It's been five years, Fred.

Five years since I last saw your face mirroring mine. Five years I've lived—no, not lived. How I managed to pass the days…I wouldn't call it living. Five years I've dwelled in this world without you. Five years since I actually laughed, really laughed. Five years since I actually lived, truly lived. Five years since I actually felt like me, George Fabian Weasley.

Five years since the battle.

Five years since I've had you by my side.

Five years since I was whole.

They tried to get me out of it, you know. Everything they could think of, they did. It didn't work. They don't get it. They don't understand my pain. They don't know what it's like to be a twin. They don't know how it felt, to be ripped in two like that. I envy them.

I've considered other ways. They didn't work either. I couldn't just leave behind Angie and Mum and Dad and Ginny and everyone else. It doesn't work like that. I can't have Mum go through the pain of losing a son again. It'll break her. I despise myself for being so weak, Fred. I can't move on. I've fallen down and I can't get up. You must hate me too. I deserve it. I've let you and the rest of the family down. I don't deserve to be called a Weasley. I don't deserve to be called your twin.

I'm glad I'm the one who survived. I wouldn't ever want you to go through this hell. Sometimes I wonder if it might have been kinder if we weren't as close as we were, or if we weren't twins at all. What if we weren't even related? Then, you'd just be another face among the hundreds of others. Just another casualty of the war. Tragic, but not this kind of tragic—this kind that's eating my soul away, day by day. But then, I'd be turning my back on all the moments we shared—hell, I'd be turning my back on my entire life! So tell me this: would it be better to have lived a dull life than to never have lived at all?

And remember all those promises we made to each other? How we were each going to marry another ginger and have little ginger babies? How we'd grow old together and comb each other's beards? How we were going to go back to Hogwarts and train the next generation of troublemakers together with Peeves? How we promised each other that we will keep each and every one of those promises? I can't do any of that now. There's no way I could ever put beetles in Bill's food without thinking of you. There's no way I can ever say half a sentence and wait for you to finish our train of thought. There is no way I can ever live again. I can't! Us, we've never been one without the other. I don't know how to get on without you…

Never mind, never mind. Writing this has cleared my head a bit. This is actually the first time I've done something like this. Luna's suggestion. It always helped her when she wrote to her mother, and it's helped me now. No more moping around. I'm going to live a good life, die peacefully in my sleep, then meet you up there, in heaven. You take care of yourself in the meanwhile, all right?

I love you, Freddie. I miss you. One day we'll be together again, I promise.

George stared at the parchment on the table before him. His hand clenched. Something snapped. A vague voice in the back of his head told him that Percy will be furious when he sees the remains of his best quill, but he didn't care. Pouring out his heart like that brought memories he'd bury deep crashing back to the surface. The familiar black tide threatened to sweep over him again and bury what little positivity he had managed to muster. He could feel himself slipping away again, falling off the flimsy handhold he'd so lowly, so tediously chipped out for himself over the course of five years. The last fingers still clinging to hope were growing tired now. He could just fall into the abyss below. It would be so much easier to let go…

No.

With Herculean effort, George dragged himself back over the ledge, with the waves of despair still roaring beneath him. He couldn't go back to that dark place again. He had to live now, for Fred. He had to, so that they could be reunited after death. So that he could keep his last promise.

AN: Hello, people of the universe! This is a short ficlet, only five chapters long, all letters written to people who died either for Harry or for Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. Since I'm just not good at Weasley angst, the next chapter can't be worse than this…if it is, tell me. Please.

~Gella

EDIT: reading this five seconds before I'm about to press the submit button, and realizing how bad it is ._.