Softly As I Leave You
Author: Mrs Ronald Weasley
Rating: PG or K+
Pairing/s: Harry/Ginny
Category: Angst/Tragedy/Romance
Warnings: Major character death
Spoilers: None
Summary: Harry says goodbye to Ginny while she's sleeping.
A/N: Inspired by 'Softly As I Leave You' by Elvis Presley.
A man was dying and his wife was sitting by his bedside
And she'd been sitting up with him for three days and nights
And somewhere on the third day between midnight and day
She lay down beside him and dozed off to sleep
And he felt her when she dozed off to sleep
And at the same time he felt himself start to die
He took his notepad from the side of the bed and he wrote
Softly I will leave you
Softly for my heart will break
If you should wake and see me go
So I leave you softly
Long before you'd miss me
Long before your arms can beg me to stay
For one more hourfor one more day
After all the years
I can't bare the tears to fall
So softly, so softly I will leave you
Tick...tick...Ginny wearily lifted her eyes and saw the time, 12:30 am, illuminated by the pale glow of the moonlight. She was tired, more tired than she'd ever been in her life. Three days and three emotionally and physically tiring nights she'd spent in this cold, sterile hospital room.
Her gaze shifted from the clock on the wall to the man, her husband, lying in the bed beside her. It was not the Harry she'd like to remember. His once tanned skin had turned a ghostly white; his hair was gone, fallen out a few months after the doctors had started chemo.
The only thing that was still as she had remembered it was his eyes; the brightness of them, the way they still showed his love and admiration for her.
Sighing Ginny rested her head in her hands, willing to keep the tears that clouded her eyes at bay. She wanted to sleep, to wake up and see that this was all a dream and that her husband, the love of her life, was not dying.
Harry had grown so weak in the last couple days. His pain had intensified and the doctors had ordered continuous doses of morphine to keep at least some of the pain away. At times, if it wasn't for the heart monitor, Ginny was almost sure that he had already gone.
Now though he was just sleeping, and Ginny wished, almost greedily, that she was the one lying in that bed instead.
Slowly she rose from the chair and climbed into the bed beside him. And as the tears fell from her already red and puffy eyes, she rested her head against his chest, if only to hear his heart beating.
Harry stirred, through the haze of the morphine and the pain his body was in, as he felt Ginny curl up beside him. Slowly he turned his head and looked at her. She'd fallen asleep; her long, beautiful red hair had fallen across his left arm and chest.
He felt himself growing weaker by the second, and he knew he didn't have much time left. He wanted to wake her, to tell her he loved her one last time. She looked peaceful as she slept and he knew she had stayed up the last two days.
He carefully reached for the notepad and pen that sat on the cart beside the bed. Not knowing where he had gained the strength to write or where the words came from, he wrote:
Softly I will leave you
Softly for my heart will break if you should wake and see me go
So I leave you softly
Long before you'd miss me
Long before our arms would beg me to stay for one more hour, for one more day
After all the years I can't bare the tears to fall
So softly I will leave you
Blinking away his own tears, Harry set the pen down and lay back down. It wasn't long before drowsiness overcame him and he slipped away into unconsciousness.
Ginny awoke seconds later to the sound of the alarms on the monitors going off. Several people rushed into the room and in the midst of the frantically trying to revive Harry knocked the notepad that had been sitting on the food cart to the floor.
Ginny's attention was caught when she realized something was written on it. Slowly she moved over and picked it up. Tears poured down her face, sobs rose from her, and she fell to the ground as she read what Harry had written.