Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Obvious JA fic. Post Loss.
The first few months... well, they were torture. I'd sit at my desk often times, wondering. About you. About what you could have been, given the chance to live. I'd think about us, the year we'd shared. And I couldn't believe it... still can't... that you'd ever love a man like me. Not just my age, but my past, my history. You didn't shy away from it, but instead embraced me like you embraced everything else, with determination and compassion. And I loved you so much for just that simple act.
I found myself walking through the park, in autumn especially, because that was always your favorite season. It became mine too as those walks we used to take became something that I treasured beyond almost anything else. Just walking through the trees, admiring the changing colors and the beauty of it all. The beauty of nature. I remember how you'd pick up the leaves you thought stuck out the most and bring them home to stick between the pages of a book, to press. I found them as I went through some of your belongings. I read up on how to put them in a collage and frame them. They hang on my wall now, a constant reminder of those walks.
I think the hardest days are the sunny ones. Because it reminds me just how much you're missing. The days when even the squad room seemed cheerful. Somehow, I've come to think those are the days you're smiling down on me, letting me know you're all right, in a way. You're still alive, in a way. And I smile with you. But those days... those days I also am overcome by this sadness, this deep melancholy that seems to reverberate in my chest, creating the feeling that there's a hole where a part of my heart used to be. And I know it'll always be there, no matter how hard I wish it away.
And sometimes, on those sunny days, when the sky is the deepest blue... sometimes I find myself talking to you. Walking along, having a conversation with you, though no one else knows it. Everyone else thinks I'm just another lunatic, muttering to himself, but I don't care. I'm with you in those moments.
I remember... I remember one day... I think it was a weekend, because we both had off... and you took me on a ride through the country. We stopped at one point to eat lunch and got caught in a rainstorm. I wanted to go in the car, but you just turned your face up to the rain, welcoming it as the drops hit your face, eyes closed. I think that was the day I fell in love with you. Cliché, I know, but... I couldn't help myself. Anyway... you stood up, pulled my hand and danced through the rain, laughing. You urged me to do the same and soon I found myself twirling about in a fashion I hadn't done in decades, since I was a small boy.
I still can't believe you're gone.
You always talked about going so many places. Paris, Rome, the Caribbean... I think I have the written list on my desk at home. I plan to go there someday, for you. I was planning a surprise trip for you to Paris for the summer after you died, but then... in September... and I couldn't bring myself to go without you. It had always been your dream, and without you, it wouldn't feel right.
I had this silly notion in my head about getting married, and maybe even having kids. I knew that eventually you would want children. There comes a time in every woman's life when she wants to bear children and I figured yours wouldn't be long in coming. But the idea that I even believed any of that would ever happen... I don't know what Fin slipped in my coffee that day but... I still wonder if it would have ever happened. I wonder what we would name our child, or children, whichever the case may be. Depends on my mood that day.
After you died, after the initial pain and shock wore off, I was angry. You were so young, something that brought a pang to my chest. How could you die before me? It wasn't fair. It was like reading a story that you liked, only to find half the pages missing from the book. The ending. The part that mattered the most.
Those sunny days... the ones that hurt the most somehow... I know that one day... one day I'll see you again. And it gives me hope, because that's all I really want.
One day, I'll see you again.
But until then, I'll wonder...
About who you'd be today.