It's just a tiny thing, but it weighs so heavy on his heart.
Pink, translucent, and fragile hanging from his neck by a thin leather chord it looks entirely too feminine and delicate for a man of his age to be wearing to the casual observer.
Perhaps that is why he keeps it hidden under many layers. Single-breasted tweed suit jacket. Dove-colored linen waistcoat. Silk tie in some eye-catching color trussed up in a perfect Windsor knot as always. Button-down dress shirts, usually in blue or some other bland shade. Plain white undershirt. All of this has been his typical style of dress for so long … but now it serves another purpose. It hides the fact that there is now another layer. A layer of pain; of dreams dashed and love lost with a simple snap. This necklace, though worn smooth by its previous owner, has become a cilice in its constant reminder of what could have been, but never will be.
A stone this small should not burden him so, but it does. Daily he feels it against his skin, a place she only rarely got to touch before she was ripped from this world. Daily he thinks that he should have allowed her to push their relationship further at the faster pace she preferred instead of holding back out of respect. Daily he thinks that he should have forgiven her deception earlier. Daily he thinks that he should have killed her murderer himself the moment they learned of his transformation, so that his slayer would not have to suffer that duty herself. Daily he thinks that he should have stayed with her that night and helped her in her task. Maybe then he could have protected her … or at least she would not have had to die alone.
This little crystal is all he has left of her physical presence now. That little red head, the one more friend than student, graciously gave him the one thing he has to hold onto of hers. It only comes off when it is time to wash the day away in the shower, and it actually hurts to remove the tiny part of her because he knows what it will feel like when he puts it back on. Throughout the day it warms, cradled next to his skin as it is, until he almost feels that this part of her has melded into his being. Yet when that contact is severed; when he steps out from under the stream of hot water and ties the leather thong back around his neck, it has turned cold. Lifeless. Like she is now.
The purported healing properties have not yet done their job. Maybe he should remove it and try to move on. Maybe he should never take it off and hope that it one day it will work. He isn't sure … but he is sure that love unfulfilled, cut down before its bloom … it should not feel this agonizing forever.
It's just a tiny thing, but it weighs so heavy on his heart.
***A/N***: Ok, ok, I know. I should be writing other stories. I should be finishing "Recipe for Disaster", working on the 3rd story in my Daria series, or continuing my Bones story that I promised to expand from the one-shot it is. I should also be working on my thesis paper, paying attention in the lab, and calling my mom back. But I convinced my BF to watch all the seasons of Buffy and Angel with me, and we just watched season 2's "I Only Have Eyes for You" and the scene where Willow gives Giles the rose quartz necklace from Jenny's desk spoke to me … so here it is, pounded out in 30 minutes. I promise though RFD fans … chapter 30 is almost done and will be up by the end of the week.