Episode Six, Part 5:
Love is Just a Way to Die

Sweetheart, would you wake up today? 
I promise you would recognise my face. 
I want to show you how I've grown in this place. 

Kodiak sat at Elara's bedside, holding onto her hand for dear life, bringing it up to his lips every few moments. She was warm again - just as Xander had predicted - but Kodiak knew in his heart that it didn't feel the same.

It was hard to accept that fact that she was really gone, especially with her lying right in reach and with the steady rise and fall of her chest the sole focus of Kodiak's attention. It was hard to accept that there could ever be a world without her in it, even though it had been that way for the past six months, and even though it was that way again now after he had felt the brutal absence of her life bleed away in his arms...

Kodiak inhaled a deep breath, swallowing down a gulp of fear through his raw, dry throat. He had lost track of time of how long he had been sitting there for, but knew that it wouldn't be long until Xander arrived outside the door with his friends. For whatever time he might have left with Elara, he had to make it count; he had to say what he needed to - what he had waited six months to because he might not ever be able to tell her again.

"I need you to wake up, Ell," he began, believing at first that the only for it to happen was if he gave her no choice; if he told her that he wasn't going to accept her never coming back. "I want you; I want the future you promised us together. I want you to live."

He let out a heavy sigh, squeezing tighter onto her hand to secure the feeling of her there - right underneath his fingers - but it didn't give him the strength he was looking for. How could it?

"I never believed in this whole Neptunum combination thing," he said. "But I'll believe it for you. If that's what it takes to save you. And I won't ever give up on trying to get you back, just like you wouldn't if it was me, right? I know you lost a little bit of your hope for a while, but I'm here now and I need you to fight to come back to me when it's time."

Kodiak glanced over at the door, hearing a knock from the other side which he knew was Xander having arrived with his friends. Whatever he wanted to say to her, he had to say it now.

"Your brothers are just outside," he began, "and they're going to be devastated when they realise what's happened to you, but they're not going to sit here and accept you being gone, either. We're all going to do whatever it takes to save you; I hope you know that somehow. You have to come back. You have to grow old with me. You have to live. I know you'd ask me to take care of Izzy, but she needs you, and you can't leave her. You can't."

There was a knock again; Xander not wanting everyone to stay out in the open for too long but not knowing now to disturb Kodiak when he knew he was talking to Elara.

Kodiak nodded to himself, knowing that he had to brave the fate that was waiting for him outside of the door. He laid Elara's hand down by her side, making sure her hair was neatly resting over each side of her shoulders and that the thin sheet which was draped over her was covering her lifeless body to keep her warm.

Without much of a choice, Kodiak walked over towards the door, slowly turning the handle and stepping out to see the concerned faces of his friends. With the door pulled-to behind him, he slowly looked up at them, assuming he had enough strength left in him to explain what had happened, but the tears welling up in his throat stole away his words.

"Kodiak?" Sol asked from beside Wynn, completely stumped to see him in such a state. Of course, she and everyone else didn't have to think long and hard about who could possibly be the reason behind such a strong, consuming emotion from him, but she held off her theories, not daring to think that something had happened to Elara even though the evidence was plastered all across his face.

"Everyone's in their dorms for the night," Xander said beside Kodiak, wanting to inform him now in case he couldn't find the chance to once they were all inside the room. "Athena, Leander - they're all asleep."

Kodiak tried to respond but all he could focus on was the fearful stares from his friends that wouldn't turn away.

"T-there is something we think we c-can do," he sobbed, trying to get it over with already, not knowing where on earth to start. "We think we might be able to... To save her."

"What's happened?" Dreea asked, trying to understand what he was talking about, even though everyone had already figured it out already.

Unable to stand there and wait to hear it himself, Wynn pushed past Kodiak and hurried into the room with Quill hot on his tail, both of them already having some kind of idea of what they might find: Elara hurt; perhaps her having been through the trials or suffering from another mental breakdown, but not their sister lifeless on a medic bed.

Wynn couldn't even make it all the way over to her before his body rejected what his head was telling him. Your sister is dead. You didn't protect her. She suffered, and someone killed her, and she's dead.

He began heaving a little, feeling as though he could throw up at any second even though there was nothing inside of him. As everyone else followed inside - concerned by what noises they could hear - Wynn attempted another step forward only for his knees to cave beneath him. Luckily, Sol was by his side and grabbed onto his arm before he could fall, hurrying to pull him upright, barely having a chance to see what had made him respond in such a way. When she finally looked up, she almost lost hold of her grip on Wynn completely, struggling to process who was lying in front of her.

She moved Wynn over to her side, unable to comprehend a single thought as she watched him clutch onto Elara's hand, weeping as Quill was the same on the other side.

