Nearly five years at Kol's stone palace.

That's what she had told him.

PhaHks sighed deeply. There was no pool here to soothe the throbbing or the stiffness of his right arm.

Six months since that delightful encounter with the knife and his arm still ached at night and moved like sloth. But at least he was allowed to walk freely where he liked now (not outside of course), and do pretty much what he pleased whenever Hellbitch didn't require his presence.

Like at their shared meals. (He would have preferred to eat alone but then it made no difference anyway. His preferences were never discussed).

Or when she got hot and bothered and desired his flesh, (just about ALL the time lately). But his preferences for when and how often they screwed was, again, not a consideration.

Today he was lonely and bored, bored, bored! Mostly lonely.

He'd already taken a run for the second time down the long, cool corridors. This place didn't have any "Great Hall" to use as a track.

Now the day was only half over and he'd already run out of ideas on how to kill the rest of it. So it was a rare occassion that PhaHks winded his way through Kol's hallways and found himself knocking on Hellbitch's door.

Nobody home.

But she'd left the door wide so he wandered in and looked around. There was nothing to see that he hadn't seen before. Not since she'd finally allowed him to return to his own room to sleep at night after he was healed up.

He would never admit to missing sleeping next to her warm body, but at least he'd been provided with a decent bed and not just a goddamn *ledge*!

One thing was different. When he came the rest of the way in, he saw it.

The computer screen had been left on.

Hell bitch had never, ever allowed him use of a computer. She had explained that he would be unable to read the language anyway.

He'd requested that she teach him.

She had said that the information would be mostly incomprehensible to him.

He'd suggested that she only allow him access to the pictures then, please. At least those!.

She had grown very angry.

He had dropped the subject altogether.

Not once in all the time he'd been with her had he used one of her computer terminals. She always turned them off. She always locked him out.

So this was Christmas!

Checking the door, PhaHks sat down immediately.

Surreptitiously looking over her shoulder all those years, PhaHks had learned a few things. Like how to turn the damn things on and off, that is, which control did it. And how to screen advance/retreat and which button did that.

PhaHks looked at the rest of the symbols on the control pad in front of him (no keyboard, even, just a flat, backlit control panel. Goddamn serious high tech' shit). The markings were a complete fucking mystery.

He played around with a couple other controls but they seemed to do nothing. And, not wanting to leave any sign that he'd been screwing around with her private computer, he settled for what he did know and advanced the screen by one.

It did not scroll by, like what he was used to. It would switch from one screen to the next, like channels. Like television he figured, but this stuff obviously wasn't filmed or even live.

The first dozen or so screens were more rows and rows of what looked to him like Hebrew-Chinese.

The one after that was grafts and schematics of who-the-fuck-knew. And the next one was...

PhaHks stared and stared. Stared some more until his eyes dried out. A big, round, black pupils stare.

A picture of a woman and a man. Well, not exactly "pictures", more like computer- generated representations of them. But good ones: full-bodied nudes. And - jesus! - they were beautiful. The woman anyway.

The next screen he couldn't figure out at first. Red, white and purple...

...body parts. Medical shit.

He retreated the screen. Wanted to see Miss Centerfold again.

But then he went back. The body parts were really real looking. They looked like...

PhaHks advanced another screen. Then two, then three, four, five, six...

Two human beings under the process of dissection. Like someone had kept a visual record of the categorization, labeling and preservation. The pieces being sprayed in some sort of polymer resin. The quick-dry variety.

Little sculptures of people meat.

Grafts, blueprints,.. screens of chemical formulas. Some he actually recognized.

Then screen after screen of:

Eyeballs (and diagrams),

Brain sections (schematics),

Hearts (graphs),

Livers and kidneys (more formulas),

Sinews, bones and muscle, bisected lungs.

But the *piece-de-resistance* was the paperweight Embryo.

Tiny, curled up little blind human who would never see mom and dad.

PhaHks was shaking, bile threatening to announce itself all over Hell bitch's private terminal.

That night, when she showed herself for the purpose of fucking him, he sprayed acidic puke all over her yellow tits just as he came.

**

Veexow cleaned herself off in her pressure shower, concerned over PhaHks' sudden illness. He hadn't mentioned feeling unwell (though he had looked a trifle pale), nor had he said much afterward.

