Disclaimer: Ok, don't own the show people! I don't own anything except the computer I'm writing on! And I don't even know the song I used for this is. I dunno, I heard it when I was watching the end credits of Return of the King (LOTR, obviously) and liked it so I wrote down the lyrics. If you want to hear it, watch the end credits.

A/N: Here is the epilogue of the story, which means that I can sleep now knowing that the fic is finished. It's be a wild ride and I want to thank everyone who reviewed for all the encouragement, it means the world guys, it really does. #BIGHUG# And I also want to thank DeceptiveInnocence for all her help with ideas and screaming at me to write when I was too lazy. Thank you all and tons of cyber candy for everyone!

Like Petals From A Rose

Epilogue

I flipped the last page of the small book in my hands, trying to fight down tears. I've read this book many times since and even before her funeral and I'm sure I will again. Everyday I've asked myself why, wondered if I could have saved her in any way. She assures me that I couldn't have through a note that slid out from the cover when I opened it the first time, but it's natural to torment yourself like this I think.

Lay down

Your sweet and weary head

Night is falling

You have come to journeys end

I pick up the note, flicks of blood are still visible and it horrifies me to think of the hell she must have suffered before she took both of their lives and, in a way, she took mine, too. My eyes start to skim the words and I feel a small wave of comfort wash over me and I feel as if she is talking to me from beyond her grave. I can almost hear her voice speaking the words.

My love,

I'm sorry for what I've done, you know what is by now I'm sure. I love you. Don't ever forget that. I loved you and I still do. There was nothing you could have done so don't torment yourself thinking 'what if?' I think we both knew that I would end up this way sooner or later.

I love you I want you to know that you have given me something that very few people get to experience. You gave me everything I ever could have wanted and you showed me what it was like to live. Before you I was dead. I was dead and empty and you changed all of that.

I'm sorry that I can't be with you, I wish I could be but I can't. And I don't want to hold you back at all. Go out, get married and have children. Love your wife, love your parents, love your kids but always keep a small place in your heart for me. I wish I could be with you, but we both know that this is for the better.

I just wanted to thank-you for letting me have hope, if only for a few short months I believed in happy endings.

Standing beside you in life or Death,

Sekka Moto

Sleep now

And dream of the one's who came before

They are calling

From across the distant shore

I fold the paper, placing it inside the cover again and notice, not for the first time that she signed my last name instead of Tate. I think it was meant to tell me that she was mine, no matter what and I want to cry and smile at the same time.

I didn't know much about what happened on the day she killed herself, only that they found the body of Marik Ishtar with hers and that it was clearly a murder-suicide. They found a great deal of drugs in both of their bodies but they suspected that hers wasn't optional. They were also able to determine that she had been raped as well as beaten. I still want to kill the bastards that did it to her.

He wanted to hate her for what she did, killing herself and leaving him behind shaking in the cold but as he stared down at her grave he found he couldn't. He probably would have done the same thing if he had been in her shoes. But at least she left him the diary and the comfort of knowing that I had made her truly for at least a while and that she loved me. I felt a dampness around my eyes and discovered that I was crying silently.

Why do you weep?

Why are these tears upon your face?

Soon you will see

All your fears will pass way

He had never seen her body, they wouldn't let him. In the end he was glad that he didn't see her like that, laying on a table, covered in bruises and blood, her wrists slashed open. He shuddered at just the thought, glad that he had never seen the image. The way he remembered her was the night that he had made love to her and watched her sleep.

Her face had been smoothed, dark hair touching her cheek and a smile on her face as her small breasts rising and falling in a steady rhythm. That was how I remembered her, even if the urn was lying beside me as I stared at her grave.

Safe in my arms

You're only sleeping

I had gotten her cremated. Sekka hold told me at some point that if she ever died she wanted to be burned because fire purified and that was what she felt she needed. I set the rose down on her marker and lean down to examine it. Her name was bold, carved into the gray stone with her birth and death dates inscribed below.

I rest my hand on it for a moment before I stand up and turn, walking away but not before picking up the urn. She had no other living family other then her mother who was in the hospital and unable to leave so they left the urn in my care. I was going to bury it but I couldn't bare the thought of her lying in the cold earth. Instead I was going to spread them somewhere that she would want to be.

What can you see

On the horizon?

Why do the white doves call?

I walked slowly every step taking a good part of my effort. I didn't want to walk, I wanted to lay on the ground and cry but I knew that I couldn't. I thought back to her, how much I loved her how strong the urge to help her was in the beginning. I even remembered her hard eyes with a sense of passion. She wasn't weak, that was one thing I knew, even if she did end her own life she didn't do it in weakness but as a means to defeat Marik, to take something away from him.

I stopped when I reached the river and sat down, staring out at the water.

