the light must always shine

[cantstopmoving]

dated February 27

He's gone. Back to Lian. Home, where he belongs. I keep telling myself that, that he's not dead, just time-shifted back to where he's happiest

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[loveasthouwilt]

I'd never asked to have Hyacinthe's name put on the memorial, nor Ysandre's, yet I found some solace in going there from time to time nonetheless. There were others whose names I knew, and betimes it gave me comfort to think on them, betimes to pray for them.

I hadn't expected to find someone keeping vigil there when I arrived; even less had I expected to see it was Messire Grayson kneeling there in front of a lone candle. I could recognize a posture of grief when I saw one, and decided quickly that he had more need of the memorial's solitude than I. I turned to go, hoping to do so without disturbing him, but a stick snapped beneath my foot and he lifted his head to meet my eyes. "Forgive me," I murmured, "I was just leaving."

[cantstopmoving]

Long before the twig snaps, Dick knows he has company. The weight of the air changes when you are not alone. Tim would explain it in terms of ions or air currents, and he can if he needs to, but for him the feeling makes as much sense as the science: the air rests heavier on the bared back of his neck when someone approaches.

Even in his kneeling posture, he's far from defenseless, but he tunes his hearing and his attention toward the intruder anyhow. The snapped twig brings his head up to identify Phedre before she speaks.

"Don't let me chase you away," Dick answers, voice hushed and raw, eyes bruised, and soft smile of welcome all the more heartbreaking for it. Intuition - and Alcuin - say that if anyone can understand what he's lost with Roy, Phedre will.

[loveasthouwilt]

I turned back, sympathy wringing my heart at his lost look. "You aren't," I said gently, smiling, "but I would happily find my peace and quiet elsewhere if you wish to be alone."

I could not but think he has lost someone; I recognized the haunted expression, twin to the one I wore in the weeks after Ysandre's death and Hyacinthe's departure. And I too had often sought solitude in the sight of Elua's likeness in the temple-- solitude from the pitying eyes of others, with the hope that it would silence the unending questions in my head.

[cantstopmoving]

Part of him screams to send her away and dives for the cover of the solitude she offers. It bows his head down over his knees again, but he doesn't want to grieve for Roy alone.

He shouldn't be grieving for the soul of his team alone. He should be surrounded...by Donna and Kory, Wally and Gar and Vic and Raven and they should be doing this together. Or Monet and Karo, at least. But if he were home, there'd be no grieving, because Roy isn't dead, just gone from here. And Roy's been like a ghost since he got here, a pale shadow of himself, only bright and warm with Dick.

"No." He doesn't lift his head again. Any more movement will shatter the calm he's built: Roy's where he belongs. The pain will fade if he can just hold on. "Alone is the last thing I want."

Five minutes ago, it was a lie. Now...it's as true as anything he's ever said.

[loveasthouwilt]

I sank down beside him abeyante, sitting back on my heels, my hands in my lap. "Then company you shall have," I said with the hint of a smile, "as long as you wish it."

The little candle threw light on the nearest names. Robin Goodfellow. Amy Foley. Jayne Cobb. Inara Serra. "I've never asked to have someone's name inscribed here," I said softly. "I am superstitious, perhaps, but I think I fear to see it set in stone that they are gone... as if it means they will not return. Foolish, I know, for some of these have come and gone and come again... but the shadow of it lingers."

[cantstopmoving]

He could tell her that even in his world it doesn't mean that. They buried Clark. Jason. Donna. All of them came home. But the tears sting his eyes again, burn his lips and close down his throat.

He nods once, tight, then reaches out to warm his hands around the flame. It's not cold, but he is, without Roy's heat to fuel him. Eyelashes damp, he blinks at her, wets his mouth, surprising himself with the emotional honesty of it.

"Hope's never foolish," he answers soft, thick...he's built his life around it. Built himself around it. "My family...we light the flames instead, in memory of their lives. For me...to...guide their way back."

[loveasthouwilt]

"I never used to question it," I admitted. "But of late... these past few months, since one friend died and another disappeared... it's been harder than ever to find... well, to find hope." I shook my head, my mouth twisted in frustrated rue. My faith used to be stronger than this-- it had once been unshakable. "Your friend is lucky to have your guidance," I said after a moment of silence. "To have your heart's remembrance."

[cantstopmoving]

For some reason, the words remind him of that night with Babs, when he brought her the gun. When he father lay dying. Before Rolly ripped out Dick's still-beating heart, and then Catalina stopped his.

"We can live through the loss of the people we love--" Parents. Best friends. Lovers. "The only thing we can't survive is the loss of faith. In ourselves, in our truths." They're true, and he will live through this loss, especially knowing Roy's home with Lian. Roy would want him to, too.

If the words sound like a prayer or a plea as much as a profession of faith, he's sure Phedre will forgive it. He glances up again, eyes the color of a three-day old bruise. "It doesn't change the fact I'll miss his warmth at my back in the mornings." The mornings he spent with Roy, and not Tim.

[loveasthouwilt]

My eyes dropped, and I thought of Hyacinthe, who had disappeared from my arms during the night we'd spent together in the temple. I didn't know if I was losing my faith, if I'd lost it long ago, or if it was such a part of me that it could never desert me. I had been so long from my gods that I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel their touch on my heart. I did not wish that on Dick, nor would I on anyone.

"I wish life here did not feel so much like trying to find replacements for the things and people we have lost," I murmured. Trisha, who put me in mind of Imriel; Zozie, whose wicked smile was so like Hyacinthe's; Karolina, whose likeness to Ysandre both in look and soul sometimes frightened me.

[cantstopmoving]

He thinks about that for a little while, quiet, passing his fingers back and forth across the flame. It doesn't warm him, it doesn't burn him, but it's all the movement he can manage without his emotions spilling over.

Alcuin's told him enough about Phedre and Joscelin that he feels comfortable saying, "When you've spent most of your life in service of an ideal and then somehow that's taken away--" It makes him think suddenly of freedom fighters and solders who've lost their way. "I'm not sure you ever stop looking for ways to fill that space. I'm not sure you can."