Over the following day or two, he would experience no more attacks of vomiting that she knew of, yet would remain sullen and withdrawn.

***

When she approached Kol's sleep chamber, DhraH'Ken was there, just exiting.

Her intention was to ignore him until he stopped her hand on the door panel by grasping her wrist.

"How is he?" she asked.

"I am his Sworn-One, not his nurse."

"Then I shall see him."

DhraH'Ken, however, did not relinquish her hand.

"When I heard you had arrived on Kol'keK, I decided to come and kill you."

She stared back defiantly. Two old fierce warriors eyed each other like beasts in the arena.

"How-" She jerked her arm and he let her hand free "-did you know I was coming?".

"I am a warrior, I knew, that is all. I knew you would come here to hide your human toy."

Her smile was contemptuous. "Was that all, the reason of a warrior? Did you come here only to restore honor to Kol?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because if I learn it was for any other reason, other than for the sake of Kol's honor and good name, If I learn you have pledged yourself to him under a lie just to get to me, I will kill you myself."

"Courageous words for an Unwanted. No, killing the human was enough. My honor is intact and I have fulfilled my vow to Kol,.."

DhraH'Ken exposed his forearm to her. It bore a fresh knife cut and was oozing purple blood.

"..And now he has fulfilled his to me."

Veexow looked upon the wound, her blood running cold because of its implications. DhraH'Ken was now Kol's heir, as good as next of kin. Kol's name, if not his blood line, would continue.

"Kol is dying? I must see him."

"See him or do not, I do not care. But when he has crossed over the River of Blood, Kol'keK will be mine."

Talk of Kol's death disturbed her for many reasons, not least of which the safety of PhaHks, despite DhraH'Ken's words.

"You have seen to events well, DhraH'Ken. You should have been a Romulan."

"And you have caused your own destruction because you allow your passions to dictate your fate instead of honor or reason. You would have made an excellent human."

It was his best insult and he left her there.

Veexow entered Kol's quarters. The decor was a Warrior's taste. Uncomfortable chairs, battle art, the inevitable blades adorning one black stone wall.

It was powerful and dark and fierce looking. Not at all like Kol himself.

He was sitting up in bed (his bed was anything but a metal shelf), a large square affair, thick and comfortable and buried in skin blankets and fur. Kol himself was nearly buried.

"I came to see how you are feeling." Veexow moved to sit beside him. Kol's fever had not run its course. His color was darker than usual.

"I'm old." he said.

Veexow took his hand. She still felt the old warmth that had once fired their passions. It had dwindled to coals but it was a good feeling still.

"You should have told me Kol."

"I thought he would have forgotten all that Veexow."

"I meant your health but, no, Klingon warriors do not forget or forgive so easily."

"He was just a boy."

"A boy learning to be a warrior aboard his fathers ship. A ship for which I gave the order for destruction."

Kol was a priest, she thought, he would not have considered such things. Would not have counted on the long memory and heart of vengeance inherent in the warrior class.

Having commanded a vessel and ordering the deaths of many over decades of service in the Romulan Fleet, she had come to understand that she was more a warrior than Kol.

Kol shifted uncomfortably, "PhaHks is dead in DhraH'Ken's eyes. He will not touch either of you now."

"I do not share your optimism. DhraH'Ken's father died because of me. How can we stay here now, PhaHks and I? How can I be certain DhraH'Ken will keep his word and not harm him?"

"Because as long as I am alive, DhraH'Ken will do nothing to dishonor me. He is a *warrior*, Veexow."

Veexow did not address the question of how long a life Kol was to have. He did not look well at all and it pained her to see it.

"You never told me why you left, you know." she said.

Kol seemed a trifle surprised at the question, and shifted to a higher, more comfortable position.

"How could I? You were to be a Commander in the Imperial Fleet. What was I but a priest. And one about to be expelled from the order because of the unforgivable act of wanting to take as mate a Romulan woman. In those days, it was un- heard of."

She knew all this. "I suppose I was foolish to think we could have been together." she admitted.

"We were young and foolish in matters of love. Well, YOU were young, I was just foolish."

"Was that the only reason, Kol, or was I the reason you left? Had we been able to mate, would you have made the Call?"

She was referring to the Klingon warriors way. The Call of Mating, a vocal display. The public vow.

