Disclaimer: I wish I could make money off of this, cuz I’m POOR, but it doesn’t belong to me. None of it. Thus….so much for that get-rich–quick plan.

She was 316 years old, but didn’t look a day over 35.

Claire was still sleeping in her plushy queen-sized bed after a live night of rapture. One of her bare shoulders rested on top of the comforter and her honey blonde hair fell across her face.

Peter stared at his wife with glowing eyes, and he stroked her arm. What youthful skin…even after all these years…

Claire’s regenerative abilities were not just for healing. Science tells us that we only age because our cells wither and die. If this did not occur, humans could half a millenium at least. Before he died, Mohinder Suresh did research on the subject, and explained it to the former cheerleader.

“With your power,” he had expained. “You’ll probably live to be about 700 years old.”

She had gotton sick at that notion. Everything she knew would dissapear…age…and die. Imagine being born in the Knights Templar’s time and dying when the World Trade Center got bombed. All that time. The Italian Renassance. The Civil War. Christopher Columbus. Mary, Queen of Scots. George Washington. She’s see ten lifetimes worth of history….alone.

Claire watched all of her friends age and die. Having calculated it on a stray day, she figured that for every seventy-five years that went by, she only aged four.

Yet, one person didn’t leave her. The one man that she’d been a little bit in love with ever since he died for her.

Having absorbed her power, Peter’s body matured slower as well…even slower than Claire’s. She eventually caught up to him in appearance. After all, seventeen and twenty-seven might be a big gap, but 316 and 326 was almost identical.

Soon, they only had each other. Peter couldn’t be away from her for more than a few hours, or he’d most likely die (and perhaps come back when she got close again). Being forced into that proximity brought them closer together emotionally…until Peter fell in love with Claire too. He asked her to marry him…on her 100^th birthday.

And two hundred years later, they were still wedded. After brushing his lips against Claire’s neck, Peter climed out of bed and drifted to the bathroom. For as long as he could remember, a face of a 35-year old man had looked back at him in the mirror. Today, the reflection was at least 40.

This had been happening lately. Peter’s cellular structure artifically regenerated itself, so they always knew that he wouldn’t live quite as long as Claire. For the past few months, he had noticed crow’s feet on his eyes and flecks of grey in his hair. The thing they feared the most was upon them: his body was rejecting the power.

“Peter?” said a soft voice from the bedroom. The same voice that used to have a Southern twang to it. “Where are you?”

He came back to the bed and sat beside Claire.

“Right here. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

Claire smiled and leaned her fair face closer to his. “Good.”

Peter tried to bend down and kiss her tenderly, but she got sight of his temple and put a hand on his chest.

“Eh…what happened?” she asked nervously, touching her fingertips to the streak of grey hair that sprouted above his ear.

Her husband looked away solemly. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“You’re…growing old, aren’t you?” asked Claire, her voice cracking. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this soon.”

“I know,” replied Peter quietly. He looked her in the eyes. “But it’ll be fine. I promise.”

Claire didn’t respond. Instead, she got out of bed and wrapped herself in a bath robe. Before she left the room, she gazed back at Peter forlornly.

“That’s not a promise that you can keep.”

Over the next two weeks, Peter’s form got weaker and more ill. He still looked to be in his early fourties, (or late thirties, really, since Peter always had looked young for his age) but his face was flushed of color and it hurt his legs to walk from one side of the apartment to another. All Claire could do was weep when he wasn’t looking. It’s not that she cared about crying in front of him. She just knew he didn’t want pity.

Two Saturdays after that terrible morning, he sat on the couch, watching holographic television. Claire’s stomach twisted as she watched him from across the empty room.

“I’ve heard that there’s this injection you can get.” she announced. “It slows your aging. If you get it, then maybe…”

Peter turned off the TV and stood up. “No,” he breathed. “I don’t want that.”

Claire swallowed, hard. “But…you’re gonna die!” Just saying those four words made her inches away from bursting into tears. “What ever happened to our marriage?”

