Last Moment Together

Amy: It'll be their last day together, won't it?
The Doctor: Everything has got to end sometime. Otherwise nothing would ever get started.

— Doctor Who, "A Christmas Carol"

Two people are lovers and/or friends. Maybe they're Star-Crossed Lovers. Maybe they're Happily Married. Maybe they're somewhere in between. It could be that they're best friends, and have known each other their whole lives. It could be a close family member, even in a Family of Choice. Whatever the case, something has happened, and one of them is dying.

It could be a terminal illness, a fatal injury, or just the end of a very, very long life, but one person in this equation of life has to check out now, and it's not likely that they're going to be Together in Death in the literal sense. In some rare instances, the two characters will be parted without dying, but with the knowledge that no matter what happens, they can never see one another again.

In some cases, the lovers know that it's their final time together. Other times, however, the audience may be treated to a Flashback of the last time the two lovers were together from the viewpoint of the person about to die, reflecting on the fact that it's the last time they spoke to them. Other times, it will be a Flashback by the surviving partner, knowing the person they loved is gone for good. In such instances, count on the writers to really twist the knife by adding a bit of Parting-Words Regret.

If the death is foreseen, count on the pair to share equal amounts of laughter and tears, fond memories and regrets for dreams unfulfilled.

If the two greatly respect each other and one or both of them face certain death, it could result in an It Has Been an Honor moment.

May overlap with Dying Reconciliation. Could lead to Always with You. See also Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye.

Supertrope to But Now I Must Go, Died in Your Arms Tonight, Last Kiss, and Final First Hug.

As a Death Trope, there may be unmarked spoilers ahead.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• This happens at the end of The Secret World of Arietty when Arietty and her family leave since "borrowers must leave if seen." Before she leaves, she has a last meeting with Shō, whose grandfather had hoped that the borrowers would live in a doll house. The two exchange tokens and after that they never see each other.
• Fairy Tail: The series has several notable moments and all of them are played tragically in one form or another.
  • After Simon ends up Taking the Bullet for one of Jellal's attacks on Erza, it ends up costing Simon his life as said attack ends up being fatal, with Simon dying in Erza’s arms with his feelings for Erza that he’s had since his childhood remaining unrequited up until his death.
  • Jude was Happily Married to his wife Layla up until she died from magic deficiency disease which hit him extremely hard to the point of focusing all of his time on his work and neglecting his daughter Lucy in the process in order for him to deal with his grief. While Jude does eventually get over his grief, he never remarries after Layla’s passing and remains devoted to her up until his death.
  • While the nature of their relationship is ambiguous, it's made clear that Future Lucy is just as important to Natsu as her present self is. Future Lucy's death hits Natsu hard to the point that not only does he call her precious and ends up crying over her dead body, but when he finds out that she lost her right arm which had her guild mark on it, he has a very heartwarming flashback which depicts Lucy surround by light showing off when she first got said guild mark. Once the Eclipse Gate is destroyed Future Lucy’s death isn’t undone, her body disappears and her spirit goes to the Golden Fields where she meets her version of her friends, meaning she will never get to see the present version of Natsu ever again.
• Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest: It's revealed that Anna was Happily Married four hundred years ago to a man named Tatsuya who she left behind in the past so that he could take care of their child while she traveled to the present through the Eclipse Gate. Since the Eclipse Gate was destroyed during the Grand Magic Games, resulting in Anna being incapable of seeing Tatsuya or their child ever again. Luckily Tatsuya told Anna before she left to find a Second Love in the future which she did in the form of Ichiya.
• Izetta: The Last Witch: Episode 11 has Izetta and Fine talking with one another the night before the Final Battle, which both of them know is likely going to become a Suicide Mission, given the massive odds against them. It becomes a Subverted Trope in the following episode when it's revealed that despite almost being killed, Izetta manages to survive her Heroic Sacrifice and reunite with Fine, albeit heavily injured and with the loss of the use of her legs.
• The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa): Narrowly averted in the Majora's Mask adaptation, which covers the Anju and Kafei sub-plot. Like in the game, Skull Kid has turned Kafei into a child after he accidentally made fun of him, and is unable to meet with his fiancée before their wedding. On top of that, Skull Kid has summoned the moon to fall onto Clock Town, leaving Link with not much time to stop him, with Kafei tagging along in order to convince him to turn him back to an adult. Before the moon falls, Tatl goes back to Anju to tell her what happened, with Link and Kafei confronting Skull Kid atop the tower. After Link plays the song to summon the four giants, they don't appear, fearing that the moon will descend onto town anyways. At the same time, Anju arrives on top of the tower, reuniting with Kafei in the process. The two then share an embrace, the both of them promising to greet tomorrow together, knowing the end is nigh. It's after this moment that the four giants arrive Just in Time, stopping the moon from crashing upon Clock Town.
• My-HiME: All three members of the Power Trio have flashbacks to their last moments with a parental figure.
  • For Mai, it was her mother on her deathbed, telling Mai to be sure to take care of Takumi, which is why Mai tends to take on all the troubles of the world on her shoulders.
  • For Natsuki, it is the memory of her mother trying to get her away from District One so she could be safe, right before the car crash that claimed her life. This fuels her vengeance against District One, until John Smith says that Saeko Kuga was trying to sell Natsuki to the Searrs Foundation, resulting in a Psychosomatic Superpower Outage.
  • Mikoto remembers being forced to kill her Grandfather in armed combat as proof that she was ready for her to be a HiME, and him telling her to now seek out her long-lost brother.

