You're Mine

Epilogue

Alex found out that he had broken his ankle when John pushed him down. He had been laying in a hospital bed with a cast on the majority of his leg since... that night. He felt like he couldn't stop crying no matter how hard he tried. He kept replaying the scene over and over in his head. If only he had been smarter and not chanced Aaron's life. If only he had connected the strings earlier than he did. If only he had saved him.

Aaron visited everyday with sympathy more than one man could bear. He brought flowers occasionally and told Alex what happened that day at school. How much everyone missed him. And how, apparently Burr snapped in one of his classes and began crying about how John had killed Eliza, Hercules and Lafayette. A small group of people, students and teachers alike, volunteered to venture into the woods and find Lafayette's body with the description John had given Aaron. They found him. He had a hole burned through his throat and his entire stomach seemed to be missing. Several people lost their lunch upon his discovery. They took his body to a morgue where they'd have a proper funeral for Lafayette. On their expedition, a few students stumbled upon Hercules and Eliza. They both had stab wounds and Hercules had a bloody make-shift tourniquet wrapped around his waist. It didn't help much in the end. They both were believed to be dead for weeks before they were found. Their bodies had pieces missing from where the fauna of the forest had picked out a meal.

The group had indeed brought extra body bags just in case and they ended up being used to drag the three corpses back to civilization. John's body had been put inside a casket. It would be a closed-casket funeral that weekend for him. Alex knew exactly why.

That weekend, Alex found that he was able to stand, however wobbly his ankle made him. Technically, he wasn't supposed to leave the hospital but he had a mental breakdown in the corridor about it so the doctors let him go. They assigned Burr to stay with him at all times to help him if he ever fell or to fetch things for him. Burr had moved his things into Alex's dorm after some people had cleared out John's things. Alex was glad he wasn't there to see all of John's things being thrown out.

The funeral was at noon so they had an excuse to make it as short as possible. After all, who would attend the funeral of a psychopathic murderer?

Alex and Burr were the only male students there. Mr. Washington was there, mostly to be with Angelica and Peggy as they threw dirt onto John's coffin. They yelled streams of obscenities at his dead body and cried the whole time. They left after they were out of tears. Soon after the girls left with Washington, the people in charge of the funeral left and decided to come back later when no one was around to fill in his grave. Alex and Burr stood alone in the graveyard, staring sadly at the hole in the ground.

"Help me," Alex hobbled over to the hole and cried into it. He had picked a rose off of a bush on his way to the funeral. He gripped it in his hand now, ignoring the thorns invading his skin. "Gimme a minute?" Alex asked Burr, who quickly obliged and helped Alex to sit on the ground before backing away several paces.

"John," he began. He couldn't keep his voice from cracking, "I know you can't hear me. I know you never really listened to me when you could, but you have to believe me now. I loved you, John. I said it over and over when you were just out of earshot. I couldn't say it to your face until it was too late. And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry because I can't help but feel like this is all my fault. You're dead because of me. And I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I wish I could've... grown a spine sooner before you held your death in your hands but I was a coward. I'm a coward. Because you blinded me. From day one, I loved you. I just couldn't believe it myself. I'm sorry. John, just know that I still love you. I'll love you until I die. That's a promise."

He glanced down at the perfect red rose dancing in the wind, trying to escape his grip. He kissed it and cried again as he tossed it into John's grave. "I forgive you."