minnow // sirius black

twenty

20 : death

I'd felt my body slip away, I'd heard as my mother started hysterically screaming when my heart rate started dropping, when it stopped.

I had heard my Dad open the door, and heard Lily cry my name as my heart stopped. I heard my father as he hit the floor, and I felt Lily grab my hand. I felt her shaking me, begging me not to go. To stay, with her, for her - if not for myself. I heard her sobbing, murmuring that she could not lose me, she just couldn't. I heard her whisper that it wasn't fair.

She said she loved me, and then she became incoherent.

I barely, barely, heard a thud in the hallway, but I did. I heard his voice, crying out, and he hadn't even seen me. He wasn't close enough. I think he heard the continuous beep.

I heard Sirius dragging himself to the room, forcing himself to his feet and joining Lily. I heard him crying, begging this to be a dream. His whispered where barely audible over Lily's sobbing, but I heard him say he loved me, he loved me so much, he wished he had done things differently. He begged me to stay, so he could fix it, so he could love me the way that I deserved. Sirius Black begged me not to leave him, to fight for him as he would always fight for me.

I had felt my body slip away, but I could still hear my friends and family crying, screaming and pleading.

It was a sound I would never get out of my head. The sounds of my - beyond words - loving mother, who'd lost her baby girl, the cries of my brave and incredible father, who'd lost his only daughter. The sounds of my best friend, as she lost her best friend. I heard the cries from him, who'd just lost his soulmate.

I heard the door shut, probably a nurse allowing a family to grieve their dead loved one in private.

I tried - so hard, to fight it. I tried to force myself to live again, force myself to take another breath, my heart to beat. I tried to will it all to begin again, but... that wasn't working.

At least I didn't die a virgin.

Arlo started trying to get my heart beating again, and I felt every push. I felt a rib crack.

At some point, he let go. He let go. He stopped forcing my heart to beat.

There was a silence within the room, the cries of loved ones melding into one continuous heartbreaking whine - only interrupted by the occasional gentle scream of anguish that I could not place the origin of, but I suspected Lily. I was dead, but yet I was hearing this. I could hear them, feel them, and so I took that as a sign that I had a choice.

I don't know what led me to that conclusion, but whatever did, I was grateful. Death, or life, and the choice was not hard to make.

With everything within me, I begged to stay, I begged to be allowed just a little more time if it was all I was allowed. I pleaded for the chance to say goodbye, to tell Sirius that I loved him, that I was sorry for abandoning him. The chance to tell Lily that she would be alright without me; she had James; that I loved her more. To tell my parents that they needed to love James as much as they could, the chance to wait for him to come so that I could tell him that he was my everything. That I loved him.

I pleaded for my life, I will do anything.

There was a strange... push. It was like something had pushed my shoulders back against the bed. It was not pleasant, and it was accompanied by an extremely painful sensation in my chest.

But I had heard Arlo step away from me, sit on the chair beside me and hang his head to cry. He was not touching me. I had heard him give up, heard the anguish which that act gave my family.