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He doesn’t tell anyone.
Not at first.
He doesn’t really know how.
That first day, when the doctor tells him, he sits in his car outside their offices and just…processes. The nurse had asked if there was anyone she could call, and he knows there is. His daughter. His sister. His best friend. An entire crew of family and friends who will be devastated by this news, despite how poorly he’s treated them as of late.
…but the one person he wants to tell most – the one person it will affect most, while making no difference at all…he can’t tell her. He doesn’t know how to tell her.
It wasn’t supposed to be him.
It was never supposed to be him.
…it was never supposed to be her, either, but when it was…how can he be the one going first? Who will take care of her when he’s gone? The hospital staff, obviously, but who will care?
The rest of the world moved on. They all left her behind, too busy with the process of living to bother with someone who couldn’t. Harmony never knew her. Resents her most days, he fears, as much as she resents him for getting stuck. Her own parents had long since passed. Her friends, her family, had all grown older and had families of their own.
…who was going to love her, when he no longer could?
He had promised for better or worse. Til death do they part.
He wasn’t supposed to go first.
He wasn’t supposed to abandon her like this.
He had kept his promise, hadn’t he?
…how can he break it now?
So he sits in his car, numb to the world. He cries. He thinks of his daughter, old enough now but still too young to be an orphan. He thinks of his sister and wonders if maybe she’ll be relieved. He thinks of his gnarled old ma, still raging against the world like its rules had never applied to her. And then he thinks of Marinette, and then he turns the key.
She’s sleeping when he gets there. He’s almost grateful for it. It won’t matter, in the end, because he doubts she’ll understand when he finally does tell her, but he’s not sure he can tell her just yet. He doesn’t know if he can tell himself just yet.
He knows he shouldn’t, but he still crawls into the bed behind her. His arms find their way around her, the path familiar even if it hadn’t been walked in too many years. He holds her close, his face tucked against her hair. She doesn’t smell right – she hasn’t for years. There’s a clinical, sterile scent that clings to her these days, but he’s still able to supply her shampoo. They must have bathed her recently, he thinks absently, because the scent is stronger than it normally is when he presses his face there. She moves, just slightly, and he stills.
“Lu…” she murmurs, and his heart twists in his chest as she rolls towards him. Her hands fist in his shirt, one she’s never seen and the old her would probably balk at (he hasn’t worn anything custom – an MDC original – in longer than he can remember), as she presses her forehead against his chest. Her nose digs almost uncomfortably into his sternum, but there’s something grounding about that.
Familiar.
From the better times.
…who will remember the better times, when he’s gone and she can’t?
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
They were supposed to grow old together. They were supposed to have an entire house full of little ones – she had always wanted three, but a part of him had wanted more. She was going to take the fashion world by storm, and his music was going to change the world, and their home would always be full of creativity and passion and…
…who would play for her, when he was gone?
Who would sing her silly little love songs?
Who would sing her her song?
He falls asleep there, holding her close and worrying about a future he never had any control over. His purview had always been the past, anyway, but there’s no longer anything he can do about that. There hadn’t been in a long time. He doesn’t know how long he stays there, but she’s still sleeping when a nurse comes in to check on her later and finds him there. She gently shakes him awake, her face sympathetic as she reminds him he shouldn’t do that.
“It’ll be worse, M. Couffaine,” she reminds him gently. “If she woke up before you. You know…”
“I know,” he says, but he lays there just a moment longer. Just one more.
Because now he knows he doesn’t have many more left, and he’ll take what little he can get these days.
…who will love her? Once he’s gone?