notes: demelza/colin, implied romilda/demelza; romilda/demelza/colin friendship
disclaimer: i own nothing, obviously
She holds your hand in hers, the relief clear in her eyes as she stares up at you, and you never thought another person could make you feel this happy after the horrors of this war. "I'm so glad you're okay," Romilda says, and it feels like she's trying to tell you something more than simple happiness at the other's existence, but you don't have time to focus on that when there's a boy you love still out there somewhere.
"Colin?" you ask, squeezing at her hand to say that yes, you are more than happy that she is here beside you.
"Demi," she hesitates, and you fear the worst before she says it. "He's dead," she tells you, and you forget how to breathe. You are burning, you are drowning, you are falling to pieces as she looks at you, her eyes wide with sympathy you wish you didn't need. You clutch at her wrist, ragged nails biting into her flesh and yours, leaving blood-red scars etched into her dark skin that mark your pain.
"No - no. He's - no," you choke out brokenly, breathlessly, tears clawing to escape from your already bloodshot eyes, your nails digging ever further into your best friend's skin. "Wha-why? What?" you ask her, the phrase going unfinished even as she begins to speak with tears in her own eyes. You had forgotten that they were equally as close, best friends until the world ended, or so they both said, and deep in your selfish pain you wonder why she isn't as openly broken as you are. The world has ended, after all.
"I saw it, Demy - there wasn't anything anyone could do. Colin's dead," she pronounces, as solemn as a church service, but there's a crack in her voice that wasn't in her voice before as she tugs you into her arms. You lean into her, chasing the comfort of Romilda's staple vanilla and sandalwood perfume that is strongest at her neck, and you wonder if you can remain in her arms until you die too. It shouldn't be long.
"You could never have saved him," she says again, sounding as if she is trying to convince herself more than you, and you surprise yourself with your hatred of the word. Never. You hate it; 'never' reminds you of the unattainable, of all the things you will never have because this is your life now, and dreams don't make pleasant company when they're accompanied by nightmares. You will never be an ordinary girl, with a white wedding and a white fence and a white face as you give birth to your husband's child, because the only boy you ever loved is dead and you are sixteen and alone, left to carry his baby. Somehow that hurts worse, to know that you fought so hard to keep him, but you never really had a chance. This war has taken so much from you, and you thought it would at least let you keep Colin, your dead child-hero who will never turn sixteen.
"I love you," you whisper into the frigid air and hope he hears it, bodies scattered around you like patches of grass, just as inconsequential to your pain. You welcome the chance to be selfish, because no one can deny that you loved him - love him, you remind yourself, because you will never let him be dead. You love him, you love him, you love him, and you alone will keep his memory alive. You, and his baby, who will hurt you to look at but you will love her fiercely in spite of it, and you will watch her grow up and be the ordinary girl war never allowed you to be.
The world owes you that much.
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