By, Allison McKenzie

The moonlight played gently across her face. It set of the red highlights in her black hair. Her face looked pale, he was alarmed at how pale she had begun to look, even in this light. He silently cursed at the small tumor that sat in her chest. It had begun to take her life away, and more then anything that scared him. He knew that she could go any other way, get shot on the job or something like that. At least that’s what she always said, but he knew she never stopped thinking about it. She just kept putting things off, like her will, their marriage date, when they where going to settle and start a family.

She had always been difficult. Ever since he had first asked her out. And she was stubborn as hell too. That’s how she’d gotten captain so fast. Now she outranked him. He didn’t mind, he was just happy that he had her.

She moaned in her sleep and he took a step, afraid she was in pain. She wasn’t and he knew that, but he never stopped worrying about her. The thought of him not being able to stop her from going or from saving her that one last time tore him in half. He turned from her sleeping form and walked down the stair and through the house till he came to the room he hardly entered anymore. They had always referred to it as their memory room.

It held pictures of family, brothers, sisters, and moments in both their lives they wanted to remember. She had stopped looking at her past, and that troubled him, she was nothing without her family, and now she never called them. She never admitted it but her life was now categorized in two separate time periods; before cancer and after cancer.

She said that she was fighting it, and she was physically. She would push herself all the time, push back the limits, her boundaries, her doctors said that it was good as long as she didn’t push herself so hard that she was exhausted. But inside she’d shut down. She did nothing but think about how far she could run that day or how much work she could get done. Not about important things.

Things that had been important to her before. Things like lazy days; where they would just stay home in bed, or talking or family. She had wanted kids before, but now she didn’t. Sometimes he wondered why he loved her so much but all she had to do was crack a smile at one of his jokes and he would understand why, but now…she’d stopped smiling.

To be honest he thought that she was running from what scared her most, losing something and having almost no control over her life. And he was right, but he was running too, he was running after her. Afraid what would happen if he lost her. He had waited 13 years before telling her she was all he ever needed, and now after only 2 months of happiness she was slipping away.

He knew what would happen if she didn’t make it, he would shut down. She was his whole life, in the beginning he didn’t want to know her, and then he couldn’t imagine doing it without her. And know he knew that if she died he would just stop.