born in a landslide, to escape from reality

The chasm lies beneath her, yawning open in the darkness. She feels a strange sense of vertigo, and she begins to tip over. She cries out, hoping to be saved, hoping for the strange sensation to end. She begins to tip even further, no longer in control of her body, until she's falling down into the chasm, she's falling and she can't stop it. She doesn't have the breath in her lungs to scream, and she only shuts her eyes tight, hoping for the falling to end.

She wakes up, breathing heavily, feeling the wind sweep through the room. She rises out of bed, covered in sweat, and crosses the room, shutting the window that she forgot to close. She briefly remembers someone telling her that leaving your windows open at night causes nightmares, but she knows it's not the windows being open that have caused her nightmares. It's him.

She used to feel safe, used to feel like nothing could touch her, like she was invincible. When she was with him, she was flying sky-high—nothing could touch her. Now, she's falling, falling to the bottom of the chasm that features every night in her dreams, and she can't stop the falling, even when she wakes up.

There's nothing but darkness now, even in the light of day. She used to be able to find her way, but now, now he's gone, she can't. It's not that she was dependent on him, because she's not. It's just that she loved him, and now he's gone, now he lies in the graveyard she can't think, can't function. Without him, she's lost, and the wind sweeps through the room, and she wonders if it carries a trace of his ashes, wonders if it carries some of the air he once breathed. Each wind is a wind from the past, and she can't help but wonder if each wind was there before, if it has significance, or if it is lost and lonely like Rose is now.

There's no purpose to her life, she's just a lost, lonely wind, traveling through the world, wondering whether or not Lorcan's death was her fault. She thinks it was, if only she'd been there when he died, if only she'd stopped him going on that journey.

But there's nothing she can say, nothing she can do to make it better, to turn back time. She can't change the past, because the world is already built the way it's meant to be, like her mother told her all those years ago. She thinks of stupid sayings like everything happens for a reason, and she curses them, curses the people who thought those up.

"He didn't deserve to die," she whispers into the cold night, her silken nightdress fluttering around her thighs. Her voice grows more harsh, more aggressive. "Screw you, world, Lorcan didn't deserve to die! He didn't deserve that!"

She throws herself back into bed. There's nothing shouting at the night can accomplish, nothing. It's not going to bring Lorcan back, it's not going to make Rose feel better, and it's not going to stop the falling feeling that she's convinced she's always going to have.

.

"Rose, listen to me, you have to eat something." Lysander tells her. "Please, just something?"

"I'm not hungry." she tells him, staring at the blank wall, noticing a solitary nail that Lorcan hammered in, but never getting around to hanging up his portraits.

Lorcan's paintings are kept in the garage, and Rose hasn't been there since the incident. She can see them all in her mind, anyway, she doesn't need to see them in front of her. He captured every detail perfectly, even though Rose always insisted that he made her look too perfect, too like an angel. He'd always reply that it was what he saw, and with that, he'd make Rose smile.

Rose doesn't smile anymore.

.

"You haven't been out of the house in weeks, Rose." Lysander tells her, as if she didn't know already.

"Do you know why, Lysander?" she asks, finally cracking under all the strain. "My husband is dead. Your twin is dead. Dead!" she exclaims. "He's not coming back, and I have to try and learn how to deal with that!"

She turns on her heel and storms out.

An hour later, he finds her in the garage, staring at one of Lorcan's self portraits, and crying. He hugs her, telling her that's it's okay, it's going to be okay. The truth is, it's not.

.

The next time she visits the spot where she laid the ashes and left a plaque, there are flowers lying there. Roses. She doesn't quake, because Dominique is standing next to her, being supportive, but she can't handle it, she can't handle all of the pressure. She can't handle the fact that Lorcan is dead. She can't think about the fact that she shouldn't have let him leave, shouldn't have let him go on a trip with his friend, should've been there when the car smashed into his, when the windscreen cracked, when his head hit the ground and the life left his body.

A wisp of wind flies back, blowing her hair into her face. She wonders where the wind was when Lorcan died, and she feels the wind caress her face, but wills it to leave. She doesn't want the feel of the wind, it feels too free, too alive.

She tries not to cry, but she fails. She sinks to her knees and lets the sobs wrack through her body, she lets them engulf her completely. Dominique's arm on her shoulder doesn't even register, she just lets herself let it all out until she can't cry anymore, and then permits herself to be led into the Dominique's car and be driven back home.

.

The looming chasm is still there, still waiting for Rose to fall into it, still waiting to swallow her up whole, and she falls into it every night, but she always wakes up, just before the chasm can fully claim her. She's not sure whether she's grateful for it, or whether she'd prefer it if it just swallowed her up whole, and she didn't have to care about anything anymore. The chasm is a windless place, and that is the one thing Rose is thankful for. She stands on the edge, every night, teetering on the edge of oblivion, and she shakes until she starts falling. It's repetitive, but it scares her, because every night she falls a little bit further than before. No chasm is endless. She only hopes that this one is large enough to grant her a little more time.

