On a cold November evening Michelle Preston made her way along the faded brick path, towards the only piece of her best friend left in this world. Most people wouldn't have bothered with a headstone, after all she and Joe were the only ones who cared enough about him to visit. They agreed that even though they didn't have his body to bury, they still had his spirit.
In Loving Memory
David Marshal Buckman
Though He Is Gone, His Soul Lives On
In Our Hearts And Prayers
Shelly held herself as the wind picked up, blowing her jacket and loose strands of hair around her. She looked at the winter wreath holding a picture of him placed next to the headstone and smiled softly. Joe made sure that the wreath was in place before the first snow, and she made sure a flag and flowers were beside him when it thawed. She knelt down and placed her hand over his name, "I miss you Buck. Every day, I miss you. I know you wouldn't want me wasting my life on an empty grave, but you're not here to change my mind and stop me." She shifted and lifted something from her jacket, "Goodbye my friend, I'll see you on the other side." The whispered words left her mouth as she pulled the trigger.
They found her lying next to him under a light blanket of fresh snow, a pillow of blood beneath her head. The last letter he sent her, nearly fifteen years ago, tucked inside her jacket pocket. The last words she read from him, "Goodbye Shelly-bean, I love you kiddo."
Now Joe takes care of two graves, the man he thought of as a son and the young woman he loved like a daughter. All these years Joe watched her struggle and try to move on, but he knew Shelly wouldn't be able to love anyone the way she loved David. She cared for his grave, visited and talked to a piece of granite as if his body were there listening. She let her grief consume her and Joe knew it was only a matter of time. He buries her next to David's grave marker; he puts a wreath with a picture of her and David sitting together at the beach between them and leaves the pair to rest in peace.
A/N: I still miss my best friend, time hasn't made her passing any easier and when I get really depressed (like tonight) I imagine what it would be like to hug her and talk to her and just sit with her again. My friend doesn't even have a grave marker; she's simply gone from this earth. For the longest time I just wanted to die so I could be with her, but now I'm trying to do what she would have wanted – move on and live my life. In another 13 years will I have accomplished that – I don't know, Michelle couldn't and I might not either.