There was a numbness inside me that I couldn't explain. I couldn't feel anything. I could feel sadness or enjoyment from the things that I enjoyed. It was like watching Mason's life leave his eyes sucked all the life out of me too.

Lissa tried to lure me from my room, but I didn't have the energy to leave my bed. The only time I left was when the sun was up. There was something about it that made me feel less alone. I knew I wasn't alone, but I couldn't exactly tell my body that. When I didn't feel numb, my chest ached. I had spent my first night back at the Academy crying myself to sleep.

Crying to Mason, crying to the death of my innocents.

Nobody could really understand what I experienced. Guardians looked at me sympathetically as I passed, but nobody knew what this felt like. I would give anything to actually feel something. I'd rather feel sadness or pain than the crippling nothingness.

I knew that I shouldn't be out here, that I was breaking curfew and about ten other rules, but this was the only place that didn't make the void inside me worse.

The ground was still cold, the sweater beneath me not doing much to protect me from the cold and wet. The cold air seemed to ground me, giving me something to focus on other than the flashes of memory in my head.

This part of the woods was somewhere that Mason, Eddie and I would hide out in during our early teen years. There was the occasional party that was thrown out here at the end of the year, but now, it was barren and quiet.

Well not exactly. The woods around me echoed with laughter and the bad imitations Mason made while drunk.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them, wrapping my arms around them. There was a crunch of snow behind me and I half expected to get a dressing down, but when a thick blanket was dropped on the ground beside me and it was unfolded, I looked.

Eddie grunted as he laid back on the blanket, tucking one arm under his head. I moved onto the vacant spot beside him and laid down too, placing my feet at the edge of the blanket. We could see the sky through the trees, and it felt strange to see it so blue when everything inside my felt dull and grey.

"How are you doing?" Eddie asked quietly.

"About the same as you," I whispered.

Eddie nodded and turned his head towards mine. "Have you been sleeping? I can't sleep."

I shook my head. "No. I barely sleep. And if I do, I'm back in that house," I said as I looked up at the sky.

Eddie reached for my hand that rested on the blanket and gripped it tightly. His hand was still warm and I squeezed his hand.

"I can't believe that tomorrow is his funeral."

"Neither can I," Eddie said, "It all seems like a blur."

I nodded and swallowed thickly. "I wish it was me," I whispered.

Eddie turned his head towards me again and I could see the slight alarm in his eyes.

"Don't say that."

"It should have been me. He shouldn't have come back," I whispered, sniffing when a hot tear crept down and into my hair.

"He knew what he was doing," Eddie said but I turned and looked at him with a small head shake.

"It's my fault. I told him about the Strigoi," I admitted. Eddie shook his head and rolled onto his side, his sigh coming out in a cloud.

"He acted on it. You didn't expect him and I to run off with Mia. The idea of finally doing something was thrilling. You came after us and tried to convince us to go back. It wasn't your fault."

I sniffed again and shrugged. "It changes what I feel. I feel like it was my fault."

"I promise it wasn't. Mason loved you; he did what he did because of that."

I swallowed thickly and licked my lips. It didn't matter how many times I was told it wasn't my fault, the guilt of knowing that I was here and he wasn't was eating me alive. I scathed death twice and Mason ran headfirst into it.

It was just me and Eddie now.

Lissa was starting to get ready to take over her place as a Royal, and now that her relationship with Christian was becoming stronger. I wasn't delusional to think that we would be this close forever. I would take over as her Guardian and she would go on to start a family.

Dimitri was leaving once things settled here. I knew that I told him to do what he chose, but it was right now that I wish I could be that girl. The girl in the movies that told him to pick me, to choose me. But I cared about him too much to ask him to do that.

"You're supposed to get your molnija marks in the morning, aren't you?"

I nodded stiffly. "I'm not looking forward to it."

"I know," Eddie whispered squeezing my hand again. I rolled onto my side and looked at Eddie, trying to muster a smile but I knew that I didn't need to pretend for him. He knew that I was struggling.

"We were so stupid to think that getting marks was glorious," I murmured.

"We were," Eddie agreed.

I closed my eyes and moved closer to him, taking in a slow breath.

"Do you remember when we used to camp out in the common room when we were little? You, me, Mason, and Meredith? All crammed together on the couches?"

Eddie chuckled. "Yeah. You and Mason use to fight for the bigger couch when you always ended up letting him have it with Meredith."

I smirked. "If only our lives were that simple again," I said.

Eddie grunted and shifted on the blanket, laying on his back again. I opened my eyes and found him looking up at the sky. I shuffled forwards and in a gesture that seemed almost too old, I rested my head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around me.

"Mason was the one who would draw on you with markers, I just took the fall for it," I admitted, chuckling when Eddie groaned in annoyance.

"You've got to be joking," Eddie said.

I shook my head and Eddie laughed. "Well, Mason was the mastermind behind the whole Nair in your shampoo bottle."

My eyes widened and I gaped at him. "You let him do that?!"

Eddie shrugged with a straight face before we burst into laughter, gasping for breath as we laughed. I giggled into his shoulder when I couldn't get a grip on myself, but the giggles turned into whimpers of tears.

It seemed that the only thing I need to feel everything all at once was laughter. To be reminded that Mason wasn't just a Novice, he was my partner in crime, the go-to trickster. I needed to mourn my friend, not just the classmate that died.

It wasn't just my tears that were shed, I knew Eddie shed his as well. I cried until the tears ran out and then we both laid there, breathing hiccupped breaths. I wiped my face with my hand and sat up, grimacing at laying on the ground for so long. Eddie sat up too with a sigh.

"It's freezing," Eddie said.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my butt's going to fall off," I said standing up. Eddie got up too and folded the blanket he brought. I rubbed my hands over my face, but I knew that it wasn't going to hide that I had been crying.

Eddie's eyes were bloodshot too and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, resting my head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Eddie nodded and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm sorry," he whispered back.

"You have to promise me something," I said quietly.

"Of course."

I hiccupped and felt my eyes start to water again. "You can't die on me. I can't lose you too."

Eddie's arms tightened around me. "I'll do my best," he said. I nodded and pulled back, holding his hand tightly as we walked back to campus. I never felt anything more than brotherly love for Mason, and right now I couldn't be happier to have someone like him.

I had told Mason how much he meant to me, and I couldn't bring myself to say the same to Eddie without falling apart. So I asked him the only thing I could, even if it wasn't far of me to ask.

"We'll get through tomorrow," Eddie reassured.

"I know," I said quietly. We had to. It was just us now.

Just a short little one-shot to get you in the feels.