*hisses* Someday, I'll write an even cuter beach scenario with the two eternal divas. A happy one, I swear.
Piano
Summer was the best time for visits to the beach. On the outskirts of England lied one that very few people knew existed; only the students of a university of music had been escorted there, to be inspired by it's untouched beauty and cooling sounds.
Many years ago, Whistler had been one of those students. He had never planned to return once he was engrossed in orchestra, but his amazement at how it had remained so perfect after all those years encouraged him to return. This time, he didn't have to do a single thing except listen. His infant daughter Melina accompanied him, and sat on his lap beside the ocean. Watching her become enchanted by the waves lapping gently on the shore in front of her just like he had done was a beautiful sight for his eyes. They both inhaled the fresh and so foreign air into their lungs.
"Do you like this beach?" he whispered in her ear.
Enthusiastically, she nodded. Her hands reached out to grasp the sand, and she let it sift between her tiny fingers.
"I thought so," Whistler replied, then he tickled her under her chin, to hear her sweet laughter - a sound greater than any piece of music he'd ever composed. Melina reminded him so much of his late wife that it filled him with both bliss and sadness to spend time with her. He hoped she would stay like her mother as she grew past childhood and blossomed into adulthood, but Whistler knew her love many not even last until then. With her illness threatening to consume her life earlier than most, he wanted to spend every minute he could now making her happy.
"Papa!" the girl exclaimed. "Can Janice come with us to the beach with us next time? Then we can make sand castles together! And sing the Song of the Sea!"
Whistler looked down into his daughter's deep green eyes. "Of course she can, sweetheart. I'll arrange something with her parents as soon as we get back."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"Yay!" Melina reached her hands up, pulled her dad's face down, and planted a big kiss on his cheek. "I love you, Papa!"
Oswald smiled. "I...love you too, Melina."
"Can you play the piano for me, Papa?" his daughter cried.
"Yes. I will always play the piano for you, Melina," he answered. "You don't even need to ask."
His eyes opened.
On to her carefully laid bed and the great black piano, the sun flickered dimly. He could hear a shadow of her once beautiful young voice at the back of his head whilst his fingers reluctantly moved from key to key. He didn't want to reach the last note of the song. He didn't want to let go of her hand, or see her deep green eyes immersed in pain, not even attempting to blink away the tears, now that she knew her fate was set in stone.
But what had he always promised? He would always play the piano for her. No matter what. So weak and tender, like a flower's stem about to snap, her voice had called out to him. One last request. One final song.
"Can you play the piano for me, Father?"
He couldn't stop his trembling fingers reaching out across the piano. It couldn't be so. Please, he shook. Tell me it isn't.
His daughter's last moments were approaching. If he didn't complete this composition now, he would never be able to play a single piece of music again. The birds in the trees would stop singing, and the opera houses would remain empty. But Melina had been the oxygen in his lungs for so long - could he really let her go?
Whistler gulped, facing downward, tears spilling down his face, and with a single solid note, he completed the song.
He would always play the piano for her - she didn't even need to ask.