Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and involved characters aren't mine. They originally belong to Ikukoh Itoh.
That was it.
He was gone.
Duck sat on the bench outside, in the sunlight. But she hardly felt the warmth. She hardly felt anything. She stared into space as she looked at the cobblestones on the ground. She wasn't thinking of anything. She wasn't even sure she was thinking at all. She just… was.
And he wasn't.
She thought she heard someone scoff, and jerked her head up. But she just saw a man reading the newspaper as he sat outside a restaurant down the street, and make some comment to the person beside him. Duck's face fell as she turned back to the cobblestones.
Even though he didn't- well, hadn't been, so snappy lately, he was still- had been, getting better about it.
Duck sighed, and gave little resistance to the tears that began welling in her eyes. Again.
Fakir had finally found a way to write her back to being a girl again. It was wonderful, being able to go to dance classes again, and practice ballet with shoes instead of webbed feet. Fakir even helped her practice, sometimes.
They argued at times, too, but that hadn't ever stopped. Now it was because he was worried about her more than anything else, but she always insisted she was fine, even when she'd tripped and scraped her knees. That hadn't stopped him from carrying her that time. Or a few other occasions. She'd protested, but only minimally. It felt nice to be carried by him as a girl. She got used to the stares from others.
Not all of their fights always ended so pleasantly, though. Sometimes they separated and wouldn't talk, possibly for days. But they always ended up catching each other trying to sneak in glances, or just 'happen' to be nearby; so they always made up, even if it sometimes involved more yelling.
And then, one time, she had slipped up. "That's what happens when you really care about people," she'd yelled, then cut herself off before she could continue. They both fell silent at the remark, and Duck had promptly turned red and fled. It wasn't long after, though, that they finally shared a kiss.
Duck wandered around the streets, unsure where exactly she was going but also uncaring. It wasn't like there was any place for her to be that day. Or at least, not that she could remember. No one had come to drag her off anywhere, so that must have been it.
Before she knew it, she found herself at the grave. She didn't even register she was there until she noticed the new flowers. Charon must have left them earlier. She looked at her hands, and realized that she hadn't brought anything. Of course she hadn't, that would have been too responsible of her. Fakir was always the one to remind her-
She stopped thinking, and held her breath as she tried to calm the tears that threatened once again. She had already done this a million times, she had already cried her eyes out earlier that day, she didn't want to do it again. Not here, he wouldn't have wanted to see her cry. She trembled, trying to will her body to stop. It wasn't working.
They'd had an argument on a day it was raining. She could run faster than him, so she'd gone to the woods in frustration. The lake usually calmed her. He had gone after her, and once finding her, calmly said that she would catch a cold if they didn't get back. She hadn't argued, and they'd returned arm in arm.
However, he was the one who ended up catching the cold.
And he'd always said she was the idiot.
Duck sank down in front of the grave, tears dripping on the stone and flowers alike. Her hands shook as she clenched them into themselves, and she could feel her nails biting into her skin. Good, maybe she would finally feel something other than this gaping emptiness that her tears refused to fill.
Fakir had refused to go to the doctor for the longest time, until finally she had to drag him in. By that point, though, it wasn't very difficult, which worried Duck even more. He was reprimanded for waiting so long, and made to stay in the hospital to get better.
She visited him often, and while he was annoyed and limited by the illness, he generally smiled when they talked. She thought he was looking better after some time.
But she was wrong.
He started getting tired more often, and seemed to have more trouble going any length of time without coughing so much he had to rest. She asked the doctors for more information, but they said they could only talk to Charon, despite her vigilance at Fakir's side. Eventually, though, with permission from Charon, they shared that Fakir's condition was getting worse.
Horrified, she immediately confronted Fakir about it. He got upset that they told her at all. They were arguing when he was suddenly cut off by pain and Duck was ushered from the room.
She didn't get to go back to him for days.
They said that there was something else that they hadn't seen because of the other illness. It was worse.
When she finally saw him again, he hardly had the strength to sit up, let alone hold a pen. She'd suggested he write himself better before, but he'd rejected the idea as too problematic for something that would go away on its own. She'd still found some crumpled papers now and again, but nothing ever changed. Now, he couldn't even attempt to write.
She wanted to help him, and offered to do so. He'd simply smiled, squeezed her hand, and told her that her presence was help enough.
And then, he was gone.
Duck had spent her tears and now lay crumpled up beside the headstone. "I'm sorry…" she whimpered again, "I'm sorry I couldn't-" She coughed, and sighed, leaving the sentence unfinished. She had said it often enough, the words burned in her mind, but saying them aloud didn't make any difference. She'd hoped that if she said it enough she would actually believe them, but she couldn't. She was sorry, but that wouldn't bring Fakir back. And she didn't have the power that he did. She didn't have any power. She had tried dancing for him, many times, even at his grave. But the power of Tutu was gone; all her dancing did was remind her how unskilled she still was.
She stroked the flowers that Charon had brought, wishing she could be one of them so she would never have to leave Fakir's side. He had promised the same to her, after all. And he had done his best to keep that promise. What had she ever done for him? Made him angry, gotten in his way, made him sick…
The rain made me sick, moron.
That's what he would have responded. And he would have chided her and said that she had done plenty for him, like gotten him to see that Mytho really did need a heart, and that he didn't have to be the knight. And given him headaches, too.
And taught me to defy fate.
Yes, they both had done that. But now… was it fate that had taken him away? Could she defy fate again, without his help?
She traced the outline of the stone. Why couldn't it have been her to get sick? And sicker? And then…
Then Fakir would be the one sitting here at her grave, instead of her at his. That wasn't much better, was it? It was selfish of her to wish this pain on him instead of herself.
What would she have said to him if that were the case, though? Would she have comforted him? Yelled at him? What would she have wanted to do?
Well, other than not be dead.
Duck sat up and thought. She would want him to be happy. Even though she felt it was impossible for herself to be happy right now, she would have wanted him to be happy, somehow. And, even if she was dead, she was sure she'd find a way to comfort him, to stay with him-
… Oh. She had been thinking about herself this whole time, about how it was her fault, how horrible she felt, and never about him, about what Fakir would have wanted for her. Would he have wanted her here, sulking and crying beside his grave? Forever?
No. He would have wanted her to be cheerful when she came to visit his grave, so that she would be smiling. He would have wanted her to keep practicing ballet, to prove that she really was as in love with dance as she said she was. To show him that she could keep improving, for him, even if he wasn't there physically.
Duck began to feel a warmth in her heart that had been missing for what felt like forever. She finally smiled a little as she fondly looked at the grave-marker, and she could feel him smiling back at her.
I promised I would stay by you, didn't I?
No, she couldn't do it alone. But maybe with his memory, and his hope for her, she could try to be better. For both of them.