Offside

“Thomas? Thomas, look at me!”

I pried my eyes open again, and pain shot through my head.

“Just keep looking at me, okay?” Nicole said.

I wanted to tell her I would do anything she said, but my tongue felt thick in my mouth. I coughed, and the bright copper taste returned.

“Baby, please,” I heard her beg. “Just hang in there, okay? I’m right here. You’re going to be fine.”

Fine.

I was pretty sure that was not the case.

“Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible,” I whispered. My eyes drifted closed again, shielding her face from me.

“No…Thomas…no!” she cried. “You stay with me, you hear? Stay with me!”

I forced my eyes open, just so I could see her a bit longer.

I had to tell her.

“I love you.” I tried to move my hand up her back so I could touch her face, but it still wouldn’t move. “Since you first touched me…I just didn’t know…what it was. You showed me.”

“Oh, Thomas…I love you, too,” she whispered back. “Never stopped.”

She loves me.

My Rumple loves me.

There were sirens in the distance, coming closer.

“I’m sorry I’m an asshole,” I choked out.

“You aren’t,” she said, and her mouth turned up into a smile though there was still panic in her eyes. “You’re an idiot, and I really want to smack you silly sometimes, but you’re not an asshole.”

“In thy orisons be all my sins remembered,” I mumbled. There was no way Ophelia could have held a candle to my Rumple, though.

Pain shot through my head again and blurred darkness stole my vision from me. The sounds of emergency vehicles surrounded us. I tried to open my eyes to see what was going on, but I didn’t seem to have the strength.

“No! Thomas! Open your eyes! Open your eyes, do you hear me?”

Darkness.

“Thomas!”

Depth.

“God—no! No! THOMAS!”

Cold.

“He’s not breathing! HE’S NOT BREATHING!”

I could still feel her arms around me and her hand against my face.

The meaning of Hamlet’s words hit me harder than the impact from Clint’s Buick: “To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: There's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life.” Somehow, I thought all that really mattered was that Nicole was okay.

Now to see what comes next.