold back your tears. Don't you let them see you cry. I know that one day, I'll find my way back to you. One day I'll be able to kiss your hurt away, and we'll be together for the rest of eternity, but not now, not yet. When I was alive, you were always the one who gave me hope and kept me going. Even when you were at the end of your tether, ready to break down and lose it completely, you held it together and you still had a smile for me.

I know how tough you can be. I always thought you were a fighter. Don't prove me wrong now. You've come too far for that. In the meantime, remember I'm still here with you, for as long as you want me to be. I'll never let you go, Dylan, never. I'm always by your side, no matter how alone you feel, and I'm not going anywhere. I promise.

She won't cry. Forcing back her sobs, she wipes her eyes furiously and reaches instead to run her fingers over the inscription - loved for all time - as the coldness of the gravestone begins to leak into her bloodstream. It flows through her body, pure, untainted, embedding beads of ice deep beneath her skin and freezing a translucent barrier around her heart. Threads of icicles are strung across her bones. It does a little to numb the pain, but it's not nearly enough. There's only one way she knows to force it out and rid herself of it entirely, but she promised Evan she wasn't going to hurt herself again, and Dylan never breaks her promises.

These are the last connections she holds with him, a few faint, near-meaningless clichés carved into a block of smooth, polished granite, and the patch of ground underneath her where his mutilated body lies. Every day she comes here, because just being able to sit and dream for a while brings her closer to him than she could ever have dared to believe, a miracle of her own to thaw out her broken soul and bring it back to life.

For those few precious moments, she's immersed again in the sea of another life where he holds her in his arms, safe again, and it feels like he never went away. Raw, naked love is laid bare within his eyes, the connection between them stronger than ever, rekindled by their distance. Sometimes she asks him questions - "Why did you leave me here? Why did you have to die?" - but mostly she just closes her eyes and leans against him and lets her fear drain away.

I never wanted to leave you. I wasn't ready to die any more than you were ready to let me go. Don't give up on me now, Dylan. I know you, and I know that you're stronger than this, you're the strongest person I know. You can see this through to the end, and I'll be there with you every step of the way. Heal yourself, sweetheart, fight for me. I can't face seeing you like this for much longer.

She wants to fight, but she can't. Not like this, alone and hurting badly, at the verge of collapse. It's all she can do to keep on breathing, much less fight for a life she doesn't think she needs. She's starting to understand what's meant by the word 'heartbreak'. It feels like her very self is being torn apart right in front of her eyes, and she doesn't know how much longer she can withstand it.

I believe in you, even if it seems like no-one else does any more. I'm still here, you're not alone this time, so fight, Dylan. Fight it.

"I can't fight," she whispers, leaning her head against the gravestone to try and soothe the fury of the pain raging through her heart. The first tears carve winding paths along her cheekbones, leaving behind scars that no-one else can see. "I can't fight without you,"

Dylan no, stop. You don't know what you're doing, Dylan, stop it! Don't do this to yourself, please, please; listen to me, for God's sake! You deserve better than this and you know it, I know you do. Stop it, you aren't thinking straight! Please, Dylan, stop, before you do something you'll regret.

New pain smoulders through her wrists, setting her body alight. Three bright, angry crimson slashes appear on each arm, releasing all the distorted, twisted, caged insanity from the unwilling hold she once had on it. All the hurt she's ever caused, each dark memory and grain of guilt, floods from her veins to conquer the ground. It's leaving her behind, along with a jumble of tattered, fading thoughts.

That's what nobody understands. She's taking control every time she cuts herself, not relinquishing it but stealing it back from her shaking, rusted soul. Blood pools on the ground, baleful, staring eyes which watch her closely and envy her the freedom she's fast gaining, more so with every second that passes. She bleeds tears, too, tears which rip jealously at the numbness and load her shoulders with their guilt. How many people will grieve for her and mourn her death? How many would have expected it? How many people will she hurt with her sacrifices, a hurt she never wanted anyone else to have to go through?

She closes her eyes and pictured Evan, dead and gone and waiting for her patiently wherever he is now. She knows deep within her that she's willing to risk everything to be with him again, even though it will devastate him to see what she's done. His grave is now engulfed in tongues of blood-red flame, licking hungrily at her hair and clothes as she rests her head against the ground and forces out her final words, a weak "I'm so sorry," aimed towards the listening ears of the silence.

No...oh, Dylan, no. Come on, you'll be okay. You have to be.