“What ever happened to dying?” Peter cried. “It IS a part of life!”

Closing her eyes tightly, Claire put head in her hands. Peter kneeled beside her and lifted her chin up with his thumb.

“I can’t live like this. I’m sorry. I can’t...,” he murmered, then wrapped his arms around her shaking frame.

“I’ve got 400 years left!” she exclaimed through sobs. “I’d have to live it all alone…”

A notion that made Peter cringe. He pulled back and stared her hard in the face.

“I do NOT want to leave you,” he sighed. “But we always knew this would come, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, doesn’t make me ready for it,” his love whispered.

“Me neither,” Peter said gently, cupping her cheek in his palm. Then, he smirked at her slightly, in that sheepish way that he always used to. “But remember? I’ve died before. It’s no big deal.”

For the first time in two weeks, Claire smiled too.

That night, Peter made love to his wife for the last time. With every touch and sigh, Claire’s heart broke a little more. He had readied her for what his plans were, for surprising her out of the blue with his suicide would be a heartless thing to do.

“I’m not gonna let you see me waste away,” he explained simply. “I want you to remember me like this.”

There was an indoor pool downstairs. Peter had deduced that this was one of the few ways that regeneration could not bring him back to life. That, and cutting out his brain, but he had no desire to decapitate himself.

Claire fell into slumber after their final intimacy and Peter’s vision blurred with fluid.

“Goodbye, Claire.”

Before he could change his mind, he put on a robe, took one last look at his companion, his other half that he was leaving behind, grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills, and headed out the door front door.

Claire heard the door slam and jolted awake. “Peter?”

When she heard no reply, she threw on her thin white nightie and ran after him.

The bottle of pills said that it would take three minutes, and the user would fall fast asleep (medicine had come a long way over the past few decades). Peter had taken a handful on the way down the stairs, and his eyelids were already beginning to droop.

How peaceful the swimming pool looked. It was reflecting the light off the ceiling while a hollowy sound filled the concrete room. Yet rumor said that drowning is one of the most tortuous ways to die…

The metal door crashed open, interrupting the moment of tranquility, and a slender woman ran over to him.

Peter looked up at Claire and shook his head. “Go back to bed…you don’t wanna be here when it happens…”

She ripped the bottle of sleeping meds out of his hand and popped the lid open.

“I’m going with you,” Claire retorted sternly. She tried to swallow a handful of the tablets, but Peter held her hands down and the bottle dropped.

“No!” he choked. “I won’t let you! You’ve still got a life to live!”

“With nothing to live for!” she shouted back.

They stood there, staring at each other, and Peter finally understood. If he had to live for four hundred years in utter solitude without Claire…there was no worse torture. He released his grip on her wrists.

“Are you sure?” asked Peter, plainly.

Claire kissed him warmly in reply. As they stood in bliss, Peter felt the sleeping pills working even harder, and he fell backwards into the pool, pulling Claire with him.

Through the liquid darkness, all Claire could see was her spouse’s handsome face.

“I love you,” he mouthed, bubbles escaping from his lips. His eyes closed and he wafted down to the bottom of the pool.

Claire blew all of the air out of her lungs until she was at the bottom with him. She lay on top of his body, head buried in his chest, and he enveloped her in his strong arms. Her tiny nightie stuck to her frame, giving her the appearance of a calm princess. After a few seconds, Peter’s grip loosened and no more air escaped from his mouth.

Black crept into Claire’s eyesight and she didn’t try to fight it. Giving her lifeless husband one last amorous glance, she fell into eternal sleep and joined him in paradise.

A/N Awwww! I almost cried while writing this. It’s pure unrealistic fluff, but still. So sad. Imagine having to live like that…knowing that the only person you have left in the world…THE love of your life is about to die…*sigh* This is my first angst fic, and it really wasn’t all that angsty, I guess. It could get a lot worse. But I wanted to balance the war and the peace, you know? Anyway.

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