The Boy from the Bunker - Season 8

Episode Six, Part 5:

Episode Six, Part 5:
Love is Just a Way to Die

Sweetheart, would you wake up today? 
I promise you would recognise my face. 
I want to show you how I've grown in this place. 

Kodiak sat at Elara's bedside, holding onto her hand for dear life, bringing it up to his lips every few moments. She was warm again - just as Xander had predicted - but Kodiak knew in his heart that it didn't feel the same.

It was hard to accept that fact that she was really gone, especially with her lying right in reach and with the steady rise and fall of her chest the sole focus of Kodiak's attention. It was hard to accept that there could ever be a world without her in it, even though it had been that way for the past six months, and even though it was that way again now after he had felt the brutal absence of her life bleed away in his arms...

Kodiak inhaled a deep breath, swallowing down a gulp of fear through his raw, dry throat. He had lost track of time of how long he had been sitting there for, but knew that it wouldn't be long until Xander arrived outside the door with his friends. For whatever time he might have left with Elara, he had to make it count; he had to say what he needed to - what he had waited six months to because he might not ever be able to tell her again.

"I need you to wake up, Ell," he began, believing at first that the only for it to happen was if he gave her no choice; if he told her that he wasn't going to accept her never coming back. "I want you; I want the future you promised us together. I want you to live."

He let out a heavy sigh, squeezing tighter onto her hand to secure the feeling of her there - right underneath his fingers - but it didn't give him the strength he was looking for. How could it?

"I never believed in this whole Neptunum combination thing," he said. "But I'll believe it for you. If that's what it takes to save you. And I won't ever give up on trying to get you back, just like you wouldn't if it was me, right? I know you lost a little bit of your hope for a while, but I'm here now and I need you to fight to come back to me when it's time."

Kodiak glanced over at the door, hearing a knock from the other side which he knew was Xander having arrived with his friends. Whatever he wanted to say to her, he had to say it now.

"Your brothers are just outside," he began, "and they're going to be devastated when they realise what's happened to you, but they're not going to sit here and accept you being gone, either. We're all going to do whatever it takes to save you; I hope you know that somehow. You have to come back. You have to grow old with me. You have to live. I know you'd ask me to take care of Izzy, but she needs you, and you can't leave her. You can't."

There was a knock again; Xander not wanting everyone to stay out in the open for too long but not knowing now to disturb Kodiak when he knew he was talking to Elara.

Kodiak nodded to himself, knowing that he had to brave the fate that was waiting for him outside of the door. He laid Elara's hand down by her side, making sure her hair was neatly resting over each side of her shoulders and that the thin sheet which was draped over her was covering her lifeless body to keep her warm.

Without much of a choice, Kodiak walked over towards the door, slowly turning the handle and stepping out to see the concerned faces of his friends. With the door pulled-to behind him, he slowly looked up at them, assuming he had enough strength left in him to explain what had happened, but the tears welling up in his throat stole away his words.

"Kodiak?" Sol asked from beside Wynn, completely stumped to see him in such a state. Of course, she and everyone else didn't have to think long and hard about who could possibly be the reason behind such a strong, consuming emotion from him, but she held off her theories, not daring to think that something had happened to Elara even though the evidence was plastered all across his face.