Hey everyone! The next chapter to "Refuge" is finally coming along, but I've been going into story posting withdrawal, and thought I'd post this short one that I wrote in response to Emmarae's drabble challenge a while back. Again, it's a bit long for a drabble, so I'm not entirely sure what to call it (maybe a ficlet?). Also, it's a bit dark (actually more than a bit), and based off the episode "Broken Heart, Broken Mask." I'd always wondered what it would have been like had the story gone a different way – I'll let you determine what I mean by that as you read. Hope you all enjoy it.
The blue skies and sunshine seemed wrong somehow to him. They didn't fit the day at all, in his opinion. Heaven and God might be happy to have her, but he and this world had lost her, and blue skies on a day like today seemed almost mocking, as if the angels were taking too much joy in having one of their most beautiful souls return home. Couldn't God and Heaven mourn her with him, at least for today? He didn't want the sunshine, not now. He wasn't sure if ever wanted it again.
When they had covered her face after she'd breathed her last, she'd been so white, so pale against the sheets of the bed he'd never left the side of for a moment of those ten horrible, hopeful days. He'd not been able to move, not even when they'd removed her body to prepare it for burial. But though he'd not wanted to leave her side, he'd been unable to bring himself to touch her one last time, not wanting to remember the feel of her cool and lifeless when he'd known the feel of her blood fired skin so well before. He knew it would make what she had sacrificed because of him and for him to real to bear. That one simple touch would have made him fall apart, and she deserved better than that. Besides, even if he'd wanted to now, he wasn't sure that the tears could break through the numbness that had surrounded him like a secure, suffocating blanket since they'd taken her away.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The padre finished his last incantation, and scattered the dark handful across the coffin. It hit the wood lid, feeling like a knife slamming into his chest, and his fist went tight around the stem of the single red rose he'd picked for her from their garden. His eyes fell to the crimson petals, then to the dirt scattered over his love's coffin. Red for love – Victoria's favorite color. One beauty was being covered by dirt today. He wouldn't let this small symbol of her beauty, of their love be covered up in the earth as well. Uncaring who saw, he touched the petals to his lips before he bent carefully to lay it before her headstone, then stared at the perfect bloom. He could see her face, her smile, hear her laugh. His jaw clenched tight as he turned his hand over, noticing the thorn punctures dotting his palm. He should be in that box, not her. His hand closed in a fist. Not her.
He looked up at the hand that came to rest on his shoulder, looking up to find his father's eyes staring down at him, drawn and dark, seeming to sink back into the hollows of his face. The other mourners were gone, leaving them alone in the silence of the graveyard. He hadn't even heard them leave.
Alejandro smiled faintly, sadly, his words quiet and matter of fact. "You loved her."
Diego inhaled sharply, then slowly rose to his feet. Alejandro's eyes remained on him as did, and a single tear broke free down the old man's cheek, and Diego felt his jaw clench against the pain he knew was behind it. His voice barely broke above a whisper as his eyes fell to the elegant script etched against the stone that spelled out her name.
"No, Father. I do love her. I love her, and I always will."