002; Akane

r | major character death

[SHIFT complete. Begin Timeline Fragment 002.]

It really was the timeline that God abandoned.

Not like he really believed in God anymore. Maybe he never did. If God was real, when had he ever answered one of his prayers? How many fucking thoughts and prayers had been offered up at how many fucking tragedies, as if they did a damn thing? Babies still died. People were still murdered. There were tornados and hurricanes and fucking earthquakes and innocent people drowned in ships that weren't even ships buried out in the desert.

He clutched Akane's hand, Diana's voice just a buzz in the background. Junpei hadn't heard anything after I'm sorry. Nothing a medical professional said after that was ever good news.

She's just a nurse; what does she know? She could be wrong.

Except without even hearing the words, he knew she was just saying what the three other doctors had said, what the specialist from Russia had said. The one Aoi had kidnapped at gunpoint, because he wouldn't come willingly. Aoi had made it very clear what would happen if Dr. Usov didn't do his best. There had been so many tests. They had drawn so much blood that it seemed like they were taking it all. If Usov was going to lie, it would have been in his best interest to disagree with the others, say that she would be just fine. But all he did was repeat the same damn words.

I'm sorry.

Inoperable.

I'm sorry.

Incurable.

I'm sorry.

Untreatable.

I'm sorry.

Six months, maybe.

If she was lucky.

Except Akane Kurashiki had never been lucky, had she?

It wasn't fair. This was supposed to be their fucking time. They were supposed to be planning their wedding. Planning their life together. She should be talking Diana and Phi into wearing hideous bridesmaid dresses while he looks for the perfect wedding band, something to go with the ring already on her finger.

The ring they had to take off when she was wheeled in for scans. The ring he held so tightly it cut open his flesh. He would have gladly spilled all the blood from his veins, if only it would have saved her.

They had fucking done it. Over a year of frustration and losing hope and fear and desperation and finally, finally, the religious fanatic had been shot dead three weeks ago, her compound burning to the ground even as Sigma pulled the trigger. It cost them ... more than he could have ever anticipated, but they did it. They saved the world.

And now his world was lying in a coma. At first, Diana thought it was just Reverie Syndrome. But they tried to bring her out with the same techniques they used on Maria and others. None of them worked. He almost hadn't wanted the doctors to run the tests. If they didn't run the tests, then Akane was just sleeping. He could sit by her bed and pretend that she might wake up any moment. Maybe if he kissed her. Whispered the right words in her ear.

Akane couldn't even have cancer like a normal person. One tumor in the parietal lobe, one in the temporal. Sigma hypothesized, with more than a touch of horror in his voice, that it could be from excessive SHIFTing.

Well, if he's right, you won't have to worry about living without her for too long, will you?

Why couldn't the universe cut her a break, just once? Just fucking once?

He wanted everyone to leave. He was fucking tired of Carlos's platitudes, the way he kept putting his artificial hand on Junpei's shoulder as if to remind him that he lost something, too.

Or maybe it was his way of saying, look, I lost my fucking arm, Diana might be stuck with that nasty burn scar on her back if the grafts keep getting rejected, Sean might never be able to be rebooted, and Clover's fucking dead, all to save Akane's life. Look at this now, less than a month later. We shouldn't have fucking bothered.

Except Carlos would never say that.

Her heart stopped and the alarms went off and the doctors rushed in, and Sigma had to pull him back, because he didn't fucking understand that it was pointless, but if he was still holding her hand when they shocked her, maybe he would SHIFT to the same place she was going. A place where they never had to go through this goddamn shit. If he was still holding her hand, he wouldn't have to live in a world without her.

Carlos's fake fingers pried his own from Akane's hand, as the doctor yelled clear again, and Junpei screamed.

[End Timeline Fragment. SHIFT to 003.]

(fin.)