Dear Jason,
.
there will be tears today
.
But we'll get through and you'll be there
.
I'll leave a chair for you, you made it too
.
You held your mystery so close
.
But I knew, I knew your way
.
Never found the words to say
.
Always thought we'd talk one day
Nadia, Bare: A Pop Opera
Dear Jason,
.
Who told you you could go and disappear
.
Keep thinking, if I wait a while you'll be here
.
Can you hear me, can you show me how to shoulder so much blame?
.
All you were in scattered traces... Things will never be the same...
Nadia, Bare: The Musical
There are no words for how a sister reacts to the loss of her brother.
Just like there is none for her father and her mother. Ironically, the only one who even came to close to having a word for this—feeling—feelings—would be Merlin, though Widower doesn't fit for the obvious reasons, and, well, it shouldn't matter this much, but she wants a word for this feeling(s).
She'd broken down afterward. She'd given him the pills—he'd asked and he'd looked so tired, so exhausted and downtrodden and she'd known something was wrong but hasn't asked. So, she'd given him the tiny bottle. She'd given him the out he'd been looking for. It was her fault that he was gone.
It was her fault everything was such a mess, Gwen was so very scared and Lancelot felt so guilty and Merlin walked around like a ghost. They all blamed themselves, but she's the one who gave him the pills. Not them, they'd have thought it through, would have asked him what was wrong, would have prevented this.
But he'd come to her and she'd failed him.
Her hands fold in her lap, a shark tooth necklace clasped between them, he wore the matching one she knew, and she felt so sick, her face ashen and stained with tears.
Gwen sits next to her, her hand splayed across her still flat stomach. That's right she thinks, a child will never know its father because of her, and even if he'd never loved the mother the way he should have, even if the sex that created the tiny creature had only been to try and prove a failed point, Arthur would have loved this child, would have done anything for it.
But the worst part of this is Merlin, who sits in front of her. He looks so tiny in his suit, his arms wrapped tightly around himself, his eyes puffy and rimmed with dark circles, his cheekbones perhaps a bit sharper then they'd been a week ago.
He looked so devastated and such a look didn't belong on him.
Not on the boy who'd been her brothers best friend since the two had been six, who'd meant so much more to Arthur than she'd imagined him too. Who'd known her brother inside and out.
They'd loved each other.
But fear had been ingrained in Arthur, because, for all his bravery, more than anything all Arthur had ever wanted was to fit in, to the point where he'd hidden himself away until it destroyed him.
But he hadn't only destroyed himself, others were being affected, would be for years to come. They want Merlin to speak she knows, she'd been the one to suggest it, but she isn't sure he'll be able to do it because she knows she never would be able to.
She places a hand on Gwen's and another on Merlin's shoulder in front of her and her eyes lock with Lancelot's.
Arthur had been important, like a brilliant star, here and gone in a flash, but he'd left a impact, people had loved him, almost desperately so, it was all in Merlin's eyes, in Gwen's and Lancelot's and her own when she looked in the mirror, and she wished only that he'd seen it before it been to late.
For, the greatest tragedy was not Merlin and Arthur's ill fated romance, but rather that a blue eyed blonde boy could not see what she had seen in the boy since he was nothing but a babe and her mother had laid him in her arms for the first time.
A continuation of chapter 23 with Morgana's views. Maybe turn this into a mini series?