"Why haven't you left?"

Edgar was doing something small and unimportant in the kitchen, cleaning or something. Johnny couldn't tell. He had his back to him, and he didn't turn around.

"What?"

"Why haven't you left? After all this time..." Johnny looked at the carpet, let his hand hang over the edge of the couch. "You're not afraid."

Wasn't sure if he meant about the idea of change, or of death itself. Both. He was sure Edgar would know he meant both. He intended to say it that way.

Edgar looked over his shoulder back at him, smiled softly. "No, I guess I'm not."

"Why not?"

"Well..." He turned back to whatever he was doing. "There's no point in being afraid all the time...fear just holds you back. I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't be afraid, not if it wouldn't help me."

"But being afraid here would help you." Johnny looked at him curiously, knowing that Edgar would know what expression he had, even if he didn't turn around. "You'd escape death, wouldn't you?"

Fear lets you know you're alive.

That's right. "Besides, without fear, you would never feel really alive. That final awareness...remember?"

"I remember." Edgar put a spoon down on the kitchen counter. Maybe he was cooking. "But you can't feel that way all the time."

"Why would you feel that way all the time?"

Edgar was silent for a few minutes.

"Do you like dark or light chocolate?"

Johnny narrowed his eyes, and Edgar didn't turn around, not that that was important. "Why?"

"I just want to know what kind of chocolate chips to put in this. I have both. If you have a preference..."

"Are you changing the subject?" Johnny's voice darkened with suspicion, followed by its close friend anger. "I don't like it when people do that."

A few seconds.

"Mmm." An acknowledging sound. He didn't turn around completely, although he turned enough to grab the bag of chocolate chips on the counter.

"Edgar, why would you feel that way?" He had said once long ago that one motive (or interesting concept, they tended to coincide at times) for his capture and near-murder of Edgar was to remind him of the feeling of life and closeness of death, the awareness of himself and his body. If what Edgar was saying was true, was that all pointless? He didn't like thinking of his actions as pointless, particularly back when he felt that they were still somewhat under his control. Not so long ago, it seemed, or maybe it was eternities. Reset, reset, reset.

It was a while before Edgar responded.

"I don't feel afraid anymore."

"That wasn't my question."

"And I probably won't, in the future or otherwise." Edgar's motions stopped for a few seconds, as if he had been poked, and then he continued with whatever it was he was doing. "I'm done with it."

Johnny was having trouble remembering his original question, but he knew that Edgar wasn't answering it. "When have you felt that same kind of fear, before? What do you mean? You've felt afraid before you met me? Why?"

Edgar paused again, looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds.

"I have my faith, you know that."

"That's not all, is it?"

He looked back down. "It helps me deal with a lot of things. Death, for one thing. I'm not afraid of death, not anymore."

Johnny sat up on his knees on the couch cushion, let his hands dig into the back. "Then when were you, Edgar? #%$@, is this that hard of a question?"

Edgar took whatever it was he was mixing, a bowl it looked like, and poured it out into the small tin beside where he was standing. A muffin tin? Probably. He slid it into the oven, shut the door, and he finally turned around to look at Johnny completely. He kept eye contact as he unrolled one of his long sleeves, let it fall back down around his wrist.

"How long have you been killing people?"

Johnny blinked for a few seconds, tilted his head. "I can't remember how long. As far back as I can remember. $%@#, maybe even when I was a kid. I don't know. Why?"

Edgar kept staring at him, and his expression remained entirely neutral. "How long do you think you'll live?"

A bit of a harder question. Johnny let his arms relax, let one rest on the back of the couch and the other support his chin as he leaned forward. "Well, considering how many times I've tried to kill myself...not long. Depends on how I feel that day."

"Hmm." Edgar unrolled his other sleeve, looked at his hands then went back to the sink. "What time is it?"

"Don't you have a watch?"

"I guess I could get one from the bedroom." He began washing his hands. "Fifteen minutes should do it."

Johnny thought about what Edgar had asked him, turned it around. Could be interesting. "How long do you think you'll live?"

Edgar kept his hands beneath the water, didn't move.

"I mean, if you hadn't met me and all."

It took another minute before Edgar said anything, resumed actually washing his hands.

"There you have it. Are you afraid of death?"

What was this, question pingpong? Johnny rolled his eyes, annoyed. "Of course not."

"Why not?"

"I deal with it everyday." This was so obvious. Why even ask? "#$^#, it's better than living on some days. Or seems that way, anyway."

