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Everything was coming down around them. He had known this was coming, known that his time was finite and precious. It always had been—his life had been measured always in days, hours, seconds, and though in here those seconds could stretch themselves, pretend they were eternities, there were still only so many before they all reached their final, unavoidable end.
Desmond wanted answers, looked to him for explanation. (Stupid man. Surely he should know by now that explanations were time and time was a precious commodity neither of them had had for several lifetimes?) But Desmond had gotten all the explanation he could ever need, hand-delivered by Jupiter. He had the Truth. And now he had to get out. He latched onto the man, warding off the hunting programs for only the briefest of seconds, giving up all the time he could scrounge together to give the other a fraction of a better chance to get out of all this with his life and his mind.
What is a man but the sum of his memories? We are the stories we live, the tales we tell ourselves!
He had ceased being a man long ago. The man Clay Kaczmarek was rotting at the bottom of the Tiber, with a fried brain and sliced wrists. Subject Sixteen was all that remained, a cluster of memories and deranged programming, a madman with a message to deliver, and now Subject Sixteen was scheduled to disappear as well. But he would not end here. So long as memories remained, no one truly died in this world, each person carried on in bits and pieces within the minds of others. He poured all that he was into Desmond, willing, urging, begging him to carry it with him, pleading silently to remember, to not let him fade away into forgotten blackness. Burnt out and fading faster still, he shoved Desmond away, letting their tiny bubble of protection go with him. The island around them broke apart, crumbled, fell, and as Desmond made his escape, he felt himself go with it.
Much later, he felt more than heard the words passing between the two, blurry and so far from him. But as the words left Desmond's mouth, sharp, correcting, he felt something he had been so sure he'd never feel again. He felt warm.
"His name was Clay."