Films — Animated

• The Hobbit: Thorin has been mortally wounded, but wishes to part as friends with Bilbo, taking back his harsh words at the gate before the battle.

Films — Live-Action

• A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: When David meets the aliens, they explain to him that they can revive his human mother Monica from the lock of hair that Teddy saved, but only for a single day, and the process cannot be repeated. David spends the happiest day of his life with Monica, playing hide and seek, painting pictures, and having a birthday party with a cake. As they go to sleep, Monica says to him the words he always wanted to hear: "I love you, David. I do love you. I have always loved you." The film ends as David closes his eyes and goes to "that place where dreams are born."
• Beaches: Rather than living her last days in a hospital, Hilary, who's ailing from a heart condition, decides to spend what little time she has left at the beach house with her oldest best friend CC and daughter Victoria by her side as she passes. Cue AwardBaitSong
• At the end of Call Me by Your Name, Elio says goodbye to Oliver, the American grad student that he fell in love with while Oliver was staying over for the summer. He escorts Oliver to the train as part of Oliver's trip back, then is crushed by the weight of his certainty that he'll never see Oliver again. In the film's last minutes, sometime later, Oliver calls Elio and his family...to tell them that he's getting married to an on-again off-again girlfriend he dated in college, making it very likely that saying goodbye at the train station will be the last time the two men ever see each other. The end of the film is Elio silently crying by himself while everyone else around him goes about their lives.
• Independence Day: President Whitmore's wife has been found after her helicopter went down. But she has been mortally wounded and there is nothing more that the doctors can do for her. Whitmore tries to comfort his wife, using a private joke between them, engaging in Blatant Lies.
  President Whitmore: The doctors tell me...that you're going to be just fine.
  Marilyn Whitmore: (Wistful Smile) Liar.
• Lampshaded for laughs in Spaceballs, when Lone Starr and Yogurt part, contemplating whether or not there will be a sequel.
  Lone Starr: I wonder, will we ever see each other again?
  Yogurt: Who knows? God willing, we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.
• Top Gun: Maverick: Midway through the film, Iceman calls Maverick over to talk. When he arrives, he's informed by Ice's wife that his cancer has returned. The two talk and share a nice moment, Ice encouraging Mav to let go of the guilt he's carried all these years and encouraging to give what he still has to offer. Through it all, it's clear both realize this is the last time they'll ever talk together.

