Ok, well once again Shadowmayne deserves a mention for forcing me to put this up tonight. So be nice to me and maybe I'll put the last chapter up tomorrow. Then it's onto the sequel. Who's looking forward to more Reid angst and torture and a little bit of Tyler torture thrown in for that extra spice? Hmmm?

Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't own the song which is another great song by Evanescence, damn that girl can sing.


Give me a reason to believe that you're gone

I see your shadow so I know they're all wrong

Moonlight on the soft brown earth

It leads me to where you lay

They took you away from me but now I'm taking you home

Pogue walked slowly down the long isles of graves. Caleb was beside him, dressed somewhat somberly for this occasion. He hadn't asked his best friend how he had known. Caleb had just been waiting out the front of the house in his car out the front that morning. Pogue had climbed in silently, the somewhat amateurish bunch of flowers resting in his lap. It was a nice day, quite warm but with a crisp bite to the air making him feel gloriously alive and guilt free. He wasn't wearing the stiff mourning colour's, they had been ruined when he got back from the funeral. Instead he wore a pair of jeans. A dark blue pair, unfazed by time or care. And a black shirt. A proper shirt, one of the only ones he bothered to keep. Worn but clean and neatly pressed. He had kissed Kate goodbye outside the dorms that morning as she straightened his collar. Remembering that he raised his hand, just brushing his fingers over where hers had been. Remembering her silent support. Her understanding that this was something he had to do and the she couldn't come.

I will stay forever here with you

My love

The softly spoken words you gave me

Even in death our love goes on

He stood up from the grave, dusting off his hands.

"You know, a while after they first buried her I refused to leave here. I came back after the funeral. It was raining and I just sat with my back against her headstone for hours. It wasn't until I passed out and they carried me back that I left."

Caleb silently leant against him slightly. Letting him know he was there without putting any pressure on him. Letting him speak his own way.

"I sat here for two hours. I wouldn't eat anything and or talk to anyone. I'm not sure what I was thinking or doing. I guess I just couldn't understand why she had left and I couldn't go. After a while my father gave up trying to drag me back in. I kept Using to get them to leave me alone."

He turned and briefly rested his head on his friends shoulder. No sobs came, no tears ran through his eyelashes. He had cried enough the weeks since the funeral. Sitting in the rain as the sky wept with him and sobbing until his eyes couldn't open and his throat was raw with calling her name. When he woke up back at the family house in her room with the drip feeding into his arm he had been so angry. But it had been sunny and for some reason he couldn't come back. It was like he'd built up these walls around himself and he couldn't violate them. In case they all came crashing down and he was trapped. Trapped beneath his memories, his regrets.

Some say I'm crazy for my love, Oh my love

But no bonds can hold me from your side, Oh my love

They don't know you can't leave me

They don't hear you singing to me

He had dreamt he heard her. He'd get up in the night and walk to her room, half asleep. And it was only when he opened the cupboard to find all her medicines gone that he remembered she was dead. Once he remembered sometimes nothing would happen. He would just walk back to his room and sleep with his troubled dreams for the rest of the night. But sometimes, sometimes some of his grief would leak under the walls. And even that tiny bit would burn the still gaping hole she had left in his heart. He knew that if it all broke through before he was ready he would die. There was no question of it in his mind. He would climb into her bed and lie there, his tears soaking the pillow, for hours. Nothing could get him up in the mornings. The light never touched this room. But gradually the bed lost her familiar scent and began to take on the smell of his own sorrow. The familiar apparatus disappeared and the dreams changed. She would still call him but he would remember further back. He would remember halfway up the stairs and walk to the kitchen for water, knowing his parents were lying awake and listening, not fooled by his change of direction. The night he remembered in his own bed he wept there. Knowing he had truly begun to let her go. That gradually the sorrow that leaked under the walls was being absorbed back into his heart. And though it would never completely heal the hole would not always burn at the slightest memory.

I will stay forever here with you

My love

The softly spoken words you gave me

Even in death our love goes on

He knew that as long as he remembered her with love she would not be gone. That while she may no longer walk the halls of the house she would always walk the halls of his mind and sleep in the chamber of his heart. Where it truly mattered.

And though his parents may bluster and feel shame for the illness their ward had suffered he would always be proud of the girl he thought of as his little sister. He would know she had been brave until the end. She had not denied it but nor had she denied her fear. She had known someone was beside her and as long as he remembered her legacy and felt no shame he would be honouring her. Even if he couldn't bring her back he could always push her forwards. It wasn't about letting her go, it was about waiting. He knew he had a lot left for in this life but he also knew that when his time came he had nothing to fear from death. That there was someone on the other side for him.

And I can't love you, anymore than I do

I will die, but real love is forever.


AWWWWW, that even made my heart melt and it's made of bloody stone. The image of Pogue sitting by her grave like he sat by her bed screaming at the sky? I surprised myself. I didn't like this chapter at first and it took a lot of work, but I'm quite proud of how it turned out. Tell me what you thought.

Sammy