Alright, so this is to kind of make up for having to take down a previous one-shot, Concrete Angel. You can see where it was referenced during the writing of this if you squint a little. Now, I am a Natan shipper, so there is a little of that here if you squint, but I tried to for the most part keep that out of here. I dont know how good of a job I did on that, but at least I tried.
Disclaimer: I dont own Dan Cahill, Natalie Kabra, or anything else that you recognize.
It was dark. Near midnight, actually. It was nearing twenty degrees outside. It was snowing.
And yet Dan Cahill stood in the Cahill burial ground behind Grace's mansion, in front of the one grave that nobody would have expected him to visit while veryone else was inside, celebrating christmas as best they could after the Vesper episode not quite six months ago.
And why was he here? Because, of all days, it was her birthday.
Natalie Kabra
December 25, 1999 - March 5, 2013
"I will not be triumphed over."
Dan had to smile at the irony of that. Natalie had that quote on her CliqueMe profile; it was her favorite. And he could see why. Not only was it her favorite quote, but she had near lived by it. She was always the best at everyting she did. In training, she had always beat everyone else. She even beat Hamilton at hand-to-hand combat once.
He would have thought that, if anyone were to die in that accident, it would have been Fiske, who had a bad knee, or Nellie, who had a wounded shoulder, or even him or his sister, who seemed to be the targets in that fight. But no, it had been Natalie.
It was really weird, and kind of funny, if he thought about it, that she was taken down by her own unawareness. Much like Ian, Dan had found himself stopping to watch as she picked up the metal bat, a feeling of awe in his stomach. And, like Ian, he had found himself screaming out for her to stop. But she hadnt heard either of them.
He remembered stiffening as the bat had connected to the machine, and when Ian had dropped down next to her to do CPR, it had taken everything in him for Dan not to run over as well. Instead, he had continued to fight with renewed vigor, anger and sadness creeping up on him.
Nobody knew that Natalie and Dan had actually been friends. They hadn't acted any different than they had before the Clue Hunt. Of course, they hadnt intentionally hid it. Actually, Dan wasnt sure that what they had could be called "friendship."
They hadnt acted like friends. They had acted, as previously stated, like they had before. But even though she still called him Daniel, it wasnt with malice. Actually, they had even begun to tolerate each other's company at the dinner table sometimes during reunions.
And then she was gone.
Tears stung the back of Dan's eyes and, unlike when they had done so after the battle, during her funeral, and so many times since then, he let them fall freely.
No, Natalie, he thought, looking at the quote again. You never were.
So... What did you think? Hopefully this one is at least sort of as good as the last, one but I dont know if it is. Please review!
-Sierra