"You and I... we want different things, Sam. No, more than that." Jamila shakes her head, lips compressing into a wan, tremulous line. "We need different things. Things that, no matter how much we care for each other, are fundamentally at odds."

She swallows hard, steeling herself. I can see the effort it takes for her to hold my gaze, to pour those acid words out from wherever they've festered in the deep hollows of her heart.

"You're a born warrior, darling. A fighter through and through, someone who's not just comfortable with violence and conflict but who actively craves it as an expression of their higher purpose." Her voice remains level, almost clinically detached. But in her eyes I can glimpse the storm of roiling emotion threatening to breach the thin veneer she's putting up. I wonder if it's for my sake or hers.

"And that's... that's beautiful, Sam. Truly. Your courage, your selflessness, your sheer indomitable spirit - those are gifts, superpowers in their own right that the rest of us can only dream of."

A faint, melancholy smile ghosts across her lips, cinching my thundering heart with a web of longing so visceral it leaves me breathless.

"But me... I'm not like you, Sam. Not even close."

She closes her eyes, nostrils flaring with a long, shuddering inhale like a diver preparing to plunge into the depths.

"When I think about all the death and destruction these last few months, all the brushes with oblivion both of us have weathered... God, Sam, it terrifies me."

Her voice cracks like splintering glass, the façade beginning to crumble at last. Tears well in her eyes, and then roll down her cheeks. She slowly shuffles herself onto her bed, flopping down next to me.

"I don't want that life. I can't want that life, not and still be true to who and what I am." She shakes her head vehemently, the last tattered vestiges of her composure unwinding like fraying yarn. "All I want... all I've ever really wanted is to help people, to make the world a little brighter and easier to bear. I signed on to heal and protect, to be a beacon of hope and solace, and to help people where they need it. And now..."

Jamila's hands clench and unclench, groping at something intangible yet maddeningly, viscerally real. I can see the muscles in her jaw flex and release, clenched with the effort of holding everything together in the wake of whatever reckoning is devouring her whole.

"I look at you, at the path you're so resolutely carving through this nightmare of ours, and I... I can't keep pace, Sam. I'm so afraid of dying. And you're not."

A great, heaving sob forces its way free from deep within her, causing her whole body to tremble like a leaf caught in a gale-force tempest. "I don't wanna die," she whimpers. "I don't. I don't wanna die,"

The tears are flowing freely now, and she bundles up a blanket and pulls it to her face to hide from me. "I can't..." she whispers, the remainder of the thought trailing off into a hitching wail of pure, distilled misery, muffled in cloth.

At last, I find my voice - a hoarse, broken croak that barely registers above the thunderous keening of my own shattering heart.

"Please..." is all I can manage, a wordless entreaty devoid of substance or form, little more than an inarticulate expression of the scourging anguish rending me asunder from the inside out. "Please, Jam, don't..."

She's already shaking her head, convulsive jolts wracking her slender frame as her shoulders hunch inward in a futile attempt to shield herself from whatever debilitating deluge is even now breaking against her.

For a long moment, I think she's beyond any attempt at words, completely consumed. "What are we even doing here?" I hear her mumble. Then, she pulls her face up, eyes already red and puffy. My own face stings.

"You throw yourself into harm's way with such ease, like - like it's nothing!" The words emerge in a sudden, stricken, painful whisper. "Every battle, every insane, heart-stopping risk you take on without so much as batting an eye..."

Even through the blinding haze of confusion and despair whiting out my consciousness, a dreadful understanding settles in my gut like a ball of smoldering lead.

The brutal truth is, with everything i've endured, every life-or-death crucible I've weathered, I've come out different. Jamila may be steadfastly traversing her own path of light and healing, but for me? She's right. I can't live without it.

She sucks in a shuddering breath, then fixes me with eyes that seem to bore straight through to my very soul, searing their truth into the foundations of my being with ruthless, incandescent intensity.

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"You won't quit. I know you won't quit, because you can't - this crusade of yours, this need to sacrifice yourself over and over again unto the altar of some higher calling, it's in your blood. And that's what I love about you... but it's not my path. I can't walk it with you."

Her words thrum through me with the resonant, bone-deep finality of a judge's gavel, reverberating in the hollow cavities of my ravaged subconscious like sonar pulsed through the lightless deep. An immutable truth, hammered home with such weary conviction that denying it would be a futile and ultimately meaningless exercise in self-deception.

So I don't even try. Can't even summon the willpower to mount such a ludicrously transparent performance.

The silence that follows is thick, suffocating. Jamila's words hang in the air like acrid smoke, slowly seeping into the deepest recesses of my consciousness to set every nerve ending alight with a searing, soul-deep anguish.

For long, teetering moments, I lay there motionless, mind utterly blank save for the endless reverberating echo of that cataclysmic revelation. I can feel the tears welling, hot and stinging, threatening to spill down my cheeks in a torrent of unrestrained grief. But I refuse to give in, to surrender the last shreds of my dignity to this relentless, pitiless tide of misery.

