* * *

Simon walked through the field, unaware of the long ears of wheat tugging at his trousers, at the cool breeze that gave him goose skin; he was dressed a little too lightly for the chilly evening. He did not notice. He did not care. The pain that pulsated within him anaesthetized him to everything sort of physical discomfort.

He saw the gravestone, and felt as thought his entire soul was being shattered into pieces all over again. He hadn't come to the funeral. He could not. The pain had been too hard, blinding, choking, overwhelming, shattering; only now, months later, it had subsided and was more or less manageable. Months... It seemed only days ago when he was sleeping in his lover's warm arms, comfortable and at peace. Now, his bed, and more importantly, heart, was cold.

He knelt by the gravestone, tears, like a rock, stuck in his throat. He laid a single white rose on the ground, a beautiful, pure-white flower with satin petals – the symbol of dead love.

'Hey,' he said, hoarsely, 'it's me. Sorry I didn't come earlier. It's the first time we've come here, in three or four months. No-body wanted to come, too, but I insisted. I had to see you. I thought you'd be upset if I didn't turn up to say goodbye...'

Faltering, his voice quietening. He could not talk out the pain. It was absurdly like pretending his love was still alive.

Long, nimble fingers rose to graze the moving recording that was set into the simple, grey marble. Serious, almost sombre, features, dark hair, intense, piercing blue eyes. He did not like being recorded, Simon remembered fondly, smiling a small, sad smile. He took in, almost hungrily, the features that he'd been robbed of so soon, so unexpectedly – too soon. Painfully unexpectedly.

The gravestone was plain, just the name and dates, but in it's plainness, it was exquisite. Simon had know Mal would not have wanted something elaborated, would have been against poetic lines and things of that sort.

He closed his eyes, and his mind instantly flew back, and he