Author's Note: My first Gravitation fic... weh, but this piece is just here temporarily. Well, maybe. If I get enough positive feedback, I'm going to go ahead and post the in-progress multi-chaptered piece this is from, if not, I'll leave it like it is. The lack of names is intentional... it's up to you to figure out who is who... make your guess if you'd like, I do wonder quietly to myself if the characters are clear enough to be identified. This is a sad, sad situation being portrayed here... if you want the full story give me good feedback!

Sleepsong
by Capella A. Morningside

I cradle the hands I adored for so long in my own, their temperature fading, the small amount of heat they naturally radiated being wafted away slowly by the air currents in the room; you always did have such cold hands. Two of my fingers slipped within the silken sleeve to monitor you, a slow, steady beat fading into the background like the end of a song that the artists weren't sure how to finish. I want to tear away, because you would never want to be seen like this, in such disarray. If you had the strength to, I half-imagine you would retrieve your fallen hat, adjust your coat to hide the profusely bleeding wound in your chest, and then kindly ask me in that trademark polite tone to fetch a cloth and some cleaner to wash the smeared red from the glass behind and above you.

For some reason, in the situation I would have expected most to give me a heart attack, I can be nothing but calm. I'm afraid of disturbing the atmosphere you have somehow created around you even in your last moments, a bubble of resolution around you that assures me that you are indeed conscious though you lack the strength to show it. Even in this state you hold me in your hypnotic spell, and I am completely unable to leave you as long as I still feel that musical beat beneath my fingertips... perhaps after it fades I will still not be able to break away. You know I am here, I know you do, you are aware of who is by your side, clutching your hands desperately in my own and doing nothing more than simply waiting for you to give in to Death.

The beat fades a little more, and a sudden desperation kicks in. Silence currently reigns, and I know it won't for long, panic most likely spreading through the building like a newspaper put to flame, and in these few quiet moments we have left there is something that I want to say, no, something I have to say, with every last bit of my soul. Leaning in, so you have more of a chance to hear me, I inhale deeply through my nostrils. The scent of blood and your intoxicating cologne intertwine as one. Swallowing in a harsh manner, I push the words forcibly from my throat.

"I-I..."

I stop, shaking my head. No, no, this isn't right. I can't do this to you or to myself. If I said it now, it wouldn't be fair to either of us. I cannot let you leave the world with something like that. I cannot attempt to go on after your untimely death, knowing I have done that to you. Instead, I merely caress the backs of your hands with my thumbs, noting how much shallower your breathing has become. On the other side of it, I suppose I do not want you to leave us to the tune of empty silence.

I must apologize. I know my voice is not nearly as melodic as the ones you surround yourself with, but I will do the best I can, recalling in my mind my youth and the soft, lulling tunes my mother sang for me when I could not sleep. From among these I pick my favorite, but sadly, the words beyond the first lines escape me. But with your pulse ever growing softer, I do not have time to fish them out of my memory. I shall merely hum the rest of the song for you instead.

"Nen, nen, cororiyo, ocororiyo..." I begin, then the rest is left to wordless melody. I never get to finish.

Somewhere in the midst of the song, the rhythm beneath my fingertips fades out completely and forever. The door opens abruptly seconds later and I fall silent. I am unwillingly dragged away from you, half-carried as my body seems to go numb, eyes open but not taking in any sights around me. Strong hands, a familiar voice trying to soothe, something warm like weak tea being offered to me, measurements of time becoming vague and unclear. Angry words, not directed at me, float over my head, and somehow, in the midst of the chaos, despair and hatred... I lull myself to sleep with the last song you ever heard.