A Gray Llove

Would You Still Try?

Sasha followed Lloyd down, grabbing his massive arms at the last moment to keep him from bashing his head against the marble fountain bottom. She hadn't taken the shot, but someone had – a CIA sniper? One of his mercenaries? Suzanne?

It didn't matter.

In a haze, Sasha knelt in the fountain, straddling Lloyd to reach around his back and pull him upwards towards her. His powerful chest heaved and felt hot where it touched her, the fine threads of his shirt streaming entirely red down through his torso and growing darker by the moment. The shot had hit his heart directly, cutting it off from his main artery at the place where it was sure to gush the most.

Sasha couldn't reconcile the horror she felt with the pragmatism a good CIA agent was supposed to have. She knew the shot was good, and that Lloyd was dying. Suzanne had been right in calling him a public threat. Sasha didn't need to see any more proof of that.

But she kept his face out of the water so he didn't drown. She gathered him in her arms and let him lean over her, she rubbed his back as he touched the fatal wound in shock and shuddered into her neck. She felt his blood pulsing under his skin, his frame growing weaker and heavier.

And, with her back to Six, Suzanne, and Claire, Sasha clutched his back and let herself silently sob.

She berated herself for either falling prey to Stockholm Syndrome or having seriously messed-up morals, but the truth was – the truth that felt right even if she didn't know how – that she somehow loved the man dying in her arms. There was a part of him that was good. A part of him that loved her. And now all of him was about to be gone forever.

Just when Sasha thought that Lloyd had faded completely, a faint whisper met her ear. "What was that you said about the straight and narrow?"

Sasha sucked in a staggering breath and bent back, peeling herself away from him so that she could see his face. Lloyd's skin was pallid under the blood, with dark impressions beneath both eyes. His deep blue eyes had lost their twinkle, too. Pressing her forehead to his, Sasha felt Lloyd's heartbeat dropping away beneath his skin. "You could have done it," she told him. "You did do it, for a while, right? I didn't just...believe you, did I? You did stop with...all of this?"

Lloyd's head moved under hers – a nod. "I tried."

Lloyd's voice was more air than tone now. His eyelids drooped. Sasha realized that he had to be nearing the point where a human being couldn't bear to lose any more blood...he was near the end...

"Would you still try?" Sasha rushed, cupping his face with one hand while holding him upright with the other. "Lloyd, would you keep trying?" Tears flowed over her mouth as she struggled for words again. "If you really saved me, you know you can do it."

His eyelids fluttered. "You want me to try...now?"

Sasha felt Lloyd pause between breaths for a painfully long second. She clutched his shoulders and brought him close again. "For the love of god, Lloyd, just say yes."

Lloyd sucked in another breath – and exhaled, "Yes." Then his deep blue eyes rolled back in his head and he fell limply across the back of her arms.

Sasha held him tighter and yelled the first name that came to mind – "SIX! We need a stretcher!"

**Tomorrow is the END (one way or another) of this story! Thank you SO MUCH for reading and please don't forget to vote and comment!**