Note: This fic is based on select sections of Tennyson's "In Memorium." The title and some sentences of every chapter are direct allusions to one of the sections. Continuity is as continuity does. I do not own "In Memorium" or Watchmen.
Dance With Death
Snow, not even Antartica, is cold when you're on Cloud Nine. In fact, when you're sharing your owl snow cape with the girl of your dreams, it's rather warm.
On the other hand, the bloody remnants of your best friend could make a tropical rainforest freeze. That's when you remember you're in Antartica.
Daniel could do nothing but stare. He reached his hand toward the red stains sitting in front of him like some perverted inkblot. He didn't notice when the coat slid from his shoulders, he just kept reaching out his hand as if reaching through time to pull Rorschach back before he died. Because Daniel should have been there to stop it and he wasn't. He was...
Laurie put a hand Daniel's shoulder and he looked at her. Was this his punishment? Did gaining Laurie mean he had to lose Rorschach?
There was nothing left of his best friend. Nothing. And Daniel wondered where that friend was now. He remembered the man he had first met, the man who had believed in God, who had had confidence he would rise to higher things. Daniel had been taught about God, but...
He kicked the snow. He never uttered a sound, and no tears fell from his eyes, but he plowed his feet through the powder as if performing some strange dance of sorrow until he had turned the place of Rorschach's death into red flurries that rained back down like a snowglobe gone wrong. Daniel stood still let the flakes fall on him, the only sign that Walter Kovacs had been loved by anyone.
The plummet from Cloud Nine is a bloody cold fall, and Daniel couldn't take the temperature forever. Darkness swallowed him.