"She Loves You" and Other One-Shots Regarding the Beatles.

Dying Flowers - Paul

Note: the following may be sad. Just to let you all know. Also, I cried, reading it over for potential mistakes.
If it is needed, feel free to get some tissues or put on some happy music afterwards. Cheers!

Paul stared at the grave.

He could not help but be in denial, still, of his lover's death. He had not been present when she had died, and that was what pained him the most. Not the death itself, with its bittersweet memories of when she had been alive and well, and beautiful. But of the inevitableness that he had done nothing and that, without his knowledge at the time, Misty had gone and went, slipping from the grasps he had not known he held a hold of until he had gotten the phone call.

"Paul?"

"Yes, George?"

"I don't quite know how to say this..."

"What! What is it?"

"Misty..."

"What about her?"

"She got in an accident -"

"-oh, bloody hell!"

"-and she's - she's - I'm sorry, Paul, but she's dead." George spat out the final word, as Paul felt nothing inside but a sense of dread, tinged with helplessness and regret.

Paul blinked. The memory was gone, a thing of the past, but he could still hear the worried tone in George's voice when he had said the words. "I'm sorry Paul, but she's dead." It was as if George was worried about the way Paul was going to take in the death of his girlfriend, when Paul himself hadn't even known. He certainly had not thought he would be staring at the grave and the gravestone that officially declared Misty Leanne Lawrence to be deceased.

Three years, it's been three years, and the pain is still here. Paul thought, gloomily. He was kneeling, now, eyes on the stone. He still found it strange his love was under him. It did not feel right to not have her with him, like how she had always told him she enjoyed time the most when she was with him. How her long hair would shine the brightest in the morning sun, after a late-night film at the drive-in. How her lips would touch him, without hesitation, but with certainty. She had known he was hers, she his. They beloved to themselves and each other. That was what they had agreed on. And now, now she was not with him. Now, she was six feet under.

Paul had not handled grief well at first, locking himself in a room of his mate's and refusing to come out. His meals had been delivered outside the door if he ever decided to actually eat them. When he would, the food would be picked at, not ever a clean plate. He would fall asleep, tears burning in his eyes, and wake up in the middle of the night with new, afresh tears already falling. He needed someone to comfort him, but the person he was looking for was dead.

Paul knew that, had always had since three years ago. That did not make the pain and grief any less. When he looked at the letters carved, he could not help but remember how the two had discussed future plans which would never occur. A conversation in particular was Misty telling him if they ever got married, she would have her surname hyphenated to be Lawrence-McCartney. Paul wept at the memory. He rested his head against the cold stone. He could not hold the memories back now, but he distracted himself by looking at the flowers he had placed.

They were pretty, nevertheless, even with their drooping petals. The color had faded, a while ago, by closer inspection. Marigolds, her favorite. He could remember when the flowers had not wilted, when they had been fresh and bursting with color. Not faded and dying. It felt wrong, perverted, to see the flowers once blooming with color, to be dying, too.

Paul picked a single flower up in his hand and twirled it with his index finger and thumb. It spun for a short while then snapped in the middle of the stem. Paul's eyes stung. He dropped the broken flower, feeling as if he had done this wrong, as well.

"Misty, I'm sorry I never got to apologize for the last night, when I held you in my arms. I know you had something to tell me, but I wouldn't listen. And the worst thing is, I will never know what it was you wanted to tell me. It is stupid for me to wish I knew, because I don't believe in wishes. I believe in peace and love, and I haven't had much of either recently. But I do love you, Misty. I've told you that countless times before, but you've listened every time. You always have, always will, just like I have never quite stopped loving you."

Paul stopped speaking. The tears were really falling. He lifted his head from the gravestone and he placed a new bouquet of marigolds onto the grave. Then, he stood up, tears falling onto the ground, as he stared down at it, the dying grass and dying flowers all left with no bloom.