Don't even ask me where I got this idea from, though I personally blame one tree hill (don't ask how this works). I'm not even sure I like this story but I thought i'd post it anyway, hope someone out there likes it.

Spoilers: one wrong move, behind the blue line, acceptible risk, shockwave and others

Friendships: Sam & Matt, Spike & Lew, Sam & Spike

Mentions of Sam/Jules

Quotes and title come from one of my favorite poems. Don't own anything.

'Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.'

At first there is nothing, absolutely nothing, just the endless darkness surrounding him; with seemingly no end to it, it seems to swallow him whole – determined to take him somewhere else, anywhere but where he was before. There is an end to it, there has to be, but he cannot see it – not from where he stands – so for him it does not exist; it makes no sense, that he knows, but his brain isn't working properly, so in those first few seconds that is all he knows.

Then, slowly, ever so slowly, his brain starts working; it feels, he must admit, as if he's waking up from a very long sleep, groggy and completely disorientated. The moment he remembers – which happens suddenly, with no warning, one second he's unsure of what is going on, the next it hits him like a blow to the heart. It hurts, really hurts, the moment he realizes what happened, but that, on its own, doesn't matter, not anymore.

(He is dead now, he realizes, and nothing matters; for the dead do not exist, not really, but apparently they do feel.)

The moment he remembers, the moment he knows, he realizes that it is not silent, like he thought before. Instead there is a sound, a single sound, completely surrounding him, drowning him – if that is even still possible. It is strange, he thinks – at least that's what he supposes he does, he's dead now and quite new to it, so he's unsure whether he should use the same words he did when he was alive, then he wonders why that would even matter since there is nobody to hear him anymore – that that sound, the one all around him bouncing of the invisible walls, is the last thing he remembers of his mortal life.

You'd think, really you'd think, that what he would – perhaps even should – remember is the feeling of the mine under his feet, the voice of his father in their last conversation or the shaking of his hands as he realized the truth. That the last memory, the last tie, would be his last coherent thought, his last decision –to move his foot and safe the life of his best friend, his brother – that the last sound in his mind would be the explosion, but it is not.

(That is, strangely enough, what he thinks right before, that he explosion, which would surely follow, would shatter his eardrums – as if that still mattered.)

The last thing he remembers, the last thing he knows – the last precious seconds that tie him to the living world – is the scream. So loud, so filled with pain and grieve that for one moment he could not believe a human could make a sound like that. And right before, right before he finally leaves the earth and exchanges it for this – though, trutfully, he could not tell you whether he was alive or dead at that point – he realizes who made the sound, and the realization breaks his heart.

It was Spike.

(Now, in the after, standing in the everlasting darkness, he can still hear it, echoing around him, getting louder and louder with every second that passes; Spike screams, like somebody is killing him, desperately trying to make it not truth, and he the best friend – the reason –can do nothing to help, nothing to change. )

For one moment, one fleeting moment, he wishes it hadn't been him that he had not offered to dismantle the bomb, that he had stayed hidden behind the cars. And if that does not work, if that could not be, than he wishes he'd stepped just a few centimeters to the side, stepping beside the mine – because in the end, that was all it was, one wrong move. (Take a step to the right and live, step to the left and die, how was that, in any way, fair?

It takes a moment for his brain to work fully, to comprehend the immensity of what he has just thought the consequence of that choice. For if it had not been him then it would have been Spike – his best friend, his brother – and he does not think that he could have lived with that, could have lived without Spike – it would have been much too quiet. Except of course that that is exactly what happened, he's dead and Spike is alive; neither can reach the other, both alone, and Spike's screams echo around in the darkness.

(He's dead, so perhaps it should not matter, but it does matter, it will always matter.)

Once the realization fully kicks in the sound stops, the screaming fades away and in truth he has never quite appreciated silence. Then the darkness itself fades away, making place for the light that swallows him whole, taking him home.

He goes back, of course he goes back, falling through the sky, floating through the worlds; passing other people, other souls, none of them matter however. He finds his parents clinging to each other, crying as Gregg tells them what happened and he watches, wishing he could hug tell, tell them again how much he loves them; but he cannot. He does not stay long, unable to stand there watching his parents fall apart, instead he leaves over the city towards Spike's house, but he is not there. He finds him, instead, at Wordy's house; sitting on the floor of what he assumes is the spare bedroom.

If he had not known his best friend the way he did, better – he thinks sometimes – then he knew himself, he would never have recognized him.