.

"Rose, you need to move."

"Rose, you should come out sometime."

"Rose, please, eat something."

"Rose, you need to get out of the house, it's killing you."

"Rose, can you hear me, Rose?"

"Rose, please, listen to me, Rose, please, you have to listen."

She sits there, numb, through it all. No, she doesn't want to eat, no she doesn't want to get up, no, she doesn't want to leave the house, no, she fucking doesn't want to move on, okay? She doesn't want to move on, she doesn't want to leave it behind, because she physically can't. She can't 'move on', she can't put it behind her. Her husband is dead, and that's all she can she, all she's allowing herself to see.

She doesn't want to see anything else, because then she would feel like she's betraying Lorcan.

.

She curls up on Lorcan's old leather armchair. A part of him is still there, she knows it. It stills smells of him, she can still feel him there, and so the armchair is where she feels safest. She looks across at her old armchair and sees an old romance novel with a bent spine sitting on arm of the chair. She hasn't read a romance novel for such a long time, she doesn't feel like she can anymore, not when her life is a permanent state of depression, a permanent state of missing Lorcan with every fibre of her being. He's still there, he's still hers, he still loves her, and she still loves him.

She's still in love with him, that's the problem. She's too in love with him to let go, she's never been good at letting go of things. If she lets go, if she moves on, she's betraying Lorcan, and she can't do that, because she's still his, and he's still hers.

Moving on isn't as easy as it sounds, not when someone's life was torn away in a screech of brakes, in a shattering windscreen and their head hitting the ground, taking away all of those moments that they still had to life for.

"It should've been me," she whispers to the silence. "I should've been there"

She receives no answer. She wasn't expecting one.

.

Faces and moments flash by her. People coming to visit, people saying sorry. Why do they say sorry? They didn't cause him to die. She sees faces of her family, her friends, even her ex-boyfriend Scorpius comes by and visits her, tells her that he's so sorry, and hugs her. She just wants them all to leave her alone, to let her cry in Lorcan's armchair in peace, and refuse to wash the sheets he slept on because they still smell like him.

When they leave her alone, she cries herself to sleep, she finally allows herself to cry when she's alone. She doesn't want to cry in front of them, her pain is private, it belongs to her, and her alone. They don't deserve to get into that pain, they don't feel it the way she does.

Even when they're beside her, she's hopelessly alone. She can't feel attached or connected to them because they're not real, nothing is real anymore except Lorcan. He's there, in her thoughts, in her dreams, in her fantasies. Everything is false, broken and fake, but Lorcan is real amongst it all. The pain is real, and that's all that she can feel.

When she sleeps at night, Lorcan is beside her, holding her, telling her it's all going to be okay. For a second, she believes him.

But when she opens her eyes, he's gone.

.

She begins to drift, she begins to drift away like the wind that carries her, drifting further than she's drifted before. It's better this way, she tells herself, it's better just not caring, not letting anyone get through to her and not worrying about anything. Lorcan is still there, flashing through her mind, and although the numb expression on her face doesn't show that, everyone who sees her knows exactly whom she's thinking of. How could they not?

They try to get through to her, but no one can. All of them try their hardest, but even Lysander and Dominique have to accept that their friend and cousin is dead to the world.

They decide she needs help, and they take her away. Rose doesn't notice a thing, she's too busy holding Lorcan's hand.

.

Dominique and Lysander stand holding hands as they wait for the Healer to come back and tell them about Rose. Both of them care about her so much—too much—to stand by idly while she breaks inside.

The Healer comes down the corridor, and Dominique's grip on Lysander's hand tightens.

"Ly, I can't do this." she tells him.

"I'm here." Lysander tells her. "You got me through Lorcan's death, and I'm going to get you through this now, okay?"

"Okay." Dominique looks up at him, still not relieved of her anxiety.

The Healer opens her mouth, looking concerned. "Rose Weasley is trapped in her own body." she tells them. "She's drive herself into such a state of depression, the world outside is too bad for her to handle, she can't cope."

"So she's not letting herself out?" Dominique asks.

"Exactly." the healer replies. "In a way, she's protecting herself from a world she can't deal with."

.

Rose sits up in her hospital bed, not aware of where she is, only knowing that Lorcan is beside her, holding her hand.

"I love you," he tells her.

"I love you too."

A breath of wind swirls in through the window, brushing past Rose's cheek, but she doesn't even notice it as she holds Lorcan's hand tight, squeezing it as tight as she can.

"Can we stay like this forever, Lorcan?" she asks.

"Forever and always." he replies.

any way the wind blows

For Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's Two Hour Challenge on HPFC where I was given the title Winds of the Past, the pairing RoseLorcan and the prompt falling. Yes, I am aware that this is very depressing. Sorry about that, uhm. The quotes in italics at the start and end are from Queen's epic Bohemian Rhapsody. And I was too lazy to proof read, so if word didn't pick it up, uhm, oops?

Oh, and I don't own Harry Potter. Please don't favourite without reviewing. :)