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Garry didn't want to die. It was a fact that he'd managed to push away since first entering the gallery, and especially since meeting Ib. After a certain point, he'd begun to subconsciously accept that he wouldn't make it out alive anyway, so he dedicated himself to protecting her, because hell, if it were even remotely possible to escape the Fabricated World, she deserved that chance more than he did. She had more life ahead of her.
Of course, those morbid musings were always theoretical. In the back of his mind. It was only when he was actually staring death in the face, confronted with the sickening, albeit obvious ultimatum of his own life or Ib's, that the thought really cemented itself. He didn't want to die.
He hadn't fed the cat the morning he'd gone to the gallery. She'd had plenty of food to make it through the few hours Garry was supposed to be gone, it hadn't even crossed his mind. His stepmom's birthday was in two weeks, and he'd promised his other mom he'd go out and buy the ingredients to make her a cheesecake. He'd spent the first several days of spring break doing nothing but working on an extra credit ceramics project because his grades in that class were consistently only barely acceptable, and the piece itself was finally reaching a point where he was happy with it. He had parents and friends and a life, he was only twenty, and he didn't want to die.
"...Don't give me that face, Ib."
She was staring at him, wide red eyes filled with a dawning sense of recognition and terrified confusion. On his other side, Mary was preemptively holding out her hand. Clearly, she'd figured out what he'd decide before he knew it himself. It had been decided since he first met Ib, though, since he saw how strong she was, since he registered that she'd doubtlessly make more with her life than he ever would - with a spirit so strong, how could she not? Mary's impossibly porcelain face beamed up at him, falsified innocence shielding a layer of... something else. That hidden expression on such a young girl's face made his gut twist, even as he gently took a wilted red rose from her hands, replacing it with his own blue one that still glowed minutely with life. It was surreal, literally handing over his life and knowing exactly how it would play out.
Her hands shot out to seize the stem tightly whilst tugging it toward her face to stare at the petals, doubtlessly driving thorns into her skin, though she didn't seem to notice or care.
Garry handled his own prize with the utmost gentleness, cupping a hand protectively over the sole remaining petal. It was hard to keep it still, though, with the way his hands were beginning to tremble.
Silence reigned, just for a moment, within the toybox where Garry made the last exchange he ever would. Then Mary, wearing a wide grin, opened her mouth to speak.
And Ib wailed.
Both heads snapped to face her in an instant as she collapsed to her knees with a thud, sobbing, tears pouring down her cheeks and off her chin. Again, two pairs of eyes shot simultaneously towards the rose still clasped carefully in Garry's hands, terrified for a moment that the last petal had somehow fallen. But it was perfectly intact, still vaguely luminescent in the same way his own was. He looked back and forth with increasing distress between the rose and the still screaming child to whom it belonged, before finally stumbling to his knees at her side.
He hovered uncertainly at her side as she buried her face in her hands, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs.
"W-Woah, Ib, what's wrong? Why are you-- Ib--?" Distantly, he noticed that Mary had fallen to her knees opposite him and was staring down at Ib with emotions mirroring his own.
Garry felt an abrupt stab of pain in his chest. In her nervousness, Mary had gripped his rose so hard that a petal ripped off. He felt vaguely nauseous upon discerning such, but his attention was pulled away when a tiny hand suddenly gripped his own with a ferocity bordering on painful.
Ib's hand was clammy and she gripped his own tightly enough to start cutting off circulation. He hesitantly placed his free hand atop her head in what he hoped was a comforting gesture and she immediately lurched for him, and the force with which she did so sent him falling back until he was sitting uncomfortably on his heels. She was gripping onto him around the waist, face buried in his shirt, still wracked with sobs. He awkwardly rubbed circles onto her back, uncertain what had brought this on.
Ib had faltered several times as they made their way through the gallery - she wasn't unshakable. She was nine. He'd be kind of concerned if she wasn't affected by the day's events. God knew he was, and he was eleven years her senior. She had fainted just a few hours after they met, so overwhelmed by building exhaustion and fear. She'd later hugged him just as tightly when she found him in... that room. But still, while she was far from aloof, she had maintained a generally collected and mature demeanor throughout even the worst of times. It was as if the sobbing girl in front of him was an entirely different person than the one he'd been alongside for so long now.
Or maybe it had just grown too much to bear, and she'd finally broken down.
Across from him, Mary's eyebrows were still furrowed with the same alarmed confusion that doubtlessly matched Garry's expression. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and for just a moment, he caught a glimpse of someone entirely different from the girl he'd been seeing since reading about her in a collection of artworks.
Mary broke eye contact, then Garry felt a hand join his own in his potentially futile attempts to comfort Ib.
She whispered something through tears, entirely incomprehensible. Mary leaned in closer.
"What was that, Ib?" She asked, Her voice far softer than he'd ever heard it.
"D-don't--" she murmured back before her voice caught on another sob and she gave up on speaking.
He knew what she meant anyway. And if the panicked, miserable glint in Mary's unnaturally blue eyes was any evidence, so did she.
Gradually, through the corner of his eye, he watched as Mary's one-handed grip on his rose slackened until it fell to the dark ground with a soft sound. An agonizingly heavy weight in his chest that he hadn't even fully processed began to unwind itself. He let out a quiet breath, head sinking down to rest lightly on Ib's shoulder, eyes cast downward, avoiding Mary's gaze.
He supposed they had one common interest.
Eventually, Mary leaned in all the way, gingerly hugging Ib from behind. Garry's entire body tensed when her hand accidentally brushed against his arm, and she quickly pulled it back. They sat in uncomfortable silence on opposite sides, looking anywhere but each other. A hoard of motionless dolls and mannequins watched on as Ib's cries slowly waned into soft sniffles.
A temporary truce, then.