God in his mercy lend her grace
~*~
The cold had vanished, leaving instead a blessed warmth that she welcomed into her soul. Darkness had faded to light and she knew her half life had ended.
Bullet holes no longer littered her body and the constant light ache that had resided in her head for years had vanished.
She felt a hand upon her shoulder and turned to see her father and her mother and fell gratefully into their arms, accepting their love for the first time since she was a child.
Turning in their arms, she could now see the world as a whole, focusing on the cursed diner and the people there. She felt their tears and reached down to brush them away. No tears should be shed for her.
"They will cry." Her mother's voice drifted softly. "That is the burden we must bear, to see those who feel the hole we have left behind. You are their Guardian now, wipe their tears and heal their pain and point them along their right path. That has been your destiny, that through your death you may live wholly in their hearts and prevent the sins of the past from becoming the mistakes of the future."
~*~
The sins of the past. Her and Jethro.
~*~
The scratch of the sander upon the boat was heavy and harsh in the arid silence. Tears fell from his eyes, heedlessly marring the wood with darkened drops.
Jen laid a hand on top of his and felt the chill of his soul. She filled him with warmth and then held him as he cried. And she knew that he had felt her presence as he began to call her name. For what they had, for what could never be.
~*~
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."
Alfred Lord Tennyson
~*~
Author's Note: Thank you for reading. This has been something that's been nagging at me for quite a while then while studying Tennyson in class, it all came together. I've always found this poem to be impossibly sad, that only in the moment of death could the Lady truly live and Jen's story seemed to echo that.