050: Do you know?

Myndee's voice trailed off. Kell turned Maille's face to his with one finger, and gently lowered his lips to hers. Not a passionate kiss, but one that spoke volumes about life and sacrifice and yearning, and learning. He brushed her lips gently again, their softness pliant beneath his.

He opened his eyes. Myndee was watching, she registered a slight smile. He reached out and held her hand, with Maille's hand between it.

"You're a little matchmaker." he said softly, so softly, so 'just between the three of them', that anybody else entering wouldn't have caught the words, any of them.

Maille tried to smile, but she could only look at Myndee's eyes, lit with a fiery intensity from within. All was right in her world. The two people she cared about the most were reconciled. Maille sighed.

"You okay, Maille? Do you know?" Myndee's voice was cracked.

Maille swallowed her tears again. "I know Kell loves you very much." 

"I'm going to go to heaven now, aren't I?" Myndee croaked.

Kell's chin pressed hard between Maille's shoulder blades. Maille nodded. "I think so honey."

"I'm not scared."

"No, there's nothing to be scared of."

"What will it be like Maille?''

Maille shook her head, the tears choked her voice off. "Beautiful, Myndee, more than anything you've ever seen here, and the room with the castle will be there. You'll get to live in the castle."

"And wear my pink princess dress?"

Maille couldn't be strong anymore, she swallowed twice and then let her head fall forward again.

How could anybody go through this? How could anybody watch their child die?

"And kiss my prince?" Myndee said, her eyes still fixed brightly on Kell's face.

''If that's what you want, darling, there will be an awesome prince there, too," Maille said, her head lifting, feeling Kell squeezing her shoulders.

Kell moved around her and bent over Myndee. "Can I be your prince and kiss you once before you go?" he asked her, and Maille saw the tears making a path down his cheeks, dropping on Myndee's pillow and into her hair.

Myndee's eyes were shining as Kell brushed her lips with his, like a prince, but Maille thought, this princess wouldn't wake up to the touch of her beloved. Her eyes screwed up again. She thought there couldn't be any more tears, her eyes hurt so bad, and her throat was raw from the ones already shed. But seeing Myndee's shining smile was a balm to her sorrow.

Myndee's eyes closed and her wheezing intensified, the nurse, who had been standing at the door came back into the room and turned a few dials on the IV monitor.

It didn't change Myndee's breathing any and she sent for a doctor.

The doctor checked Myndee's still form and then turned and shook his head. Maille turned to face the wall, she didn't want to break down in front of all these people.

"Now?" Kell asked quietly.

"She's maybe got a couple of minutes." the doctor said. "You can do anything you want."

Maille turned. ''Can you take the IV out? You know for sure right?"

At the doctor's sympathetic nod she went to the bedside. "I want to hold her." 

The doctor and the nurse both nodded and quickly bent to the task. This wasn't actually a new request. Many mothers wanted to hold their children while they passed. But Maille wasn't Myndee's mother. Maille had only known Myndee for two weeks.

Kell was beside the bed. He climbed on first and then assisted Maille to sit between his legs and they drew Myndee's still form into their arms. Maille set Myndee's head in the crook of her arms as she would have her own baby. She pulled her close and rocked her back and forth, crooning her name over and over. Kell supported them with his arms and the doctor and nurse quietly exited with tears in their eyes.

The room seemed to fade away. What had been light was now cloudy and indistinguishable.

Myndee's breathing labored and then slowed. Maille felt her own heart breaking and knew the pain was so great that she couldn't bear it. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this, nothing. She'd never been around anyone who was dying. She'd been to funerals after the fact. That's all. But this was a beautiful sweet child, a lovable, darling, girl, full of hope and romance and castles and princesses.

Her mind drifted as she rocked Myndee's still body. Her mother had told them all the story of death. Her mother, Tracy McCaffrey, had seen death up close. Her mother had even lost a child, many years ago.

Maille suddenly felt her mother's pain. She'd heard her dad talk about what Tracy was like after the deaths of Raine and Steven. Depressed wasn't a strong enough word to describe it.

Maille relived each funeral she'd been to. A few. Pain wracked her body as she held the still form of the child in her arms, the little friend who had come to mean so much to her. How could her mother have borne it?

Kell lost track of time. Memories of a friend, Jason assailed him. Jason's soft gentle voice, his startling black eyes. Jason's hands on the baseball bat, his eyes glued to the pitcher. Jason encouraging him through tests at school. It was all flashing before him like a fast-tracked video and he wondered if he could stand it another second.

Jason was why he came to final care facilities. Jason was the reason he wanted to comfort those who lost loved ones.

But in his arms, a barrier wound its way around his heart. He wasn't holding Jason anymore, and he wasn't holding Myndee. Between him and Myndee was a beautiful angel, with dark hair and eyes, with slender shoulders, and lithe limbs. An angel whose tears were so hotly sincere, so freshly real they erased all the unreality of his life, all the pain of losing Jason, his best friend, his only brother, and all the heavily restrained emotion that warped his sense of closeness. The reasons why he refused to become attached to another person. His angel was washing those hurts away.

Kell leaned over her neck and moved her hair to the side so he could see Myndee's face. Death was close, he'd seen it before. He'd held it in his arms. Jason. 

His tears dribbled down her neck and wet her blouse.

"Myndee..." Maille crooned.

"She's gone, Maille." he said as he saw the heart monitor at the foot of the bed go flat. Maille rocked Myndee again, shaking her a little as if to stimulate her breathing. "Myn?''

Kell shook with his emotion, shook with the effort of crying, and the effort not to cry.

"Kell, no, I-- I don't want her to go yet. I thought I could be strong, but I can't..." her voice broke and she cried out with the pain and sorrow. Maille wailed, and sobbed loudly. Kell rocked her, holding both her and Myndee in his arms. But he couldn't protect them from this. He couldn't stop what was happening.

"Go, little Myndee, go to your castle." 

Maille's tear filled eyes widened. Her heart was bursting. It was a pain greater than she could bear.

****