NOTES: Takes place in, oh, somewhere around the middle of the last book in a series. The relationship is... not canon, but not all that far-fetched. Good luck with this one. ^_^

---------

I wonder if he knows that there is more to the title I gave to him than what I told him. Sure, it says that he is my Best Friend. That I trust him with my life. But implies more than that. More than just friends. More even, than the soulmates we also are.

I think that maybe, by the end of it, he had realized after all. I would do anything for him. I like to think that he would do the same for me, even though I know that he does not love me as I do him.

He is in love with another, and I do not grudge him that. She was beautiful, as far as their species goes, but not as beautiful as he is. She had a fierceness of spirit that made it seem like she was invincible.

She wasn't. However, even though she is now dead, it does not feel right to move in. I have my own life, and he is too deeply in mourning. I wish that he would let me give him comfort, even just as a friend, but I don't think that I am close enough to him for that.

It's all well and good to wish that he cared, but I wouldn't change him for anything. He has this tragicness that is so ingrained in his being as to be an integral part of who he is. He has to love her. If he didn't love, didn't mourn, then he wouldn't be who I thought.

Even if he did care, there would of course be the inevitable problems. We are related, technically, though the bond is so tenuous that it hardly even seems possible. We're not of the same species, although that could be remedied as well, for a limited amount of time. All the time we would need, really, I think.

I am so sorry to let him leave. I will have no way of knowing whether he is alright, or for how long he aches for her. If it ever stops at all, that is. But like I said, I have my own life now. I've finally stepped out of the shadow of my brother, and I'm making my own way with my people.

And him? Well... he has his grief. Sometimes I think that that's all that he ever really needed. That perhaps grief was the only thing that truly loved him. The self-pity, the loneliness, all of it clung to him and he to it, like a drowning man clutches at anything that might keep him above water. Keep him alive.

The emotions are the only thing he has left. His purpose, all of our purposes, really, has expired. If he were to stop grieving for her, perhaps he would no longer live.

In my own small way, I grieve for him as well. I cannot feel the pain that he feels, but the pain of knowing that we can never be together must come close.