Stay With Me

TW: blood

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“It really is a lovely view.” Henry breathed, staring up at the blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds framed by trees and deep green leaves.

“Yes, it really is.” Clara agreed, eyes watering as she glanced around and then back at him.

“I’m glad we made it,” Henry coughed, “we’ve been talking about doing this hike for so long.”

They hadn’t made it very far, she wasn’t sure it should count, but she decided now wasn’t the time to voice that thought. “Yeah, I wish we could stay here forever.” Clara's voice cracked.

Henry’s loud laugh turned into another wet cough. “Don’t say that, Clara, love. There’s still so much left to see.”

She sniffled. “Oh, I know, but I'm scared of what’s going to happen next.” A few tears slipped down her cheeks and dripped onto the back of her hands, where they pressed firmly on his side.

Henry covered her hands with his own. “Don’t be. It’ll be okay, help is coming. Everything will be fine.”

Clara nodded, but she didn’t believe him and Henry knew it. He didn’t believe it himself.

“We made it here, I'd say it was all worth it,” he continued as if he wasn’t bleeding out, staining the ground red. 

Angels Landing, what a perfectly ironic name. A hike they’d been looking forward to since they started planning their engagement road trip. They wanted to see all the national parks. They’d seen so much. They’d barely made it halfway.

“Maybe if you had listened to me and not gotten so close to the edge,” Clara scolded, knowing his scream as the path's edge gave away and he fell the short distance to the ledge below, and then the echoing crack as a branch growing out the side of the mountain tore through his side on his way down, would play on a loop in her mind forever. 

It all happened so fast.

It hadn’t looked so bad when she was a few feet above him before she scrambled down to check on him as the red started to spill out and paint the dirt, rocks, and scattered branches around him.

“You were right, like always.” He smiled at her, hands wrapped tight around her wrists. He was scared and trying not to show it, but Clara knew. 

“You’d think you’d learn, but you always were so stubborn.” She gave him a half-hearted glare. Then turned at a sound above them, help finally, but it was just a squirrel hoping from a branch above them to a branch spotted with Henry’s splattered blood.

“You love that I'm stubborn.” It was getting harder for him to stay focused on her blurring face. He blinked some clarity back. “I love you, Clara.”

She sucked in a sob as she nodded. “I know, I know. I love you too, Henry.”

“Promise me something, will you?”

“Of course. Anything.” Another shuddered breath. God, why was her voice the weak one now?

“Don’t get stuck here. In this moment.” His hand moved slowly when it reached her cheek, she leaned into it despite the warm blood coating it. Was it her trembling, or him?

“I’m not going to leave you.” Her hands pressed harder onto the wound, but the blood wouldn’t stop. She felt like she was drowning in it. His wound was too big, the edges too jagged, the spot too critical. She couldn’t even wrap it to staunch the flow, give them some extra time.

She wished she could stop everything. She wanted to turn back time.

“No, darling.” His voice was clear and strong despite his eyes fluttering closed and his hand falling limp from her cheek.“I mean, if the worst happens. Don't stay here. Move on.”

Clara shook her head, her hair stuck to her wet cheek. “That won’t happen, Henry. Help is coming. I just need you to keep your eyes open. Okay?”

“Just promise me, please.”

“No. No. I won't because you’re going to be fine, and we’ll get married and keep going on adventures together, and you’ll keep being stubborn, and I’ll keep scolding you for it, and we’ll go on. Together.”

But even as she said it, tears leaving tracks on her bloodied cheeks, she knew no matter how much she begged, his breathing would keep getting shallower, he’d have a harder and harder time keeping his eyes open. Seconds would keep ticking by. A whirlwind. Achingly slow. Where were the rangers?

“Please, Clara, love.”

She shook her head again but said, “Okay, okay. But it won’t matter because you’re going to be okay, and we’ll laugh about this. I can hear help coming. You just need to hold on and wait.”

Henry smiled. It was a beautiful, awful thing. 

“Good,” he sighed, his eyes shuttering closed, his next words came slow and slurred. “Yes, we’ll see the northern lights on our honeymoon.”

“Yes, Henry. Yes, yes, yes.” Clara sobbed, keeping her hands firmly in place even as the blood leaking through her fingers slowed, and the rise and fall of his chest stopped. “Henry? Please, Henry, no, no, no, no,” she begged, leaning over him, hoping for another puff of air against her wet face, a last word, a final smile. Anything. Nothing.

She collapsed on top of him, burying her head in the crook of his shoulder and moved her hands at last to cradle his limp body to her. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, like that, with him, crying and begging over his stiffening body. 

She wasn’t sure when help arrived. She just knew they were too late, too slow, as they moved rapid-fire and shouted around her, pulling her off of him. She wasn’t sure what they said to her, asked her, or what she responded. She doesn't recall leaving that sunny spot.

Time moved on around her. She remembered it all, still. Sometimes, the memories came in broken flashbacks, sometimes in excruciating detail. She remembers his smile as he ignored her warning and took another step. She remembers the sun haloing him, the breeze that tussled his hair, and the excited twinkle in his eyes for this next adventure. 

She wishes that was all she remembered. But then there's the tumble of rocks, the frozen moment of surprise as the edge splintered. 

The scream, the crack, the thud. 

Her fingers still feel warm and wet and then so cold as she's wrenched off of him. Her throat is still thick with sobs. 

Clara wanted to respect Henry’s last request. She'd shook her head, but she had agreed. She had promised. She owed him that. But no matter how many days, weeks, months, or years passed, she was frozen. She had gotten her wish. She stayed there, forever stuck in that last moment when Henry was still with her.