Author's Note: A sad story, as a prize for spiritgurl21, one of my Honorable Mentions. I apologize in advance for this; it made me cry a bit.
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all fall down
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...
Gold doesn't remember too many things from the first few weeks after the news arrived.
He remembers buttering toast for himself and Sapphire, just a little bit extra on each slice, and how he'd dropped the plate to the ground, sending shards of porcelain and bread skittering under the fridge and across the room. He remembers getting a postcard in the mail, three days too late, with love from his friends - he ripped it up and threw it away, so that Sapphire wouldn't find it later and wonder why it had tear stains on it. He remembers thinking about what it meant to be a hero, and how heroes weren't supposed to lose.
Most clearly of all, he remembers the look on her face when she found out about Ruby - watching the blood drain from her skin, watching her eyes close and open, as though her eyelids could erase the thing she had seen.
She didn't cry. He couldn't tell if she was too strong to cry, or too weak. Maybe it was a bit of both.
They attended the services together. They arrived early to the beach, learning that there were no bodies to bury; the only remains of their comrades were the empty husks of their Pokedexes, and as Gold watched those sink into the crashing waves, he wanted to pull his own device out of his pocket and throw it, smash it against a rock, let it sink as well. But he can barely move. He can barely breathe, let alone act.
He heard a hiccup from his side - Sapphire snapped out of her stupor just enough to release a single tear, and then another. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Any comfort he could offer was useless. It wasn't going to 'be okay'; they weren't coming back.
So he held her close and whispered, "I know."