By the Time You Know it's There, You're Gone

    I looked up from my calculations just in time to see the sword slash through her midsection. The world paused around me. No! No. "Laurel!" I screamed not caring who heard me.

    She had fallen to the ground, locks of her light blond hair dipped in the puddle of blood forming around her. I couldn't see her assailant but in the throngs of people gathered around us at the time there was many opportunities to escape. No one could possibly keep track of one lone man with a bloodied sword.

    "Laurel," I whispered as I reached her side and knelt down next to her. "Laurel." My fingers brushed over her cheek and then smoothed down some the hairs that had been misplaced in the fight.

    A pair of baby blue eyes attempted to focus on me and convey things to me that we had never had the chance to say. "Hey Brainy," she rasped out finally, smiling sweetly at me.

    I felt my heart spilt in two. What had happened? With her powers as Andromeda, Laurel's skin was super-strong. A regular blade should not be able to go through it.

    "What happened, Laurel?" I inquired.

    "I...I'm not..."

    "Alien freaks!" someone screamed and then one of the enraged pedestrians lunged at me.

    "I don't need this right now," I muttered harshly and turned my force field on. The man slammed into the force wall quite hard and slid down it, a strange blank look on his face. After a second, he rose and pounded on the force field a few times before walking away yelling curses at me.

    "Sorry, Laurel. What happened?" I looked to find her eyes closed and her breathing slowing. Quickly, I shook her and gathered her into my arms. "Laurel. Laurel, please, wake up. Look at me."

    Her eyes blinked open, so full and dreamlike. "I'm sorry, Brainy. It's so hard to stay awake. I'm going to die, aren't I? I didn't want to die so soon, Brainy."

    "No, you're going to be fine," I insisted as I looked her over. The wound was critical but I wasn't going to tell her that. It wouldn't be much longer and she didn't seem to be in any kind of pain.

    "Don't lie to me," she hissed and lay her hand on my cheek. Tears began to form in my eyes no matter how hard I tried to fight them. There was no chance for her here in the middle of a full-fledged riot where I had no access to equipment or help. Laurel Gand, the love of my life, was going to bleed to death in my arms.

    "Don't cry." Her words her soft and her touch infinitely softer as her fingers lingered in my hair.

    "Don't leave me. Please," I pleaded aware of how strange those words sounded coming from my lips.

    Laurel tried to shrug and smile, but there was only a quick fluttering of her eyes to indicate the humor in my words. "I can't stop myself from dying."

    Now I tilted my head up to gaze at the clouds while my tears flowed down my cheeks. "I know. I know," I exclaimed.

    "Brainy," her voice broke as she grabbed one of my hands and tugged on it gently.

    I looked down at her again and became instantly lost in her eyes. They were a peaceful light blue, devoid of pain and struggle. She almost looked happy. "What? What Laurel?"

    "Do you love me?" she questioned, her voice little more than the flapping of a butterfly's wings in the noise around us.

    I felt my heart begin to crack again. "Of course I love you. I love you so much. With all my heart. Forever and always," I quickly explained to her, a frown pulling at the corners of my lips.

    "Don't cry," she said again and tried in vain to brush the tears from my face.

    The puddle was spreading, becoming redder and fuller with each minute. All that blood, her blood, pooling around me held in close to us by the force field. It wouldn't be too much longer now.

    Laurel's breaths became labored and I saw that she was crying, close to sobbing. The tears streamed from her eyes, down her cheeks, and into her blond hair, most of which was stained with red. "I don't want to die, Brainy. I don't want to leave you."

    "I know."

    "But I have to. I can hear them, my family, calling me. They tell me that I can't stay and that this world no longer wants me. I have fulfilled my duty, they are revenged. Now I can rest," she pauses momentarily to let a sob wash over her. "I don't want to rest. I want to stay here, with you, forever."

    I press my lips tightly together in pain, sheer agony. My heart hurts so much. However, I am still glad that I have let myself feel something because I couldn't live without having known this love, this pure, deep love.

    "I love you, y'know," she announced.

    The only thing I could do was nod. Yes, I knew. I had always known. Laurel's emotions were so clear, so easy to read. But me...I kept things hidden under so many layers or intellectual stress that after a while feelings had turned into so much clutter that I usually ignored them. I closed my eyes, cursing myself for being so distant with her, for treating our love like some childish crush that would dissolve in six months.

    "Brainy?"

    I opened my eyes to look at her. Blood was beginning to form tiny bubbles in her mouth. "What Laurel?"

    "Promise me you'll go on after I die. Don't...don't lock yourself up in your lab. You have friends here. They'll help you. Let them, Brainy. Let them," Laurel insisted and then her blue eyes lost their fire and she stopped drawing in air.

    "No! Laurel! Come back. Come back!" I shouted and shook her. But it was too late. She was gone, escaping the world of the physical to ascend to the spiritual or whatever there was after life.

    "Brainy?" a voice floated to my ears, a voice that was coming from outside my force field.

    "What?" I snapped and turned.

    The fight was over. I hadn't even noticed. Saturn Girl was standing on the other side of the force field, looking at me with concern etched on her features. Then she noticed Laurel.

    "She's dead?" Saturn Girl inquired.

    Once again words left me and I could only nod, a single solitary nod that ended with a sob that shook me to the core of my being. Then I closed Laurel's eyes so she was no longer gazing up at the sky and touched my lips to hers. Her lips were still slightly warm and that made me sob even harder.

    "She's dead," I murmured after a long minute.

    "I'm so sorry, Brainy," Saturn Girl proclaimed and brushed tears away from her round blue eyes with the back of her hand. "We'll all miss her."

    "She's dead."

    "It's a terrible tragedy, Brainy."

    "I loved her," my voice turned into a hollow whisper.

    On the other side of the force field, Saturn Girl nodded. "She knew. In the end, when it mattered, she knew."

    My jaw muscles clenched tightly together as more tears ran down my face. I could feel her fingers in my hair, still hear her laugh drifting in the wind, and see her blue eyes in the sky above me. Laurel would never leave me completely. I would just have to learn to live with her memory instead of her touch.