Title: The True Meaning Of 'Carpe Diem'

Author: lj addict

Chapter: One-Shot

Rating: G

Disclaimer: I don't own DPS (phst…I wish)

A week had gone by and still it hadn't hit him. Todd Anderson sat staring blankly at the wall across from him. He felt numb. Not just his body from the cold, but his heart felt numb. The wall was bear except for Neil's latest poem and a small collage of photos over his bed. Todd, Charlie, Knox, Meeks and Pitts had put it there as a sort of monument.

Todd pushed himself up from his bed and walked over to the opposite wall. He ripped the poem off the wall and sat down to read it for the 5th time that day.

'Days pass like minutes,

as the sun sets on another chapter of your life,

have you used it to the fullest?

or have you wasted it away,

to live is to take chances,

to live is to love yourself,

to live is to do what you have always dreamed of,

to live is to risk it all for passion,

passion,

like a blindfold that covers your mind,

takes over what you could have felt,

and molds it to it's own liking,

passion,

to live is to have passion,

to live is to seize passion,

the day,

to seize the day is to have lived,

carpe diem,

seize the day'

Carpe Diem. That had been Neil's life motto. To seize the day and live his life to his fullest. It was his passion, and his downfall. No. He thought. His father was his downfall. It had been his father who had stopped him from living his life his own way. It had been his father who had wanted to rip Neil's dreams right out of his still-beating heart. It had been his father who had really pulled the trigger that night. Todd was convinced, this wasn't a suicide… it was murder. He got up and angrily kicked the bed post causing the side to wobble. Neil's father had murdered him. He was the reason his best friend was dead.

Dead.

That word lingered in his mind like a foreign language.

Dead.

That's when it all came crashing down. Todd fell to his knees on the floor and began to sob into his hands. He muffles his cries with the sleeve of his shirt and slowly felt himself become nauseas. He got up and put his head between his knees as he vomited on the hard-wood floor. Charlie came running in and held Todd by the shoulders.

"Todd…TODD! What's wrong?"

"H-he's dead. HE MURDERED HIM, CHARLIE! NEIL'S BEEN MURDERED!"

Charlie sunk onto the windowsill and looked down onto the ground, covered in crystal-white snow. Todd was still sobbing next to him. He got up and paced the floor, finally seating himself next to Todd and sighing loudly, his head in his hands. He stayed that way for what felt like an eternity. When he looked up he noticed that Meeks and Knox had both entered the room, their cheeks tear-stained. Todd was sniffing as he stared at the ceiling and Knox let out what sounded like a yelp. It was then that Charlie realized that their lived would never be normal again. They would always wake up waiting for Neil to barge into their rooms with a new verse he had just found in that old poetry book, or to see him with an eager look upon his face, anticipating the reading of his latest poem in Mr. Keating's class. They looked around the room at each other. It had finally sunk in…

Neil Perry, their friend, their brother, their inspiration, was gone, and he wasn't coming back.

Neil had taught them all something in his death. He showed them that it takes a true romantic to die for the passion of life. And that the greatest joy is that in your dying, you feel as though you really have lived.

'passion,

to live is to have passion,

to live is to seize passion,

the day,

to seize the day is to have lived,

carpe diem,

seize the day'