Title: Only the memories
Author: Jo
Feedback: please, yes!
Rating: T
Pairing: H/D
Disclaimer: characters not mine.
Notes: Not beta-ed. Please review, but be nice. Consider this is my first piece of work in English (I'm Italian)
Only the memories
When we set out, the sky was blue and the sun was shining.
Everything seemed so unreal.
Too happy to be possible.
I remember that the light was so blinding, after the darkness inside your house, and made you look like an angel.
My angel.
You turned around and smiled at me, and you were so trusting, it made me feel so bad that I almost told you. But then I saw the happy look on your face, and I couldn't.
Knowing that my eyes would have given me away, I pushed you and made you fall, then I started running. You took up the play, and ran after me, laughing, seeing the pointlessness of the chase, as I was already yours, or so you thought.
In the days to come, you probably thought you were wrong in trusting me, that I lied to you, that I didn't care. The truth is I was yours, I still am and I'll always be, for that matter.
We ran, while the country awoke around us on that morning in spring.
I let myself get caught, you grabbed me, and we fell on one another, rolling over, down that small hill, in the grass, and when we stopped, I on you, I looked down at you, and you were so beautiful, lying there between daisies and forget-me-nots, and I started crying.
I couldn't help it, and I hugged you as if my life depended on it.
Startled, you hugged me back, trying to understand what was wrong, but all I could say was a choked "I love you", while I was holding you even tighter.
How could I tell you that I was to leave you the next day?
How could I explain that I didn't want to, that I had to, that it was for your sake?
You would have wanted to come with me, and that would have been your death.
And I couldn't let that happen.
You were, and still are, by the way, the last thing worth living for I had, the home to return to.
I needed you to be well and safe.
Even if that meant losing you, not seeing you ever again.
But accepting this didn't prevent me from crying.
You just held me in your arms, there on the grass, caressing my hair while I was falling apart.
You soothed me until I stopped sobbing and I looked up. "Don't ask", my eyes answered your questioning gaze, and you didn't. You just helped me up, and I kissed you, pulling myself together, deciding I wouldn't let anything else ruin that day, if it were to be our last together.
And it was perfect.
It's burned in my memory, the thing which kept me going from that day on.
That night, I cried again while we made love, but you just stroked my cheeks, drying away the tears, looking at me sadly, smiling softly.
Did you know?
Had you already understood?
That night, fully dressed, looking at you sleeping, only the sheets covering you, naked in the four-posted bed, I debated whether to leave you a note explaining, or not.
I chose not to.
That way, you would have hated me, and hate would have helped you to move on.
Still, my decisions made, I couldn't bring myself to leave you.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from you, feeling that that was the last time I'd ever have the occasion to look at you, knowing that even if I survived, you wouldn't have wanted to see me ever again.
God, I loved you so much.
I almost stayed, pulled off my clothes and cuddled under the covers, next to you, ready to face whatever was to happen with you by my side.
You never had to know.
Then you moved in your sleep, not a big movement, just a turn on your left side, pillowing your head with your arm. It always made me wonder how you could be so still, your movements so slight and simple while you were asleep, being the drama queen you were when awake.
That stirred me from my stillness, and I remembered what I was about to do, and why.
The war was claiming me, a calling stronger than yours.
We always used to argue about my feeling responsible for the rest of the world. You said I was going to die a painful death trying to save these rotten people who didn't even accept our relationship, and I wasn't to count on your help.
But I knew you would have come with me to hell and back, if necessary.
And I couldn't allow that.
That awoke the last strength of will I had left.
I stroked your forehead, a farewell.
And you leaned into my touch, in your sleep.
Still up to now I believe that, however unconsciously, you told me goodbye, that way.
Pathetic, am I not?
And then I went away.
Everything after that is a blur.
I don't remember casting the spell which would have prevented you to follow me, at least until it would have become impossible to do so, I don't remember winning, saving the world…
Strangely, it doesn't matter.
Ironic, isn't it?
I did it just to save us, and now it doesn't matter, because there's no longer an us. I destroyed it to save the world, a world I don't care about as long as we can't be together in it.
The last thing I remember is you in the sun.
My angel.
I'm there now, you know? On the hill of that day.
The house is not yours anymore… I don't know what I was expecting, it was just a cover, a temporary arrangement, it's obvious you don't live there anymore… Anyway, I was drawn here, my last memory that counts.
I have nowhere else to go.
I don't care about anywhere else.
Just you.
As always.
I'm waiting for you, but I don't dare hope that you will come, that you'll forgive me, even now that you know the truth, that you know why I did it. You're surely getting even angrier, swearing after my "sodding hero complex", as you call it.
You'd tell me that I didn't do it for you, but for myself, because if I had thought about you, I would have known you would have preferred to die by my side than live forever without me.
You're probably right, as usual. Maybe it really was totally selfish.
I don't know.
I did what I thought was best.
And now I have nothing.
I saved the world, and I lost myself.
Only the memories are left.
I can do nothing but wait for you, here.
It's not sunny anymore, you know.
At least not for me.
You were my sun, and now everything is wet, cold, suffocating.
The memories, like drops of rain, run down over me, a bitter comfort.
No, there's no comfort, no quiet, no peace possible for me.
My body's just an empty shell, my soul gone with you.
The memories, the only things that keep me breathing, however painfully.
Waiting for you.
Remembering.
When we set out, the sky was blue and the sun was shining...
fin?