It was when Nych collapsed in the middle of making love with her that Willow knew something was terribly wrong.

She gasped, looking up at the man she’d been grasping at and quickly rolling him off of her. She moved his body into a recovery position, and panicked as she looked around the dimly lit room. "Fuck, fuck, BLAKE!" She screamed for her friend, wrapping Nych in a blanket to try and keep him warm as she put her hands on his cheeks. "Oh, no, Nych-" Her heart started racing, and she desperately tried to get some kind of reaction out of the man she had fallen for.

This couldn't be happening.

"God dammit- BLAKE!" Willow screamed louder. "HELP ME!"

The door was thrown open wildly to reveal Blake, who was only just dawning a bathrobe. She did, however, have a knife in her hand, and it was obvious that she had thought Nych was doing something awful to Willow.

Now that she saw the reality, however, the knife clattered to the floor.

"Call 911. I'll have to get him down to the entrance so they can load him into the ambulance quicker. Hurry, Willow."

This was a side of Blake that no one ever saw.

The worried side.

Willow looked up at her friend with desperate eyes, tearing up as she clutched the man she loved in her arms. He couldn't be gone now. Not so soon. She couldn't lose him. "No- I-" She shook her head, and when she blinked, tears rolled down her cheeks. "I'll take him. Call an ambulance." She sat up, wrapping herself in a housecoat and putting Nych's pants on to at least save his dignity as Blake dialed for an ambulance.

She was panicking. Not yet. This was too soon.

She sobbed, heaving him into her arms and running for the door, bursting through it and running down the hallway towards the elevator.

Eventually, as they sat outside the building, waiting for an ambulance to arrive, Nych opened his eyes.

He looked around slightly, though it obviously pained him, and he sighed.

"I guess I'm just not good at anything anymore, Willow. I wish we'd started talking a few months ago. Maybe then you would've had a bit of time to get to know me."

He was talking like a dead man, and that wasn't good.

Willow jolted, and then looked down at him with a sob. She clutched him in her arms, holding him tightly as she leaned down to press her forehead to his. "Don't say that." She whimpered, a couple tears falling down her face. "You're the most amazing man I've ever had the joy of meeting. And you're going to be fine. You've still got time, we… We can finish those bots and we can fix you, you hear me?"

She didn't want this to end here.

"Just... Take it easy, okay?" She sniffled, furrowing her brows. "It'll be okay."

He held a shaking hand up to her face, just as an ambulance pulled up in front of them.

"It's almost the end for me, Willow Grace. But not for you. You can live on and do great things. You can do amazing things, just please... Keep my name alive. If anything I created goes anywhere, make sure people know that I died for what I loved."

They began loading Nych onto the ambulance, and the medic asked Willow to ride with them and explain his condition.

She was the only one who knew anything specific about him.

"I... I..." Willow clutched Nych's hand as she sat beside him in the ambulance, her hands shaking with the liquid terror that was running through her veins. They were supposed to have more time. This wasn't fair. How could life be so cruel to them? Internally, she cursed whatever God was watching them up in the sky. They had caused this, or they had watched it and done nothing. They could've saved the world together.

"He has stage four acute myelogenous leukemia." Willow looked up at the paramedics, panic evident in her features. "I... Please... Help him."

She knew they couldn't. But she would beg for them to do so anyways.

The medic's face fell as he contacted the driver on his walkie, and then looked back to Nych.

"This is stage four? Why aren't you hospitalized?"

Nych let out a choked laugh before he responded. "I'm an inventor before I'm a genius, Mr. Drew." His name was printed clearly on the name tag attached to his shirt, but it still appeared to slightly spook the man. "And I won't lay in bed all day waiting for a cure that won't come when I can work on the cure myself."

The medic looked up to Willow in exasperation, and he asked, "What is your relationship with this man?"

"We're together." Willow sniffled, clinging to Nych's hand tightly and bringing it up to her face so she could gently press her lips to his knuckles. She wanted him to be comfortable. If this really was going to be the end for him...

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She wanted him to feel loved. Because he was.

"Can you do anything?" Willow asked desperately, letting out a shaky sigh as she tried to steady herself. She had to be strong. She had to be strong for Nych.

"I... I don't know, we'll have to see what the doctors say. If possible, we can could do a full-body blood and bone-marrow transplant, which might buy him a little bit more time-"

"It won't work." Nych said, sighing. "My blood type is Rhnull. The golden blood. And I doubt you've got a body's worth of that lying around."

The man's face paled as he looked back up to Willow. He tried to form words, but none would come out.

So he closed his mouth and began taking Nych's vitals.

Tears silently streamed down Willow's face, and she looked down at Nych as she held his hand tightly.

She supposed that no good deed went unpunished. The world was a cruel, ugly place. She took a sharp stuttered breath inwards, and reached down with one hand to gently press it to his cheek. She ran her thumb along it and sighed as she examined his broken, battered form.

