Theme(s): #30: Good-bye
Characters: Saguru Hakuba, Aoko Nakamori, mentions of Kaito Kuroba
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character Death, mentions of a m/m/f relationship (nothing explicit)
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to their original artist.
Summary: The process of grief is different for everyone, even if no one understands that.
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Lamentation
It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
-Colette
He never cried.
He hadn't since he was five and attended his first funeral, singing 'Silent Night' to the old lady in the coffin who was 'asleep'.
He had been to many funerals since then, relatives, friends, victims of his cases. He couldn't the number of funerals he had attended since he was five, but he knew that it would require more then both of his hands to complete the count.
And still, he never cried.
But it wasn't just that he never cried. He didn't grieve at all. Not in the traditional sense at least. He knew sadness, after all, someone you once knew was gone forever. That was always saddening. But the traditional process of grief and loss was gone to him. He didn't understand why others wailed and sobbed, he didn't understand the anger at a passing. The denial, the helplessness.
All he had ever known was simple acceptance. Everything changed, everything moved on. No one can change that and it was pointless to wonder, to fantasize, to rage, to cry.
He could remember when the call came. He had been at home, watching with Aoko as the heist played out on the television. A stupid cold had kept him from the scene and instead he had to watch it all live, through a television.
They had heard the shots, but since the white speck was floating away in what seemed to be peace, they brushed it off. Kaito would be home soon and it wouldn't matter. Aoko had turned off the television and went down to the kitchen to get them both refills on tea when the phone rang.
He could still hear her screams if the house was silent enough.
He held her as she sobbed, tried to calm her down as she stood on the couch, screaming. But for him, he felt nothing but the smallest regret that Kaito wouldn't be home to enjoy the chocolate he and Aoko had made.
He remembered watching, as people moved towards the incense bowl, the ritual as routine as saying prayers over an open grave. Even across the world, the process of death was familiar and normal. And just as familiar as the movements, so was the familiarity of the sadness in the eyes of those around him.
He turned and left the temple, climbing into the taxi waiting for him, not bothering to wait for Aoko. He wasn't needed here.
"Why don't you cry?"
She had asked the words suddenly, raising her tear stained, blotched face to his. She was packing boxes, sealing Kaito's and her things away to be moved the next day. He never asked, and she never gave a reason, but they both knew that without their third there wasn't anything for them in this house. Kaito had been their glue, and as much as they loved each other, they couldn't go on this way.
"You never cried...would you have cried for me? Did you ever really love us?"
He wondered, latter, as he sat watching the bubbles in his beer slowly rise to the surface of the glass, how she could ask him that. How could she combine love with grief? That not having one meant the other didn't exist.
He didn't answer her and she didn't ask again. She simply walked away, clutching the last box to her chest.
He drained his beer and shut off the lights, heading up the stairs to his cold, empty bed. Kicking off his slippers he climbed beneath the sheets, turning into the middle of the bed where a thief used to sleep, his hand curling over the pillow where a small girl used to lay.
And still, he didn't cry.
He was laying in his bed, watching his life bleed away with every beep of the machine next to him. He had asked them, several times if they could just turn the damn sensor off, but apparently, they wanted to know each an every beat of his heart, even if they knew that there was nothing to help him.
Anything would have been better then the slow insanity of listening to the fading beeps. He was sure they could tell when he was dead without it but apparently you weren't supposed to be sane while dying.
Turning back to the book in his hands, he shifted to a more comfortable position, only to be distracted by the door to his room opening. Aoko stood there, gnarled hands holding a cane that she was leaning heavily on.
She took a few, halting steps, before a smaller, smoother hand grabbed hers. A small girl looked up at her then at Saguru in the bed. The little girl smiled and helped Aoko walk across the room to the chair next to the bed. Once Aoko was seated, the small girl climbed up onto the bed and pulled a colouring book from her backpack, starting to work intently on a picture.
Saguru watched the girl for a moment before looking back at his book, dog-earing the page before setting it aside. He slipped off his glasses and rested them on top of the book, finally looking up at the aged woman sitting next to him. He reached out and gently took her hand, placing a kiss on the back of it.
"Welcome, Aoko." he whispered and the woman smiled, giving his hand a weak squeeze.
"This is my grand-daughter, Katorina." Aoko said, gesturing with the hand still holding the cane to the girl who smiled and waved at Saguru. "We would have come sooner but...it's a long flight from Japan."
"I'm glad you came at all," Saguru said honestly, giving her hand a squeeze back. "It means a lot to me, to see you one last time."
Aoko gave a sad smile, releasing his hand to reach up, brushing her fingers through the white strands of hair that fell limply around Saguru's face. "So many years passed...and here we are again." she said softly, allowing her fingers to slide down his face to his cheek. "I wonder what he would say."
"Probably rant at us for allowing ourself to just lay around," Saguru said knowledgeably. "And then drag us off into some hair-brained plan that would leave us covered in something neon painted and smelling of roses."
Aoko laughed loudly, a surprised sounding laugh that made Saguru smiled. He scooted over before patting the bed next to him. Aoko looked at him for a moment before lifting some of the tubing and wires that connected him to the machines around the bed. She gingerly climbed into the large four poster, curling slightly, turning her body in to his.
He wrapped an arm not connected to anything around her, holding her close. For a moment, he felt eighteen again, holding his lover as he waited for their third to return home, almost hearing the running footsteps on the stairs that indicated they were about to be joined by a thief who jumped on them.
But there were not footsteps, and he was a long way from eighteen.
"Will you cry for me?" he asked softly, looking down at the salted brown hair that still looked chestnut to him, even now.
"Yes," she answered, tilting her head up to look at him.
"Why?"
"Because I have to. If I don't I'll go insane. I will cry for you, as I did when we were eighteen."
"Don't," he said, and his voice was weak. She sat up, watching his eyes as they grew un-focused, staring at some part of the wall, at something she couldn't see.
"Don't...cry." he whispered, reaching a trembling hand to her face, touching it gently. She placed her hand over his, watching intently as a tear wound it's way down Saguru's cheek. "For me."
A loud, long beep filled the air and the girl turned, watching her grandmother brush tears away from the old man's face. She closed her colouring book and hopped off the bed, studying the machine making the annoying noise before hitting the button marked 'silence'.
She returned to the side of the bed, staring at the man who was simply staring at the ceiling before looking at her grandmother. "He cried," she said and her grandmother nodded. "Does he always cry?"
"No," Aoko said and put a hand to her mouth before she could released the choking sob in her throat.
"Oh...I'm going out to play." And with that she ran out of the room, pigtails bouncing merrily as she skipped down the steps, informing the nurses below of the machine making noise.