A man stood alone before a tombstone, a simple affair of stone, with just a name engraved on it. The wind rustled his hair as he contemplated the name, wishing that the person who belonged to it was next to him. Grief had been something he'd become acquainted with in recent years, but this feeling was different. Yes, there was grief and loss, but unlike his previous experiences with the emotion, this loss had caused his whole world to be tinted in grey. He constantly felt as if he was now living in a world that was simply wrong in the absence of the only person who could ever have been his closest friend. Now he was always reaching out for someone who wasn't there, and never would be again. The realization was enough even to shock his iron control, and a lump suddenly appeared in his throat. The two of them had been a team, a partnership, and he was now the half left alone, trying to make his way in the world without that comforting presence that he'd come to depend all too heavily upon over the years.
He let one hand brush against the cold stone, thinking that it was so unfitting; in life the grave's occupant had been so full of light and warmth that this cold stone could not be the only thing left of him. He took a deep breath, trying to keep the strict control that he had cultivated as protection throughout his life, and that only his closest friend had ever breached. Before he broke down completely, he said words to the stone that he had remembered for decades, from another day by a tombstone that only he knew how deeply he regretted.
"You were the best man, the most human human being I've ever known," he began, skipping over the parts that were relevant only to that long ago, terrible day. "I was so alone, and I owe you so much." He had to stop here, his eyes welling up with tears that he suspected he would become too familiar with in days to come, and then continued, his voice cracking slightly over the lump in his throat. "But, please, there's just one more thing, one more miracle, for me. Don't be…dead." Tears spilled down his cheeks almost unnoticed, as he thought how much he so desperately wanted this miracle. "Would you do that just for me? Just stop it, stop this…" He trailed off before he lost all his control, knowing how irrational he was being. There was nothing that could bring back the dead, and he wiped his eyes, letting his hand trail a goodbye over the gravestone one more time before he left, sensing the ghost of the newly dead next to him as he went back to his little cottage by the sea, the last remaining member of a phenomenal adventure that had become legend, now with only his beehives for company.