I gave Misty the option and she chose for today to post MH. IOV will be up Thursday. I also want to thank Misty, because if it hadn't have been for her figure of Kim, this story would have never happened.
I want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, alerted and favorited this story. I know I don't send out emails thanking you, (I'm way too awkward for that...) but I really, really appreciate it. I really hope you enjoy the epilogue as well.
Epilogue: Hush
Katherine watched as Kayleigh struggled to talk. It had been less than a week since Alex's death and she was still struggling. It was only to be expected. It was always difficult when a lover died, and Alex had died in Kayleigh's arms.
Katherine closed her eyes, and the scene came to her mind, just as it did every time she closed them. She had known that Alex was fighting, she could tell by the way the woman gasped furiously for each breath. But the ambulances had taken too long. Alex had breathed her last nearly five minutes before they had arrived.
What had never left Katherine's mind, however, was the look of absolute peace that crossed Alex's face just before her eyes went blank and she exhaled for the last time. Somehow, from that look, Katherine knew that Gene had come to get her.
Once everyone realised that the man who had shot Alex had only shot once, they had started to emerge from underneath the tables, looking in shock at the man who had been handcuffed by security. It was only later that they had found out that he was the son of the ringleader who had killed Gene. It was a shame, the boy was only twenty and he was going to jail for life.
But the way the boy had seen it was that he was avenging his father, whom he thought was unfairly imprisoned. In his mind, he was in the right, and Alex was in the wrong. He had wandered in the room, pretending to be lost before pulling out his gun and shooting her. And the boy had known that he wasn't going to get out of it.
As the security pulled him out of the room, he had yelled loud enough for all of them to hear.
"She can burn in hell with the rest of them!"
This had caused Kayleigh to burst into fresh tears, begging Alex to somehow come back to life.
By this point, nothing could bring her back.
They had found out later that the bullet clipped her aorta and punctured her lung. As her heart beat, it had torn open the wound a little more with each pump until finally, the tear got too large and she died of blood loss.
Katherine turned her attention back to Kayleigh, who was still speaking.
"I was going through some of Alex's things yesterday, when I found an old photo album of hers. It was dusty, like it hadn't been touched in ages. I opened it, and as I was turning through the pages, looking at all these old photos of her work colleagues. I found a dried flower, accompanied by a sheet of paper in her handwriting. The flower was a blue orchid, just like the one that she would lay on Gene's grave."
Katherine gasped. She remembered all those years ago, telling Alex to dry the orchid. She had never realised that the woman had listened. She pulled herself out of her memories as Kayleigh continued to speak.
"The paper was a poem she had written down. I think that when she was still recovering, she wrote it down, to remind her about Gene, but now, it works for her as well."
Katherine looked around the solemn room. Most of the people who were at the memorial dinner were at the funeral. Chris Skelton's parents and Ray Carling's family had gone back to Manchester, but Elaine Hunt had stayed. She was sitting in the row across from Katherine.
Elaine was wiping tears away with a tissue. She had been crying before the funeral as well, when she stopped to offer condolences to Kayleigh.
"I'm sorry," she had said. "I just...after how much I heard about her, after what Gene told me about her, I really felt like I knew her. I think we could have been friends."
Elaine wiped away another tear and sniffled, but hers were not the only teary eyes in the room. More than half of the people in the room were tearing up, knowing that Alex, like all of her colleagues, had been taken long before her time.
Katherine had been angry. To her, it was almost like all those years of helping Alex through the trauma had been for nothing. But then, her husband had talked her through it, telling her that she gave Alex ten more years of life. Alex had happiness in her life before she was murdered, and she owed it to the diligence of Katherine.
That had helped a lot, but she still was angry at the boy who had murdered one of her best friends. She doubted that she could ever not be angry at him.
Kayleigh cleared her throat.
"I know that Alex didn't write this, but I don't know who the author is. She didn't even write a title on it, so I don't know what it is called, and I apologise for that."
Kayleigh took a deep breath and started to read the poem.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the sweet uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
"This poem reflects the woman that Alex became. She realised that Gene was dead, and there was nothing she could do to bring him back. I know I can't bring Alex back, and it hurts me. Most of you can imagine how much it hurts me. But the idea that I can see her, wherever I am. The idea that I can find her in the rain, or when the birds start singing. She is still going to be a part of me, just like Gene remained a part of her. So though I may visit her grave to honour her memory, I can remember that she's not there. She's all around me. She lives through me, through all of the lives that she touched."
Kayleigh silenced, tears in her eyes as walked down from the podium, taking her place next to Katherine. The room stayed silent.
A few hours later, Kayleigh leaned into Katherine, laying her head on the woman's shoulder, crying. They were standing at Alex's grave. Everyone else had gone, including Kayleigh's children, leaving them alone to mourn.
"I am not there," Kayleigh murmured under her breath. "I do not sleep." She paused. "Please help me remember that, Katherine."
Katherine held the dried blue orchid in her hands, staring at it, tears welling in her eyes. Although she knew that Kayleigh needed her right now, she pushed the woman off, kneeling at the gravestone. She laid the flower against the slab of cold stone, smiling even as tears flowed quickly down her cheeks.
"It was this orchid that started our friendship," she murmured. "Ten years ago...I like to think it helped you to stop hating me. It's only fitting that I give you it again now, at the close. You were my sister, Alex, and I loved you so much. I hope you finally found Gene again. But don't you forget Kayleigh."
A breath of wind ruffled her hair, and she swore she heard a voice whisper two words. I won't.
She looked up for the voice, but only Kayleigh was standing there, weeping silently. "C'mon," she murmured to the woman. "Let's get you home."
They walked out in silence, but Katherine couldn't help turning once to stare at Alex's grave. The orchid was the only flower there, a silent reminder of the sorrow passed. She could only notice how lonely it looked.
Unbidden, the last two lines of the poem came to her.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
Rant
The poem is Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye.
