Your ex-lover is dead.

[lockpick]

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.

Comments

[aria_di_celes]

In retrospect, she should have left with the others when they quietly excused themselves to the Falcon. Rachel's death left a heavy weight on everyone; some reminded of loved ones lost not so long ago, but also because of a friend's pain. She didn't miss the looks that Setzer or Edgar cast her way, but neither spared a word. Probably couldn't decide if it would be better to advise her to stay or go.

She spent far too long standing out by the inn; she saw where Locke had disappeared to, but she had nothing to say. She never was very good with comforting words and empty reassurances.

Finally, after purchasing a small loaf of bread wrapped in a colorful bundle, she made her way out to the edge of town, where she saw the familiar figure hunched over, staring down at his hands. She still hadn't figured out what to say, but she couldn't just leave.