THE DAY ENDS.

     “C’mon, don’t eat that...” 

      This is what he gets for putting it in the shared refrigerator, he supposes! Maes gives the other a Most Pitiable Look.

    “Hey.”

    He isn’t sure why he does it. Maybe the stress – the worry. Maybe it’s because of the way she says it, in that way that he knows means that she means it, no matter what she has to do. But he stops, and he takes her arm, and he wrenches her back to face him.

     “Look at me.” Of course she does, and there’s anger and fire in her eyes, but deeper there’s desperation and fear enough to match his own. Hughes’ gaze flickers between them, inches away, serious and permanent as the grave. “I don’t know what stupid thing you think you’re going to do to keep me alive, but I’m telling you – drop it. Drop it right now.”

       When she looks away, eyes widening in fury, he takes her other arm, liable to bruise, and shakes her. “Come on, Lieutenant. Neither – of – us – are going to die. Neither of us. They’re not – going – to win. We won’t let them. Okay?”

      A tense pause. He gives her another shake. Look at me, Hawkeye. 

     “Riza.”

     He shudders, coughs. A splash of crimson wets the pavement, tongue tasting of copper and slime and death. A punctured lung, he thinks, and the wheeze in what remains of his voice testifies to that. The way Riza’s hand presses hard on his ribcage but the bleeding does not abate testifies to that. The growing weakness in his limbs -- all a sign. 

      His own hand presses on top of the lieutenant’s. Softer, now, he calls again. “Riza. I have -- I need --” Another bloody cough. “I need -- you to do something f--for. For me.”

     She spits something at him. Maybe a fuck you, maybe an adamant I won’t let you die, damn it, and with the fire in her eyes either one... but she leans closer anyway. Maybe they both know it’s a lost cause. The sirens -- too far away. Each breath feels like drowning, the rattling in his chest growing stronger, wetter. 

     Closer. Closer

    And--

    “Please--”

    His final breath. His final words.