He's sitting there, staring straight ahead of him, blankly at the wall – staring but seeing nothing at all - not talking, not making any sound. This, Lew thinks, is not Spike; Spike is loud and happy, always happy, always laughing – there's always a joke to play on someone, always a story to tell, always something. That was one of the first thing he noticed about him, all those years ago when they first met, Spike was completely incapable of being quiet – he could be quiet, of course he could be, when it mattered, but mostly he was loud – that was one of the things Lew loved the most about him. But now he was nothing, just silently staring at the wall ahead of him; the scream he let out earlier had been all of his grief, all he could let out, perhaps now all could do, all that was left, was just sitting there. He sits down beside his best friend, the silent observer, hoping that somehow Spike can feel him, realize he was not alone. He does not believe it, does not think he really can, but it does somehow make him feel better, about the whole dead thing.

(He wishes he could reach out and touch him, assure him that his is here, hug him like he used to, draw him back to the world of the living, where he belongs; but he is dead and can do nothing. )

He stays at his best friend's side that day, and the ones that follow – he does not, however, attend his own funeral, that is just way too creepy.

He does not stay all the time, he comes and goes, a constant traveler; he's not a part of this world, not anymore, he passes between this world and heaven, between his friends, parents and the new world.

(He is not the only one, there are others, walking through the world, haunting – he supposes that is the word – the ones they love, somehow trying to cling to the world of the living. He is, in the end, one of many.)

There is another man, about his age, following the team, strolling through the SRU as if he belongs there; he doesn't, Lew is sure of it, and yet strangely he does. He's never seen him before – actually, after the third time they end up in the same place he realizes he has seen him somewhere before, but he can't quite place him, not that it matters. He doesn't know him, has never talked to him and he probably never will, at least not until he realizes who he is.

Then he realizes, suddenly, he is not following the team, he is following Sam.

Then it clicks, that's where he's seen him, in the picture hanging in Sam's locker (in several pictures actually), and once – a long time ago, after a particular long case when the three of them, Sam, Spike and himself, had been the last ones left in the locker room – he had mentioned his name. Sam talked of him, briefly, sharing some anecdotes – what he remembers, what he gathered, was that they were best friends, like him and Spike, and that the other one was dead – it takes a moment, however, to remember the name, and then, just as suddenly as the memory of the picture, comes the name. Matt.

But he does not talk to him, doesn't know what to say and so he just stands there, with his new found knowledge.

(And the realization that this guy, of whom Sam only spoke once – and it hurt him that was clear – knows more about him, Lew, and the rest of the team then he would want him to - considering he is a complete stranger.)

It's in the hockey arena, there were Sam tries so hard to reach a fellow soldier – who's probably already too far gone – so hard to safe someone, but does not succeed. It's there that Lew realizes for the first time how little he actually knows about the people he called his friends, his family. So many questions – in that moment mostly about Sam and all he went through – suddenly plague and now that he can't ask them, now that he'll never know, even the most insignificant ones become important.

(He watches silently – he watches everything silently – as Sam kneels on the ground, distraught, a broken man; and the rest of the team stands there, unsure of what to do. His friend, Matt, sinks down beside him, trying to reach out, but of course he can't.)

Once everything calms down, and he waits a few days, he goes to Sam's apartment – which is extremely strange because while he was alive he'd never gone to his apartment, they'd spend time together but that was mostly hockey games and movie nights at Spike's or barbecues at Wordy's, never anything at Sam's place, which is strange. But now, now that he's not part of the world anymore, he sees it for the first time.

Matt's already there, sitting on the floor beside Sam who's lying on the couch. From where he's standing, but the door, he cannot tell whether Sam's asleep or not; but he supposes that doesn't truly matter. Sam's crying, Lew suddenly realizes, and in that moment all he thinks he knows about his friend goes out the window, Matt stands up and lays his hand on his best friend's shoulder, whispering reassuring words. He should leave, this is a private moment, but he can't.

'Can he hear you?'

'No, nobody can hear us, but perhaps, just perhaps, he can sense that I am close and it may give him some solace.'

'Do you not blame him?'

'For what? It wasn't his fault, he couldn't have known, it was my own. I should not have been there.'

'So there is no way then? To talk to them? Somehow get some kind of message across?'

'No, and I've tried, believe me, I've tried, perhaps we should not even be here. We're probably breaking some kind of rule.'

'Surely we're not the only ones?'

'No, there are others, many others, I'm sorry.'

'What for?'

'It must be hard for you, having just died and I wish I could tell you that there is some way to reach them, some way to talk to them, but you can't. The only way is when they are between live and death, dying, then perhaps you could talk to them.'

'Well I'm not gonna pray for that.'

'No, neither am I.'

'I'm Lew, by the way.'

'Matt, though I suspect you already knew that. Nice to meet you.'

'Yeah, don't take this the wrong way but I wish I wasn't meeting you.'

'Don't worry, I understand, believe me, I understand.'

He turns back to Sam then and Lew knows, just knows, that the conversation is over and he turns to leave them alone.