She can't move anymore. The life drains out of her with an unbearable slowness, to the point where she just wants it to be over. It hurts, no, burns, but the darkness numbs the pain, it appeases her and wraps her in its gentle shadow caress, telling her it's all going to work out alright in the end. All she needs to do now is let herself fade away, deeper into a sleep she'll never wake up from. Velvet warmth steals over her like a thief in the dead of the dawn, and she finds herself smiling as she succumbs to the enchantment of its lure. Somehow she'll get through this, and then she'll be with Evan again, which is all she ever really wanted.

Dylan...what have you done?

Morning's disease spreads slowly across the lonely graveyard. Backlit by the first watery fingers of sunlight, creeping softly over the horizon, a teenage boy ambles over the grass in lazy contentment, closely watched under the gaze of the milk-white clouds. The baseball cap he wears is tilted to hide his face, third lager of the day crushed inside his fist. He rests on the tightrope borderline, caught between two worlds, hidden away in the tipping point between drunk and sober. In this state, nothing and nobody can touch him, he's on top of the world and in it for the duration. Or so he thinks.

He's about to receive a wake-up call that even he, for all his newly heightened awareness and emotions poised to riot, can't begin to imagine.

Blood. So much blood. He hears screams and realized they're his own. There's a body, collapsed against a grave. It's a woman, her blonde hair stained dark red and dripping, face peaceful in the midst of her tragedy. She's not breathing. Unmoving, unresponsive. Dead, he thinks.

He's never seen death before.

People hear his screams and come running. Ordinary, everyday civilians, longing for a taste of this, the dark unknown. Unscrupulous reporters, high on the scent of a front-page story. Someone calls the police, then an ambulance, and both arrive together in a simultaneous kaleidoscope screech of sirens. Barriers spring up around the graveyard. Microphones jostle for space in front of him. A stretcher is rushed in, but it's too late, any fool can see that. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved, and Dylan is way beyond saving now.

No. No, you can't die like this, Dylan. Hang on in there, sweetheart. You'll wake up and you'll get better and then you can laugh and be happy and remember how to live your life again as though I never even existed, like you never knew me. It's not your time to die yet. You don't need me, Dylan, however much you think it's true. You need to live.

They identify the woman's body. Dylan Weir, twenty-five years old, an ex-Predator Control expert who now works for a company called Cross Photonics as part of a classified military contract, so they're told. Her boyfriend passed away recently, circumstances withheld for reasons of national security, and she took it badly. There's a history there, too; her files show a traumatic past and the knife-wound scars that previously littered her body. Little wonder, then, that something like this should happen.

It's a typical suicide. She tore her wrists open and bled out under the midnight moon. Cause of death: shock, or maybe blood loss, or a combination of the two. It's hard to be sure. Still, this isn't a murder, there's nothing suspicious here, and anyway, the coffee machine's broken again and someone's jammed the copier for the third time this week. They can just file it away and forget about it, pretend she never existed. Case closed.

Only it's not. It never was.

She opens her eyes to find herself surrounded by whisper-soft silence, an eerie blank canvas draped in mist. Everything around her has vanished. There's no blood, no gravestone. Nothing. She wonders if she dreamt it all; maybe Evan never died, or maybe he did and now she's having hallucinations, her subconscious shifting and trying to warn her off the dangerous path of suicide she treads once again.

Then she makes her first mistake. Glancing down, three raw, healing scars assault her eyes, the remnants of wounds left by a shadow-sharp blade. It wasn't a dream. It all happened, every excruciating second of it, and now she's dead and the pain's all but gone and somehow she's still managed to end up alone.

"Dylan?" the voice seems to come from nowhere, wrapping itself around her, rich with warmth, familiarity and a promise to keep her safe. Two hands grip her shoulders firmly, lifting her from her vulnerable position on the ground to set her gently on her feet, and when she gazes upwards she's confronted by a pair of anguished, storm-blue eyes she's come to know too well. "Oh, Dylan, sweetheart, I can't believe you just did that,"

"Neither can I," she responds cautiously, the first pangs of nerves beginning to settle in her gut. Even after having come this far, she finds she's frightened, mostly of rejection, her sore, tender heart being broken again when her capacity to hurt has already been pushed to breaking point far too many times. For all her intuition and instincts, she's on unfamiliar ground now, she has no idea how he's going to react. How would she feel if, after the sacrifice she's just made for him, he pushed her away? What if - and really, she decides, this is the more likely option - his voice, winding itself around her thoughts, keeping her alive, was just a figment of her own imagination? Maybe Evan's found Brooke here somewhere, wherever here actually is, and the love she knows he still feels for his dead wife is strong enough to override whatever love he once felt for her. "Are you mad?"