Literature

• At the end of His Dark Materials, Lyra and Will—each originally from a different world—must each return to their own world, and all doors between the worlds must be closed and no new ones opened.
• Impossible Creatures (2023): When Mal realises that she needs to sacrifice herself to kill the Big Bad, she gives Christopher a speech about how she wishes they could've spent more time together, but she's glad that she regained her Past-Life Memories because she's seen all the good in the world and is convinced it's worth saving.
• Look to Windward opens with Major Quilan's last parting from his wife before her death in battle — written from her point of view.
• In The Lord of the Rings Arwen suffers this twice.
  • The first is her last meeting with her father Elrond, unwitnessed in the hills near Edoras, "and bitter was their parting that should endure beyond the ends of the world."
  • The second is in the appendices, at the deathbed of her husband Aragorn, with more detail given and the implication that they will meet again beyond death and the circles of the world.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades:
  • Volume 3 (episode 15 of the anime) closes with Ophelia Salvadori and Carlos Whitrow mutually consumed by the spell. They fade away into light, Together in Death, while Carlos's best friend and Ophelia's estranged Love Interest Alvin Godfrey looks on and bids them goodbye.
  • Volume 10:
    • The flashback sequence in chapter 4 depicts the last time Oliver and his father saw his mother alive. Chloe had discovered that her comrades planned to kill her and went out to fight them to buy her family time to escape to her birth family's estate. The next time they saw her, she had been reduced to the ghostly, disembodied remnants of her soul, which reside within Oliver to this day.
    • Second, between Oliver and Yuri Leik, Oliver's teammate during the Tournament Arc and a Soul Fragment of Professor Demitrio Aristides whom Oliver has just mortally wounded with Yuri's assistance. As a gesture of recompense for his role in the murder of Oliver's mother, Demitrio permits Yuri to take control of their body so that he and Oliver can say their farewells.
• Shakugan no Shana: Subverted at the end of volume 1. Yuji is about to burn out and he and Shana are saying their goodbyes... then suddenly his flame blazes back to life. Turns out, his Treasure Reiji Maigo restores it to its full potency every night at midnight, effectively giving him Resurrective Immortality, and Shana and Alastor were pranking him by pretending he was about to die.

Live-Action TV

• CSI: NY's 10th-anniversary tribute to the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "Indelible," includes a scene of Mac boarding a bus, which triggers a flashback of him watching his wife, Claire, playfully stick her tongue out at him as she rides away on a bus to work on that day. Neither of them could know that she would perish when the towers fell just a short time later.
• Doctor Who: Doctor Who has been all over the Last Moment Together.
  • "A Christmas Carol": Kazran has learned the awful truth, that Abigail is dying, and that he and The Doctor used up most of her time celebrating Christmases across time and space. She has a single day of life left, and Kazran had to wake her to help the Doctor save a bunch of people on a ship. Amy remarks sadly that it will be their last day together. The Doctor acknowledges it but also states that things have to end for other things to begin.
  • "The Angels Take Manhattan": Due to complications from Timey-Wimey Ball, when an Angel zaps Rory back in time, the Doctor cannot go back and retrieve him, and so, to be reunited with her husband, Amy allows the Weeping Angel to zap her back in time as well. The Doctor warns her that if she does this, he'll never see her again. It is the end of his travels with The Ponds.
  • The Doctor and River spend their final night together at the singing towers of Darillium, although it probably does soften the blow somewhat that a night on Darillium lasts some 24 years.
• In the finale of Shogun, Blackthorne learns that his consort Fuji is being released from her obligations to him and has been given leave to become a nun. Before she leaves, he requests that she allow him to do her a favor as thanks for being loyal to him. She agrees, and the two row out onto the water so that he can help her commit her late husband and child's ashes to the sea.
• Torchwood: "Day Four" sees the 456 inflict a virus on the couple Jack and Ianto which proves lethal within minutes. Whilst Jack can revive from the virus, Ianto can't, and their final moments are spent with Ianto finally telling Jack that he loves him (although Jack doesn't say it back), assuring him that their time together was good while it lasted and asking Jack to not forget him. Despite this, "House of the Dead" has Jack be able to see Ianto one more time in the form of a ghostly recreation created by Syriath. Ianto calls him out for seemingly dragging him back to say goodbye, but nonetheless chooses to commit a Heroic Sacrifice to both save Jack from flinging himself into the void between worlds and prevent Syriath from making it into Cardiff. This time, Jack finally tells Ianto that he loves him, which Ianto reciprocates before dying for good.

