Authors Note: This hasn't been beta-read so I apologize if it has grammar/spelling errors in or if the characters sound a bit off. Please let me know what you think of this, complaints, suggestions; any feedback would be helpful as long as it is constructive.

This is inspired by Furlings are Cats story "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" and written sort of as an after to such a situation. Thanks to Furlings for the plot bunny!And warning that it's short but angsty.

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate in any incarnations of course and I'm not making any money, this is just some harmless fanfic fun.

Simplicity

He said it.
They should have been the words that set us free.
Should have been a memory to cherish, an event to rejoice.
Simple but beautiful, and they should have been the start of something similar.

I know the tears fall, but it's I don't truly feel them.
How could I?
Inside I'm numb and my fingers fumble with his notes.
My visions blurry as I get on with it, trying to make sense of it all.
Everything I see reminds me.

And those words, that should have been wonderful, they only serve to haunt me.
Like his smell, that lingers on here and the thought that everything I touch he has touched, some proximity where I no longer have any.

I denied it because I thought better.
Thought that there'd be a time and place, one more appropriate, but I see it should have been now and here.
I'm hollow, except for that burning regret. Everything of me leaving, lost as he is and drifting somewhere unknown.

He said the unspeakable.
What we'd never uttered or admitted - eternally explaining away. Because, well, friends was good enough. Friends was safe, friends we could do. No questions asked and no answers needed, not on the surface at least. Left to the mind, repressed and surfacing only in dreams of what could be. There were lots of things that should have been but we never let it be.

Maybe we would have been happy.
Maybe we would have been together forever, until death do us part.
Though we were, anyway, ultimately.
Weren't a couple, not really, but the universe seems to see through such things.

We only had time for a few last words.
And they crushed my heart, as he held my hand steadily through the pain.
Holding on, holding out but his grip waned.
We didn't have enough time; he choked a final sentence out despite his agony.
And those were what he chose.
No regrets, no complaints; only truth.
Just,
"I love you, Elizabeth."