The distance between

Has the grave won again?

Chapter song: Black Parade by Gin Wigmore

Four months earlier...

He was so pale. It made her feel sick. He looked like a little boy laying there, even though his large frame took up the entire hospital bed. The doctors had just pulled three bullets out of him. He needed rest, she knew, but she couldn't leave. What if it was the last time she ever saw him?

She didn't realize she was wailing until she felt her father's firm hand on her shoulder.

"You have to go." Hazar whispered into her ear as he held her tightly, pulling her away from where she crumpled in the chair beside the bed.

"I can't baba!" her heart was tearing in two.

"It's what he would want. Those bullets were meant for you."

"I can't leave him." she tried to lunge back to the bed, but her father was stronger.

"You know I understand you better than anyone else could. But Reyyan, I couldn't protect Dilshah. I can protect you. I can help Miran do what I couldn't do."

She stilled in his arms, understanding and acceptance pouring over her like cold water.

"I need him to know baba. I have to tell him." she said through drowning tears.

Hazar didn't seem like he fully understood her meaning, but let her go to her beloved regardless.

She stood near the head of the bed not touching him, but memorizing his face for a brief moment. Then she held his right hand with her left, pressing Dilshah's ring into his skin, so he knew. Her right hand fluttered near his face, like carved marble, all sharp lines but soft to the touch and nearly as cold. Her fingers stroked his beard in the way he liked while she bent her head low to whisper in his ear so only he could hear. She prayed he could hear.

"You told me no matter where I went, you would find me. I'll wait for you. I believe in you. Our love will bring you back to me, because our love will never die. The proof of your love for me lives inside me. Wake up, for the sun will shine on us again. We will be a family. Find me. Find us."

Then she let her father slowly pull her away and out of the room. The last detail she remembered was his dark hair staining the white of his pillow like ink on parchment. She felt the darkness stain her heart, spreading through her body the further she went from him.

She didn't say goodbye. She didn't pack anything or ask for anything, just boarded a bus with only the clothes on her back and the wads of cash her father had given her. He asked that she not tell him or anyone where she was headed, that she destroy her phone and buy a new one, that she not contact anyone or try to come home until she somehow received word.

"I should have done this long ago. I'm sorry kizim. I promise to look after him." as her father cracked and broke down she turned to stone.

As the bus pulled out of the station she stared out the window into the grey dawn and tried to slow her tears. She had to trust her father, she had to trust that Miran would come back to her. She had to believe that she was doing the right thing for their child. Because if she lost faith in any of those things her world would come crashing down around her. She wouldn't survive.