A/N: Short one shot fic I've been meaning to post for awhile. Very angsty. Review!
I tightened my grip on the cold iron canister that held her remains. All that was left of her mind, body, and spirit sat in his hands, unmoving and inanimate. It seemed so improper to think of her in such a sense, but reality was the life I now faced.
I closed my ears to the preacher's words. He didn't know her. He was there to say the traditional goodbye that to him seemed so repetitive that the words had lost all meaning. The sea breeze was light and calming as the ocean rushed to shore covering the land that made up high tide. It wasn't fair. This was supposed to be their vision in Santa Barbara. The beach there was supposed to be their real beginning. Now the beach was her end, and it was up to the ocean to protect her spirit in a way he never could.
The preacher had stopped talking and a pause was left for me to fill. Jack Bristow had asked me before hand if I would do the honors. I had been bewildered by the request, but immediately accepted. Rumor around the office had been that Jack didn't believe his daughter was gone, and if that was the case, I understand how someone can't say goodbye to someone who is still alive. I myself would like to believe that is the case, but there is nothing to prove anything contradictory to the findings. DNA testing was the only reliable evidence in a case such as this and gave evidence incompatible to what everyone wanted to hear.
I walked slowly to the edge of the surf, stopping close enough so that the water lapped around my new black work shoes and dampened my toes. There I stood, fully aware of what I was supposed to do, but finding it so hard to do so. This moment actually reminded me of a memory I had kept hidden for years. Back in the days when my father was alive, we had been walking through the woods and stumbled on a brown sparrow. He was lying on the ground breathing heavily on one side. When we approached him, he struggled to fly away, but the closest he got was a frustrating hop that gave him the characteristics of a cricket. We decided to take him home and take care of him to see if we could figure out what was wrong. We later discovered he had a broken wing. We took care of the bird for about a month before the day my father came up to me and said it was time to let him go. I agreed sadly and I held onto the sparrow as we drove to the lake so we could watch him fly away. I held him close to me and mumbled a few last goodbyes and then presented him to the sky. His wings suddenly started to flap at an alarming rate as he happily disappeared into the rays of the sun.
Before I even realized what I was doing I violently pulled off the top and forced the ashes out of the container. I watched waiting for them to take off and fly away, but they just fell into the sea with various splashes of crashing rain. There were no victorious feelings of freedom here. She died with her work half finished and her life half healed and the empty canister did nothing to reassure him that those halves could be filled.
This was it. I had done my duty. Everyone was now to leave and move on with there lives fulfill them in ways Sydney never got a chance to, and for that I felt sick. I let Weiss hug me to reassure him I was all right, but my feelings inside wouldn't leave. I got into my car and set the canister in the passenger seat and I drove not with any reassurance that she was free but that she was gone and life seemed empty because of it.
