KOTLC Sokeefe One-Shots, Alternate Endings, etc

I Can't (Edaline POV)

A/N: Finishing up yesterday's arc...readers, beware of grief!

Edaline found she didn't have the strength to get up. Couldn't summon the energy to get out of bed and face the day.

When Grady stirred beside her, they wordlessly looked at each other. The sorrow in his eyes broke her heart into even more splintered pieces.

"I don't know how to do this," she eventually whispered to him. "I don't know how to live in a world where Jolie doesn't exist."

Please don't make me.

If she can't live, I don't want to either.

Grady let out a sob. "We'll do it because we have to," he whispered back. "Because she would want us to. And because Brant is going to need us."

Oh, Brant. They really needed to check on him. He was probably suffering just as much as they were.

Dry sobs racked her body as she thought about the day ahead. "I can't. I can't, Grady, I can't breathe, I..."

"I know," he whispered, pulling her in closer. "I know. I don't know how we're supposed to even find the strength to get out of bed. But somehow, we have to."

I can't, I can't, I can't.

And yet somehow, they did.

It was an odd feeling.

Edaline felt numb.

And also desperately wished she really could feel numb. If she could, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much.

She was numb, but not nearly numb enough.

When they came downstairs, intending to merely say hello and thank you to Alden and Della before leaping home, they found Elwin waiting for them.

He threatened them with forced sedation if they wouldn't sit with him long enough to let him check them for shock--and drink two bottles of Youth each while he did so.

Then forced them each to also eat something--just a small fruit--to give them some measure of physical strength back.

"No matter how dark it gets," Elwin told them, "no matter how hard it is, you have to take care of your body's needs. I wish I could advise you on how to get through something like this, but...I can't. None of us can. But please...don't punish your bodies because your hearts are broken."

He'd apparently had a similar conversation with Alden and Della minutes before.

Everything is broken, Edaline thought with a deep pang. Nothing will ever be the same again. Jolie will never laugh again. She'll never visit us. She won't tell those precious pointless stories or argue with Vertina over the latest fashions. She won't marry Brant or have children or do any of the great things she'd planned to do.

Edaline had to force herself to stop thinking about it long enough to concentrate on leaping home safely.

They walked in the front door and the first thing that caught Edaline's eye was the cape Grady had tossed aside the day before.

It was the last happy moment they'd had before getting the hail from Brant.

Edaline desperately wished she could go back. Back to that moment in time when everything was as it should be.

Instead, she was left staring at an embroidered cape wondering how she could ever learn to live day by day without her daughter.

Then the sight of Jolie's bedroom brought on a wave of grief so intense that she and Grady both felt they'd never survive it.