If later asked, he would not remember how long he had stood there. He could not feel the heavy rain battering his body and the cold winds chilling his very bones. There was a certain state of numbness, as if he were standing within a dream from which he would eventually wake up. No, a dream would be the wrong word for it. Nightmare, perhaps, would suit it better.
Unable to support his weight any longer, his knees buckled and he slid to the ground. He never took his eyes off the epitaph that rested on the ground his other half was buried in. A distant roll of thunder echoed in the sky and he remembered how he and his brother once watched storms from the window in their room. It reminded him again how bitterly and painfully he was alone now. No one able to read his thoughts with a glance, no one able to understand him better than he understood himself.
A finger lightly traced the side of his face that no longer had an ear. He wondered if his twin died as a punishment for his own escape from death. When the curse had caught him, he had thought that night would be his last. Perhaps he was meant to die that night and death took Fred in exchange for his own life.
The wind carried a sigh that sounded suspiciously like Fred.
"Don't be stupid George…"
He wished he could turn back time before his entire world shattered in the aftermath of the battle. He wished he could have said goodbye properly instead of running off in the heat of the battle. He wished he was in Fred's place for living was surely much more painful than death. He wanted to wish he could follow Fred but he knew his mother would not be able to recover if she lost him too. They were all hanging by threads these days after all.
A thousand wishes and a thousand regrets, but these would never bring the other half of himself back.