Disclaimer: I own EVERYTHING! Well… except for… a few… things… BUT I WILL OWN THEM SOON!

Just a good old one-shot.

Dearest Tolle,

Sometimes, I wonder if you're still out there. Silly, right? But so many others have come back, some multiple times. Andy, Kira, Athrun, Mwu. There are probably others. If they survived, couldn't you have? I can't believe you're gone. It all seems like a dream. I can still feel your love beating strong, whether it's from here, or the other side, I probably won't know until I die. I hope you can understand that I have to try to let go, to move on. Don't think that I ever have, or will stop loving you. That could never happen. But sometimes I worry that if I keep all my love for you bottled up, it will keep growing, and eventually explode, so I'll look for an outlet.

Murdoch says I haven't truly smiled since you left, and I believe him. I still can't bring myself to say 'died'. It sounds so wrong, so final. It's a word that I keep to myself, in my head, like if I keep it inside it will all go away, and I'll wake up from this godforsaken nightmare. It's strange, how all I have now are childish dreams that will never come true, but I can't bring myself to let go.

I take pictures now. People constantly ask why, and I haven't really been able to give them an answer, but I think I know now. I want to preserve people's memories, like I want to preserve my own dreams, like I wanted to preserve you. I feel like if I can show people the world through my eyes, I can let them see something differently, and they'll appreciate every little thing they have, before they lose it. That's something I wish I had done.

It's strange, how I feel while I'm writing this. Before I joined back up with the Archangel, I visited a grief counselor, something Sai pressured me into. She told me that the only way to start rebuilding was to let go of what was lost, and told me to do that, I needed a sense of finality. She recommended writing a letter to you, telling you everything I never got to say, and then burning it. Something about the final ties burning with it. The thing is, I'm not sure I want to let go, re grow. I know it's not healthy to feed off dreams and wishes, but they're what keep me going, and if I lose those, I'm afraid I'll lose everything.

Remember when we would sit on your roof in Heliopolis and watch the sunsets, and joke about how it looked so fake compared to the real thing? And how we planned to move to earth and buy a house that would have a perfect view of a real sunset, and how we would dream about watching it every night? And then you would wrap your arms around me, and we would just sit there, staring, feeling like we were the only beings in the world. I wish those moments would come back. I tried once, when I was in Orb, after the war, to watch a real sunset, but it just didn't feel right. I felt so insignificant, so small. It made me wonder if you were the reason I felt so important and cared for. Maybe that's why I'm fighting, because I'm afraid of feeling insignificant. I'm afraid of a lot of things now. I can't stand fire. It reminds me of the explosion. I know I didn't actually see it, but I know what happened. I also don't like small spaces. They make me feel like I have no way out, like I'm stuck without anything to do. It's how I always feel, but they magnify the feeling. I'm afraid of so many other things as well, but one thing I'm no longer afraid of is death. Why should it? I know that if I die, I can be with you, so what's there to be afraid of? You will protect me from everything, just like you did before. Maybe I'm weak, thinking you'll protect me from the terrors of eternal darkness. A lot of things make me weak though, so why should one more make any difference?

I read a monologue once, from a really old movie. I think the title was 'Nuts'. One part has stuck in my mind ever since. 'The one thing you learn when you grow up is that love, it's not enough. It's too much, and it's not enough.' I find that I can constantly relate to it. My love for you, it was too much for just one person, overpowering even, but it wasn't enough to protect you. Maybe that's not what the line actually meant, but it's how I mean it.

Sometimes, if I focus just hard enough, I can recall the exact feeling of lying in your arms, relaxing, feeling so safe. Whenever I feel like everything is just too hard, I bring back that feeling, and imagine you telling me that you don't want me ending up like you for a good sixty or seventy years. I guess I can wait that long, if it's what you want. I know it is. You wouldn't want me to give up living just to be with you. You'd want me to be happy, and because I know that, I try. I really do. Every single day.

Some days I feel really selfish. I wish terrible things on the people around me, because they're happy, because they have somebody who they want to spend their lives with. Like when I first saw Mwu again, I was really happy for Murrue, but in the back of my mind, I secretly hoped that he wouldn't remember, so I would still have somebody who could understand me, somebody who would always be there to understand how the pain never died. I hate myself for those thoughts. She deserves happiness too. Who am I to want to take that away from her?

This second war really doesn't sit well with me. Does it mean that all who died in the first war died in vain? Did you die in vain? If I asked you, you'd say no, because you managed to protect the people you cared about, but if you asked me, I'd probably say yes. Your sacrifice didn't change anything. Why not? Why does somebody 'significant' have to die to put an end to the war? They're placing values on people's lives. It's not right. None of this is right, yet we keep on fighting. It's times like these that I wish you were here more than anything else in the world. Why did you have to leave me, and so suddenly too? Couldn't we have been granted one more night together, to say our final good-byes? Why not? Why is life so cruel to some, yet overly polite to others? It doesn't make sense. Nothing does.

I should probably stop writing this now, before it turns into a diary. I'm still not sure if I will actually burn this like they told me to. I think I may just keep it, and add other letters to it, until I'm ready to let go. Until then, I guess I'll be talking to you soon.

Love always,

Miriallia