Prompt: Snowflakes
Character: Emily & Matthew Benton (set at the end of episode 4x17, Demonology)
Words: 281
Emily walked, just as she said she would. For a long time, until she lost time. Until she stopped in front of the church. Until she dared to take the picture out of her pocket, and look. Really look at the friendship that once had been.
It hurt to look back. To remember herself, John and Matthew as teenagers. Because it could have been so different. Maybe. Or maybe, everything happened exactly as it was supposed to happen. Maybe….
The snow fell in fat white snowflakes. Emily looked around. There was a tragic beauty to everything surrounding her. Something sacred about this sadness and helplessness. This emptiness that she did not want to fill. Because the hole inside her was meant for someone. He meant something. His life and death were not in vain.
Matthew might have been screwed up, but he was the only one to act. He was the only one who was willing to help her, instead of turning his head and pretending that nothing was going on, when everything was. At fifteen, he was more a man than anyone Emily had known. And she, who had always felt so very mature, had truly grown up overnight.
She had dealt with the pain and the loss in silence, with only Matthew as a comfort. With only him to walk her back into a place that wanted to exile her for what she had done.
The snow reminded her. Everything reminded her. So Emily breathed in the memory of her friend that somehow lingered in the air around her. Then, she exhaled, and kept walking. She hoped never to outpace the memories, only wishing to carry them with her.