Kol looked sideways at her, cleared his throat. "You were everything I would never be, Veexow. Powerful, influential. I don't know that I could have lived under the shadow of so great a female."

He was trying to be tender. Veexow nodded. He would not have stayed. "It was me, then." she answered. "Tell me why."

Kol frowned. "Oh, you wish to keep him. This is about the human again." He was insulted.

"No, this is about me. What is it about me that drove you away?"

"You are beautiful and intelligent, Veexow. You also have the fierce passion of a Klingon woman - there - I have paid you a great compliment."

She smiled. Coming from a Klingon male, it was.

"But you are ambitious and though you claimed to have loved and respected me, I doubt you would have been content spending the rest of your life with a man you couldn't wholly dominate."

She dropped her eyes at shared memories, but she was not sad. "We did have some glorious battles, didn't we?"

"Yes."

"What is this illness, Kol?"

He was unprepared for the change of topic.

"It is nothing unusual for a Klingon my age who has overindulged in the best things."

Meaning drink.

Veexow searched his eyes. "You are an exceptional Klingon, Kol. I did love you, you know."

He was embarrassed and dealt with it Klingon fashion. "You'd better go be with that human before he thinks you've come back to me."

Veexow kissed him once, on the lips, lingering. "I remember that."

She didn't leave. "Kol, about DhraH'Ken..."

"Do not worry about him. As far as he is concerned, the human is dead. The fact that Doctor saved his life is of no consequence to a warrior." He maneuvered himself to a flat position again. "Now there is a creature who will never leave you. That Romulan has no ambition what-so-ever."

Veexow eyed him affectionately. Kol had always been jealous of Rhengar.

"Will you be all right?"

He knew she meant his illness and he replied in philosophical standard.

"If death came to call, who am I that it should turn away?"

Politely, she said no more. Kol must be allowed to retain his Klingon pride in the face of his impending end.

She left him to rest.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- **

Two evenings later, at their customary dinner together, PhaHks had returned from his run lathered in sweat, his hands shaking with fatigue as he took his seat to her right.

He had sat reluctantly. By his smell he hadn't even bothered to bath before joining her, something she usually insisted upon.

After the meal was placed before them, the minutes passed and his remained untouched.

She spoke. Words left her mouth, ricocheted off the walls and never made it to his hearing.

"There is no more need to worry. DhrAh'Ken is a warrior and Kol does not question his motives. Kol has no status in the Empire, so being the Sworn-One of an ex-priest, though hardly a duty that would bring one to Honor, is a respected post. Priests are considered sacred, even to the warrior class."

PhaHks had never tried to understand all the talk of honor and Swearing one- self to another (though he comprehended the concepts), but neither had he much cared. As long as the thorny-dicked psycho rapist kept his attention on the old, pickled "cling-un" priest and not on him.

At the pictures in his head, his chest tightened

*Bleeding, fire-eaten ass cheeks. Broken ribs.*

Veexow ceased talking abruptly, and now appeared lost in thought. She did not look at him and it was out of character.

*Sharp teeth grinding his fate into his ear.*

PhaHks hadn't seen the old priest for several days. Wondered absently if he was sick.

*Finger-bruised throat.*

Still couldn't bring himself to ask after the health of a "cling-un" who, whenever he saw PhaHks, bared brown teeth and rolled bloodshot eyes in disbelief.

*Sliced open abdomen, numbed thigh, knife embedded in a slick-wet shoulder.*

Could not make his arm stretch that few icy inches of table space to take her hand in sympathy, as she started to slowly consume her meal.

Hell bitch had carved out slice after slice of his soul. DhraH'Ken had taken another portion. Even Rhengar, with his gentle ways, had extracted his piece.

*Rape. Monster semen leaking out of him.*

Satisfaction, not sympathy, was nearer the mark; if Kol was sick, maybe she was finally experiencing a bit of the raw mourning he felt every hour of the day. It was a kind of victory.

PhaHks. Veexow. Lovers encased, each separately within their favorite armor, neither touching the other.

Then "PhaHks, you're not eating." It was practiced phrasing born of years observing the human.

His breathing had not slowed very much. Then.

One breath.

He shook his head. Defeated motion of the hopeless.

PhaHks only tried to get air and nothing else.

Two breaths. Held then released. As though the rooms air had become toxic, afraid to inhale. All other parts of him were motionless.

