w a y o u t y o n d e r i n m i n o r k e y
500 words. Trip does the grief thing. Again.

Note: Watching The Last of the Mohicans does things to you. Terrible things.
Note the Second: This is a partial sequel to A Question of Gravity. It's like the morbid, disturbed little brother actually. And here was I, actually wanting to write something happy to go with Gravity.
Note the Third: I hate first person. I do it anyway.


"Let him go!" I scream, trying to fight out of their restraining arms. "Let him fuckin' go!"

Malcolm stares at me, his cold sea blue eyes reflecting the terrible burning fire. A trail of blood slips down from the corners of his mouth and I am forcefully reminded of the last time I saw him. Something inside me aches. They lash his arms to the stake and his mouth moves silently. Go. Live.

I scream out, my entire body shaking, while he hangs up there—stoic, solid, unmoving, unblinking. He is as resigned to his fate as I am not. His silent mouth and empty eyes still speak to me.

My voice reaches an even greater pitch as the torch goes into the straw beneath him, igniting. I am pulled away and I hear him cry out, just once, before the hum of a phase pistol goes off and there is no noise but the whooping aliens and the crackling, terrible fire.

The pistol was set to kill.

I cry as they drag me away, past a cliff that my tear clogged eyes look longingly to.

This is generally the point in the nightmare when I wake up and, like clockwork, I do, tears as cold as Malcolm's eyes on my face. I roll over in the tangled sheets and topple to the floor. I press my tearstained face against it, heart pounding, sobbing inaudibly. Why did he have to do it? Why did he let them take him instead of me? It should have been me up there, burning, not him.

But no. It was him. It's always him and never me, not the way it's always him.

I pull myself up, pushing with my arms, and stand. It is night five, so terribly, and we are almost near Earth. We're returning his body to his family and so his partially burnt firm lays in stasis in sickbay. Since the first night, I have not been able to go there, to see what my folly had done to him.

I wander in, shirtless, shoeless. No one is around and this will make it all the more easy. So I go to the little place where I know his body rests, a wall in the back with silver doors. I open them until I find his and slide him out. I pull back the sheet and stare at his face, paler than ever, eyes closed. The burns, I know, are covering his legs, so I don't slide the sheet down any further.

I press my hand to his chest, as if willing him to live, but nothing will bring him back. I move my hand across his chest to his shoulder and rest my arm across him. I lean down and rest next to him, my wet cheek against his cold one. Why is grief always alone with me?

Had I the chance, I would have jumped from that cliff, hair brushed by the wind, arms outstretched, and flown away.