All of a sudden, Robert snapped back to reality, as if the world didn't exist before and it all just happened again in the course of a second. He picked his head up, looked around and headed up the stairs to his apartment. He stopped outside his door and realized he didn't have his keys. Since he drove home, he must have dropped them in the lobby. So he headed back down to the lobby to look for them. That's when he noticed the ambulance and the paramedics rushing Sile out of the building. She was under a white cloth, well, white and red, but he understood she was dead. Then he heard the door to the stairs close. He followed it, purely out of interest. He didn't know anyone else who used the stairs and he certainly didn't know who it could have been aside from a man; which really didn't narrow it down.

Robert climbed the stairs only ever seeing the shadow of the man he had noticed earlier. The man finally reached the floor on which Robert assumed he lived and saw him through the crack of the closing door. It was Cleake, he only knew his name from a handful of awkward moments in the elevator in which Cleake always introduced himself, despite Robert already knowing him. So Cleake must not have remembered him. The only thing was that Cleake seemed to have a big grin on his face as he unlocked and entered his apartment.

Robert had his hunches, but he decided he wouldn't worry about it now, he had other, more pleasant things to think about. Namely: Mary. He had decided she was the one. He had actually decided that the first time he had seen her, but now he was comfortable admitting it to himself. He headed over to her apartment in hopes of catching her before she left for her late shift. Robert knocked on her door and waited, but it appeared she wasn't home. He left and headed over to the place she worked, a small, 24/7 restaurant. He got there, a short 10 minute walk, and saw her inside. He stood there dumbstruck for a second, still thoroughly infatuated with her. He watched as she took the man's bill and entered it into the cash register. But then he noticed something wrong. He saw her expression go from cheerful to dread. He immediately understood what was taking place and sprinted for the door. The door flew open and Robert heard the man tell Mary not to be a hero. Then he saw a flash out come from the man's hand and he watched in horror as Mary fell to the ground. Robert stumbled backwards, visibly shocked and then somehow managed to collect himself and charge the man who had shot the woman he was in love with.

Each step seemed like a mile and each second felt like an hour as Robert ran, in full stride, at the assailant. Then, all of a sudden, Robert lost his footing and fell. He fell like a rock, hardly bracing his fall at all. There was warmth on his stomach, and a little bit of warmth in the back of his throat. He looked under the counter of the restaurant and saw Mary, somehow smiling. She mouthed something to him. He tried to stand back up, slowly, and fell back down, feeling even more of warmth on his back. The best he could do at this point was crawl towards Mary, slowly; and when he managed to close the distance enough, he wrapped his fingers around hers. He tried to speak but was unable to, instead coughing up warmth on the ground. He simply mouthed, slowly, and quite deliberately: "I love you."