Veexow stared at her human mate. Nothing else.

Because he was like an open circuit. Touch him only at great risk.

He was a quantum explosive. Get too close and he would detonate.

And now this thick, coiled silence.

His lips parted. A long, even exhalation.

"I can't take anymore." Quietly said, perfunctorily delivered. Nothing to do with food.

She sighed. *At last*. "Well, you must eat. I am concerned. Now that we have grown closer..."

He laughed out loud. Two ill-humored barks.

Ignoring it, Veexow straightened her shoulders. "Kol has died..."

He looked at her once. Turned away. Knew what was coming.

"...and we will have to leave Kol'keK."

Wrapping his arms around himself he was blind to her grief over Kol as his own stepped forward to gulp him down whole.

Veexow had seen this reaction before as his eyes squeezed shut and his breaths became great straining billows. He shook from the force of trying not to shake, trying to stop the panic and the "fight or flight" reaction (which is what he had once called it).

"What is it?" She wanted to keep him talking before he shut her out completely. Her own heartache was momentarily set aside.

He cared no more. "Nothing."

Another place, another "new" life. Another series of "adjustments", another set of rules. More chains on his feet, more bars on the door.

*Screens and screens of human body parts, all shiny-coated in grotesquely naked patterns. Frozen for all time to be viewed with scientific detachment. Human curios.*

"Do you need something? Water?"

Christ! she was actually trying to be helpful.

*Awesome goddamn timing, Bitch*, his mind screamed, and tears rolled down parchment skin over cheekbones, *You're one rape and a couple of fucking hundred beatings too late*.

Aloud. "No, I want-" He was shaking so bad, his voice choked.

"What? What do you want?" She didn't want to deal with this right now. She wanted peace and time to grieve over Kol. Good, misguided, drunken, wonderful KOL!

PhaHks heard the irritation in her voice. Hell bitch's good graces never did last long.

"I want to go home." Words he hadn't said in years. Minutes since he'd thought them.

She kept it simple and neutral. It was his sensitive spot and more harshness might sink him into another human depression for more weeks.

"You know that's impossible, PhaHks."

He cried harder, wrapping his arms around his body, eyes squeezed shut to halt tears that wouldn't halt, trying to implode.

Then suddenly, consequences be damned, she was shouting.

"I saved your life! Isn't that worth something?!" Kol was dead. PhaHks was alive, safe but hating her. Hating her!

His forehead was on the table, his crying silent and painful. But he managed a squeak.

"Looks like...it's worth *every*thing."

"This is how things are. It is how they'll be tomorrow. These episodes are growing tiresome..."

He screwed a one-eyed look up at her as she sat, regally marching out the Law.

His Governess.

His Disciplinarian.

His Rapist and Seducer.

His Zoo-Keeper.

Here he was sitting down with her to fucking *dinner*!, listening as she spelled it all out. As she laid down the fucking facts of life.

My Years With Hell bitch. For *years* he had even let her FUCK him. He was as crazy as she was.

Fuck. It was a best seller!

Bitch.

"...It is your life now, though you may not understand..." she talked on...

Whore.

Liar!

He hated her. He hated her so much.

Cruel, goddamn fucking vindictive baby killer!

Does she think I'm stupid?

Bone-marrow rotten bitch! Does she think I'm some kind of pathetic breed? Fucking crippled puppy trained to yelp or whizz on command?

Fuck *ALL* of it!

Suddenly he was launching his plate of food in her direction, showering her in chunky mush. Slimed her with what in seconds had transformed into just another putrid serving of his life.

Veexow had felt something ripple through the air of the room directly before she found herself dripping in food. It'd been rather like the crackle of a lightening bolt before it hits, charging everything, tingles shooting across her skin.

A clear warning of danger but coming too late to avoid it.

The plate bounced off the side of her head with a resounding *THUNK*!

The heavy table was next and PhaHks sent it crashing over in an adrenalin charged rush that surprised even him.

"Don't you think I know?! Don't you think I know where I am?! I know where the fuck I am!! Don't you think I know what you are, you bitch?! I know you, you Hole! I hate you! I hate your fucking guts!-"

Salt water sprayed from his eyes like two fountains.

