99Summary: It has been six months since Amu has died.. and they gather around her grave once more.
Notes: This is an alternate ending to the story. It actually splits up after chapter ten, then you have these two endings. So this is the one in which Amu has died, obviously.
This used to be a one shot, but I put it as a last chapter when I reposted it on AO3 so I'm doing that again. So it's not a new chapter. I saved the reviews on the one shot and am once again very thankful for any support!
The song is 'Here without you' by Three Doors Down.
Snow fell down from the sky, lightly covering all the remembrance stones and graves with a feather blanket. He liked the snow, because it made the world appear as a better, cleaner and just nicer place.
Footsteps made slight sounds in the snow, but he didn't need the turn around to know who had arrived. The boy behind him shifted slightly, and only then the young man turned.
"Yo." he nodded, calmly, displaying almost no emotion. But those who knew him saw the hurt in his eyes, still fresh even after six months.
The people that had just arrived gave their own sign of recognition.
"Hn." A quiet, small blond girl. Rima.
"Hi." A purple headed boy, holding the small blondes hand. Nagi.
"Yo." A hyper looking boy with reddish brown hair, his arm around a girl. Kukai.
"Hey." The girl with the twin pig tails said, an arm around the boy with the reddish brown hair. Utau.
"Hi." A small girl with brown hair cascading down her back, one pink streak in it. She was holding a baby boy of almost a year. Ami. Haruki.
The boy beside him gave them all a nod. His hair was black, and he had fiery red eyes. Natsu.
They were all there. He turned back to the gray remembrance stone, slowly being covered by snow. The others came to stand beside them and they all stared to the words carved in the stone, as their thoughts went back to the day they had been gathering here for the final act, when the urn had been placed in the white marble monument.
Tsukiyomi Amu ˚23 September 1992, † 19 June 2010 Loved by many
-xXx-
The mic made a slight cracking noise as the girl tapped on it. The crowd that had gathered got silent, and only the occasional sobs and sniffs where heard.
"I'd like to thank you all for coming here, and supporting us all, especially her family. People find each other in the greatest of needs, and I think that we are now in a moment we all need others. A place that was filled is now empty, and I am sure I speak for all of us when I say that that space is never going to be full again. I'll miss you, Amu. You were my first real friend and no one can change that fact. Nor that no other can take that will be forever in my heart."
The small blonde standing beside her nodded and took the mic from her.
"I wish I could say this to you, Amu. But you are no longer hear to hear it, so I'll say it to all of who are gathered here. I loved you. We all did. But you were special, you were the one that freed me and broke down the walls I had builded to surround me. You showed me that you only had to be yourself, that I was special enough and the world would accept me for who I was. Just as Utau said, you were my first real friend, and you will always be the best. You still are, I know. As long as we remember you in our hearts, spend a small moment thinking about you, you will be with us. As always, so you'll never be really gone. I'll miss you, but I'll never forget you. No one will."
She went sat down again, next to the girl who had spoken before, and handed the microphone to a young girl with brown hear. One of her locks was painted a painly familiar pink.
"Thank you, Utau-chan, Rima-chan. That means a lot, and I'm sure Amu would agree.
My sister was a wonderful person, and the best big sister in the world, even though she had to give up a great deal to be that way. I can only hope I can be a sister as good to Haruki as she was to me. And even when saying that, I know that I can never live up to her. But that's not it. She said to me that by just being myself I was already very wonderful. I don't intend to brag about myself, but as my sister said: there is good in every person, in every thing. Being human is looking for these things, and cherish them. And that is what I intend to do. Thank you, Amu-onee-chan."
More tears were suppressed into handkerchiefs, more sobs were heard. Ami had grown a lot since her sisters death, no, since the doctor had delivered that dreadful news. She had matured, grown up too fast in a short time. Now she stood straight, her eyes red but clear. She would cry no more, but her heart continued to bleed.
She gave the mic to a young man, with dark blue hair. A boy was standing beside him. Behind them two other boys were setting up as for a concert.
"Time heals wounds, they say. But there are wounds not even time can heal. Time can only soften them a bit, make the edges less sharp. It will always stay. And for that, we want to sing this song for Amu."
The crowd buzzes. Wasn't that Ikuto Tsukiyomi, famous violist and husband to the girl in whose honor this was held?
They grew silent when Nagi started to play the guitar. The lines rang out softly, a moment before Ikuto started to sing into the mic. Kukai fell in shortly afterwards at the beginning of the second part of lines.
A hundred days have made me older Since the last time I saw your pretty face A thousand lies have made me colder And I don't think I can look at this the same But all the miles that separate Disappear now when I'm dreaming of your face
I'm here without you baby But you're still on my lonely mind I think about you baby And I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby But you're still with me in my dreams But tonight it's only you and me
The miles just keep rollin' As the people leave on their way to say hello I've heard this life was overrated But I hope that it gets better as we go, oh yeah yeah
I'm here without you baby But you're still on my lonely mind I think about you baby And I dream about you all the time I'm here without you baby But you're still with me in my dreams And tonight girl it's only you and me
Everything I know and anywhere I go It gets hard but it won't take away my love And when the last one falls, when it's all said and done It gets hard but it won't take away my love, whoa
I'm here without you baby But you're still on my lonely mind I think about you baby And I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby But you're still with me in my dreams And tonight girl it's only you and me, yeah oh yeah oh
The lines rang out softly, leaving the gathered people in tears, if they hadn't been that way before the song.
Without a word, they broke up and Ikuto left the place, the young boy with the black hair and red eyes on his heels.
-xXx-
"A hundred days have made me older..." Utau softly sang, and they all fell in with her, their voices carrying far through the silence that the still falling snow had created.
They ended the song. Rima was silently crying, as was Utau though she tried to wipe the tears away before anyone saw. It was not as if they would have minded, they al cried a little, if not in tears. My heart is bleeding, was what Ami always said. It was the way they all felt, but some of them just couldn't free their tears. As if crying would be admitting Amu was gone.
She had been in a coma for nineteen painfully suffocating days, and then she had given up the fight. It had been a beautiful day in June, the cherry blossoms had almost fully bloomed. Still, there had been enough to cover her stone in a soft pink white blanket. Just as the snow was at this moment, exactly six months later, on the nineteenth of december.
Her birthday had been hard, but not as hard as the weeks after her death had been. As Ikuto had said, time couldn't heal some wounds, only soften them a bit. But to them, it was still fresh.
They went their separate way again. Utau, Kukai, Nagi and Rima went to a little cafe and remembered the funny things, the nice things, even the painful things and they laughed and cried as they relived their friend again.
Ami went home with Haruki and did the same with her parents. A lot of tears were shed that night, but happiness was also there, when Haruki said his first word: Amu. They didn't know what had made him say that, maybe the vague, distant memory that he had of his oldest sister. Fact is that Haruki grew up with two sisters; one alive and beside him, and another only a dim memory of feelings but so vividly alive through the story's his family would tell him.
Ikuto stayed at the graveyard, with Natsu. They had stuck together, both needing Amu and now only left with themselves and the other. Besides, they had liked each other, and Ikuto didn't mind caring for the boy.
He himself would never marry again, never again love another woman. His heart was full of only one, and that would never change. Over time, the missing and pain didn't soften and some said they had heard a violin in the dead of the night, singing a tale of lost love.
"I'm here without you baby..."