Whee! I actually finished! Go me. :) As ever, concrit, good and bad, remains welcome.

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EPILOGUE: Starting Over Again

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Perhaps a week after his rebirth, Beau went to visit the Beast for the first time since her death. Patches accompanied him.

Spring was thawing out the icy winter that Beau had drifted through, though it was still chilly enough for him to need a jacket. The sun shone bright in the clear sky, prompting Beau to stop and lean upwards to bask in it several times. He shut his eyes and let the rays soak into his skin. It felt glorious.

People avoided him as he walked down the road. This did not bother him. When he looked at his reflection in windows, mirrors, and TV screens, he saw that he wasn't handsome any longer. His flesh was mottled, his face was thin and spotted, his hair had fallen out in clumps, and his clothes hung off him like hand-me-downs from a large elder brother. To Beau, this was satisfying to see. Being so handsome had allowed him to believe himself perfect, when in fact he had been so shallow, so empty, that he'd barely been alive. When he looked at himself now, he saw a human being. He didn't know who he was yet, but he knew himself to be a person, and that was a good start.

Halfway to Beast's resting place, Beau turned a corner and saw Ashley on her way towards him, half a dozen shopping bags hanging off of her arm, a cell phone held in her free hand. She didn't notice him until they were almost on top of each other, at which point she squeaked in what could only be described as horror and scuttled like a rat running for its nest to the other side of the street.

Beau grinned after her until she scurried out of sight, feeling fond and amused, though he didn't know why. Maybe he understood too well the pitiful place she inhabited, free of personality or soul or...life, really.

Patches apparently did not share his positive feelings, as she hissed after Ashley's perfectly pedicured heels. Beau grinned again, down at Patches this time. She was firmly affixed in his head as a guardian spirit, but there were moments where she forcefully reminded him that she remained a cat as well.

Finally reaching the cemetery, Beau walked past the black, rusty iron gates and inside via a perfectly laid path of pebbles. Patches trotted along at his heels. Why she had chosen to follow him today, he did not know; he never knew if he'd see her when he woke up on any given day. He liked to think she knew he was visiting Beast.

Virtue's cemetery was surprisingly large for such a small town. Gravestones big and small, simple and elaborate, fought for space. Some were brand new, others so old that one couldn't even read the names once etched on them with such care. The land was impeccably cared for. The grass and flower plots that surrounded it were mostly neat and trimmed, perfectly symmetrical and sweet.

Beast's grave marker was pathetic, just a small square of ugly gray stone with JANE DOE etched into it. When Beau looked closely, he could see that below the name, in tiny letters, was "d. September 9, 2009". No birth date was recorded. It was crammed next to half a dozen other stones, and Beau had no trouble at all seeing all the caskets underneath piled atop each other fighting for space. There might as well have been a sign reading WORTHLESS PEOPLE hanging over this section of the graveyard.

The space was clean enough, at least, though it wouldn't always be. With no one to care for it, it would become overgrown and ugly in direct contrast to the rest of the cemetery; rain and wind would buffet it and no one would set it right when it tilted or God only knew what else. Beau had no idea what Beast would think of that. Did she want to be forgotten? Living down below ground where no one could see her as she had suggested she'd be fine with that, but he had a hard time believing that deep down anyone wanted to be forgotten completely. Certainly she would have hated how nondescript the gravestone was; in death she was finally, literally, being forced to fit in with such an indistinguishable marker. And though Beau felt quite satisfied with his decision to live his life in a different way than she had, he did now understand and respect her need to be outside of the "normal" world. She had needed to live differently just as he had needed to fit in, and so there was no greater insult the town of Virtue could have given her than this cookie-cutter, mass produced headstone with its "Jane Doe" carving. With it, the town officials had desecrated all she had been.

Beau did not have the money to buy anything better, nor did he yet have the gumption to take on City Hall for a friend too dead to appreciate the gesture. Someday, he swore, he would put this horrible insult right. But for the moment....

He had not brought flowers to lie on Beast's grave, for she would have hated such a cute, feminine sort of gift. Instead Beau knelt down before the gravestone and bowed his head to pray. He heard Patches meow softly, but didn't see what the cat was doing. Nor did he look to find out. He felt Patches had the right to mourn Beast in her own way, whatever that was.

What could he say? There was so much to say, he didn't know where to begin. That he understood her now, and was grateful for all she'd taught him about the world and himself? That he loved her, perhaps not as she wanted him to, but strongly and forever? That he still felt confused, wished he could know more about her...about so many things? Or should he start with the negative, that he felt so mad about how she'd treated him, and mad at life for how it had killed her? Or maybe he shouldn't talk about her relationship with him at all, but about his life, and how hard he worked now to find out who he really was, and to understand the human race? Of course, there was always Patches. He could promise to always take care of Patches.

Maybe there just weren't any good words.

So, with his mouth firmly shut, Beau took a grease pen, wrapped in a tissue that was now black enough to have begun staining his pocket. He looked critically at the little stone, all Beast had in the world to leave people to remember her by. Then he leaned down and wrote:

HERE LIES THE

BEAST

He stuck the grease pen up in front of the stone like a stick of incense, left to honor the marker, wishing he'd called her "Beast" aloud just once. He knew now she would have loved the name.

For several long moments, Beau sat before his friend/enemy/guide/jailer's grave in total silence. The mud sunk further into the fibers of his jeans, staining them permanently. Patches sniffed around at the various graves, and then settled atop one and closed her eyes.

Just say something! Beau's mind shouted at him, in a voice that sounded a lot like Beast's. Anything!

Beau cleared his throat.

"So," he said. "Um. Bye, then."

Stretching, Beau got up and left the graveyard, Patches running circles around him. Outside the gates, he saw a flier nailed to a telephone pole, a giant cross drawn on top.

JESUS! it proclaimed. THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE. THE WAY and THE LIFE had been printed in huge letters, so that THE TRUTH had been forced into tiny letters and shoved in-between the larger ones, barely visible and almost squashed into nonexistence.

Rolling his eyes, Beau grabbed the flier, crumpled it in his hands, and threw it over his shoulder before going home.

THE END