"Not my sister," Quill murmured, being the only one making a sound for a moment. "Not her, too."

"Is s-she..." Dreea stumbled, too afraid to say the words. There were very few times in life that she had ever felt such a tremendous misery in her stomach, but this was one of them.

"She's dead," Wynn confirmed. Despite the machines breathing for her and the steady movement on her chest, he knew the truth; he knew she was really gone.

"What happened!?" Quill asked, looking up at Kodiak for a moment, desperate for some answers. "When? H-how? How did she die? ...How?"

"She died because of me," he answered, taking a courageous breath and waiting for everyone to take a step away from him; for their anger and hatred to seep in; for all their acknowledgement for him to disappear just as quickly as Elara's life had done.

"Kodiak..."

But at Quill's murmur - a quick, instinctive denial at what he heard - Kodiak knew that they didn't believe him; that they couldn't fathom one of the people who loved her most in the world had been the cause of her demise.

"I'm so stupid. I-I thought we'd be safe. I took her in a guard uniform to the deck of the ship; I asked her to-" He cut himself off, unable to confess what he had asked right before he failed to keep her safe. "Athena and some of the guards found us. They... They..."

"They shot her," Xander answered for him, seeing how impossible the words were for him to get out. "I'm so sorry."

"Kodiak," Dreea whispered, crossing the room to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his trembling body until he fell into her, trying to shield the world away from his eyes. "It's not your fault," she said. "Elara would know that. She'd tell you the same thing."

"All I wanted was to find her again, but I lost her. How can any of you even look at me? You should hate me. I hate me. I wish it was me, instead."

"You said there's still something we can do?" Wynn spoke up, unable to tear his eyes away from his sister. He wanted to console Kodiak the way he deserved: tell him that it wasn't his fault; that no one hated him; that no one wished it was him who had been killed, but he didn't know how.

Kodiak looked up, turning away from Dreea - whose hands attempted to soothe him as they ran up and down his arms.

"She's brain dead," Kodiak confirmed. "But the combination - what they're working on - they think they can use it to bring her back. They said that's why they shot her; because they think they have the solution and they want to try it on her."

"And what if it doesn't work?" Wynn asked, forcing himself to ask the hard questions. He needed to know exactly what chances they had e at saving his sister.

Kodiak shrugged. "I'll keep her on the ventilator. I'll keep her breathing until they figure it out."

"You don't come back from brain death and get the life you had before," Quill said, too afraid to accept the false hope that he knew Kodiak was clinging onto. "How do we know she'll be the same as before, if it works? Will she be able to talk? Move? Think for herself? Will she even want to live with the repercussions of-"

"I don't know!" Kodiak raised his voice, terrified because he didn't have any more answers than they did. "I don't know what we do from here. I don't know how I make a single decision knowing that it could be the difference between her living or dying. I-I don't know how to save her!"

Kodiak leaned on the bed for support, unable to face anything anymore. Simultaneously, Quill dropped his head against Elara's hand, heaving over the loss of her; over the fact that it didn't matter quite so much about what was possible and what wasn't, only that was was real was she was dead and there was nothing he could do to change that.

As Wynn was on the verge of collapsing himself, his eyes flickered down, distracted by a sudden glimmer from Kodiak's direction. He forced himself to look, noticing the band of silver wrapped around one of his trembling fingers. He frowned ever so slightly, turning his attention down to Elara's hand which was clasped between both of Quill's, but he still managed to find what he was looking for.

Another ring. On the same finger on Elara's hand. One that hadn't been there before today... There was no doubt in his mind about what had happened on the ship's deck; he tried to recall what his sister's last moments had been like and though there was some peace in knowing that it had been filled with hope, and dreams of a future, and the man she loved, it wasn't enough. It didn't count if she never lived to have those things...

Wynn took a deep breath, shifting away from Sol's hold and moving around to the other side of the bed. He placed one hand on Quill's shoulder, once again faced with the impossible task of trying to comfort him when he, himself was trying to process his own loss of their sibling, but he held on tight to Quill, regardless. He couldn't fail him a second time; he couldn't let the grief consume him like it had done when Ares had died. Knowing there was still someone else hurting just as badly as them, Wynn looked over to his other side, tugging softly on Kodiak's arm so he had his attention; so Kodiak knew that there was no blame resting on his shoulders.

"We're not going to stop until there's a way to save Ell," he said. "We're not ever gonna stop." 

Six // Part Five
I want you to live.

Had this in the drafts for a few days because I just don't think I like it.

Anyway, there ya go. If you need me to pay for your therapy appointments, get in line.

06/12/20.