True to You

Say Goodbye

"Hurry up. Sit down and be quiet!" Jimmy told Val and Ryan who came giggling through his door. Elliot was curled up beside him on the sofa in their room.

Somehow their two rooms had merged into one. They'd woken up one day to see that Elliot's things had mysteriously migrated into Jimmy's room or was it vice versa? The drum kit still sat in the same corner of the room it had been in when the room had been Elliot's but now it was the drum kit from Jimmy's room. The photography space was still there but now it was flanked by the spangled piano. The lurid velvet sofa had joined the beat-up leather one. The view out the windows was ever changing. By day it was the sun drenched California coastline, by night it was the lights of New York City. The view from the bedroom was always the Seattle skyline. And no matter what door you went to, whether it was Jimmy's or Elliot's, you always walked into the same space.

"Keep calm Jimbo, I know that nothing's started yet," Val said as she slumped down onto the sofa. Ryan sat down beside her and she slung her legs over his. Jimmy wasn't sure what was going on between them, they still had their own rooms, but they had been spending more and more time together. Jimmy had a feeling that the knowledge that Caitie and Matt were expecting twins together along with the way Jimmy had rekindled his romance with Elliot had given Val permission to make the most of her own afterlife.

Elliot leaned across and poured Val a glass of champagne as Jimmy passed Ryan a beer. He had no doubt that later on they'd also be drinking champagne but for the moment they'd pretend to be tough manly men who drank nothing but beers.

Jimmy glanced across at the cake that sat on the kitchen counter, he'd invited a bunch of other people to join them later to eat cake and celebrate – the guy's from drummer's night, the Seattle guys, Elliot still made heart eyes whenever she saw Layne Staley and he wasn't sure he'd ever get over the jealousy even though she turned into a mute around him – but this time, this moment was just for him, Elliot, Val and Ryan. It was their mutual friends and family that they'd come together to watch.

"How do you know that they are all going to be there?" Elliot asked looking up at him. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder and brushed against his arm. After all these years the feel of it still made him shiver. He'd never gotten over his fascination with the feel and the smell of her hair. Even now that they were, to put it bluntly dead, the scent of it hadn't changed and took him directly back to when they were eighteen.

"I don't know," he said, "I just do. I can feel it somehow."

"Will I be able to do that?' she asked.

"I'm starting to get better at it so maybe it just takes time," Ryan shrugged as he offered up his input.

"I don't feel it yet," Val said sadly. Ryan wrapped and arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss against her temple. He bent his head to bring his mouth to her ear and said something that made her give him a hopeful smile.

"Shhh. They're coming!" Jimmy flapped a hand at them. They all turned and watched the TV screen in silence as their friends and family made their way across the brilliant emerald turf of the Good Shepherd Cemetery toward the place where Jimmy had been laid to rest.

"I went there once you know," Elliot said softly.

Jimmy turned surprised eyes on her. "You did?"

"It was the first year after you were gone and I still couldn't think of you without crying. I had a job in LA and drove down to Huntington to have lunch with Uncle Brian and Suzie. I did plan to but I couldn't stop myself from going to your grave. I hid in my car until a group of fangirls left." Elliot curled her fingers into his.

"I never knew. I never felt a thing," Jimmy frowned.

Elliot leaned around Jimmy to smile at Val. "See Val, all it takes is time. You'll get there."