He was still, eyes closed.
Pump, pump, pump.
I read about this. Never did it. Learned in case I needed to. Thirty pumps at the rate of 100 to 120 per minute. Tilt head, lift chin, pinch nose, breathe. Two breaths. Each lasting a second.
Pump, pump, pump. Breathe.
I kicked up into the slipstream so I could do it faster and straddled him, envisioning the heart inside his body, that lovely, unfairly penalized muscle, and pretended I was wrapping my hands around it, massaging it back to life as I worked.
Pump, pump, pump. Breathe.
I vibrated as intensely as I could because Mac told me that Ryodan said (and how he knows is beyond me) that I give off a subtle electrical charge when I do. I hit full intensity, pumping at the same time.
No breath. Not a twitch or even a flicker of eyes behind his lids.
Pump, pump pump, breathe.
Pump, pump, pump, breathe.
The tears came long before I stopped trying to bludgeon and breathe and vibrate his body back to life.
Burning, hurting, scarring so motherfucking deep.
My head whipped back and I snarled at the ceiling with grief and fury and white-hot rage. “Why?” I shook my fist. “Give me one good reason! Tell me WHY you son of a bitch! Why not me? Do you take everyone away and leave me here just to torture me?”
I don’t know how long I wept and raged up at the ceiling, or when I changed tactics and began begging. Offering anything.
Everything. All my superpowers. Whatever made me special. Just let me have Dancer back. One more day.
One more hour.
Even just long enough to get to say goodbye.
Hands dropping uselessly at my sides.
Brain going numb: reject reject reject.
His body temperature told the story well enough.
He’d slipped away shortly after I’d fallen asleep.
Hours ago.
While I’d slumbered ignorantly on.
Dancer had died, alone, and I’d been lying beside him, having happy dreams, oblivious to his suffering, his need.
This had been my fear: I wouldn’t be there when he died. Worse yet, I’d been right there, yet not. I’d wanted to be holding his hand. I’d wanted him to not be alone.
But no, I’d slept through it.
Had it hurt?
Had it taken a long time, did he gasp my name? Or had his enormous, beautiful heart just slowed and slowed until he drifted off on a dream?
Had he been afraid? Had he suffered?
Had he even known?
I sat on top of him, staring down at him, and sought the answers in his face.
It was peaceful.
His eyes were closed. No sign of strain in his face.
Accepting.
Just like he’d always been. Of everything. Of me. Of his unfair fucking life. Always seeing the good in me, in everyone around him.
Hot tears dropped down my cheeks, scalding my skin.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” I cried, nudging him. “Please don’t leave me. Oh God, Dancer, don’t go. Not yet! We’re supposed to have more time!”
His face was pale and cool, his hair tousled by our lovemaking, lips parted as if on a final sigh.
I love you more eternal than pi, he’d said.
I drew back my fist and punched him in the chest, thinking if my punch was lethal enough to stop a heart, maybe it could start one.
That was when I felt him.
Not beneath me.
Behind me. Where no sun was touching my skin, I felt sunshine on my shoulders.
I felt his presence.
I swear I felt his hands moving my hair aside so he could kiss the back of my neck. Then they rested solid and warm on my shoulders and squeezed a little.
And until the day I die myself I’ll continue to believe that I actually heard him speak.
No tears, Mega. Only joy. We were the lucky ones.
The lucky ones. He was dead and could say that? Was he batshit crazy? Maybe he was the lucky one, but I wasn’t. I was here. I was alone. And his body was empty of all that was Dancer and I was in bed with a corpse.
Love doesn’t die just because the person does. Everything we felt for each other still exists, Dani. It’s in your heart. Don’t turn it off, wild one. Never turn it off again. The world needs you. And you need the world.
Then the warmth was gone and I stretched out beside him and I held on to him and kissed him and kissed him and said all those things we’d only just started saying to each other.
I don’t know how long I lay there. Time got weird then.
I only know, at some point, I became dimly aware that Ryodan was in the room with us, touching my shoulder, watching me with intensely bright eyes, untangling me from him, wrapping a blanket around me, making me get out of bed, and I screamed and screamed at him and I hit him and told him to leave me alone because I was never letting go of Dancer.
And he let me do it, rage and scream and hit him over and over, and when I finally collapsed to the floor where I lay sobbing and broken, he picked me up, tucked a blanket around me again and carried me out into the much too bright day.
I got lost in a really bad place then, where I felt sorry for myself and angry at the world, and I was made of nothing but pain, and I felt ancient and arthritic in every single one of my 222 bones, and the pain was so huge and I knew I couldn’t survive it. It was going to kill me, and that was okay because Dancer was probably really close still and we could grab each other’s hands and freeze-frame to the next adventure together.
Then Ryodan’s fingers were brushing my forehead and he was laying me down in a crisp white bed, murmuring soft words, and I think I kind of died then because the pain finally.