He loves them. He loves both of them so much that it almost breaks his heart in half from simply the joy of loving anyone at all this much, this intensely, this constantly.

It makes waiting for them an absolute agony. It makes the way they invariably stumble into his safe, quiet little rooms dig barbs into his heart. It means that he's up almost before they're through the door fully, locking it safely behind them so he can drop down where both of them can be clung to. Where he can see them both breathing and feel it reverberate through his body as he does.

And it makes it feel like bursting to the surface after holding one's breath too long to hear her speak about ending it--ending this, the last genuinely fractured thing keeping the two of them so far from him. True, they'll always be bound in a different way. They'll always walk with a different shadow over them. That's fine. That's part of them.

It's just that the blood on Rachel's skin and clothes shouldn't be there. The pain in Elliot's throat shouldn't be there. That wasn't part of them. That was someone else leaving fingerprints where he shouldn't.

"We'll find a way." It's important to murmur now, his own voice tight from only nerves. "For all of you. All of you."

But starting with Rachel. Starting with Elliot.