(It is not the first time he speaks to Matt, in fact they'll become some sort of friends, but for now he has learned all he needs.)

There are many of them, all around him, ghosts, spirits from those that were before.

Most come and go, only briefly passing through, friends from long ago, people that could not be saved and the ones that could be, but died later, much later. Some stay longer, finding their way, but most, most go back to their heaven, or somewhere else on the world, back to their own family and friends. There's an older women hanging around Jules and he thinks that's probably her mother – remembering briefly the call where a young girl who'd just lost her mother tried to jump of a roof – and a man hanging around the Sarge – him he does not know, perhaps his father or an old friend, not that it really matters.

There are others, many others, friends and family alike, but none are important to him.

There's a child too, a little girl, running through the streets; long blond hair and a beautiful, beautiful smile. So young, much too young, and every time she shows up – laughing and playing silly games – his heart breaks for the child that was ripped from life far too soon. She's obviously connected to Sam, because every time she shows up she runs towards him and jumps around him, her hand clutching to his, smiling up at him, obviously adoring him. When he finds out who she is he wonders why Sam never talked of her, but perhaps it just hurt too much.

In the months after he dies he realizes that Sam and Spike become better friends.

He's grateful for it and he understands it – they have something in common now, something besides the job. It is, in his opinion probably the worst thing they could have in common – a dead best friend that is – but it bonds them, brings them closer together. He's glad because now Spike won't be so alone and he can tell that Matt is grateful too, but despite all of that he can't help but be jealous. It's irrational, stupid and wrong but that's what he feels; he talks it over with Matt, in one of their many conversations, and Matt assures him it's normal. He, apparently, had been jealous of all of them when they became Sam's friends.

(If he were alive they'd all be friends, but he is not, and though it has taken him a long time he thinks he's finally accepted it, or at least gotten close to accepting it.)

He is also the first to know that Sam and Jules are together again, which is logical because he's everywhere and he's happy for them. It might harm the team, might tear it apart but he understands. He of all people, after all, knows how short life can be, how fast it can be taken away – especially in their profession- so why should they not claim all the happiness they could get? If they love each other, and that he is sure of for why else would they risk it all , why should they not have it? They deserve it, they all deserve it, and he hopes that they all will be happy.

(He's also the first to realize what is wrong with Wordy and he's sad he leaves the team but glad at the same time, he doesn't want him to die and perhaps leaving was the best thing for him. At least they all still spend time together, barbecues and such, and his replacement is not so bad – neither, really had his been, but Leah was long gone.)

One day he realizes that Matt doesn't come so often anymore.

He comes, sometimes, mostly when Sam is in turmoil; but besides that he spends his time away. Perhaps, Lew thinks, he goes to see his family, but truthfully he thinks it has more to do with time. He's been dead for a long time and perhaps Matt feels it's time to start letting go, try to live his new life away from his old. Maybe in the end that is what they're all supposed to do, but he is not ready to let go, not yet – perhaps he has not yet accepted his death, he probably needs more time. He doesn't spend all his time with them, just some, watching, learning, and reaching out despite not being able to.

But the worst moment, the absolute worst moment, is when the bombs go off and Spike is still trapped.

And he, the best friend who should have had his back, could do nothing but watch; hoping, praying that they would not meet again, not yet. But it is not his time and eventually they all make it out, they all live – all except for Spike's father, who joins him shortly. And in that moment he understands why Matt doesn't come by more often, why – when he does see him – it's mostly after hours. It's hard, painful and maddening, to watch your friends – your best friend – get into situations where they might die and not be able to do anything.

(After that day he too stays away, just passing by when they are not out on a call, it is too hard.)

He's a visitor, coming and going, passing by trough the world; not truly belonging anymore. He watches and learns the things he's never seen before and now knows; knowledge he'd willingly exchange for a chance to go back, but he cannot. Matt is now his closest friend, having no way to contact his best friend, but it troubles him sometimes. It troubles him that he can't figure out whether they would have been friends if they'd met when they were both alive, if Matt had somehow lives he would have met him, him being Sam's best friend, but he's not sure whether he would have liked him. It doesn't matter but somehow it seems important to him.

He doesn't ask, never asks, whether Matt wonders these things too.

He misses his friends and his parents, misses them all; mostly Spike though. But he knows that someday he'll see them again, someday they'll be in the same place again, talking and laughing. He'll be able to tell his parents he loves them, he'll be able to give Spike a hug and promise him that it will be okay – it was okay. He knows, but he hopes, oh how he hopes, that it will be long time before that day comes around. That Spike, that all of them, will be old people by the time they reach him, having lived a full life.

That, in the end, is the only thing he wants for them, it is also – this he is sure of, the only thing Matt wants for Sam.

For them to live.

'Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there, I did not die.'