A/N Alternate Ending 1

Qrow's mouth tasted like ash. He listened to your mother's words, as empty as they sounded to him, for the sake of his sanity. She spoke of all the things you accomplished, and how it was a tragedy that you would never accomplish anything again. He glanced at those around him and his mouth pulled into a frown.

Like him, none of them had been there for you either. He felt like screaming, but didn't have the energy to open his mouth. In the months, maybe even years, leading up to your death these so called 'loved ones' hadn't been around. He would know because if they were he would have seen them too. It was only you and him. Now it's only him.

Rain fell on this day. He tried to focus on the droplets hitting his skin, but to no avail. The only thing he could truly focus on was your grave. It was cold and bleak, the complete opposite of how he knew you were. Everything was so backwards, it almost made him laugh. You would have hated all of this.

He argued that they should have put your grave on the cliffside where you jumped, how you would have loved to watch that sight forever, but your family said that the spot was tarnished now. They thought it was tarnished because it was where you died. Qrow thought it was tarnished because the sight wouldn't be as grand without you.

It had only been a couple weeks since you died, but Qrow barely felt like he even understood time anymore. When he thought about you, which was all the time, the day would drag on and on just to make him suffer more. Suddenly it was today, the day of your funeral, and he was left wondering how it came to be so quickly.

Qrow tried to drown out his emotions the only way he knew how, but not even that seemed to work. He would get to the bottom of a bottle, or maybe three, and still have your face in his head. Your smile, your laugh, it was all too bittersweet. How pathetic, he thought, that even after you told him to forget you he couldn't comply with your dying wish.

The others around him cried, and cried, and cried. The whole scene felt like something out of a nightmare with all of the wailing. Qrow would have joined them, but he ran out of tears weeks ago. None of them blamed him, or you, they instead chalked your death up to "unforeseen circumstances." They wouldn't fool him though. Your suicide was his fault.

Once again, he felt like he was drowning. Grief and pain were no strangers, but the guilt Qrow held overwhelmed both of those emotions. If he had been faster, if he just kept pushing himself, maybe he could have caught you. Maybe he'd still have a best friend. He wished you could have been more than that.

Too bad, life mocked him, because sometimes it takes something being gone to realize how much you needed it. Everyone else was gone, leaving him and Tai as the last ones standing there. Qrow felt selfish once more, for Tai had gone through such a similar situation. At least Tai wasn't the cause of Summer's death, Qrow thought bitterly.

Qrow couldn't tell if it hurt the most to lose you. He had lost so much already the only thing he was familiar with was the ache in his chest and never-ending thoughts of what-if. Maybe you hurt the most because he was so close to saving you, or maybe you hurt the most because he loved you in a different way from the others he had already lost.

Now, no matter how many scenarios played over in his head, he couldn't help but feel that he was the one constant in all of this pain. Raven had left Tai, Summer had died, and he was on a team with both of them. You had been so happy and lively before you all graduated; he should have gone through with pushing you away like he originally planned. Too bad he was selfish.

With a couple parting words, Tai left Qrow alone with your grave. Tai had been hit hard by your passing too, but he figured Qrow wanted some alone time with his best friend. Qrow felt his friend's presence dissipate and soon felt the crushing weight of loneliness return to him.

Tai didn't bring the girls with him to your funeral, fearing that they would be negatively affected by even more death to their rag tag little family. That was one way to put it, Qrow thought. That aside, he understood what Tai was trying to say. They needed to bear the brunt of the sadness, not the girls.

With all of the death in so little time, he wondered if this would be the last time the girls would have to face their own mortality. Who would be next? That lingering thought made it easier for Qrow to make up his mind.

He put a hand on your grave and spoke softly. "I'm sorry. You were always the stronger one." In that moment, he wondered if the gods were real. An afterlife would be nice, and he was sure you'd be living happily up there. A shaky breath escaped his lips.

He'd find out tonight.