A/N: A warning, people: this story is post-rape angst. So if that stuff depresses you and you don't want to keep reading, then spare me the flames and I'll spare you the reading time.
(But for those who love a good daily dose of angst, then read on. And review.)
Disclaimer: No, Naruto is not mine. Although I sorely wish he was.
Silence
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It is that time of year again. With the roses come spring rains and the scent of pine needles, the warmth of sun-baked leaves rising up like vapour, crushed grass. In the mornings the sun sprawls across the sky in streaks and splashes. In the night the moon hangs high and still.
It has been three years but things have not changed. The house is still as it always was. There are the same pictures on the walls, photographs as frozen as we are, stopped and terrible and indescribably dead.
We do not speak of them. In the mornings we wake together like clockwork.
And with the sun on his hair in patches from the lattice I tell him, I love you.
(And with the nightmare fresh in his blue-golden eyes he tells me, I know.)
And every time I wonder if he is breaking or I am, if today will be different, if today he will smile. And as each day of the calendar rolls blankly by like the squares of cement on an all-white pavement I hold him, I love him, I keep my silence.
When the Spring arrives we go to bury Naruto.
The grave is a small one, it is in the back yard. A small patch of ground where the grass will not grow. No cross, he doesn't want it; he does not think he is worth one, he doesn't say it but I know. Everything between us seems silent and still. It has been three years but the wounds are still raw, words do nothing to heal them. Perhaps nothing will.
Beside the grave the sun is high.
He stands holding the seeds in one clenched fist. Barefoot, pyjama pants, thin unbuttoned shirt. I see the scar swirled like henna over his stomach. The sun breaks a wave over the curve of his cheek, shines silver on the two pale tear-trails there.
He is trembling. I know him.
And I can see the nightmare in his eyes again, see his terror, know that on this day every year not even the sunlight can drive the ghosts from him.
I go to him because I love him. And he lets me, because he knows.
Come on, I say gently.
And then together – same as every year before – we squat by the gravedirt, we scatter the seeds. We try our best. We try. We try. And then we stand and he turns to me and he cries, very softly, and the seeds are still there like littered stars.
The hope is what hurts him. I put my arm around his shoulders.
And it has been three years but still the grass will not grow, old wounds will not heal. The night will not fade.
Maybe this year, I tell him.
And he says nothing. The tears come in silence.
Owari.
A/N: It's a short one, but I felt like it needed to be. Please tell me what you think.
(And just one more thing – Naruto is not dead. The idea of a grave is symbolic. Just so you know.)
Please don't forget to review!