Ella

He loves me. He just told me he loves me. Dean Schloric told me those three little words that every girl dies to hear. He loves me. Me.

I don't know what to say, for my heart is pounding against my chest, at what he's just told me. I wish I could see his face beneath the helmet, I wish I could see the emotion he holds, instead of just hearing it in his voice. He sounds so sincere, and for the first time, everything makes sense. Everything.

No one says anything, and I can tell they're all just as surprised as I am. I assumed he cared for me after kissing me, but I never thought in a million years, that he loves me. "Is this a joke?" I breathe, not knowing what else to say.

"Why would I joke about something like that?" He dryly laughs. "I would never tell you that for it only to be a joke, I'm not even that low." I don't know what to say, for what can you reply to that?

"Dean--I--"

"Let me finish, there's more," he begins, and I don't know how much more I can handle. He freaking loves me. But that doesn't matter, not now, there are other things we have to do, we shouldn't be sitting around talking about our feelings towards one another. However, I don't have it in me to tell him to stop, and he continues. "I've lost way too many people in my life that I've cared about. I've lost everyone, Ella, and you know this." I know how many holes Dean has inside of him, how much pain he walks around with. He's lost an entire planet, his family, everything. We all have too, but nothing compared to him. "I can't lose you. Not you. I wouldn't be able to go on without you, and I don't care how pathetic I sound right now, but you needed to hear this." I find myself blinking back tears, and I'm glad--for once--for the helmets.

"It doesn't matter," I mutter. "At one time, you telling me this would have been everything, but not now, Dean. I don't love you like that," I stop, choking on my words. There's a part of me inside, that is telling me I'm lying, that I'm feeding Dean a bunch of lies. It does matter. It matters a lot. "We're two different species, we aren't meant to be, Dean, it'd never work."

"But maybe we are," he promises, a slight shakiness to his voice that causes the tears to fall down behind my mask. He's crying. Dean Schloric is crying over me. "Maybe I lost my entire planet and most of my species, just to find you. Maybe that's the way fate works, and you know what? It'd be worth it, because you mean so much to me. I'd lose a thousand planets, if it means I'd get to see you." His words are almost hard to hear, under all the emotion he's hiding behind his helmet, and I try to find my voice, but I only let out a choking sob. He'd lose another planet for me. Why is he being like this? Why wasn't he this sweet boy in the beginning, instead of the nightmare I had to deal with everyday?

"No," I choke out, my voice muffled and hoarse. "I can't hear this right now, Dean, I can't hear anymore. This isn't--this isn't the time." I can't be vulnerable when I'm going to guard men that might kill me, I can't be crying while I try to protect these friends that I've come to care for so much. I have to be whole, and right now I'm crumbling.

"It might be the only time," he pushes, his voice cracking, and I have to use all my will power not to tell him that I don't want to lose him either, that I care for him greatly. That I want to kiss him again. That he means more to me then anyone else left on this Earth. But I don't. I don't tell him this. I just stand here while everyone stares at us, and watches us cry beneath the masks.

What are you doing to me, Dean?