Author's Note: Words cannot express the shock, disbelief and grief I feel tonight. I wrote this as a catharsis to get some of my feelings out and to try to find the words that could begin to get across how I feel. Rest in peace, Cory, and may angels watch over you; may your friends and family who are still here on Earth be comforted in this time of grief.
That being said, obviously (sadly), this fic involves major character death.
Everyone else had left, by now, Rachel noticed. Everyone but her.
The sky was beginning to turn brilliant shades of pink and purple; the sun was beginning to set. The freshly compacted dirt made the plot stand out distinctly from every other plot around it. There wasn't a headstone; you don't buy headstones unprovoked for nineteen year olds. It just wasn't done.
They'd need one now. Later.
Somehow, she'd managed to make it through the visitation, and the service, without breaking down crying. Somehow. She'd been stoic through it all; she hadn't shed a single tear. Numb, maybe, would be more like it.
And now that she was alone, she sank to her knees on the patch of dirt. She took handfuls of dirt between her fingers and rose her hands to her lips, kissing the dirt and throwing it back down on the ground. Over, and over.
"Why did you have to go?" she asked, throwing her hands down on the ground and heaving her chest. It was more of a wail than anything. "Why couldn't you have stayed? And been with me?" The distant caw of a bird was her only reply. She continued, her wailing becoming masked by big, gulping tears. "I love you, Finn, you know that, and I would have been with you forever. Why? Why? It's not fair!" She pounded her fists against the dirt and cried.
Of course, she knew why he wasn't there - it was a car accident, on a wet patch of road, late one night coming home; he was the only car, the only fatality. Somehow, it didn't comfort her any to know that he died alone. He should have been able to die as an old man, surrounded by his children and grandchildren - and her, of course. Not now. Not so young.
She pressed her fingers to her chest, over her heart, and whimpered. "I miss you so much, already, Finn." She hadn't allowed herself to say his name out loud since she got the phone call from Carole, so the sound of it to her ears was dizzying. "I miss you, and you're not going to be here to help me." She dropped her hand to her stomach, and rubbed her hand over it; the faintest edges of a bump were beginning to form. "I was going to tell you, but I never got the chance. Seems stupid now, right? I wanted the timing to be just right, and then you never got to know." She laughed, despite herself. Somehow, it all seemed so trivial now.
She leaned forward and kissed the dirt, and then brushed the dirt from her face. The sun had nearly set. "I'll come back and visit you, with our child. I promise you that and everything else. I love you, Finn. I - I think you were the love of my life. No. I know you were. I love you so much." She wanted the last thing he heard from her to be that she loved him; she didn't want to think of their actual last words, exchanged in the heat of the moment a few days before the accident. She wanted his memory of her to always be that she loved him.
She knew he knew. It still felt good to say it.
As she walked back to her car, stumbling a bit on the uneven ground as she went, she swore that the stars twinkled down on her just a little bit more than they did in the nights before. It was probably just an illusion of her addled thoughts, but the thought of him watching over her from amongst the stars comforted her nevertheless.
I'm forever yours, faithfully.
-fini-