"This...*stuff*. This SHIT! I can't fucking DO this anymore, I can't, I can't, I-just-fucking- can't-I-CAN'T!-FUCK!-"

Veexow, all other matters at hand forgotten, watched PhaHks as his frantic hands raked his hair over and over, feet circling, the spirals growing tighter.

She stared, too stunned to move for a moment as PhaHks orbited himself.

Faster and faster, like he was winding down and down into nothingness. PhaHks had collided with a mental black hole and was being eaten alive by it, getting smaller and smaller until he would disappear in a burst of anti-matter.

He stopped long enough to look at her, trembling with rage.

"-I fucking hate this! I hate this! I hate this goddamn shit! I hate you, you FUCK! YOU slut!, You pig! You ugly, stinking, fucking alien Queen Bee! FUCKTHISFUCKYOUFUCKYOU!!"

PhaHks' face was scrunched in torment. Twisted. Crying. Hysterical.

Veexow had to stop him. She had to calm him down before he hurt himself. Before DhraH'Ken used this as a reason to have PhaHks caged or worse.

He'd been angry before, shouted before, used his human expletives on her before, but she had never seen him like,..like *this*!

In two moves, Veexow got hold of him, one hand on his upper arm and the other on his throat - not to squeeze - but to quiet. To silence his screams. To control.

He fought wildly, kicking and hitting with his one free arm, teeth clenched and wild-eyed.

She forced silence by pressing thumb to voice box, just enough to cut his voice but not enough to bruise. It had worked before. Calm him. Placate him.

Control, comfort, convince.

Forcing him against the wall to still him, she pressed her whole body to his, ready to ride out whatever had set him off. He was trembling in fury and then.

He was not. He sagged, instantly, as if her touch had somehow exorcized his demons.

Veexow didn't have to calm him.

PhaHks went limp except for his accelerated respirations. He leaned his head back and exposed his throat, that sweet, delectable tissue upon which she had sucked, waiting.

Closing his eyes, it was his invitation for her hand to tighten.

Veexow caught her breath at the unmistakable meaning. PhaHks wanted her to crush the life out of him. Push in that jutting, male larynx and snap vertebrae.

She immediately let go and stepped back a good meter and when PhaHks felt her touch leave, his eyes opened.

Two sad visions watched each other. Black eyes looked to hazel and were stunned by their vacancy.

Eyes were a window to the soul, PhaHks had said to her. Once. A long time ago.

Those were rarities, where he would express a private thought, share an opinion, open up the tiniest bit and set something free that wasn't stained in anger, hatred or fear.

PhaHks jewels, few and treasured.

He'd even complimented her once. Had told her (after a particularly satisfying afternoon of lovemaking) that he thought she was "sort of pretty".

Those things, those times, she suddenly realized, were ending here in the space of a terrible minute.

Veexow was not certain how or why or where it had begun, but together they had reached a critical mass. Meltdown.

PhaHks' eyes pleaded. He was reaching out to something Veexow didn't believe was present in the room.

He was asking for something...help? Hope?

She did not touch him again, alarmed. Then

He broke.

PhaHks collapsed forward like he had been severed at the waist. Horrible, strangled sobs and he was falling to the floor.

He had made his request and she had declined.

Nothing. Left.

Veexow stopped his fall and he fought her again, feebly. Stopped struggling when her unconditional strength made it clear that it was useless. She relaxed her grip on him, only to have him sway unsteadily without her stronghold. Quickly placing her arms again around his back, he steadied.

Frozen immobility.

Both of them frightened by what was happening.

She, by his physical tremors and defeated countenance, by his grey face and blood- reddened orbis's.

He, she thought, perhaps afraid of everything. Of her and her touch. Of no touch. Of living. Of dying.

Of dying here.

He didn't move. And no amount of her clutching stilled the trembling in his limbs or the quick, shallow breaths in between the deep gulped-back sobs that even she had to strain to hear.

Even now he was struggling for control, if not over her, then over himself.

But the shaking of him and what she realized was some profound grief, seen with her eyes and confirmed by telepathy, stilled her actions.

She simply did not know what to do.

Whatever it was, Rhengar's useful injections would not cure it.

"I'm dying."

She quit breathing.

Yesterday, (longer?), he was alive and vibrant. Not happy perhaps but content. Content!

Now,...now dying? Dying because...

His proud voice had sounded strangled and weak.

