"Running Up That Hill"

She watched. There was nothing else she could do. The distance was to far. She saw the gun - the glint off of black, cold, un-calculating metal. She can't remember if she screamed; if she had shouted that she was a federal agent. He was her partner, she should have been right next to him, not yards away. She shouldn't have been so far.

She began to run, but she knew that she wouldn't be close enough. She had her gun out and cocked. She could feel the breeze off of the ocean as it tried to whip her hair into her face. She didn't have the time. She never seemed to have the time...

***

"Come on, that can't be what really happened." Jason scoffed.

"No, seriously," Alex laughed. She loved messing with Jason's head. He was her latest partner and surprisingly he had lasted the longest. Almost a full year. Her last three partners had requested transfers. Apparently she was too serious and didn't "get along well with others." Of course she and Jason had their issues, but they were a good fit.

"I'm going to ask Chris and Randy." Jason told her as he crossed his arms.

Alex shook her head, still laughing. "Go right ahead. They'll tell you the same thing I just did."

"There is no way that the either of them were chased out of a fancy estate by two guard dogs. They have more kahunas than that."

"That's what they want you to think." She grinned at Jason who grudgingly grinned back. Yeah, they had their moments, but it wasn't anything either of them couldn't handle...

***

The pop of the gun being fired wasn't as loud as she was expecting. She paused in her run towards the scene to fire her own weapon - she was close enough now. Two shots and the enemy was down, but so was her partner. She lowered her gun and continued to run.

She reached the sand, just past the boardwalk, and sunk down next to him. Blood was already soaking his shirt. She cursed this undercover assignment. A vest would have saved him. The shot had been taken at point blank rage. She took off her jacket and pressed it against his chest.

"Please don't die, please," she whispered as she kept pressure on the wound.

He let out a small laugh that sounded raspy and bubbly, "Like you...could...get rid...of me...that easily, Alex."

She let out a small sobbing laugh, "Don't try to talk Jason. Help is on the way."

"Wish you...were on this...undercover...assignment, huh?" he gasped, blatantly ignoring her recommendation that he not talk.  She could feel the tears forming and damnit all to hell, she wasn't going to cry right now.

"Yeah. I wish I had been shot and you had to come save my ass."

"Nah," he said softly, "I have al-already done that...for you." He began to cough and she tried to hold him as still as possible. She could hear sirens now. He had to be okay.

"And you kicked yourself for months." She noticed that his breathing had become more labored. "Help's almost here, just hang on."

"I - I want you...to know-"

"Shh, you can tell me later."

"But if I don't...this m-might be the...last time to s-say it." He was shivering now and he took a gasping breath, "I love you."

The tears in her eyes escaped of their own accord and she held back a sob. "Jason, you're going to be fine." He lifted his hand up to her cheek and he brushed away the stray tears. She wanted so badly to hold his hand to her face, but the wound in his chest took precedence.

He looked into her eyes and she knew what they both knew at the beginning of this incident: one of them wasn't going to make it. "Jason, no. Stay with me! Don't you leave me damnit!" His hand dropped softly onto the sand and it hardly made any noise at all. "Jason? Jason! No! Stay with me!"

Alex was full out sobbing as she watched Jason's eyes slowly lose the warmth of life. The parametics pulled her aside and began CPR, but Alex knew. She sat back in the sand, hard. She had put her hands out to steady herself and now the sand was sticking to the tacky blood on her hands. She pulled her legs up to her chest and folded in on herself...

She never said it, but she had loved him too. And now she didn't even get to say goodbye.