"... I'm sorry." She whispered.

He shook his head, taking her hand in his own. "You have nothing to apologize for, Willow. You do understand that you made these days amazing, don't you? You made them worth living again. I never wanted to keep living as much as I do now, and I promise, I'll fight until the very end. But when I'm gone... Make sure I come back as I was."

He meant that wholeheartedly.

The medic didn't bother to ask questions; he'd heard stranger things aboard the ambulance.

"Thank you for giving me my happiness back."

"I should be thanking you." She sniffled, leaning down so she could be closer to him. "You're brilliant. You actually challenged me. You're a genius, and spending these past couple days with you was all I ever wanted to do with my time." She leaned down, pressing a tender kiss to his lips before she pulled away and looked down at him with sad eyes.

"I will rebuild you." She said, absolute determination in her voice.

And she would.

He shook his head, a sad smile in his eyes.

"I have no doubt in my mind that you will try your very best. But if I never come back... I just want you to know that I love you, Willow Grace. I know it's fast, but fast is all I've got now. I love you, and if you think that you'll be able to bring me back..."

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, finally beginning to cry.

"Then wait for me..."

"I will." Willow whimpered, and after a couple seconds of holding back, her tears started to fall as well. She wrapped her arms around him, and sobbed into his chest. She didn't want this to be the end. She still had so many things she wanted to do with him. So many things they could build together. So many diseases they had yet to cure, cancer being one of the innumerable few, but one of the most important.

"I love you too." She whispered, lightly curling her fingers into his skin.

She had only known him for a couple days, but why did it hurt so much?

He smiled, relief flooding his face. All he wanted in the world was for her to be his, and only his. But now that he was dying... He would understand, if he was never coming back, if she decided to move on.

He didn’t deserve her, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her being with someone else.

"We're coming in." The medic said into his walkie, evidently talking to the people in the hospital. In a few seconds, the doors opened, revealing several people holding a stretcher between them.

They transferred Nych and began taking him inside.

Willow stood up, chasing after them and squeezing in to take Nych's hand amidst the chaos. He was not going through this alone, and nobody was going to stop her from making sure of that. He needed to know that she was there for him, no matter what. Even if these were his final hours, she wanted to make the most of them.

She kept a good grasp on their surroundings, however.

If this was the end...

She'd have to call Blake and get her to help retrieve the part of him she needed to bring him back from the dead.

The men and women in white coats that carried him along eventually brought him to a room that was adorned with nothing but white wallpaper, a table with flowers in a vase, and a television.

Apparently, they'd deemed that the case wasn't worthy of the ER.

… Why?

Eventually, a doctor came in, and looked to Willow sadly. He didn't tell her to leave, or to move, and he hardly even checked Nych at all.

What was going on?

Willow looked around the room, and she knew in a heartbeat what it was. Her heart sank, and she sat down beside the man she had come to care so deeply for, clutching his hand in both of her own. They had brought him here to die, and though it angered her that they didn't even try to help him, she knew that there was no help to be given. This was terminal. And he was bound to pass on at some point soon.

But that still didn't stop her from breaking down, dipping her head and sobbing quietly as she squeezed his hand tightly.

She wished this was all some nightmare. She didn't want this to be their reality.

"I'm... So sorry." The doctor said, looking at the two of them with a genuine apology in his eyes. "The chances of a man with Rhnull blood getting this particular form of blood cancer are very slim, and... There isn't anything we can do."

"It's alright, doc." Nych said, his voice a whisper from the bed. He held onto Willow, his hand tight on her arm, and he said, "Could you... Leave, doc?"

The doctor nodded his head in understanding.

Nych wanted his last moments to be with Willow.

"You need to call Blake, if you're actually going to go through with this." He said, his voice cracking. "My keys are still on your nightstand, and the box is on the second table on the left in my lab. I... I'd ask you to get it, but..."

But he wanted her to stay.

"I'm staying." Willow said, voice weak as she tried to keep herself from sobbing out loud. After a second or two, she pulled herself up onto the bed, and laid down beside him in the sterile hospital room. "I- I'll get her to grab it. It'll be faster for her anyways." She settled in beside him, and after a moment wrapped her arms around him and pulled him taught against her body, burying her face in his dark locks.

It was quiet for a couple seconds, and Willow clung to him tightly. This was all the time they had left.

"... I'm sorry." She whispered. "I love you."

Nych wrapped his feeble arms around her, the slightest of smiles gracing his pain-stricken face.

This was all too sudden, but then again. It had been coming for a long, long time.

"Please don't leave, okay?" He asked, his voice pleading and his eyes full of tears. "You're the first person in my life to make me feel like I'm not actually alone. I... I don't want to die alone, not when I finally have you."

With that, he stopped talking.

His eyes stayed open, and he stayed with her for a good few hours afterwards.

But those were the last words uttered by Nych Haywiyth.