It was cold. So icy cold.

The stillness of the night wrapped itself around your shoulders like a cloak of death and made you shiver. Kurt held you tightly in his arms, his eyes fixed on the target.

Your eyes jumped around the lounge.

"Let me have a drink.", you begged him.

He didn't move, just walked past the bar. You tried to free yourself from his embrace. He refused, his grip on your waist tightening so much that you could feel his fingers pressing into your soft flesh.

A sharp chill chased through your bones. You winced.

"We're going to sleep now.", he said, and stepped into the lift.

For the last time, you looked at the bar, the bottles of alcohol that promised a few hours of sweet oblivion.

Silence filled the small room. The light was dimmed because of the night, soft without hurting your eyes.

Gravity pulled you down to the floor by your spine, but Kurt held you tightly in his arms. It felt like you were heavier than all the legacy you had created in Dogtown.

Gold born from ashes. Order made of chaos. And it was all in your hands. Kurt's and yours. You couldn't lose your mind now. Not after you had achieved so much, risked so much and invested even more.

Everything that was made of blood, sweat and tears. If you gave up now, if you gave in to fear, it would only be pain in vain.

And Myers would win. The horrible thing about a killswitch wasn't the leash that tightened around your neck every day. It was the knowledge that it could be over at any second.

Every breath could be your last. Every night the last stars you would see.

Your eyes fell on the two small, shiny plates of silver metal that hung around Kurt's neck. There weren't many things he had brought with him from the past, but this was one of them.

Not because he was proud to have served under Myers, but because it marked him as a veteran. It was a trophy he had hung around his neck to show off to everyone.

And it had attracted others, veterans, off-duty soldiers, deserters. That alone had made Dogtown such a stronghold for the militia. The Barghest breathed, slept and ate like obedient soldiers.

And they defended the borders against everything and everyone. Even against Netwatch.

With a shaky breath, you reached out for the silver sparking dog tags and closed your fingers around them.

He noticed the slight tremor pressing on the back of his neck. His eyes looked at you from above.

"I don't want your pity.", you growled between clenched teeth.

He had never seen you in such a fragile state before. You had always met him with a smile, a tongue as sharp as your fingernails.

You no longer felt like yourself, but like a puppet of the NUSA. A bomb that could explode at any moment.

"I don't pity you.", Kurt carried you light-footedly out of the lift, over to the bed and laid you carefully on the soft mattress.

You clutched his dog tag tightly. He was forced to bend over to meet your gaze.

"And I don't want you to be disgusted by me either. Don't look at me as a weakness.", your eyes narrowed and for a second there was a flash of pain in them.

You didn't want to be a burden for him. At the same time, you wanted him to continue to adore you as before.

His chest rose and fell gently. Your fingers twitched, wanted to stroke through his little hair, trace his muscles until he just trembled beneath you.

"You found me then, bleeding, half dead and without an arm.", his left hand moved, made of black chrome. "You could have erased the weakness. Let the dog fall asleep. But you didn't."

You frowned in confusion. Now, years later, his words sounded so surreal. Back then, it would have suited you very well to give an injured soldier the coup de grace, to kill him so that he would no longer suffer.

But now, in the warmth of your familiar home, it seemed like a macabre joke. If it came today, you weren't sure if you would even be able to kill him. Not because you couldn't, but because you didn't want to.

Never.

"I saw potential.", the words were just a logical escape from the truth.

Because the truth was that you had felt far too much for him back then to just let him die. A smile twitched at the corners of his thin lips.

Lovingly, he caressed your cheek with his fingers.

"Potential grows and shrinks.", when you still wouldn't let go of his dog tags he lay down in bed with you. "I play the long game. The situation will improve. I can wait."

"I can't.", for the first time that night the truth came over your lipoen, raw and unchanged.

Fear gleamed in your eyes as your hand lifted to reach for his cheek. The cut felt rough under your fingers. A fine sheen of blood remained on your thumb.

"We have time.", he assured me.

There was no doubt in his voice, not in the white of his eyes, not on the face you loved so much. And yet you couldn't help but doubt.

"I don't.", you gasped, feeling like you were suffocating. "Every night when we go to sleep I fear that I will not wake up."

"So you walk through the night?"

A glimmer flickered in your eyes.

"Yes. I can't sleep, so I'm awake. Maybe... if my minda on edge, then I can control the block. Locking out Myer's influence."

"Your block has lasted for years. It will continue. We have time."

"You have time, Kurt. You've had seven years and you'll have seven more, and seven more after that. What about me?", despair choked your throat. "What if these seven years we've had are all I'm going to have? What if I have weeks left? Days? Hours."

"(Y/N).", he kissed your forehead.

"I wasted a month with Cynosure and didn't get any closer. One more month that Myers had time to reach me, to overwrite the system. I'm losing the sense of time... Everything is a race. And there isn't even a prize. Either I run. Or I die."

A shadow crossed his face. Then he kissed you so gently that your breath shuddered.

"Sleep.", he said quietly. "And tomorrow I'll do what I can."