Work Text:
Which of us is now in exile
Which in need of amnesty?
Are you now but an illusion?
In my mind alone you breathe
It’s raining.
I hear the thunder first, though there is no lightning to illuminate the predawn sky. Wind lashes the curtains in pale streamers where I’d forgotten to close the window the night before.
Crawling out of the tangled mass of sheets on the bed, I move across the dark room to stand with my forehead pressed to chilled glass. It’s early still, far too early to be awake; but it’s been weeks since I’ve slept the night through, and dawn is no longer a stranger.
The rain is oddly fitting, as if all of heaven is shedding the tears I can’t bring myself to release. It’s been nearly a month since the war ended, but with all the flurry of attaining peace… there hasn’t been time to mourn the dead. But today… today is the day that we, Une and I… and the other few close friends that followed you so loyally, have set aside for your memorial. So of course… it’s raining.
Closing my eyes, I try to picture the garden outside the window, where despite the heavy scent of rain in the air, I can still smell the rich perfume of the multitude of roses growing wild in the sheltered courtyard. But my memories hold only the smoking rubble left on the battlefields after the armies have all gone home.
You should be the one standing here, Treize, staring out into the dawn instead of me. I was the one who ran from your side, thinking that my absence would not affect you; and I the one who started the landslide that eventually brought about the end. I don’t deserve to be the last man standing.
And maybe in the end it didn’t matter. Maybe things were meant to be this way. Maybe that’s why you let me go.
Did you know you were heading for your death? I can’t believe that… or why would you have started? You were a man, not a messiah. And I never believed you to be suicidal… not even at the end. You went after your goal with too much determination to not intend to see the final outcome for yourself.
Is it raining where you are too? Can you see me? Can you hear me? Or am I just talking to the wind and the rain?
I’m so tired. I want you here, with me. If I could stop time, or turn back the clock to before the madness started that claimed us both… but your death bought the world the peace that you dreamed of, and brought back the sanity I had lost. So in the end, you got what you wanted. Maybe it is only me that feels the price was too high.
But I don’t know how to do this, to go on with my life as if there isn’t a gaping hole left behind.
Opening my eyes, I turn from the window once more. Dawn is coming soon, and the day’s already stretching long.
Let heaven shed the tears that I cannot.
You’ve thrown it all away
And now we’ll never see
The ending of the play
The grand design
The final line
And what was meant to be
**
In the garden, a man walks slowly through the roses, and stares up at the falling rain.