Something unrecognisable passes across Evan's face for a fleeting moment, and then he pulls her into a fierce embrace, chin settling on the top of her head. In an instant, he is able to allay the fears and doubts that cloud her whole self with their false promises and lies. "No. No, I'm not mad. Ecstatic that you're here with me. Guilty, because if I hadn't died you wouldn't have gone and done such a stupid, stupid thing. Honoured that you would do something like that for me. But I'm not mad at you,"

As she leans into his chest, his hands come up to rub her back and she lets the tears flow freely, released from the cage she's kept them locked inside. For the first time in too long, she's secure inside his arms again, finally able to let go of the masquerade she once framed with every hidden emotion she'd ever felt. "I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I just needed to be with you again,"

"I know that," he smiles, but it's a sad smile, woven through with pain, and his own eyes are suspiciously damp. "And I wanted to get you back as well, but not this way. It was like torture, seeing you like that and not being able to do anything about it. I love you, Dylan, so much. All I want is for you to be happy,"

His hand moves to her arm, running his fingers along the scars that sleep there so peacefully, and his face becomes stricken. Against her pale skin, they seem luridly bright, harsh reminders of everything each has had to give up to reach this moment, standing together. "Oh, Dylan..."

"I'm here now, though. Why don't you concentrate on that?" one corner of her mouth quirks up, matching his half-hearted smile, although hers sparkles with a slight mischief despite everything she's just been through. "And this time, we have an eternity to spend together,"

Recognition registers on his face, his own choked-out words echoed back at him. "I guess you're right,"

Quietly, she lifts his hand from the scars to interlace their fingers instead, and leans in to press a gentle kiss against his lips. "I love you too, Evan. More than you'll ever know,"

Bowing his head, he pulls her into a longer, more desperate kiss, his free hand moving to rest against her hip. As their lips touch again, their souls cross the distance that death tried to forge and couldn't; in a single heartbeat, they're strong again. They're infinite, invincible. Their love has stood the test of time and distance, the test of every damn thing the universe has found within itself to throw at them and more besides. Whilst they may not have emerged unscathed from the downpour, it's only served to strengthen the connection between them, holding close the love which will bind them for evermore.

They beat all the odds to find each other in the first place, and defied fate to define themselves with their feelings. Now that they're together again, they won't let anything stand in their way. They sacrificed their everything to reach the eternity now standing before them, everything except each other, and they'll make it count for something, make these sacrifices worthwhile, if it's all that they can do.

A figure, standing alone on the sidelines, wipes her eyes and turns to walk away. "Goodbye, Evan," she whispers, more to herself than anyone else, and whilst her whisper brushes against him, it only goes skin-deep. As the sun forms a golden crown over the horizon, Brooke begins to fade, silently cursing the woman who was braver than she could ever be, the woman now held locked tight in Evan's embrace.

Her ghost begins to dissipate into the darkness, but her words are left behind, smoke rings curling and writhing in the blackness of the night. "I still love you, Evan. Always. I only wish I'd been enough for you,"

And yet Evan, happily content with Dylan in his arms, doesn't hear, doesn't care. A strange, cold shiver passes over him as Brooke's embers wink out, leaving nothing but a pure, total darkness behind, and as it leaves he's left with something he can't define. His heart is healed now, the past once caged in the depths of his soul now trapped behind bars of spirit steel that can never be broken. He's free, free from the past, free from the future. All he knows now is the new beginning he clutches so fervently against his chest.

Things can never be the same again. He's crossed a line that should never have been crossed, they both have but on the other side they've found their absolution. Everything's changed, but change isn't always a bad thing. It hurts, and sometimes it happens when you least expect it, but in his experience everything still works out alright in the end.

It's a life lesson he should have learned long ago, but he's not held down by regrets anymore. He's found his feet and learnt to fly, and this time, there's no coming back down to earth, no chance to crash and burn. The world around them is a hazy daydream once more, but this time, one thing is left clearly defined.

Emotion. It killed them. It saved them. It brought them together. Now it leaves them, bound together, and without a word slips into the shadows to die. They don't need it now. They don't need anything. Not when they have each other. Not when they've undone death's shackles, because now, all that's left to do is learn to fly.

Evan Cross.

October 20th 1980 - February 12th 2013.

Dylan Weir.

July 14th 1987 - February 19th 2013.

Together again, despite everything.

Even death couldn't part them.

You will never be forgotten.

Loved for all time.

Okay, so...would you believe this story started out as a really sweet, happy Dyvan fic to celebrate the fact that I'm (finally) fourteen - on a side note, it's my birthday today *squees* I'm so happy! - but apparently the story had other ideas. Thanks to Kaishei for the beta-read, and the funny Tumblr posts that were very useful for procrastinating! Also, I don't own Primeval: New World. Yet. One day, I tell you. One day.