Hey everyone! This is my first foray into the world of Spemily, so please let me know what you think. This will be a pretty short story, only five chapters, but a lot will happen during them. Also, I feel the need to warn you, this is not a happy story. It's a tragedy, so if you're looking for a happy ending look elsewhere. If you're familiar with me and my writing you'll know that I'm big on angst, so if that's what you're after look no further. Reviews make me really happy, so if you read it and like it, let me know. See you next chapter.

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Who knows
how to drink pain,
and live?
~ The Wound, Gwen Harwood

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The words are written on a snow-covered tombstone. Snow still falls, softy, gently, as if it is afraid of startling the solitary figure perched by the grave, flowers in one hand and apologies in the other. She has been here every day since the funeral, and she will be here every day until she loses either her life or her mind (and both are likely). Nothing else could tear her away. She sets the flowers down in front of the tombstone, where they settle amongst others of their kind, blending into a floral eulogy to express the words that people are still too heartbroken to say.

She sits back on her heels, reading the words, and then the name. The words may only be in stone, but that name is in her bones, in her heart, in her very being. That name is as much a part of her as her own blood or hair or skin. It clings to her, reminding her of what she once had, of the lover she has lost and the life she will never have.

"I'm sorry I didn't come earlier," she says softly. "Aria wouldn't let me leave the apartment. You know how she gets."

She laughs, but the sound gets caught in the snow-filled silence, muffled and distorted as if she is being reminded that this is a place for solemnity, not for laughter.

"I brought you some flowers," she goes on, indicating them. "They were your favorite. I'll bring you some fresh ones tomorrow."

A gust of wind drifts over her, and she pulls her jacket in closer. Aria hadn't let her go until she'd promised to be less than an hour, and rug up in gloves, a scarf, and her warmest jacket.

"A storm's on the way," she'd told her, "and I don't want you to get caught in it."

So she'd agreed, willing to do anything if it meant she would be able to be here. She looks at her watch; she has been here twenty minutes already. She crosses her legs, shifting until she's in a relatively comfortable position, although the ground beneath her is cold and unyielding.

"I talked to your mother today," she says, her eyes drifting downwards as she plucks some weeds from the ground. "She asked me out to brunch tomorrow. I'm not sure I'll go, but it was a nice offer."

She thinks back to when the other girl's mother had first heard about them. She had been displeased, but eventually she'd come to accept and even welcome her. Now she was more a part of that family than she was her own; she hadn't even heard from her parents in a month. They'd called just after the funeral, to make sure she was okay (she had a history of 'mental instability', as her psychologist phrased it). She had wanted to admit that she wasn't, that she would never be okay, but she knew it wouldn't have done any good. So she said she was, and they said they were glad, and they haven't spoken since.

"The girls are doing better," she offers, a feeble effort to cheer herself up. Of course the other two members of their group are doing well; they hadn't had their hearts ripped out and buried in the ground. "Aria got a full-time position with that photographer she's been interning for. And Hanna's in New York for a second interview with this designer she's admired for years, so she's really happy about that."

Another gust of wind comes, but this one is laden with memories, and she can almost hear her love asking, And you? Are you doing better?

By this point she's removed all the weeds, but she keeps pulling, watching the roots of little plants being torn from the earth, feeling the dirt catch under her fingernails, wishing that if she dug her own grave and lay down to sleep in it, the snow would cover her and she would fall into an untroubled sleep, and when morning came she would not wake up.

But she knows it is not that easy. She knows the snow would cover her well enough, but before it could stop her heart or freeze her blood, someone would find her. They would cry out, startled, and then they would save her. They would rub her hands until feeling returned to them in jolts of stabbing pain. They would wrap her in blankets until she stopped shaking. They would bundle her up and drive her to the hospital, and the nurses and doctors would fix her body and try not to notice that her heart no longer worked the way it should. It still pumped blood, it still kept her alive, but it did not give her a reason to live.

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