Music

• David Bowie's "Heroes" is about two lovers, one from East Berlin, the other from West Berlin, separated by the Berlin Wall, dreaming that they are free.
  I, I wish you could swim
  Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
  Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
  We can beat them, for ever and ever
  Oh we can be Heroes, just for one day
• The song Neon Glow by Glass Beach has a verse at the end with two lovers who watch the nuclear bombs drop together.
• In This Moment: "Into the Light" describes the speaker lying on the floor with a dying loved one as they say their last goodbyes. According to frontwoman Maria Brink, the song was written for 1) a friend who died of lung cancer, 2) a beloved dog who had died, and 3) a fan whose son had died at fifteen and passed away while listening to the band.
• This is an interpretation of a bit of a subplot in the song "Body of an American" by The Pogues. The song is about an Irish American who has his body brought to Ireland to be laid to rest there. The second version of the chorus has a line about how "My love's in Amerikay", and the final verse is all about saying goodbye to someone the speaker says he'll always love, but with a much quieter and somewhat forlorn note than much of the rest of the song, which focused on the event being a lively, rowdy Irish wake. The implication is the speaker is an Irish man who was in love with a female relative of the deceased, and she journeyed to attend the funeral, the two reconnected briefly during the event, and then he has to say goodbye, knowing that even though he loves her dearly it's more than likely that he'll never see her again.
  This morning on the harbor, when I said goodbye to you
  I remember how I swore that I'd come back to you one day
  And as the sunset came to meet the evening on the hill
  I told you I'd always love you; I always did, I always will
• The Seekers: "The Carnival is Over" is about two lovers reflecting on the wonderful time together and mourning the fact that they have to part, though it's never stated why they have to separate. The singer even compares herself and her lover to Pierrot and Columbine, another failed romance.
  Now the harbor light is calling
  This will be our last goodbye
  Though the carnival is over
  I will love you till I die
• Thomas Dolby recorded "Europa and the Pirate Twins" in 1981. The singer and Europa were childhood friends playing pirates on a beach. "Then war took her away / We swore a vow that day / We'll be the pirate twins again." Much later, Europa is a celebrity on tour in London, and the singer tries to get within earshot. "She smiled for the cameras / As her bodyguard grabbed me / Her eyes were gone forever as they drove her away." So much for the pirate twins.

Radio

• Adventures in Odyssey: A show about Faith, Biblical values, and family, the subject of death has come up a few times.
  • In "Recollections", Tom Riley tells Connie the story of how Whit's End came to be, starting with Whit's wife, Jenny, collapsing during a city council meeting while she was pleading to save the Rec Center that would end up becoming Whit's End. The Doctor has to inform Whit that Jenny had chronic glomerulonephritis due to an untreated strep infection, and the damage is too severe. The husband and wife are given time to spend together before she passes.
  • Jack Allen's first wife Emily suffered a debilitating stroke, and Jack read the Parable of the Sower to her in the hopes she would come to Christ on her deathbed, but admits that he will not know for sure until he goes to Heaven himself, and admits the pain of uncertainty haunts him.

Theater

• Fiddler on the Roof: Tevye sees his second daughter Hodel off at the train station as she journeys to Siberia to be with her exiled husband. They admit that "God alone knows when [they] will see each other again", and agree to "leave it in His hands."
• Romeo and Juliet, depending on the adaptation, have their last moments together either just before Romeo heads to Mantua, or briefly in the Capulet tomb after Romeo poisons himself and Juliet wakes.
• West Side Story: Tony and Maria's final moment together is when Tony sees Maria and heads to her, just before Chino guns him down, resulting in Tony dying in Maria's arms.
• Wicked: The song "For Good" is a duet between best friends Elphaba and Glinda as they say goodbye to each other for the last time.

