Where You Are
Disclaimer: I own neither song nor characters. Plot, yes. Ideas, yes. Holiday, no. We clear? Good.
This follows my other story, Begin Again, though you don't need to have read it to understand this one.
Now Happy Holidays and enjoy the story!
Who can say for certain?
Maybe you're still here.
I feel you all around me,
Your memory, so clear.
It is Christmas. It's been so long since I have celebrated anything…and yet here I am. Celebrating. Apparently. My son and his daughter are hanging the last few ornaments on the tree; she's on his shoulders so she can reach the highest branches.
The house looks beautiful. Candles are glowing in the windows, garland and pine drape over the stairs and rafters, and the whole place smells of evergreen and spices. It reminds me of the only Christmas Anna and I had together. Lloyd was an infant then, barely even a month old.
It has been a long time.
Excusing myself, I walk outside and circle the house, pausing in front of her grave. Anna's grave. It is covered with half a foot of snow on top; the base has been brushed clean, and holly springs and a wreath are set on the cold stone. Inside the wreath, defying the falling snow, a candle burns.
Deep in the stillness
I can hear you speak.
You're still an inspiration.
Can it be…?
"We only had one Christmas, Anna. I'm sorry." My hand rests in the snow atop the headstone. "I wish you could see Lloyd now; he is everything I never was as a father. The daughter he named for you…will become something more precious than he can imagine."
"She already is, Kratos."
No. No, it can't be. I turn around, not letting myself believe the voice I hear.
But it is. Standing there in the snow, dressed in a warm red dress and with a hat on her head, and her long chocolate hair catching and holding stray snowflakes. Deep blue eyes smile up at me as she steps closer.
"Anna." My voice can't go above a whisper, despite my efforts. "It can't be you. You're dead."
"Kratos," she whispers back, still smiling. "It's Christmas. What are you doing out here? You should be inside with your son and granddaughter. They need you more than I ever did."
That you are my forever love
And you are watching over me from up above…
A soft winter wind blows the snow up into miniature whirlwinds around us, and ruffles her hair so it hangs in front of her eyes for a moment before falling back again. She looks so real…
I have been back on the world for almost half a year. My son brought me back because he needed me; because he wanted to spend his life with his father, like he should have. He is my age, technically—we appear more like brothers than father and son.
Seeing Anna, even if it is just some fleeting hallucination of the cold, has brought back memories of a time when Lloyd was small enough to sit upon my shoulders as we walked under the winter stars. Small enough to hold tight to his mother's skirt whenever we heard strange noises. Small enough not to understand Desians, or Cruxis, or Exspheres.
How can it be her? She died long ago; I watched Kvar kill her. I tried to stop him and failed; Anna is dead. She cannot stand here before me.
And yet, she does. She smiles and looks up at the clouded sky.
"I have been watching, Kratos. You made a wonderful father, and you are better still at being a grandfather."
"Watching?"
"Did you really think I would let you try to handle this on your own?" It even sounds just like Anna would sound; light, sly in her teasing, and eternally happy.
Fly me up to where you are
Beyond the distant star I wish upon tonight
To see you smile, if only for a while
To know you're there…
A breath away's not far to where you are.
"I see the way you look at her, Kratos. She reminds you of Lloyd, doesn't she?"
She does. The child is much the way my son once was—inquisitive, innocent and kind. Just like her father, she watches the stars. I have heard her say, on more than one occasion, that she's watching for 'Grandma.'
"She is like him, though, isn't she? She has his eyes…your eyes, Kratos. That deep, attracting brown that I love so much. Lloyd has become a wonderful man, just like you. Not many mothers can say that their son saved the world."
How are you standing here before me, Anna? How can this be? I have long ago lost my belief in miracles—this isn't some grand Christmas wish-come-true. This is a dream, a fantasy, a tired mind making an attempt at happiness. This cannot be real.
"But wasn't your son a miracle, Kratos?" As though she can read my mind; it was always that way. "It was a miracle I had him, a miracle we lasted. Can it be anything less than a miracle that he ended the destruction that Mithos began? How can you not believe in miracles, knowing that?"
"Anna…" I want to touch her. I want to reach out and hold her in my arms and never let her go again, even if it means standing here in the snow forever. I would take that over losing her again, over leaving this moment.
"Kratos." It is her voice. Her face, her manner, the sparkle in her eyes that always came with winter. Her smile, her laugh, her surety that she alone can argue with me and emerge the victor. It is Anna standing before me; it could be no one else.
