disclaimer: characters are not mine.
A stormy sky was over their heads. But none could care. It matched their moods, how they felt. None could believe she was gone. No one wanted to. What hurt the most was the way that it had affected them all, it was a shock. They remembered how it was… when they'd found her body, just lying there, broken. It had torn them up inside that this had happened to one of their own. It shouldn't have happened, not like that. She'd deserved better than that. She deserved to live past her twenties, to grow old and to live. Her life had barely started before it was over. And it tore at them. Just thinking of how it must have felt, knowing that they'd never have chance to bring her back, that nothing could ever change. They remembered the questions, they remembered her father showing up, and they made it perfectly clear that he was not welcome there. He wasn't her family, they were. For all they knew, she was happy, but that didn't comfort them. They felt like parts of them were missing. There was a hole, a gap that her presence had filled. It was just… wrong. Faces were somber as they waited for her body to be released. And the tears, the tears didn't come until after. Once the pressure of getting the affairs in order, other than the initial reaction, they had felt their barriers break down. They had no reserves left; this was the end of the line… everything that had happened in the past few years… it didn't matter right now. Nothing really mattered because the only thing that they had even felt at all was the loss it was the worst thing they'd ever felt. This wasn't the time to think about monsters; about how they'd manage to get along… this wasn't the time for pleasantries. It was the final sending, the first step in realizing she was really not coming back. There was the wake. They just sat there and stared at her face. They tried to comfort each other… but it didn't help. They each felt their own version of guilt, but there was nothing they could do. So they just sat there and stared at her beautiful face. The beautiful face of a girl with a beautiful soul, as she rested in her coffin, her face glowing like an angel. She had always been so sweet, so kind… there had been rough patches… sure, but they all still couldn't… they just couldn't. They couldn't tell how they felt, they couldn't just put in down in writing… because the pain went deeper than that. And the pain was all they could understand… the rest of the worried just floated out the door. The ceremony, where they put her in the ground. Where they just… saw fit to cover her precious existence in dirt. A stupid custom, it felt dirty. Like they were mocking her because they were allowed to walk on the earth while she was underneath them. Like they thought that they were better than her. It wasn't her fault, she was a victim of circumstance. The priest was speaking, but the words sounded foreign to them. They were still trying to grasp it, but couldn't. The sky was dark, and so were they. When the priest had finished… and they were lowering her polished coffin… that was when the rain started to fall. The heavens cried along with them, or maybe it was her… maybe she was there, crying for the tears that had started along with the rain, but no, it couldn't be. She was gone, and she was never coming back. Slowly the coffin sli into its grave. Another tradition about to begin. They each took their roses and tossed them in, to forever stay with her. Symbolic, a piece of them would never leave, never forget her. And the rain fell, and their hearts screamed for just one small sign of a mercy yet to be shown to them, and the dirt fell on top of her, and it was over. One last touch, to show the whole world that they would never leave her behind, that they'd carry her with them forever. A bouquet of roses redder than blood placed at her tombstone. Willow couldn't face this, she missed her already, she couldn't go on without her. She had believed in her, and she'd taken it for granted. She kept thinking that if she'd been… a better Wicca, it would have all been better. She couldn't be in the same room with them… it was suffocating. So instead she sat in the garden, and stared at roses, red roses. And the rain still fell, as it would always fall in her heart. For it was raining somewhere else, on a different bunch of roses. In a different place, resting beneath her name… Tara McClay.