Fading Out

Epilogue

*Third person point of view*

Daisy woke up with a familiar, but forgotten, feeling of incoherence which consumed the person who just awakened from a deep sleep. For that one moment of complete disorientation, she looked at the clean blue sky above her in awe. She had never seen such a beautiful sight in all her existence. The word 'existence' turned out to be the one to snap her out of this pleasant feeling as memories unlocked and overloaded her. Her life. Her death. Her afterlife. Her loneliness. Her fears. Nick.

The memories of her finally leaving the mortal realm made her realize that she was no longer an ethereal entity. She now had a body once again. She could feel her heartbeat once more. It was a foreign feeling now but was pleasant nevertheless. She felt lighter than she ever had, even when she was just a fading spirit. Through some instinctual knowledge that disappeared when the spirit went to the mortal realm, she knew there was something more pure, more special and more divine flowing through her veins instead of the common blood. It was followed by more realizations about her new body and this new place that was the true resting place of those who had left the mortal realm.

"Daisy?" All her thoughts immediately dissolved into nothing as soon as she heard the voice calling her out. She felt her heart skip a beat and she turned to the source of the voice. Her smile, which simply lightened up her face in a way that was almost magical, greeted the two most important men of her short life. A happy tear fell down her cheek as she finally rose from the soft grass bed she had woken up on in this place and ran to embrace them. Keith McCain was a strong man in life and Daisy was pleased to see that her father still took her running hugs without budging even an inch. Both of them squeezed the other with all the strength they had, afraid of still losing the other if they loosened the grip. A pair of arms settled around her in a way she was very familiar with, and had often yearned for, and she finally lifted her head off her father to look at the first man to steal her heart. George Colseon was still able to make her stop breathing and she knew that would be true even if he weren't smiling at her with happiness like now. So, taking one arm away from her father, she wrapped him in her hug as well. Her father followed her actions and Daisy couldn't help but feel like she would never stop crying now.

Their hugs made her feel safe once more, a feeling she had feared she would never get to experience again. "I missed you so much." She spoke softly and smiled when she felt George stroke her hair while her father kissed her forehead. She had a lot more words to speak but for now, these were enough. They looked just how they had been in their prime but there were no shadows or ghosts present in their eyes to weigh them down.

"We missed you too Daisy." George spoke into her hair and Daisy couldn't help but remember how the soft confidence of his had been the very reason she had started to fall for him. "We watched over you once we had arrived here. It hurt a lot to see you like this." His voice brought back all her memories of her ghostly stay, her loneliness and her fears of fading out without ever having this particular moment. Tears filled her eyes but she didn't shed them, not because she was afraid of being seen as weak by these people but because she had to accept that she was now through that and let all those fears release her. When she didn't respond verbally to his statement, he lifted her chin with his finger so his eyes made.

For a split-second, she feared being consumed by guilt for running into her first love's arms after he saw her fall in love with someone else. In his eyes though, there were no accusations. Only concern. "Time moves here differently Daisy. It has been about ten days since we awakened here. And I know it has been about fifty years since we passed away in that fire." George probably hadn't meant to hurt her but she still flinched as she remembered causing that fire accidentally.

"It was supposed to be just a joke. It got out of hand. I didn't think about the windy night. I'm sorry." Daisy apologized with her eyes looking at something far away behind him while he still held her face. Now the tears fell as she remembered the destruction she had unwittingly caused. How that accident had officially 'confirmed' the presence of a malevolent spirit and declared the place uninhabitable. How in one second, her one reason for staying had been snatched away. A few moments later, she snuck a peek at George's face. The sad smile still present there shocked her eyes into staying.

"I suspected even before I passed away. Then when we started to look over you, your lost expression, your guilty feeling of hiding instead of coming forward in vision of the people who visited then and your frequent lingering in the guest bedroom, where I suppose the fire started, was more than enough to confirm my suspicions. I may have been hurt or angry before but I have forgiven you a long time ago."

It was then Daisy really understood what George had said. It had been ten days since they arrived here and it was fifty years on the surface. If she waited that much time, even Nick would join her soon. A part of her got giddy at this thought but the rest flinched. She wanted to see with her own eyes how he fared in his life. Whether he had kept his promise or not. All others thoughts melted away from her mind. So she was guiltily surprised when her father called her back from wherever she had gone inside her head by calling her name. Still she partly wished that he hadn't moved on and replace her while another part wished he lived happily and just forgot her.

"It's okay to be impatient, Daisy. We know you are anxious to know more about him so we won't keep you longer." Daisy felt some anxiety creep in as she realized that these two people had seen her fall for someone else who, apart from many other factors that made their love impossible, was human while she was dead. Then her father spoke two words to alleviate her guilt. "We approve." Unfortunately, they were followed by a surprise she didn't expect.

"It's time for us to now go back to the land of the living. We have long overstayed our welcome. Your mother wanted to see you too but she couldn't stay long enough to see this moment." Her father revealed. Then, with a wink that seemed uncharacteristic of all that she had known, he added, "I hope that she wouldn't mind being romanced by a younger man." And just like that, before I could even say a word, he was gone.

Filled with the pain of loss once again, a part of Daisy's mind compared herself to a fish kicked out of the water and she couldn't react in shock. Her mind and body just couldn't figure out what to do. And that is how she lost her father once again, with the only difference being that she hadn't been responsible this time. "Won't you send me off with a smile?" George spoke from next to her and without any resistance, she turned to him. The loss struck through her once again as she saw him fading too.

Somehow, she gave him a heartfelt smile in goodbye. "Perhaps we will be friends in our next lifetime." She spoke and though she couldn't see him acknowledge it, she knew he heard her. All she could do was hope that he would approve of that too.

And then she was alone once again. But she wasn't sad anymore. She closed her eyes and through some power of afterlife, saw the life of Nick Demming Peters fly through the time.

She saw him become a writer, carving stories based on what they had. She saw, with some pain, him fall in love again and marry. As time flew by in the world of living, she saw him raise his family and live his life happily. And she felt a tear drop when she heard him call out to her just before he left the world. Then, before her tear could go halfway down her cheek, she felt him there.

And just like that, Daisy wasn't alone either. 

*****

A/N: Born during an attempt at meditation when I saw a girl, whose body was flickering, leaning towards a human boy in a ruined house, this story has been a journey of nearly two years. And now, with the acknowledgement that certain chapters could seriously use a re-write, I close this journey.

I hope you enjoyed it.