Goliath knelt at the glossy headstone, eyes blurred with tears and memories. Had it really been so long? He ran unfeeling fingers over the unyielding stone, which bore the name of the only human to ever have respected him and his kind enough to become a part of their clan. He swallowed hard. So many times, she had been there for him, as he had for her, but not this time. This time, he had been too late…
"Elisa?" He called his beloved's name softly, entering her apartment and glancing around. "Elisa..?" The place was in shambles. What had happened? "Elisa!" His cry was more desperate now as he recognized the mingled scents of sweat, fear and, horribly, blood. Darting into the bedroom, where they'd shared many a night of tender lovemaking, he spied her lying tangled under the sheets, and his heart stopped a moment at her beauty. His talons, shaking from the fright she had given him, froze as they turned her over.
The body was cold and still… completely lifeless. Blood stained the sheets and her clothing, emanating sluggishly from the gunshot wounds at throat and heart. His legs failed him and he fell, howling his anguish to a sky that did not care to hear him.
She watched him lower his head into his hands and let his grief go free from the tight constraints he obviously held it in during the nights he spent among his clan. But how many times had she seen him here at this very spot, sobbing and shaking, caught in the grasp of a grief that would not let him go? She yearned to comfort him, her own tears – tears she shed for him! – slipping down her cheeks. But the hatred between them, the jealousy and, she haltingly admitted, the fear of him rejecting her sparse comfort, held her to her spot.
At once, the memories flowed back, however, of the times they had spent curled together in the library, reading and telling stories, of the times he had held her while she cried, her entire young being shaken by the shock of the cruelty her own kind could have for her, an outsider. She longed, now, to hold him, to give back to him what he had given her so long ago, and she found herself stepping forward inexorably to do so.
At last, she knelt by his side and took him into her arms, holding him while he cried. And, shockingly, there was no rejection, no hatred – only a gladness, a happiness that nearly overwhelmed the grief radiating from him. And it was from her touch. When the tears had abated finally, he looked up at her and she could see the child-man she had known for so long, so long ago. "I…" His voice was the same, that deep velvet tone that had sent shivers up and down her spine, that still did send shivers through her. "I …apologize…" He turned away from her and started to rise, but she held him there, understanding now that it was not rejection he exuded when he pulled away, but shame. He was ashamed of showing his grief, had always been ashamed of his emotions, as if he thought that feeling them, as he so well could, would make him a lesser being.
"Wait." Her accent, so soft and cultured, didn't make her cringe now with the humiliation of long ago. "Let me hold you. You need it. I need it."
Goliath glanced back at Demona, startled at her words. She would hold him? This hardened creature whom he had once loved so dearly, but had given up for lost long ago, wished to be held? By him? All at once, he felt his arms obeying her words, even while his thoughts tumbled about in a turmoil of their own. She clung to him and he felt her shaking, felt her holding back her sobs in order to quiet his. He crushed her close, a single breath shakily destroying all the hatred and pain caught between them. "Oh, Demona…"
She hushed him, her talons stroking gently across his back and hair, her head nestled under his chin as she closed her eyes and felt him turn to stone.
The rising sun lit upon the gargoyle and the woman crouched with him by a lonely grave in the tiny churchyard, and the light seemed to grant a silent benediction to them both as it burned away with renewed strength at the last of the storm clouds.