the dreams in which I'm dying

[Mark Skroce]

His hand reached out towards the smooth pale one of the woman lying next to him. The coolness of her touch, against the coolness of his seemed familiar and warm, as if it should have been this way since the beginning.

It had been years since Evangeline Lavoie's death and yet her name still persisted on Mark Skroce's lips in utterings he spoke as his mind was locked in the nightmares he had while he slept. It had been years since he had married Ellis Graphton, and they had their two children and throughout he faked a light sanity. He gave his children what he didn't have. Something normal, that didn't feel familiar to him in any sense.

When he was younger, and Evangeline was in his arms he would dream of their children, dream of their lives together. Brock seemed to have been the one to give that to Evangeline. Love, a child, the jealousy was too much for Mark to handle when he returned from the dead only to find Evangeline dying in his arms.

They forgave each other, but Mark had yet to forgive himself and he broke in ways that men do when they've been stripped of all they've known. The hope was gone and he wanted to spread that hopelessness to all those who he saw as people who had taken it from him.

Mark knew these were his final days. He woke, he slept, he woke, he slept. He made videotapes, and filled envelopes with evidence of lies, death and chaos he had managed over the past year.

A package for Brock, and on videotape he told Brock of what he had done to Robin, and that Robin was his daughter. He told him that Sean and Keiko didn't know that he had changed the paternity results all of those years ago. He told Brock that he had gotten what Mark could never have had. Evangeline's total devotion.

A package for Ellis, his children. The tape went as follows.

Mark sitting in a dimly lit darkness. "Ellis. You never understood." Silence overcame him. "I..."

He stopped, then turned his attention to his son.

"...connor...take care of your mother. your sisters..."

"...audra...forgive me...."

"..eva..be strong..."

Then, a final package for Jov Rurik.

"...your wife never loved me. it was sick obsession and you were always the one who loved her. i'm sorry you and your children will never have the chance for vengeance. another angel is taking care of that..."

Then, behind him in the darkness as he turned off the camera and put the package away, a woman padded through the room slowly. He took out his gun, a shootout ensued.

And there, with his blond angel he layed, slowly dying and feeling all of the pain inside of him slip away as life escaped his breath.

[Emma Snow Skroce]

Emma pulled up to the building. They would just talk. She would get him to see he was not well and then he would agree to let her take him somewhere to get help. She played the scene out over and over again in her mind. There was no guess work here this was Mark, her brother, her lover, her friend and he would see, he would understand just like always. She knew though when she pushed open the door and stepped inside what this really was, she was death dressed in black leather pants and packing her desert eagles. He would never agree, and he, much to her sadness would not walk out of the building his hand in hers. She loved Mark there was no denying that but it was and never had been in the way some would think. The connection between Emma and Mark was something rare and obscure in another place in time they might have been a passionate couple but in this time what they had was something neither could ever really explain nor tried to. She heard him speaking and leaned against the wall listening like death waiting in the shadows. She knew better then walk into the room with her guns tucked away so instead she took them one in each hand and released the safety on each. This was the final show down and oddly she knew as soon as she stepped into his sight that not only was she his angel of death... as shots fired she realized that he was hers. This was how they would end both in a pool of blood tears streaming down her cheeks as their fingers locked neither speaking. As the darkness closed in around them, she for the first time realized just how much Eva looked like him... that would be her last thought as death took her, fingers locked in his and that was how they would be found.. together, no pain on either face, no expression of hatred, regret, or apology...

[kimberly]

One upon a time, Ellis had been a strong, put-together woman. Now, she was barely keeping the shambles of her life together. Everything was hanging on by a thread, and her sanity was slowly slipping away from her. She hadn't set foot into the house that she and Mark had shared for 16 years since her brief stay in the hospital, when Mark had attacked her. She'd been living, more or less, out of her office at MI headquarters. She was tired, weary, exhausted, and deep down, part of her even wished for death, to save her from the pain of living.

Ellis had been betrayed by both the men in her life. Brecken had mentally and verbally abused her, near the end of their marriage. Mark, on the other hand, as she was now convinced, had never really even loved her. Her heart had broken into a million little pieces, and there was no way it would ever recover.

Ellis was in her office when the tape from Mark arrived. She managed to watch it without any tears, having cried so much over him in the past. Maybe somewhere in the back of her mind, she had known it would come to this in the end. The next day, she went to the academy, gathered up Connor, Audra, and Eva, and told them that their father would not be coming back. She didn't give them any reason, and she didn't let them see the tape. Then, she took them home to pack up their stuff.

Ellis hired movers to clear out the house and had all their stuff put into storage until she could find them a new place to live. Then, she sent the kids back to school. Within a couple of days, the house was on the market, and Ellis was looking for an apartment big enough for the four of them. There was no way she could ever set foot near that house again.