Happy ending?

As one is wont to do when age creeps up and illness follows, they each had a handful of pills to take before bedtime.

They each had an extra one tonight.

Side by side they lay under the quilt, legs entwined, hands gripped as they often were as they waited for sleep to come.

“I love you,” she said.

“With all my heart,” he replied, completing the thought as he had done so many nights before.

But tonight was different. They both knew it. They lay in the dark, eyes wide open, knowing once closed, they would not open again.