"No way," she shook her head, "no way."

"Why not?" He persisted.

"Because," she sighed, "because this is it. Because all of those raving religious lunatics are just trying to give themselves comfort to help justify their pathetic lives. Because it's obviously scientifically impossible."

"But isn't it beautiful? Isn't it poetic and romantic and all that shit to believe that there's something more?" His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward, fully engaged in the debate.

"But isn't it also terribly foolish?" Her hands waved, gesturing wildly as she spoke, "I mean, what if we just gave up hunting for an afterlife and instead focused on the present, wouldn't the world be happier? It doesn't matter; everything after life doesn't matter because it isn't real. So we should stop troubling ourselves about it and blindly hoping. We should stop."

"Rose," Scorpius murmured, leaning closer still to her. Her eyes shone wildly, her breath hitching in her throat.

"It's just, people live for the future so much we forget the present, you know? And if we're always worrying about what's going to happen after we die, then we don't really live and it was all a waste. People waste their entire lives trying to plan for tomorrow, but the tomorrows are slipping past them and the yesterdays are bogging them down and today is fading quickly, too quickly. We don't have anything but now. It's the only certainty, that we are here now. Tomorrow, we don't know what will happen, but we know now. And people throw that away to chase a silly little fantasy that we'll meet all the ones we loved then lost when we're gone, but it's not true! They're gone. They're gone, Scor, and they're not coming back. We'll never see them again. If everyone lived all of their tomorrows in a daze, there'd be nothing but dead bodies and those who mourn for them. If each grieving person in the world led the remainder of their life listless after their loss, there'd be nothing but a huge silent house and one little daughter wandering around, wondering where her daddy went and why her mommy won't cook her dinner anymore. And she'd just keep walking, that little girl, she'd keep walking and looking but her daddy's not coming back and her mother's just as bad and there's nothing more to life but living then dying and those who are haunted by the ghosts and fall in-between."

"Rosie," he repeated, pulling her into his arms. She collapsed into him, her shoulders delicately shaking with sobs. "Rosie, I didn't know, you told me everything was fine-"

"It's not fine. None of it's fine. My father's been dead for six months and my mother has yet to unlock the door to the library. She just sits in there all day, crying sometimes, or frantically researching the philosophies of the ancient greats, just trying to figure out when she'll get him back. She's forgotten me. She just sits there, eyes staring blankly ahead sometimes. She won't eat. She doesn't sleep. She cries, reads, and stares. And none of it, Scor, none of it she does involves me. I haven't just lost my dad, I lost my mom too."

He didn't say anything. Because, what really was there to say? After the accident, Rose had told him that she was depressed, as was natural, but both she and her mother were still going to live their lives fully. Her head pressed against his chest, he realized that this was an impossibility. Hermione was so preoccupied with her own woes; she didn't notice Rose wilting slowly. But, Scorpius couldn't blame her, almost, Rose's fading was gradual. He himself, her boyfriend of three years, hadn't noticed anything was wrong until her eyes sparkled unnaturally and her voice went into a high pitch and she began to cry in earnest. Call it the obliviousness of being a teenage boy, but he had honestly thought everything was getting better for her.

"He's not coming back, Scor, I faced that a long time ago. But, but I didn't think I had lost her too. I didn't think she'd stop loving me and caring for me like a mother should. I've lost her, too, Scor, I've lost her to all the tomorrows and yesterdays. The present isn't relieving her grief, so she drowns herself in the past.

"Did you know, she forgot my birthday? It was just another day in her now pointless life," Rose's voice became sharp and bitter, the resentful tone of a child denied the nurturing love they need, "she just sat there. I even went in, she didn't safeguard the door against 'Alohamora', and told her. She didn't do anything, she just sat there. I checked in on her later that night, hoping to bring her some of the birthday cake I baked for myself, and she was furiously reading. Her hair was flying everywhere and ink was smudged on her face and, Scor, I swear she looked mad. Hell, she is mad. She's mad and out of her mind and mental and completely insane and, and she's forgotten me!

"I hurt too, you know. I lost someone too. She's not the only one that lost someone but she's so selfish and she acts like it's just her burden and then she, in the mean time, makes life miserable for the rest of us. I just want my parents back, but that's not going to happen. I just want my mother to hold me and tell me it'll be alright."

"I know," he looked into her eyes, observing the flecks of gold that lit in the light of the fire, "I know I'm not your mother, but it'll all be okay, Rosie,"

And so he held her and she cried all the tears she had held back so long. She cried for her father, for herself, and even a tear or two for her poor mother, sitting in a lonely library with only dim memories for company.

"I want to believe," she whispered way later, after the candles had burned out and the moon had risen on the horizon. She was quiet as she spoke, talking as if only to herself, "I want to believe there's more, and that I'll see him again. I want to, but I can't. Because that would make me no better than her."

"So do it." He told her, cradling her close, "don't let it govern you but, why not? Why not comfort yourself with occasional memories of him and the security blanket that you'll see him soon enough."

"Scor, just don't let me be like her. Don't let me lose my tomorrows, okay?" Her voice was clear and commanding, but held a whining, pleading note.

"Rosie, I am your tomorrows, and I won't ever let you forget that."

I'm not thrilled with the ending. Not at all. But I needed some way to make it stop…. And it's rather plotless, as are most of my oneshots, actually. I can't write anything with a real story. But the dialog almost had my crying.

Whatever, the self-criticism thing doesn't work. Y'all need to tell me if it sucks.

And a million plagues upon your house if you favorite or follow without reviewing (kidding, I'd still love you, though not as much).