Jewel box of sadness, bring to catch your tear
Crystallize illusion shine, forgot I'm here
Jewel box of sadness, bring to catch your tear
Oh, you left some stars in my belly

from Jewel Box by Jeff Buckley

The Last Goodbye

“Please,” she sobbed, stumbling after his retreating form, splashing into puddles unseen in the dark. “Don’t leave.” She grabbed onto the back of his coat, her fingers frantically clutching the rough weave. “Please,” she begged and pulled on his coat to try and make him stop. He spun around, his dark eyes flashing furiously and he angrily shook her off. “Stop,” he snarled, jaw clenched tight. “Just…stop.”

“But-”

“Don’t make this any harder than it is!” he exclaimed, gripping her head roughly in both hands and shaking her, trying not to cry himself. “Don’t make this any more difficult!”

She sobbed harder, unable to pull herself together in the face of losing all she had ever cared about. All that had ever cared about her. She couldn’t lose him. She just couldn’t.

He abruptly let go off her and took a step back, struggling with his own emotions, horrified at what he was doing. “There’s nothing else I can do,” he growled, his anger directed at himself.

“But they’ll kill you!” she cried.

He swallowed hard, knowing the truth in her words but unwilling to admit it. “I have to go,” he muttered, his wet hair falling in his eyes as he hung his head. “There’s no choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” she whispered, her voice echoing down the alleyway, her own rain-darkened hair obscuring half her face.

He didn’t know what to say. He was causing her so much pain. He had to get away now. He turned to go but she lunged forward and grabbed onto his arm and without thinking he threw her off and she skidded to lie still on the ground feet away from where he stood. Unable to believe what he had done he just stared at her in shock. What was he doing? He looked down at his hands as though he had never seen them before. He had never, ever, used them to hurt an innocent before.

Slowly she raised her tear stained face from the dirt, her whole frame quivering. How could he do this to her? Didn’t he understand that if he died them she would too? She put a hand to her face, probing it carefully, and when she took it away she could see the blood on her fingertips. He had never hurt her before. For all that he was a killer, an assassin, a spy, what ever you wanted to call him, he was the gentlest, noblest person she knew.

The rain began to fall harder.

He came over to her and tried to help her rise but she pushed him away, not wanting his pity. He knelt awkwardly beside her, torn between what he had to do and staying with her.

“Please don’t leave me,” she whispered desperately, looking pleadingly up at him.

Unable to stand the look in her eyes he stood and strode away.

“You’re breaking my heart.”

It was said so hopelessly, so dejectedly that his iron resolve began to crack. No one would blame him if he didn’t go back; most thought it was an insane mission anyway. He was after all, blameless. They hadn’t obeyed their orders and were paying for it. Why should he risk his own life to save theirs?

He was sacrificing himself because he was that kind of person. The kind of person who never leaves a friend behind; the kind who’ll take all the blame; who’ll never give someone away.

Some would say that it was his compassion that was his greatest flaw, that and the woman lying in the dirt behind him. It was a weakness that one couldn’t afford if you were dealing with lives.

In the darkness he hunched over and dug his hands through his hair as though he would tear his skull open and spare him from the agony of what he was doing. He was hurting her, doing the one thing he swore he’d never do. She’d been hurt more than enough before. He was supposed to protect her from any more pain.

But if he succeeded…If he succeeded then there would be five women whose grief he could turn to joy, five families he could reunite. Five men whose lives he could save by sacrificing his own. Shouldn’t he try everything in his power to save them? He had never passed over a mission before-never even considered it-but now he desperately wished that there were someone else who could go. But there wasn’t. He was the only one with a chance of bringing the five men home.

He almost screamed in frustration. He spun around again and stalked over to her, crouched down, taking her chin between his fingers and kissed her, tasting the salt in her tears. “I’m going now,” he murmured against her lips and she squeezed her eyes shut, more glittering tears escaping down her cheeks. “I will be back. I promise. “Trust me?” he whispered, pulling back.

She searched his eyes desperately, willing him to be telling the truth. “I trust you,” she breathed. “I trust you, I trust you.”

He stood and, with one final caress of her cheek, walked off down the alley, never once looking back, his dark head bowed forwards as though there were a great weight about his neck.

She knew, as she watched him walk away, his dark coat billowing behind him, that it was the last time she was ever going to see him. In some deep place in her heart she knew it was their last goodbye.