"I won't cry not now, not ever." A small voice whispered
Why? Why Solo? Doesn't anyone know or care that now you're dead, I'll be alone. I don't want to be alone. The fear that I had is not something I want to experience again. I know that if I'm alone the horrible feelings will come back and I don't want them to terrorize me. Not again, oh god please, not again.
"Why couldn't I have reached him in time to his life, didn't I owe him that much? I had the cure in my hands. I was just too late."
Pain lanced through his chest, like an arrow piercing a target. It wasn't physical pain, but the pain of the soul, that is crying out for release. He couldn't hold it any more. It was too strong, too painful and he was too weary from his long fight with it. He just let it all out. The agony, the terror, the hurt that he had kept trapped inside a secret part of his soul. The part he had been afraid to show, afraid if he'd showed it, Solo would reject him as a coward, but now he realized that it wouldn't have mattered to Solo. Solo would have accepted it and made him stronger because of it. Now the door to his heart was torn open and was bleeding. He couldn't close it. The tears flowed in little rivulets down his cheeks, despite his promise, a few minutes earlier. Great sobs ripped from his throat. He reached out his hand and grasped Solo's limp hand, as if it could still comfort him. In a way, it did. It reminded him what Solo had said before he'd died
"I'll always be with you." The older boy had been his friend, his confident, but most of all Solo had taken the place of an older brother when he had needed one most in his life. The little boy had joined Solo's group after being picked on and beaten up by an older group of kids. Solo had stopped them, humiliated them so much that they had tried to kill Solo. But He had been smarter and faster. Solo had taken on the job of protecting him. And now he had repaid Solo's love and friendship with failure.
"Failure to reach him, failure to save his life, failure, failure, failure!" The words echoed and bounced in the boy's head finding no escape from the boy's tortured mind. Solo had taken care of him been his family. loved him like a younger brother. He'd felt loved. Now, it was gone. His hope through the doubt and worry was gone.
"I am lost now, never to be found again." He wrapped his grimy arms around his knees.
"I won't move," He thought "I'll contract the disease and die. I'll be with you soon friend, ally,...brother."
His head drooped, night and the welcome arms of unconsciousness, claimed him. The salty trails of tears drying in the night breeze.
The harsh fingers of morning woke him. Sounds of morning traffic hit his ears making him wince from it as if it had dealt him a physical blow.
"Where am I?" He looked down at his hand. It still held Solo's hand. "Brother...I'm not dead. Why? Am I so incompetent that I can't even die? I suppose now, that I was wrong. I won't join you soon, liked I'd hoped." Disappointment apparent in his voice.
"Since death won't take me, we'll be friends until he will claim me to his realm, but until then, Solo; you will be my constant companion, my guardian angel. I believe that you are watching over me, like you said. So I won't be a nobody anymore. I'll have a name and at least be able to call myself something; I'll be... Duo. In remembrance of you, you and me always, together forever, until I'm able to join you, where ever you are." The newly named Duo, gently placed Solo's hand over his chest, and stood up, a little shakily, but he did it. The boy stared at he still body of his best friend and the only person he could call family. His heart contracted and he felt the tears start to rise. Never, he would not shed tears again, and he fought the tears back into they're place.
"I'll never forget you."
Duo turned around and walked away. The sound of his footsteps fading as the morning rays of light lit Solo's face.