A/N: I purposely did not assign a gender to Benvolio in this story. You can fill in all that detail in your head. I personally can see it working either way. Also, it's my first time writing definitively-male Mercutio. Hopefully I didn't do too badly.

"Mercutio, don't you dare leave me!"

"Just... sing... to me. Please? Make the pain go away? I'm scared, Benvolio."

I hate to admit it, but I'm scared too. Scared out of my mind, in fact: the feeling, the smell, the taste of blood, all over his clothes, his hands, my hands. It's nearly too much to cope with, but I fight back tears, and a slight rising of bile in my throat, and do my best to start singing:

Tomorrow when you wake

I'll be here, by your side

Forestall when dawn shall break

And time with you I'll bide

Let me hold you and keep you warm

Let me shelter you from every storm

I pray-

My voice gives out, crackling high and out of tune, and I can't force any more words out: this is madness, this hope I try to give him. He's going to die, and I'm going to be alone. Like I've always been, because that's just who I am: lonely little Benvolio, pathetic freak of nature. The one who'd rather pour over school-books than go out for a night on the town.

I don't even realize I've been speaking out loud until his hand brushes against my cheek:

"Don't ever think that way about yourself, love. You're beautiful just the way you are. You're perfect just the way you are."

After a few moments, his breathing falters and he shudders, and then, with a gut-wrenching finality, goes still, his hand falling from my face to rest limply across his stomach. And then, yes, I am alone.

Later, when all is said and done and everyone's dead (and it's all because of me), I find myself standing by the river-bank. I look into the water, at my reflection. It looks the same, if not for the dark rim around the eyes, a tell-tale sign of one who has been through a hardship. And I have. And I will, until I die... until I... die. Of course. I could always take the coward's way out. Why not? That's all I've ever been: a coward and a fool. I didn't even try that day, back in July, to change the course of what happened.

I strip off my clothes (damned if I care what anyone might think), fold them into a neat pile on the river-bank, and slowly immerse myself in the icy water (so cold, even in the heat of a late-summer afternoon). And then... I let it sweep me away.

Let the rain wash away, all the pain of yesterday. I'm coming home, I'm coming home: tell the world I'm coming... home.