Unintended consequences.

He had reminded himself of them, even as he had hurtled over the edge. They were the dark face, looming just behind the brilliance, laughing at him. They were the darkness that existed in his very heart, those unintended consequences. His inability to think about anyone other than himself meant that the plans that kept him safe kept getting everyone else hurt. Emotionally hurt, scarred by his sudden disappearances and the lurking suspicion that, despite the way he acted, he never really cared about them anyways. Physically hurt, bleeding out on the pavement, clubbed over the head.

Drowned.

She had jumped in after him. Every time he had fled, it was with the certainty that he was fleeing in a way that she would not dare repeat. The boat, the police station, the building. And now, the river. For who would be foolish enough to chase after someone into one of the most deadly currents in the United States?

Unintended consequences.

He had thought that he had gone full circle before, just as he was making the choice to leap over the edge. But he had been wrong. Because, even with the water pulling him around and the headache that was beginning to form as he worked with the numbers, kept the water from sweeping him away so violently that even his luck might not be able to drag him out of it, he was also standing before that underground casino in Richmond, watching as the wound in Bree's chest slowly pumped her lifeblood out all over the concrete.

If he did nothing for her, she would die. She was already dying. The water wouldn't treat her with the same courtesy it treated Ethan. In fact, if anything, the water was worse behind him, as his tampering broke the natural rhythms that usually controlled the flow of the water, sending it into an even higher state of turbulence. There was no way she could control her progress through the water, and she could only hold her breath for so long. And it was just as likely, when that desperate moment came, that she would be under the water as it was that she would be above it. Either way, she wouldn't last the four fifths of a mile that remained before the steep drop ended and the river leveled off. They would find her broken and bloated body washed ashore in some park downriver, or in some random citizen's backyard.

This was it. This was the end of their horrific game of cat and mouse. She was dead, and he was free. He hadn't forced her to jump after him. She had made her own choice, known the consequences perfectly well. Now she was going to die, and the person who had spearheaded this whole investigation against him was going to be gone. He would finally be able to return to his own life, where he could pretend that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with him. Where he could simply be the luckiest man in the world.

Where he would be tormented forever by the deaths that hovered over him. Where her face would never allow him to forget that, for all his talents, he was entirely less than human. Because he let her die, let her die for his own selfish reasons. It didn't matter that saving her would bind him to her irrevocably. He had already saved her once. And since that moment, maybe even before, they had been bound together. It didn't matter that saving her would likely mean that he went to jail, that the free life he treasured so dearly would be gone. It didn't matter, because he could save her.

And he could. He had already saved her once, and he could do it again, almost as easily. Water was far easier to knit together than flesh, because it was always in motion. He had been studying water for hours and hours and hours, and he knew it almost as well as he knew himself. It would not be easy to go get her, but he could. And he could keep both of them alive and relatively intact until the river smoothed out, and he could drag them both ashore. And if he did nothing he would once more have taken the life of someone who was not yet ready to die. And there was nothing in his mind that could truly justify Bree as guilty. Victor had laid down his cards, he had made his choices, and Ethan had only made the death at the hands of the mob that had been waiting for him come a few years sooner. But Bree had only ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had been far too moral and determined for her own good.

He could not let her die. Not here. Not now. Not when it was still possible for him to save her.

And that thought brought him peace. It was as though some giant weight that had been pressing down on his shoulders since Victor's death had been lifted away. This act would not pardon his other failure, but it would prove that he was still human. It would not get rid of the darkness he had found within himself, but it would show that it did not define his existence.

He threw himself towards her, and the numbers bent and then finally broke under the power of his will. The current spat, violently, aggressively, and hurled him back upriver. He didn't need to look to know where she was, and as he was pulled under the water after her his hands reached out blindly and closed solidly around the front of her chest. He pulled her in close to him, pressing her back tight against his chest, and the water swirled around them and pulled them both back up to the surface.

He took a deep, heaving breath before going completely limp, focusing on nothing but the numbers and his grip on Bree. It would do him no good to struggle. If he couldn't control the water, if he couldn't control the numbers, then there was no way Bree would be making it out of this alive. And that was not an option.

The time it took to get to the bottom of the rapid was the longest ten minutes of Ethan's life. The water swirled around them like an uncaged beast, always one moment away from plunging them both back under the water and keeping them there until they gave up on life and inhaled the deadly liquid. And at times even Ethan couldn't hold them both above the water any longer, and they would plunge back over, hurtled along under the water until he could find a number that would push them back to the surface.

It was the rocks that nearly broke Ethan, though. A stick was light enough that even a small eddy in the current could circle it around any potentially bone-breaking collision. Ethan alone would have had enough trouble making sure that he did not crash into anything. Ethan and Bree together, and even luck was not enough to keep them safe. He was back to finding a way to force the numbers into complete improbability, because even a single collision would be enough to shatter his concentration, and then they would both be doomed.

And when he thought he could go no further, that he must give up and die, he remembered the woman in his arms, felt the bass beat of her heart, and found another drop of resolve to pull from within himself. He committed himself fully to her survival, and he fought not for himself. He fought for another chance for her to live.

And then the rapids were over. He saw the water leveling out before he felt it. The calmer waters made the numbers much more difficult to mold, but that did not matter, because the water was also so much safer. There were no more rocks, no more sudden currents wanting to drag them under and hold them there. They had made it. And they were both alive. Now he only had to get them to shore.

But there was nothing left in him. How ironic, to find that he had the strength to get them both safely through the currents, but when they were only moments away from safety he did not even have the strength to drag them the rest of the way to shore. Now, when the water was nearly still, they were going to drown.

He couldn't open his eyes, and the numbers were starting to fade away. He knew he was bleeding, that the fragile tissues in his nose, eyes, and mouth had broken under the strain. And he knew he wasn't going to be the one to get them safely to shore. Now it would be up to Bree to save them both, or to let them both die. He had done the best he was able to do.

But his hands didn't unlatch from around her chest, even as he spiraled into unconsciousness.