Across the sea

A pale moon rises

The ships have come

To carry you home

The sun sparkled across it, making it warm and serene. And I still couldn't stop thinking about her. She was right, we had something that few people ever experience. I know that I never will, even if I do get married I know that it won't be anything like having her but that was just something that I was going to have to accept.

The dots on the water looked like little souls, sparkling as they crossed the river of death and I sighed, reaching for the urn. I wanted to open it and spread the contents but something was holding me back from actually doing it.

And all will turn

To silver glass

A light on the water

All souls pass

Maybe it was that it was the ultimate clarity that she was gone, reduced to nothing but ashes. Maybe it was something that I just didn't want to face. I could see her in my minds eyes, strong, proud, and stubborn with a deadly temper but that was only one side of the coin. I was sure that I was one of the only people who had seen her brighter side, seen the artist and the painter and the philosopher that she was underneath it all.

It hurts me to think that she died in a state of anger, in a state of depression and desperation. I was glad that I never had to see her wither and fade, to see her will weaken. I don't think I could have handled that, seeing her become what she had been, what I had saved her from.

Hope fades

Into the world of night

Shadows falling

Out of memory and time

I can still remember when the officers came and told me that she was dead how I refused to believe them. I wanted so badly to believe that she was still alive, breathing freely somewhere. But slowly the reality had suck in and as I read more and more of her words, I began to understand her deeper then what I already had, what she believed in, the ideas she had.

I began to see what a spiritual person she was, even in the beginning in her rougher days, she still believed in the power of the mind and later, in the power of her heart. But that fit her, seemed to make the strength she had make sense because she relied on no-one but herself, and later, me. She was her own rock and it made the fact that she had called herself weak almost laughable. She didn't know half the strength that she truly possessed.

Don't say

We have come now to the end

White shores are calling

You and I will meet again

I had no doubt in my mind, with her very strong belief in the supernatural that we would meet again at some point. Even now there are times when I'm sure that she's beside me and that if I wanted to I could reach out and touch her, times when I can almost feel her hand on my shoulder, her breath on my neck. And sometimes just the discreet knowledge that she's in the room, just a certainty that seems to come out of nowhere.

And you'll be in my arms

Just sleeping

I slowly reach out and begin to open the urn. The lid comes off easily and I look down at her remains for a moment before I walk closer to the river. The sun is shining and I'm glad that I chose today to release her. I don't think I would feel quite as good about this if it was dark and raining.

I toss the urn, letting the ashes fall into the water, flowing above it before carried away on the current, being taken downstream. I set the urn down and wipe a tear from my eye as I see her being taken from water and wind alike, but I have a feeling this is what she would have wanted.

What can you see

On the horizon?

Why do the white doves call?

Thank-you.

The softly spoken words seem to come out of nowhere, as if someone spoke him but I know no-one has. I know it's Sekka's voice, I would recognize it anywhere. I feel someone watching me and turn to be greeted with her image. She doesn't say anything but smiles in a way that I had never seen her smile before and the haunted look was gone entirely from her brightly sparkling eyes.

I love you, Yami. I'll be seeing you one of these days. I wanted to reach out and try to stop her from disappearing buy I know that's no use, that she was beyond the physical realms now. I smiled and turn back to the bright blue water, reminding me of her eyes.

"Yes." I said slowly to myself. "I will be seeing you…………..one of these days."

Across the sea

A pale moon rises

the ships have come to carry you home

(I was originally going to have a poem in the diary instead of a note but I liked the note idea better. However I still wanted to include the poem so I added it at the end. I think it might help the title of the story to make a little more sense.)

Like Petals From A Rose

Like petals from a rose,

We bloom,

Our petals red with our passion,

Like the blood that courses through our veins,

The green stem of our youth,

Bright against the sunshine,

We don't have a care in the world,

All we need is the soil of out fragile dreams,

That vanish with just rainfall,

Like petals from a rose,

We grow frail and old,

Like forgotten wildflowers,

Our youth fades,

And thorns drop like small pieces of our will,

We blow in the wind,

Fight,

And tire of resistance,

Letting one dream got at a time,

We grow hard as the frost kisses our skin,

And turns us to ice,

With a frozen tongue,

A fatal winter lover,

How it seduces lies,

And rapes life,

Like petals from a rose,

We live,

Love,

Fight,

And as the last petal kisses the ground,

We fall

A/N: # Dries eyes # Wow, that makes me even a little bit sad! Ok, I'm over it. So what did you guys think? This the ending so I really want to get some feedback on what you think about the ending, if you liked it or not. So leave me a review and let me know. And again, thank-you to all of my wonderful readers, I love you all. If you want, I'm starting an original story that has to do with vampires: Here's the link if you want to check it out. So until then, Ja!

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