I'm a fighter. A born warrior, as she'd so aptly put it. The adrenaline, the thrill of battle, the transcendent catharsis of putting myself on the line to protect the innocent - these things make up the very bedrock of my identity, the core drives that compel me forward day after day. Jamila is the exception, the rare oasis of peace and stability in the endless cyclone of conflict that has become my life.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," Jamila whispers, her voice little more than a wet, ragged rasp. "I know... I know this must be devastating for you, and I wish I could make it easier. But I just..." She trails off, shoulders hitching with a fresh wave of tiny cries.

I watch her, transfixed, some distant part of my mind cataloging this sight as if through a pane of frosted glass - Jamila, the pillar of unwavering strength and resolve, reduced to a trembling, inconsolable wreck. It seems so impossibly wrong, a perversion of the natural order, and I find myself reaching out before I can even register the impulse.

"Jamila, I..." The words die on my lips, choked by the unyielding vice of emotion constricting my throat. Frantic, I search her face, desperate to find some thread, some glimmer of hope to cling to amidst the all-consuming darkness. "Please, I... I can change. I can stop, I can -"

But Jamila is already shaking her head, a watery, sorrowful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Her hand finds mine, squeezing gently. "This isn't about you not being good enough, or me not loving you enough. It's about the fact that we want such fundamentally different things. Things that are irreconcilable. I don't think you can."

Jamila shifts closer, and I find myself instinctively curling into the comforting warmth of her embrace. It's a poor imitation of the countless times we've sought refuge in each other's arms, but I'll take what I can get.

"When I joined the Young Defenders, I thought I was ready for that life. Ready to be a protector, a warrior for justice," she murmurs, fingers idly carding through my hair. "But after everything that's happened, I realize now that I was just... kidding myself."

I shake my head mutely, the tears I'd so stubbornly fought to contain now spilling freely down my cheeks. I want to argue, to beg her to reconsider, to find some way to reconcile the irreconcilable. But even as the words form on my tongue, I know it's a lost cause. Jamila is resolute, her path laid out before her with an ineluctable, inexorable clarity.

"I can quit," I whisper, the words so fragile and tremulous they seem to crumble even as I voice them. "I can give it all up, Jam. The superhero stuff, the fighting, the dangers - I'll leave it behind, I swear. Just... just please, don't leave me."

Jamila's arms tighten around me, and I can feel the feather-light press of her lips against the crown of my head. "Oh, Sam," she sighs, the words barely audible. "Can you?"

She pulls back, gently cupping my tear-streaked face in her hands. Her eyes are shining with a complex, unfathomable emotion that makes my heart lurch painfully in my chest.

I open my mouth to protest, to insist that I'll do anything, be anything, if only she'll stay.

Can I?

It's been a year. I've 'tried it out', like I told Diane I would.

Can I quit?

...

No. I can't.

So I do the only thing I can right now - I surrender. I collapse into her embrace, burying my face against the crook of her neck as the last vestiges of my composure dissolve into great, shuddering sobs. Jamila holds me close, rocking me gently as she murmurs soothing words of comfort that do little to assuage the maelstrom of agony ripping me apart from the inside.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," Jamila whispers, pressing a soft, achingly gentle kiss to my forehead. "But you're going to be okay. I know you will. You're stronger than this, stronger than anyone I've ever known."

I want to argue, to insist that no, I won't be okay, that I can't be without her. But the words catch in my throat, smothered by the leaden weight of resignation slowly settling in my gut.

Because deep down, I know she's right. As much as this is tearing me apart, as much as the loss of her feels like the very foundation of my world crumbling to dust... I'll endure. I'll survive, because that's what I do. That's who I am.

I survived a nuclear reactor. Why does being broken up with hurt more?

Jamila seems to sense the shift, the subtle resignation in my posture. With a sad, bittersweet smile, she pulls me closer, tucking my head beneath her chin. I go willingly, too spent, too empty to fight it any longer.

"It's going to be okay, Sam," she murmurs, her voice thick with unshed tears. "I promise. Even if it doesn't feel that way now."

Jamila holds me close, rocking me gently. She murmurs soft, soothing platitudes against my hair, her own tears falling in silent rhythm.

"Sleep, my darling," she murmurs, pressing a soft, tremulous kiss to my sweat-damp brow. "You're safe with me. Always."

And even as my traitorous heart clenches at the bittersweet irony of those words, I allow myself to succumb to the siren call of oblivion, drifting off to the comforting rhythm of Jamila's breathing and the memory of a love that, for all its faults, had shone as a beacon. Tomorrow would come soon enough, with all its attendant horrors and heartaches. But for now, at least, I can take solace in this one final, fleeting respite - the last embers of a fire that has been extinguished, but whose warmth I will cherish until the end.