"I'm not afraid of death either."

"Yeah, I know that already-"

"Did you ever wonder why I have my faith?"

"Not really." Johnny never understood religion, not as others could. No God could have created this world, unless they had a sick sense of humor. And while maybe Johnny had seen the afterlife, that God just seemed lazy, not sadistic.

"I was born into it, sure..." Edgar dried his hands, and then walked through the living room to his bedroom. For the watch, that's right. "But there are other reasons."

This was getting really old. Johnny didn't hide the irritation in his voice. "Like...?"

"Everyone dies...some faster, some slower. Depends on your circumstances, on lots of things. Fair or unfair, it doesn't matter." Edgar came back into the room, fastened his watch around his wrist. "My death was fairly decided, even before I met you."

Johnny stared at him for a few seconds, hard. "...How so?"

"Details are unimportant in the end..." Edgar stared at his watch. He spoke very softly. "I've got a year, if I'm lucky. Maybe a few months, give or take."

"What? What do you mean?" Urgent now. This wasn't right, it was Johnny's decision when and where it HAD to be, otherwise, otherwise he couldn't control it, couldn't keep what he wanted from it. Found he had stood up and was standing in front of Edgar now, staring at him and he was speaking a little louder than he thought he was originally. "What do you mean? Is that when you think I'll-"

Edgar laughed in a soft, humorless way. "No, this isn't about you. Though if it was...there might be a chance, one way or another." He shook his head, still smiling for some reason. "Ah, it doesn't matter."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometime before I met you...I can't remember how long, it's not very important...ever since I met you, time's become more relative. Not that that's a bad thing, considering..." Edgar still kept eye contact. "To keep it short, simple...I'm sick."

"I-"

"Cancer."

He might as well have hit him in the face. "...What?"

"I've been fighting it for a long time." Edgar walked around Johnny, who didn't move or shift his eyes. "List a treatment, I've tried it. There's not much left. Sometime before I met you, that was when they told me that there was nothing left they could do. Delay it, perhaps, but other than that...it was up to me."

"So when I met you..."

"I had my faith." Johnny finally found the sense to turn, and Edgar was in the kitchen checking on the muffins. "It helped me deal with my death before I met you, and when we did meet...it helped me deal with that, too."

"You weren't afraid..." He wasn't sure how to classify how he felt, except it was tangled and cold. "Because you were going to die anyway..."

"We all do, eventually. One way or another. Mine's just come a bit faster than others, that's all." Edgar shut the oven door. "Whether you take that as your fault or mine...doesn't matter, either way."

"And..."

"I've had a lot of time to be afraid." Edgar kept his back to him again, washing something in the sink. "I've had enough of it. That's why I won't leave."

"And..." Tangled and cold and wrapped around his words.

"In a way, living by your code...your belief in perfection, a perfect us, and then that final end...living for you, in a way." Edgar paused, shrugged. "What else is there to live for? Do I have the time to find something else, something supposedly better? How I meet my death is my decision. I learned that some time ago. Whether or not I meet it is out of my hands, but I can decide how. And for you...to live for you, it's something I want to do."

"Why?" There, that was one.

"You believe...I believe I can make a difference. You wouldn't have come this far, let me live this long if you didn't think I could help you, if you didn't think I could be perfect for you. An admirable goal, to be something to someone. Everything to someone. I've had my troubles with long-term relationships...you know, people don't like making connections with people they know will leave." Another humorless laugh. "I understand why they would, it's self-preservation, and I can't fault that, really. Preventing emotional damage and after all...they'd deal with it longer than I would. No, I don't know many people...any people. Family, friends all fade away, one after the other, and I can't say I tried very hard to hang onto them. Even with my faith, it can be hard to want to try."

Johnny sat down on the floor.

"I didn't want to try with you, you know." Edgar turned, leaned back against the oven. "I may as well be honest. I didn't want to get involved...still hanging onto the little life I had left. But you kept at it, one way or another. And that desire to live...after a while, you realize where it comes from and why...or at least, I did. I wanted to help, when I learned more. I saw more, and I found...a purpose. That can change things, in a way. It's not whether but how still, but I found a how."

He couldn't think of anything to say. He was still trying to process, and the tangled thing kept breaking his thoughts apart, refusing to make the right connections.

"I'm not afraid. I want to try. I've found something to try for, before I die. That's why I haven't left you, Nny. You're all I have."

Edgar looked at his watch, then to the oven.

"That should do it. Hungry?"