Talia wasn't there.

She couldn't be there when Bryn she was at her lowest. When she couldn't make herself get out of bed in the morning, when she woke up screaming in terror at midnight.

She wasn't there when Bryn was happy. When she was recklessly, thrillingly happy, speeding through sleepy towns with the wind whipping through her hair and head thrown back with laughter only she could hear.

And now, finally.

Finally, Talia was there as Bryn’s body crumpled to the ground, her lips parted in a silent scream.

When she gathered Bryn into her arms, it was as if she was doing it for the millionth time.

And as tears leaked from Bryn’s eyes, as she shook her head in a weak attempt to dissuade Talia, Talia could do nothing but stare at the face she had so longed to know, to caress, to wake up to each morning. And it was all she could do to stop herself from kissing those bloodied lips.

Talia steeled herself. She took a few deep breaths, gripped Bryn's hand, and opened her mind.

————-————————————————

Bryn

They think I don't care.

Think I'm happy about it, even.

Happy.

Which I guess is why they tell me, with broad smiles and bobbing heads, that she's dead.

That even in death, it took several people to pry me from her arms.

That they left her lying in the battlefield for the others to deal with - just one more discarded soul.

When the nurses finally see the horror written on my face, they fall silent and file out of the room with whispers flitting between them.

I knew, of course, that no person could withstand that much pain. It had nearly killed me.

But I had still held on to a sliver of hope.

Hope.

It's a foolish thing, really.

I can still taste the blood on my teeth but it feels more like it’s coating my hands, drying into the creases of my palms and dripping sickeningly off of the tips of my fingers.

Because of course it’s my fault. Of course I’m the reason she’s gone.

How else could it have ended?

I feel strangely numb.

So when they return, bearing drugs I don't need to numb the pain I'll never feel, I don't protest.

I dream of the feel of her hand in mine.