lockpick: (weep for yourself; my man)
Locke Cole ([personal profile] lockpick) wrote in [community profile] dizzyspells2012-10-17 03:11 am

Your ex-lover is dead.

This was probably exactly why people always told him to give it up.

When Rachel had fallen, he'd thought that nothing could have been worse than being forgotten. When she'd died the first time, died remembering that he had left her, he realized just how wrong he'd been. Until it had driven something in him all the way to mad and back, hardened itself into a reckless desire for vengeance and a stubborn, hopeful determination to fix what had gone wrong. A promise.

Years later, hours after Rachel died the second time, and he wasn't all that sure he wasn't going to go mad all over again.

Maybe, once the shock had worn off and the wound was less new, he'd be able to understand and accept her absolution. Stop blaming himself and move forward, just as she asked of him. And he wanted to try, not least because he never had it in him to deny her. But has much as he wanted to honor it, it was easier said than done. And right now, with the dust from the Phoenix Cave still worked into the creases of his gloves, he couldn't see anything past that one, terrible truth.

She was gone. For good, this time, and not even he could deny it. He was probably supposed to feel freer for it. And maybe he would one day. But mostly it left him feeling raw and wrung out and hollow. For the first time in years, he was stripped of both the purpose and the hope that his promises had given him. When he'd found himself alone in a dying world, he'd clung to it with all the strength he'd had left. Because he'd let everything else that was important slip through his fingers until a doomed hope was all he had left. And now...

Now he was left sitting on a cracked and crumbling wall in Kohlingen, watching the sky go from red to redder when he wasn't staring at his hands. Finally acknowledging the grief that had eaten itself deep into him for years. And instead of feeling freed when she'd released him from his past, honestly, he just felt lost.
aria_di_celes: (Please not another word)

[personal profile] aria_di_celes 2012-10-19 06:49 am (UTC)(link)
She winced, wondering if it was a mistake to say anything at all. Maybe the others were right and she should just leave him to mourn in silence, but no matter how many times she turned the idea over in her head, she just couldn't.

"It..." Celes started, before trailing off, and starting again, "General Leo used to say that the only thing worse than death was to pass on without telling your loved ones goodbye," He'd encouraged the soldiers to write home always, to never leave home angry. Celes never really thought much about it, but suddenly now his words came to her.

"I think she was happy, to see you again." In other words, his years of searching and hunting wasn't pointless. Even if it just gave her a few extra minutes, those minutes meant a lot.
aria_di_celes: (-Opera Floozy)

[personal profile] aria_di_celes 2012-10-25 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
She never was good with comforting those who were grieving. Even after all of the deaths she'd witnessed, comrades who were killed in action back in the Empire, she still never quite knew what to say.

"Tell her what?" She prompted, even though the answer was obvious. Tell her that he was sorry, that he loved her, "I think she already knew." Actions speak louder than words, someone doesn't spend years of their life trying to bring back someone they didn't love deeply.