I can feel the sun burning me, the heat of it burrowing into my skin. Normally I would love the feeling of it, I would turn my face up to the sun and let the warmth wash over me, sweep over all the dirty dark places in my soul and make it all shiny and new again. You can take the girl out of California, but you can't take the California out of the girl.

All I can think of is that you're never going to be able to see me like this again. I don't grieve you the loss of the sun, the sun has been dead for you for centuries. But I remember the way you would look at me sometimes when we were inside, you were hidden safely in a shaded corner and I would walk past a window. In that instant when the sun hit me I always turned to see what your reaction would be, turning from the light to scour the dark.

I don't know what I expected to see in your eyes, jealousy maybe, that I had the sun and you didn't, anger. But I never saw any of it, all I saw was pure, unadulterated adoration. The way you looked at me made me feel like I was your personal sun, lighting up your endless night.

Except it wasn't endless, nowhere near it. You went out in a blaze of glory and sunlight. The forbidden sunlight was your final downfall.

I don't know why, but seeing you in the sun, bathed in light and sacrifice I finally understood what I had hidden from for too long. I always thought of you as darkness, as sin, the epitome of hate and evil, even after you had gotten your soul. You could never be clean, you could never be human because you could never walk in the sun with me.

But I saw you, caught in that final, deadly ray and I knew. The sunlight was your baptism, your rebirth into the man you had always fought to be. The sun was playing against the angles of your face, turning your eyes into a deeper blue than I ever could have imagined, glinting off your hair, you were reborn, in your moment of death.

I knew then that I loved you. That after your centuries of darkness you had finally stepped into the light, for me, to make sure I kept my sun. And I loved you for it, for that and for a million other things I had never seen before, until you lit them up for me, showed me that they were there.

I can hear my friends laughing outside. They're taking full advantage of the beautiful day, playing on the beach, letting the sun and the water relax their battle weary bodies. Finally enjoying the rest they had yearned for for so long. But I sit here, in the dark, because despite all of my battle scars, and weariness, all I yearn for is you.

I should be out there with them, laughing and joking and splashing around in the surf. You sacrificed yourself so that I could have it, but I can't bring myself to do it. In that final moment, I held your hand and I could feel the sunlight washing over both of us, fusing us together, making us whole, and it just felt so right. I couldn't go out into the sun again after that, it felt too much like a betrayal, like I was forgetting about our last moment together.

Stupid I know, I spent the last few years running from you, building a wall between us, so that I could stay in my wonderful sunny world and you had to stay in the dark. And now that you're gone, all I want is you standing here in the sun with me.