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He's dying in my arms, looking at her.
I can't begrudge him that, not really. He's loved her for decades, and even now, fifteen years later and wearing widow's weeds for someone else, she's beautiful. It's very much as he said: she was a source of joy for him. What was I, beyond a steadfast comrade?
Ragueneau weeps and weeps, stumbling off to collapse in Cyrano's abandoned chair, leaving me to hold our dear friend. He feels so fragile, so precious, like a looking glass or a rose window or a hatchling bird, and I dare not look away. He doesn't notice. He only has eyes for her.
"Ragueneau," Roxane begs, "Ragueneau, fetch someone!"
But he does not. Who is there to stop this? What doctor could save him now? All that is left is to hold him in my arms and look down into those dark, stormy eyes that will never look back at me.
I've given my best to him. I've spent fifteen years begging him to confess to her, even when it broke my heart. After all, who was I to say what was best? I was no poet to weigh another's destiny. Her heart or mine, neither could have changed him. So I was content to sit back and let it all be. Perhaps I damned him to this. I suppose now I'll never know.
He shudders a little in my arms, and my heart answers with a shudder of its own. If there is any decency in this world, I am dying, too. When I look down at him there is nothing but pain in his eyes—not even the sight of Roxane can change his reality. He looks... lost. Like he doesn't know that she's even there. I do the only thing I can do. I hold him all the tighter, so that he will know he's not alone. He's with me. I am with him. If love alone could heal his wounds, he'd be the healthiest man alive.
When I look up again, Roxane is looking not at him but at me. Why? It doesn't matter, because even as she does Cyrano shifts as if to stand again and the both of us scramble to stop him.
"No," he moans. "Not lying down."
He wants to go on his feet. Not like a poet or a lover, but a soldier. I know he hasn't the strength to stand alone, but he's so slim these days, as if he were made of the same stuff as the clouds menacing the moon. He's so light that I hold to him all the tighter and stagger to my feet, dragging him with me. Roxane reaches out to us. His head falls back on my shoulder and an ache that could fell a man overcomes me, to have him so near and yet worlds away. He gasps, again and again, his breath warm on my throat as he presses his face to my neck. It means nothing, of course, but at the same time it is everything.
"Is he...?" Roxane asks quietly.
Still awake; I can feel the flutter of his eyelashes against my skin. One hand starts to rise to my arm but quickly falls. He's dying but not so out of it that he can't move. I wish I could clear his eyes, help him to see that she and I and Ragueneau are here with him.
"Get help," I try to ask her. She just looks at me, eyes wide. I know that she wants what I want—she wants to stay with him to the bitter end. Am I really so cruel as to make her leave him to die without her? "Ragueneau, damn you, make yourself useful and get help."
He sobs but gets back to his feet, weeping and weeping as he stumbles toward the chapel. He keeps looking back at us. God only knows if he'll be able to communicate with the nuns in this state, but I have worse things to think of.
While this has happened Cyrano has been resting against me, just breathing. I put my head against his and tell him, "Your friend is going to wait for you. Do you see?" For the moon is hovering just beyond the reach of the clouds, there on the horizon. He huffs a breath as if he can respond, as if he can see, as if he isn't still pressed to my neck.
Roxane comes to us, takes his hands. They're so pale, almost skeletal, and they tremble ever so slightly in hers. She raises them to her lips and presses a kiss to his knuckles. That he doesn't react is painful; if he were able to react, his chivalry would balk at such a thing. She rubs his bigger hands with her little ones. His head turns a bit towards the sensation, still heavy against my shoulder but momentarily strong enough to move.
"Oh, Cyrano," she says softly. "For fifteen years?"
Whatever is said now is between the two of them. I know better than to expect my grief to be acknowledged—they are each other's true loves, and I'm just his comrade-in-arms. I try to focus on keeping him upright. He's not strong enough to keep his footing like this, though he's so slender and light. His body should be warm against mine, but it's not; it's cool, almost cold. I press him against me all the tighter. All I can do now is make him as comfortable as possible as he dies.
And he does. He dies in my arms, looking at her.
Roxane cries and kisses him again, and he's still looking up at her, though the light has gone from those dark eyes. Her fingertips brush his eyelids closed. I'm grateful. I'm sorry.
I am so very sorry.
With feet of lead, I carry him to the chair he refused to die in and let his body sink back against it. His head lolls to one side, and when I cross his hands gently in his lap he looks as though he's sleeping.
He killed himself coming here, but I'm certain he was dying anyway. I can't fault him for wanting to see her first. To have died with only Ragueneau and I for company would have been a shame. Our love—my love—would never have been enough.
But maybe I could have pretended it was.
"Damn you," I whisper to the body.
"There goes Le Bret," Roxane says softly, taking my hand in hers, "growling again."
I have to bite my fist to hold back tears. Her grief will be misunderstood as well. He was never her husband, only a friend, so far as outsiders are concerned. And if I can't explain to her why his death affects me so, perhaps she'll understand in a way someone else wouldn't.
If I can't have him, perhaps we can have each other.