Video Games

• Cassette Beasts ends with the party members saying their last goodbyes to the player before they return to their homeworlds... Except Barkley, who decides to follow the player.
• Club Penguin: In real life, when the original Club Penguin was shut down for good in 2017, many players gathered together on its last day to say their last goodbyes to each other and the game, right until the moment the servers shut down.
  Website: The connection has been lost. Thank you for playing Club Penguin. Waddle on!
• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Being a prequel, the protagonists' downfall is telegraphed since their first scene together: Ven, Aqua, and Terra gather for an improvised exercise on the night before the latter two's Mark of Mastery exam, and enjoy their time together. Then, in the last seconds of the cutscene, the three characters comment off-screen that that night was their last one together.
  Terra/Ven/Aqua: "That would be the last night we ever spent beneath the same stars."
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
  • In the Anju and Kafei wedding sidequest, Skull Kid has turned Kafei into a child after he accidentally made fun of him, and is unable to meet with his fiancée before their wedding. If the player manages to do everything right, the two will reunite on the third day of the game's internal three-day cycle, consummating their marriage by creating the Couple's Mask from the Sun and Moon masks, with Link and Tatl as witnesses. The two realize the world is ending, as the moon is minutes away from crashing into Clock Town, suggesting that Link takes refuge while the two of them greet the morning together.
  • If the player completes the Cremia and Romani side quest, on the third day of the game's cycle, if Link talks to Cremia, she's fully aware the moon is going to fall and doom them all. Cremia then requests to spend the night with her sister, while Romani is completely unaware and is glad to be recognized as an adult.
• The Koco subplot of Kronos Island in Sonic Frontiers involves Sonic and Amy trying to help a Koco reunite with their lover. At the end of the subplot, they see a vision of the past, where the Koco (in its first life and true form as one of the Ancients) runs through a massive bombardment of laser beams to reunite with their lover, and the two share a tender embrace before they are destroyed by a massive laser blast. When Sonic and Amy come out of the vision they see the couple’s Koco lying next to each other, their souls passing on.
  Amy: They were reunited… right before the end.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake: Simon reunites with Golbetty and is saddened as he realizes all the sacrifices he unintentionally made her commit for him. They then view his memory of stopping Betty from going on her research trip, though he changes it so that he goes with her instead. However, Simon admits he can't change what happened and the two acknowledge that their relationship wasn't perfect, but they don't regret their love. They then say their goodbyes and Betty gets on the bus, becoming Golbetty and parting ways with Simon forever.
• In the very last scene of BoJack Horseman, Diane calls out BoJack for the fact that he called her up right before his suicide attempt, saying that it was cruel to make her listen to him try to drown himself with no way of saving him because she was in a different part of the country. BoJack apologizes and tells her that she doesn't owe him anything anymore, the implication being that he understands if she just decides she never wants to talk to him or see him again.
  BoJack: Hey, wouldn't it be funny if this night was the last time we ever talked to each other?
  Diane: (silence)
• The Real Ghostbusters: In "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Ghost", a non-romantic example occurs when the ghost of a man named Horace, who was unaware that he'd died, called the Ghostbusters to help him with his haunted house. They reveal to him that he's dead, and decide that helping him with his Unfinished Business would be better than trapping him. They eventually learn that the house's current owner is Horace's niece, Olivia, and he just wanted to find her to tell her that he loved her and wanted to say a proper "goodbye". He's able to dissipate peacefully after that.
• Rick and Morty: In "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat", Morty would hold upon a crystal that will vision his fate in the future, and one of his fates involves dying an old life, with his school crush, Jessica caressing his hand. Morty would continuously try to change the future so that he and Jessica end up together well until his last days when she tells him that she loves him, though he is eventually stopped by Rick from going AKIRA. However, he later overhears Jessica talking about how, after she gets out of school, she wishes to cheer up dying strangers and repeat their names on their tags over and over to console them. This means he wasn't going to die with Jessica as his wife as he likely thought, but simply being consoled while dying alone and miserable. Morty was pretty pissed about this.
• This is played with in one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. Squidward buys a pie for SpongeBob and the former figures out that the "pie" is actually a bomb; before he could take the pie away, though, it seems to him (and Mr. Krabs) that SpongeBob has already eaten it. Fearing that SpongeBob might have died at the end of the day, Squidward decides to spend the rest of the day with him, struggling to cater to SpongeBob's wishes and antics. Near the end of the day, as the two are lying down to watch the sunset (with Squidward separating himself and SpongeBob with a wall), the two then do a countdown to the sunset together... and Squidward hears an explosion behind the wall. He's thankful that SpongeBob has a meaningful last day to live... and suddenly another explosion occurs that topples the wall onto him. It turns out SpongeBob is still alive and blowing bubble-shaped bombs. When SpongeBob looks at him puzzled, Squidward angrily exclaims that he's supposed to die from the pie he ate — cue SpongeBob pulling out the pie from behind his pocket, saying that he wanted to share it with Squidward; meaning that the latter did everything in the day for nothing. Then SpongeBob trips and the pie hits Squidward's face — cue a huge nuclear explosion.

---

"I'm sorry, Troper, but we can never see each other again. Um, unless you hit the back button on your browser, I suppose."

---