Disclaimer: I own neither Star Trek: Voyager nor the characters used in my stories.
Author's Note: My muse picked up on my foul mood and decided to plop this in my mind. This is the first of many drabbles (this happens to be a triple drabble) which I'll post as my muse sees fit. Nova, this is your fault.
The morning dew slowly seeps into his pants but he doesn't notice. He's been here for an hour already, since just before dawn, and somewhere after the first ten minutes he lost awareness of the world around him. His eyes are on the stone before him but his thoughts are lost in the past, thousands of lightyears away. He hears the sound of laughter, the voice burned like warm whiskey on a cold night. He sees the crooked smile, the twinkle in the blue eyes that warned of a mischievous mood. He feels the touch of a hand, the palm on his chest that was a gesture only for him.
Things aren't supposed to be like this, he thinks. We're home now and things aren't supposed to be like this.
All it took was for one slight miscalculation from the ensign piloting the shuttle and everything had gone wrong on the trip home from a diplomatic function off-planet. The two men who'd come to his house in the middle of the night and told him that she was gone had no answers for him yet, though they did tell him that the ensign had lived and that it was all a random accident. They told him that there was nothing that could have been done; it wasn't a comfort to him then and it's not a comfort now, a week later. He still can't believe it, won't accept it.
I never got the chance to tell her, he thinks, pain washing over him again as he touches the cold marble and wishes for the thousandth time that he had been there to continue the journey by her side. He's not sure what to do with himself now, without her here beside him to share a life with.
I love you.