Blood was splattered all over her clothes and filled her nose with a metallic tang. Her legs felt heavy and weak, but she kept on running, despite the needle-prick pain in her exhausted muscles. Even worse than the legs felt her chest, as if her heart was wrapped in razor wire, constricting further and further with every breath she forced into her lungs.

There had been two more guards stationed before the room – they had only looked at her in surprise when she had stormed out, for a brief moment before she had shot them. The ruckus inside hadn't alerted them before, Franklin had probably warned them that it might get messy. But now, the screeching alarm that reverberated through the corridors told her somebody had found the bodies in Room 57.

Her mind had gone into overdrive, survival instincts kicking in without her consciously registering what she was actually doing. All she knew was that she had to get away, because this level was crawling with guards, and she had only one gun with a few more bullets left.

The elevator. That was her shortcut out of here.

She didn't have to reactivate it, only to crack the door to be able to climb down the shaft and get a head start before all the guards could make their way down to Level Four via the staircase. She could exit on Level Three and run from there, it would make it easier to lose them in the maze-like corridors there. Surveillance was still jammed, so she had a chance.

Due to some miracle, she reached the elevator without running into any more guards, but as soon as she spotted the display next to the doors, she froze, and felt her insides turn leaden with despair.

She had forgotten that the lock required a combination of a hand print and code. She knew that the nifty little device on her wrist could in principle crack a lock like that, but it would probably take minutes to trick it into believing her hand was that of an authorized person. Minutes she likely didn't have.

She placed her left palm over the scanner nonetheless. She watched in breathless anticipation as the bracelet began to race through lines of code in a brute force attempt to guess the correct sequence, until a command flickered over the display: Please place your right hand over the scanner.

With a groan of impatience, she obliged. She had barely touched it when suddenly, with a soft hiss, the doors slid to the sides.

For a moment, Alyssa just stared at the open elevator doors in disbelief. Either the bracelet had gotten a very lucky shot at the hack, or the elevator controls were so old that they were beginning to glitch. She didn't dwell on it, and entered the shaft, making sure to force the doors to close again behind her before she climbed down.

On Level Three, she continued to run, her mind devoid of any coherent thought other than that of getting to safety. The device on her wrist did all the thinking work, and sent disturbance signals to the surveillance systems all over the bunker city, deactivating cameras and jamming doors randomly on all levels, to throw them off her tracks. The alarm was ringing through the entire bunker city now, but the guards didn't know who they were looking for, and she suspected that without the strong grip of Franklin's authority, Security would soon fall apart into disorganized chaos anyway.

Finally, the alarm stopped. As the shrill noise ebbed away, leaving her ears filled with a faint ringing, she came to a halt in the darkness of an abandoned corridor.

Her breath came ragged, and the moment she had stopped it felt like all the blood was drained from her body, exhaustion filling her veins with liquid lead instead.

Only then did she comprehend the full extent of what she had just done, and what had happened in that room. The rifle suddenly weighed heavy as it hung from her shoulder, and she shrugged it off as if it was scalding hot against her skin. It hit the ground with a clatter, the only noise in the otherwise empty corridor, and she sank back against the wall behind her. For a few minutes, she just sat on the floor, staring off into the distance blankly.

Everything had been useless. Saving Travis from the riot in the canteen two months ago? He had ended up cutting his wrists. Giving her key to the sick man? He and his daughter would suffocate like everyone else. Her jump back in time? Absolutely useless. Killing those people back in room 57?

She had perhaps bought the people of the bunker city six weeks instead of a day, but at what price? They would soon realize what was going on. Without any leadership or command, chaos was bound to erupt and wash through these tunnels in a violent surge, probably leaving nothing and no one behind long enough to witness the air running out anyway.

Was it really better like this?

Why had she even bothered to run?

All of a sudden, the weapon at her feet seemed to beckon her to pick it up again, one last time. It presented the easy way out. She had never wanted to die like that, just because she was too weak to face what was about to come. But she had also never considered that she'd die a slow and inevitable death from suffocation, all the while being completely unable to do anything about it.

They were all going to die from suffocation.

In the end, none of it had mattered. And while her sense of misery was stronger than ever, she was too numb to cry. She felt like she was already dead.

But then, just when she thought the allure of the weapon at her feet was getting too strong to resist, she thought of Leon. His warm smile. His gentle eyes. The brilliant mind behind them.

Hot tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled what he had said to her last night.

The important question isn't what you're willing to die for. It's what you want to live for.

~ ~ ~

When Leon returned from his short trip to the lab, he was surprised when he noticed that his door was unlocked. But then the realization settled in what it meant, and a smile washed over his face. She sat on the bed and looked up at him as he entered the room.

"Hey Ally," he greeted her cheerfully.

He moved over to his desk, placing the papers he had brought with him on top of the already existing pile. It was a collection of his old notes and calculations, something to go through if he'd have a free moment in the next days – he was rather hoping on keeping himself busy otherwise, but bringing them here filled him with a sense of completion. Pretty much all he still cared about in the world was in this room now.

"What would you like for dinner?" he asked. "I thought if you don't like any of the stuff I have around, perhaps we could go over to the market hall and see if we can find some scraps-"

When he turned around to step away from the desk, he almost bumped into her. She had gotten up and moved across the room so quickly and quietly that he hadn't even noticed. Now his breath caught as he found himself affixed by her piercing, lilac gaze, and a mere moment later, she crashed her lips against his so hard that he stumbled back against his desk.

