Photograph (A Songfic)

Loving can hurt

Her key made a scratchy, grating sound in the door as Honey opened it. She stepped into the house, face unusually sombre, and slowly made her way upstairs to her room.

She felt strange. Physically, she felt numb and cold--but her heart was heavier than it had ever been before.

Loving can hurt sometimes

Walking as if in a dream, she made her way up to her room. Oh, she hurt. How she hurt.

But it's the only thing that I know

She had loved Tadashi, she knew. It hadn't been yet another silly childish crush. This time it had been real.

It was still real.

When it gets hard

She dropped her purse on the floor and sat down to pull off her black heels. She hated black.

You know it can get hard sometimes

The funeral had been black, so very, very black. Grey skies with huge, ponderous clouds, umbrellas of ebony that glistened in the rain, and dark earth that swallowed up the white wooden coffin.

Perhaps if the love hadn't been real, it wouldn't be so hard now. Honey bit her lip. Perhaps if they had never loved--then her heart wouldn't feel like it was shattering into hundreds and thousands and millions of pieces.

But no--it was a wise one who said better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

It is the only thing that makes us feel alive.

~~~

Only a few minutes later did Honey glance up, and the first thing she laid her eyes on was the miniature clothesline strung across her bedroom wall. Colourful little clips held dozens of Polaroids and photos in place, the repeating motif in each photo a smiling bespectacled girl and dark-haired boy. Honey caught her breath. Then after a pause she got up, ran a hand over the first photograph, and took it down, cupping it in slender brown hands.

We keep this love in a photograph

She remembered taking this picture. It had been right after his first successful test of Baymax. Wild with exhilaration, he'd kissed the robot, and then he'd kissed her on the cheek too. 

We made these memories for ourselves

She'd blushed madly, she remembered, and then he'd apologised bashfully, but she had waved it off. And then she had taken the photograph, wanting to remember the moment.

Where our eyes are never closing

They'd been happy. So, so happy. 

Hearts are never broken

The photograph was a little wrinkled, a corner bent, but the joy in their faces was still palpable, even after all this time, even after all that had happened.

Times forever frozen still.

~~~

Loving can heal

With trembling fingers, Honey took down the second picture. She remembered this one too. 

He'd told her he loved her, and she'd replied in kind, and there were smiles and laughter and maybe even a few tears. How they'd walked on clouds for days after that! How they'd imagined a future together!

And it's the only thing that I know

And now--now she couldn't imagine her future without him in it.

I swear it will get easier

Would she ever stop hurting? Would she ever stop feeling like she couldn't breathe and couldn't smile and couldn't do anything but be swallowed by the darkness, darkness unbelievably strong?

Remember that with every piece of ya

Tadashi had helped her overcome every darkness, but now his absence was the deepest darkness of all.

And it's the only thing we take with us when we die.

What had he been thinking when the fire took him? Had he been thinking of her?

~~~

Then Honey took down all the photos, one after another, swiftly, decisively. She couldn't keep them up there. The memories hurt too much.

Fighting back tears, she gathered them all in her lap, rocking back and forth slightly in the winds of grief. 

And if you hurt me

She clasped them to her chest, thin, flimsy pieces of paper, but filled with life and laughter and love and everything she had lost in a single night. 

Well, that's OK, baby, only words bleed

The tears began to flow, and she let them, weeping freely now, wishing more than anything for Tadashi to come back, to pat her shoulder, to take away the pain.

Inside these pages you just hold me

To come back.

And I won't ever let you go

He'd promised, hadn't he? He'd promised never to leave her. But now he had, left to a place where she would never find him, and from which he would never return.

At that moment, she felt completely, utterly, irrevocably alone.

Wait for me to come home.