RESPICE FINEM
Epilogue - Gray Dawn
And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
Of two that loved - or did not love - and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.
-- Waikiki, Rupert Brooke
It's the little things that hurt the most -- the fact that we can't play bridge or mahjong any more, the fact that Sanzo rooms with Goku now, when we have to share at hotels, the fact that it's either Sanzo or I at the wheel now.
Yes, the rest of us got out alive. But all of us have scars, one type or another. And none of us will ever love the rain.
It's raining again, in some little nondescript town along the way. Sanzo's brooding silently - he's the very sole of moral unrighteousness now - he can't drink, he can't smoke, he tires easily during a fight. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him clutching at the old wound in a combination of physical and emotional pain. I don't walk over -- nothing I can say would help. If he was distant before, now, without Hakkai, he's totally unreachable. He's lost to everyone except the ape.
And it hurts to watch the kid standing at the window, staring at the streaks outside. There's a guilt and a grief there that we can't even begin to imagine. He's changed now, older, scarred, cynical. Neither of us - Sanzo nor I - blame him, but this is a wound that he'll carry for ever.
We don't fight over food and such things any more... we stopped, the first time Sanzo gave us that look of absolute disgust and walked out.
But it's Hakuryuu who's hurting the most, Hakuryuu who's had to accustom himself to a new perch on my shoulder, whose ruby red eyes have lost their old shine. He's mostly silent these days, and there's nothing I miss more than his cheerful squeaks.
As for me, I'll survive. I always do. I never expected to have any one in my life for a long period of time -- I'm a touch and go kind of person. But it sucks, having a best friend for 3 years and losing him for no good reason... after you went through all that trouble to drag him home, stuff his guts back in and nurse him back to a life that he didn't want.
And when it rains, I drown myself in the nearest bottle of sake and go to bed as early as possible.
He was the one our group revolved around, the one who held it all together. Now that he's gone, we're breaking into fragments, rearranging ourselves to form a new shape, a new combination. One day, it might be as strong as the old one; if nothing else, a common grief binds us together. But, for now, we're all floating loose, leaves lost on a massive sea of sorrow.
Sanzo read a sutra for him, when we visited the grave. I didn't ask him to, he just did, standing there with his eyes shut and palms together, quietly reciting the same requiem that he chanted at the ruins of the hundred-eyed demon's castle, another life-time ago.
Then we turned back towards the West.
And that's how we get by, from day to day. There's always the mission. We've lost one of our number, and the empty seat in Jiipu is hard to bear. But there's always the mission.
Hope may be lost, but the journey goes on.
Respice Finem -- Look to the end.
RESPICE FINEM
Afterword
So it's finished. *Breathes*. The single most angsty fic I've ever written in my life. My apologies to all reviewers who didn't want Hakkai to die, but *sighs*.. I warned you. And that was the entire point of the exercise.
Respice Finem was written to the soundtrack of countless Enya songs as a form of major stress relief.
Special thanks are in order to supportive reviewers and online friends. In no particular order :
Eline (Kanzeon), Doc (Sakura), bluejay, Shadow of Arashi, incandescens, goldfish, Alexander Lucas (chaleur) and many others.
I dedicate 'Respice Finem' to lux, in the memory of how just a few pixels on screen arranged into words can reach out across the miles to touch another soul. My thanks for everything.