Held him tighter, petted his hair. Somehow it had to end this. In the past, it had succeeded.

Comfort. Control. Convince.

He whimpered and - gods - it sounded like she was hurting him instead.

Impossible.

Could think of nothing better but rubbing his back.

"Ihateallv'thisss..." His words were strung together and inarticulate.

"What?" She asked softly.

He was breakable, she knew, but this was something new and alien. He seemed as fragile as cobsilk. The touch of a finger and he would tear in half.

His face was ashen when she tilted his head back to look at him. The eyes sunken, the veined whites glazed.

It was a sickness. Must be.

PhaHks focused on her, frowning as if she had just appeared out of vapor and had not been standing there holding him vertical. Then he let his head fall to her shoulder and made noises.

Words. Painful sounding confessions for which there was no penance.

She felt them pass through the fabric of her wrap and enter her. The words were his ending and they exploded in her heart.

"Icandothisssnymooore..."

She felt him jerk as sobs rose up from some previously untapped reserve of sorrow. It was painful to feel him shaking inside her arms, the hacks near pulling him apart, clogging his respiratory system.

"I'vvvelosteverythiiiing..." he cried softly.

Veexow felt a strange sensation travel through her abdomen, Nameless Fear.

Fear for what was happening to PhaHks. Fear for her lack of ability to do anything about it.

His cool body was warming under her, which meant he was fevering.

His hair felt soft under her stroking. His skin was smooth and eatable, but...

...she sniffed him...

...he smelled different.

PhaHks had many smells that she recognized. His sweat after he'd gone for his daily run. His clean hair after a mineral swim. His sex after a night of coupling. The sea saltiness of his tears and the pungent reek of his vomit during one his frequent bouts of seemingly incurable stomach illness.

But this odor that swirled around her nostrils, this was unknown.

It was the smell of sickness, yes, but other.

It was stronger, coming from the whole of him, welling up from his deepest tissues. The smell was blood tainted with disease holding the flavor of rot.

Unhealthy, dangerous smell. It frightened her. Scared for him.

She had seen PhaHks enter emotional episodes where he would suddenly become morose for long periods. Teary-eyed, non-communicative, he'd stay awake for days, forsaking sleep and food until she was forced to threaten him into eating and resting; that he would be forced to do both through drugs if necessary.

These states of human instability would eventually pass, with or without her intervention.

Moody creature.

But he had appeared to adapt well to his life with her, although he still argued every decision she made concerning him. And he had still fought her with angry words and the occasional escape to the hills back on Romulus or running the farthest corners of Kol's moon-based home now. Did so whenever things in this life became too much for him; the life he was forced to live; the life she had created.

But how could so adaptable a creature also be so frail?

A Romulan under the same circumstances would have committed suicide almost immediately. Not due to emotional self-torture, but through simple logic.

Unacceptable state. Leave.

Leave even if it meant self-murder.

But PhaHks had stayed. Learned. Accepted. Kept on despite the invisible prison which she knew is how he thought of this life.

Strength was there in PhaHks.

Extraordinary, that the universe would see fit to place such an indomitable spirit inside such a fragile shell. Only to incorporate that spirit with its own fragility.

Human. Red creatures that struggled against impossibilities for survival only to, in the end, crumble under their own weaknesses.

And then a second irony.

They, not completely succumbing, continued the fight despite themselves. Creatures that risked certain death to remain unfettered.

A species that still lived, even in her time, under the instinct for freedom.

Confinement, even for PhaHks who had ceased looking for escape years before, was a daily test. Though he did not wear any chains, he struggled with his "prison", always.

Before he'd given up, once he had nearly died from exposure to the harsh creatures of the Romulan night. The sickness had been a good lesson for him she thought.

Trying to be free, he had come close to killing himself. Nearly died trying to live.

Illogical, ironic, unfathomable creature.

He defied understanding.

Veexow slowly, gently, guided PhaHks over to her bed and laid him down on it. Quickly locating her small supply of drugs (though it had been some time since she'd had cause to use them on him), pressured in a swift injection through the fabric of his shirt.

In a few seconds, his breathing evened out and he slept peacefully.

Impulsively she lay down with him, draping her one leg and arm across his legs and torso, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest. The silent rest of his sleep.

Somehow, she would bring that kind of peace into his waking life.

She would.

For him.