I am gently sleeping
Here inside my dream,
And isn't faith believing
All power can't be seen?
"The snow is so wonderful. It's just rain in winter…but winter's rain can cover the ground and become a snowman, or a tall hill for sledding…or a snow angel." She grins at me shyly. "You're starting to look like one yourself, Kratos. How long have you been out here?"
Why can't I speak to her? There is so much I have to say, so much I left unsaid…but despite her image standing before me, smiling into the softly falling flakes, eyes closed in ecstasy, I can't manage to say any of them. All words elude me.
"Look at them, Kratos." She points to the window, and through the soft candlelight I can see my son, his daughter on his shoulders, standing beside the tree. The child is reaching her arms up to place a golden star on the top of it; her father lifts her off his shoulders and sets her lightly on the ground, laughing. "What do you see?"
"Everything we could have been."
She shakes her head, setting dozens of snowflakes whirling again. "No. It is everything you can be. Go in there, Kratos. Be with your son and granddaughter. They will take my place soon enough."
"No one could ever take your place, Anna." The words will barely come; I can feel my throat close around them, the prelude to unshed tears. "I could never love anyone…like I love you."
She comes closer to me and places one soft finger on my lips to silence me. She is not, as I had feared, some ethereal, untouchable specter; she is real, and warm. She gives me the smile I fell in love with so long ago.
"I know."
As my heart holds you just one beat away
I cherish all you gave me every day
For you are my forever love,
And you are watching over me from up above.
And I believe that angels breathe
And that love will live on and never leave.
She throws her arms around me, and I hold her as I once did; she is remarkably, amazingly, wonderfully solid and real; the scent of pine and burning candles enveloped her, just as it had on that long-ago Christmas.
"I have missed you, Kratos," she whispers; the longing and sadness in her voice is unmistakable. "Our time together was so short…yet long enough to save our world."
"Stay with me, Anna. Please."
"I want to, Kratos. I want to hold you now forever, and never have to let go. I miss you, my angel." She holds tighter, as though something might try to tear her away, and I respond in kind. For one beautifully frozen moment we hold each other in the snow by her grave; for one instant we are as we should be.
"I don't want to leave, Kratos." She steps away from me, holding onto my hands. "But I have to. I no longer have a place here. This place…is for you. You and your son. And Anna."
My granddaughter, Anna. Lloyd's child. Named for his mother, and named appropriately; she resembles her predecessor with remarkable accuracy. Anna my wife is still smiling, but sadly now.
"I will love you forever, Anna."
"I know you will, Kratos. I will, too." And, very softly, we kiss.
When she pulls away, she is already becoming almost transparent. A soft light comes from within her, and sprouting from her back are a pair of shining wings.
"You're…"
"An angel, yes," she finishes. "Ironic, isn't it? Now our son is the child of two angels…and two humans." She kisses me again, lightly, on the cheek, and wraps her arms around me once more, quickly, before stepping away. "Go be with our family, Kratos Aurion. You deserve it."
Fly me up to where you are
Beyond the distant star I wish upon tonight
To see you smile, if only for a while…
To know you're there.
A breath away's not far to where you are.
She is gone.
I look at her grave one last time, and down at the burning candle, and I smile. And I go inside, to be with my son Lloyd and my granddaughter Anna.
The instant I walk in, she greets me, as she always does, with an ecstatic "Kraddos!" and a smile. She wraps her arms around my leg and pulls. "Come see! Presents!" Indeed, there are several wrapped gifts beneath the tree. "Present for Kraddos too!"
"A gift for me?" I ask, looking at Lloyd questioningly. He smiles warmly and pulls the smallest package out from under the tree, handing it to me. Carefully, I pull away the paper and open the box.
Resting inside is a locket on a golden chain. With trembling hands I open the clasp. The picture inside steals every drop of resolve I might have left.
It is a beautifully rendered image of myself, and my son, and between us Anna. We are all smiling.
"You like it?" Anna asks, her eyes pleading me to say yes. And I do. She laughs with delight at my answer, and so does Lloyd.
And from just outside the window, I believe, for a fleeting moment, someone else laughs too.
I know you're there.
A breath away's not far
To where you are.
Merry Christmas everybody! I dedicate this to all my fellow obsessors in the Kratos thread on the ToS forum! And, of course, to…well, you know who you are.