He doesn't come here often. No, not anymore. He decided a long time ago that it was time to move on, to stop grieving and start living again. It was a good choice, but I miss him.
He would at first come here almost every day, sit here for hours, talk to me. He would say things he had never dared to before, things I had never heard about. He would tell me things he'd already told me a thousand times before, things I was so sick and tired of hearing. But now? Now I could listen to him say it a thousand times again.
Then. A few months later he would come maybe once or twice a week. Sit there for just as many hours as he had before. He would talk about his life, what happened to him and what was going on in the world. Nothing crazy, but something. Always something. And then, in an instance… He wouldn't come. I laid there, waiting for him. But he never came. Week after week I waited. Every day. And I started missing him.
Everytime a car pulled up at the long driveway, I looked over. Hoped to see that big truck of his. And every time I got just as disappointed as the last.
The flowers withered, more and more every day. They shrunk, they bowed their heads down towards the ground, they became brown and then they died. They died just like I had. They died and were never to be remembered by anyone anymore. No one cared about a bouquet of brown, withered, dead flowers, just like no one cared about a dead, withered, old, policeman who died in their sleep a few days after an heart attack.
My parents were dead, my daughter and son lived on the mainland and my ex-wives just purely didn't care. The only ones left were my old team. Steve, Chin, Kono and Lou. But Chin was old, too old. His memory had seemed to play a game with him, and Lou, he had retired early, wanted to be with his family, lost contact with the rest of us. Kono was working at HPD, only visiting her cousin every once in awhile, and Steve… Well, Steve was the only one that had talked to me. I was the only one who stilled talked to him. But he was getting old too. Age was toying with his tortured body and he was always tired.
And then I had died. Not him. Me. I gave up. People had come. Said goodbye, then left. But he…
He broke…
We both broke…
But he fixed himself… Left me behind, broken all alone. Hoping he'd come by, tell me I'm not. That he's there. That he'll fix me. But he just… Left. Forgot about me. Like he had the flowers. Those that were standing at my grave. Dead and rotten. Reflecting what was under all the dirt. Something dead and rotten. Forgotten forever.
I was alone. No one to talk to, listen to. No one to tell me how much they missed me. Loved me. Even hated me. Nothing. Just pure silence. Silence that drove me crazy.
Never had I thought death would be so lonely. I thought you would come to a place full of joy. A happy place. A place where you were never alone. But it was just so… lonely.
Years rolled by. And nothing but the guy cutting the grass, and the crying family members of the other dead ones to fill the silence. And oh how I missed him. Steve. I just needed him one last time. I needed him to fix me.
And then he came. He came and laid down next to me.
And Grace was there, and Charlie, and Lou, Kono. Even Chin. They were all there when Steve laid down beside me. Laid down to never get up again. I looked at him, watched him as he finally said something to me again.
"I missed you, Danno."