Bo placed gentle kisses on my head while we both struggled to fend off the sobs threatening to break free. I didn’t want her to cry. I wanted us to have good memories, no matter how impossible that would be. I knew that no matter how hard we tried, she would always be left with a lasting painful one, my last breath. I closed my eyes, basking in the warmth of her love and the soothing feel of her fingers running through my hair until I fell asleep in her arms to dream of better days.

I slowly awakened, lying with eyes half open and dwelling on my greatest failure. It made my heart ache every day. I never told Bo that I had searched relentlessly for the last forty or so years to find a cure for my own humanity. I had cured plagues and diseases, save countless lives, prevented wars, but couldn’t save myself. I had thought Taft had the answer, but long term trials proved fatal within months after the transition. I was just a human and while that may be one of the things that Bo loved about me, it had always been my greatest weakness. The one thing that would bring our life together to an early end.

It was suddenly all so clear why the Fae had looked down upon humans as weak and unworthy. If only I were Fae. I cursed the fact daily that with all of the mystical, magical crap that existed in the Fae world, I could never find a way to truly become one. Not with a curse, or a wish, or my research, nothing. There was no cure for being human. There would be no several hundred year lifespan with the woman I loved more than my own life. Now that life was coming to an end and sadly, I actually wished it to end after all the pain and suffering I had endured. Not just physical pain, but the mental pain of my failure and from watching Bo suffer helplessly as I slowly died. Bo didn’t know that I would sometimes see her crying, or looking solemnly as she sat in the chair by my side. She tried hard to conceal her pain, never wanting me to see anything besides a smile and love.