Fanfiction: Encore

Would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand if I saw you in heaven?
- Eric Clapton, Tears In Heaven

The glaring lights of the hospital room shone brightly into his blood-rimmed eyes, a mad desperate look on his face. The smell of death, the air of despair, the presence of desperation, it all came hauntingly back to him, on that rainy, rainy night.

And he promised never to feel it again.

He glanced around the room madly, hoping for some assurance that the ancient past he buried on that day would not be repeated again. He could only see the slumped shoulders of Ishida, the sobbing figure of Orihime, the morose Chad and even a subdued Rukia.

And he remembered the emotionless face of his father and the quietness of his sisters.

His heart pounding again his chest, his nails dug so hard he was certain they would draw blood, his hair frazzled and his mind in chaos, he began pacing the waiting room up and down, waiting for the surgeons to leave the operation room with her intact. The lighted ‘EMERGENCY’ words died down. His heart shuddered. The doors opened as three tired looking doctors emerged.

His father came to him, with the saddest face the boy has ever seen his cheerful dad put on.

“We’re sorry…but we did the best we could. She’s gone…”

“Ichigo, she’s gone…”

Gone…

The simple word expanded within the waiting room, infiltrating the minds and thoughts of the people waiting there. He could barely grasped the action (Ishida hiding his face behind his hands and Rukia comforting an openly weeping Orihime) that was unfolding beyond his perception as the words rattled within his head.

“She’s gone…”

“She’s gone…”

Everything had a surreal feel to it, nothing was real. Past and present merged, and once again he was a boy, waiting for his mother to come back.

He was a man, waiting for his best friend, his lover, his wife to come back.

“Let…let me see her…her body…” he mumbled to the doctors, stumbling over the words. It was an act of treason, acknowledging her non-existence, referring to her only as a body. But it was all that he could do.

He approached the sheet covered body slowly. Reluctantly, he grasped one edge of the white sheet and slowly pulled it down. Her cold face, sleeping face met his vision. He crumbled.

He fought his father tooth and nail, he even resorted to kicking, all the while screaming, “Okaa-chaan!!!”

He pressed his warm lips on her cold and lifeless ones, heedless of the tears that were flowing unchecked down his face. Reaching for her hand, he grasped it tightly, unwilling to let it go. He fell onto his knees by her side, rocking slightly, all the while mumbling, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you…please, I’m sorry...”

His voice dropped to a pleading whisper. “Don’t leave…,” his voice broke, “…me…”

And he cried.

And he cried.

And then, he heard a fleeting whisper echo throughout the stale air, saying, “Ichigo, don’t cry…”

“I-chi-go, don’t cry…,” the little girl tried to comfort the sobbing boy. She showed him two three star pins. “Take one. See? Now, both you and I have one. So you’re not alone…”

“…You’re not alone…”

ENCORE noun
call for repetition, item performed in response to it