The kiss was brutal and desperate, like a breathless, empty gasp for air while slowly suffocating. She clasped his shirt tightly, as if she was drowning and in need of something to hold on to. Surprised, but not averse to her ideas, he moved one hand to the small of her back to pull her closer, and the other to the back of her neck, curling his fingers into her short hair until she moaned softly against his mouth in response.

She pulled away just as suddenly again, leaving him panting heavily and rather befuddled.

"Now that's a warm welcome home. Thank you." He smirked at her, but her face remained frozen.

"Ally? What... what's wrong?"

She didn't reply. Her gaze was wandering from his eyes to his lips and down along his body, but not with that hungry expression that she had worn last night. Her face was impassive, but in her eyes he saw sadness. He didn't understand. It didn't seem to match the fierce intensity of the kiss they had just shared.

It was only then that he noticed the blood that stained her clothes.

"Ally, are you hurt?" Worry filled his voice and he put his hands on her arms, pushing her away from himself softly so he could look down at her. There was blood all over her body, but her clothes weren't torn and she seemed unharmed.

"What happened to you? Where were you?"

She cast her gaze down for a moment, and shook her head softly.

"...doesn't matter," she whispered.

When she raised her head to look at him again, all traces of sadness were gone, and there was a fire in her eyes that caused a shiver to run down his spine.

"Leon..."

Her voice was raspy as she spoke his name, raw with a desperate longing, and it caused his pulse to quicken. She pushed against his chest, maneuvering him past the desk until his back hit the wall, and he was trapped between it and her. She pressed her body against his, until not a sheet of paper would have fit between them, and the groan that escaped his lips was equal parts expression of his desire for her and his confusion at her sudden forcefulness.

He could sense that something was bothering her. And he wanted to ask about it, he really did. But he found himself at a loss for words, unable to form a coherent thought any longer. Slowly, he could feel her hands creep up along his body under his shirt, and he shuddered at her touch. Her lips brushed against his, for a painfully short moment, but it was enough to make his mind go completely blank.

"Make me forget," she whispered, before she captured his lips in another deep kiss that carried a taste of salt and iron.

~ ~ ~

Leon couldn't remember having slept so deeply at any point in the past two years. Maybe it was because he had finally really made his peace with the world coming to an end. Before he had met Ally, he had buried himself in his work. To drown out that constant, lingering sense of impending doom, he had kept his mind occupied with the most complicated quantum physics known to mankind. Now, he had found something that was comparably simple, and yet so complex and beautiful that the way it occupied his mind was infinitely more fulfilling.

With a content sigh, he stretched in bed and rolled over.

He froze.

The space next to him felt warm, but it was empty. He willed his eyes open, and looked around.

"Ally?"

There was no response.

His room was only dimly lit, but as he sat up fully, he noticed a scrap of paper on the bed next to him. It was a sheet from one of his notebooks. He furrowed his brow as he picked it up. Why was it here?

That was when he noticed the other side had been scribbled on. He turned it over and began to read.

Leon,
I'm sorry that I couldn't save the world. I really would have wanted to make it a better place for people like you. Meeting you made me believe that I could really make that kind of change. And I realized that I can, just not in the way we thought. I know that it is selfish, and I hate myself for leaving you in this world that is about to die. But I cannot bear to watch it all end. I cannot stay in this time, and wait for our death, while constantly being reminded of my failure.
I don't believe in any gods, but if there is one thing I hope for, it's that I get another chance to meet you, in another life, or something like that – if you'll allow it. Because I am very selfish, and I love you. I am not good with words, and I know that these just came way too late. For this, most of all, I hope you will forgive me.
Ally

He stared at the words blankly for a few seconds, trying to make sense of them through a haze of sleepiness.

I cannot stay in this time.

I cannot stay-

"No... No! You absolute idiot!"

In an instant, he was wide awake. He scrambled out of bed, frantically searching for his clothes. He had no idea when she had left. It might as well have been an hour ago. But as long as he still had a glimmer of hope, of seeing her again, of talking her out of this, he had to try.

After a mad sprint through the corridors of the research station, he arrived at the jump spot a mere minute later. He had no way of knowing that she wouldn't just pick any other place to attempt a jump, but he had to start somewhere.

He bolted through the door into the old bunker room, and spotted her on the platform up ahead.

She was standing with his back to him. Her short blond hair was still tousled from sleep, she had donned her black suit again, as well as the headgear, the visor pulled up.

"Ally!"

She whirled around, and her eyes widened in surprise. He burst into a run, aiming to cross the distance between them, but time seemed to work against it him. It was as if the fabric of the universe condensed around her. The air felt so thick that he could barely move his legs. She moved her hand to the device on her wrist in what seemed to him like slow motion. She hesitated for a moment as he called her name again.

He was close enough to see her look of dismay and read the words on her lips as she whispered without a sound, "Forgive me."

He was almost there. But as he reached for her, she jumped backwards out of his reach, over the edge of the platform, and pressed the display. His hands went through empty air.

And in a flash of brilliant light, she disappeared.

______

A.N.
Well... This was an unhappy chapter for me to write. I guess it's fairly fitting that it has received the title from my favorite song of that album, and the one that I find most emotional... If Leon and Ally had a theme song of sorts, this would be it. Give it a listen if you can, The Anix is amazing. All chapter titles of this story are actually inspired by songs from the album Shadow_Movement, so you can guess how close we are to the end...