Author's Note: This was me. After reading really depressing stories. And finding out some bad family news… I'll rarely be like this ever again. I'm a very happy person… This isn't my best work either, so, enjoy anyway? And that part about no relationship? I am serious! Shocking I know, but there's just an implied love thingy.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

Summery: After the war, a girl leaves behind her love and her friends. No implied specific relationship, post war (duh). Darkest thing I've ever written… One shot, if you can't tell

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She had always known. In a war, there is no real winner. There's the illusion, but the loss? It's too great for any of them to truly win. She supposed she should've been prepared, for herself, or much worse, for him to die.

The laughs?

The kisses?

The possibilities?

The future?

The love?

Gone.

Just like him.

She watched the leaves tumble down as she walked the battlefield. She traced it with her eyes. He had known, she had known, they all had known that this could be, would be the end. There was no coming back.

The casualties were gone. Their bodies had plagued the forest, creeping up and bringing bitter memories and lost dreams with them. Would they be remembered? A century, a millennia, a decade- would anyone care? Who was she to judge? If there had been justice, she would've gone too. But the fates are angry mistresses.

The survivors, they were gone to. Forgotten to the night, to the darkness. Life would go on for the world, or what was left of it. But for her, and so many others, it ceased to have meaning. It merely existed. Merely exist.

She saw where she had watched her best friend tumble down. She bent down and placed a single flower where the dear man had closed his eyes for the last time. She carried the bouquet, to commemorate those that had gone. They had all tried so hard. With a kiss, and a single tear, she cast the flower down in despair. She could afford no more then one flower for each of her friends, she had cleaned out the store as it was, everyone needed the dark flowers. She could shed no more then one tear, either. She was spent and gone. Not gone like him, merely existing, like life for them.

She couldn't decide whether or not to feel guilty. She had lived; they died. They all had known the risk, and had housed the fear. "If you live, you keep on living, sweetheart. I love you and I don't want you to spend your life in darkness, in eternal night." He had told her.

Too late baby. It couldn't happen. She was lost. Like them.

"You find yourself another man, you hear me? I want you to make a life for yourself—a home and a family. Alright?" He paused to wipe away a tear, an eerie silence befalling upon them. He had been watching her form across the room on the last night, waiting until the others were asleep. He had pulled her aside, and told her this. His practiced, his memorized, sweet goodbye.

No such thing.

"Now, baby, you don't have to forget me, you can remember. But, I want you to understand, that you aren't the darkness. That you can't stay in this. If something happens to me, you move on. You keep on going." They both knew that his "If" was worthless. Something would happen; she just didn't know that it would be like that, like this.

He paused to wipe away more tears. "This is the last, I want you to always keep this with you, it'll protect you tomorrow. I. Love. You. No matter what, I always will. No matter what happens, you'll always have that." She could only nod in return. She and he had prepared, they had known this was coming for a long time,

She fell asleep curled in his arms, one last time.

Now, she came to his place, on the field. Where he had died. She was overcome with the grief of his passing. She gave him a flower, her rose. There was only one rose for him. There was only one man for her. They had gone into this battle, the raging war as children, innocent and pure. They all left scared, if they left at all, and like the new grown-ups they had to deal with it. She could spare no tears. Nothing she did would ever shine a light on this. On how she felt, on what she had done.

"I'm sorry. I love you so much. And, I just can't keep my promise. I know you wouldn't like it. But if you were here, to tell me that, we wouldn't be in this mess, now would we. But, they took you from me." She said, voice weak and trembling. "I'll do everything, but I just can't move on. The old me, that was the one who didn't belong in the darkness. But you took her with you, love, and she can't come back. I'm just a shell. One that needs to be hidden in the shadows."

She walked away. Closing her eyes, when she came to the end, she felt the rush of wind. It carried with it the leaves. The memories. The flowers. And herself.

She never glanced back. She never saw what had remained. Her rose. Her love. Those never left that field.