Eddie Munson - A Collection of One-Shots!

005. Vanessa.

The grief consumed me as I sobbed over her, and she caressed my cheek, with a gentle but painfully cold touch.

"I'm cold..." She bleated as I held her closer to me.

"Please don't leave me Ness. Please..." I begged, distraught.

"You can't save me... Eddie, I love you." She whispered, her voice devastatingly hushed and distant.

"I love you..." I replied, sobbing.

Her body fell still in my arms as her hand fell from my face.

I watched it fall limp at her side and I heard her last, laboured breath.

"Eddie...." Nancy whispered as I screwed my eyes tightly closed, tightening my grip on Ness.

"Eddie, she's gone." Nancy whispered.

And as I looked into her vacant eyes beneath me, a heartbroken guttural cry left my throat and I curled over her, bereft.

And all they could do was pull me away from her and force me back through the gate.

"No... No, I can't leave her." I begged.

"We can't stay. I'm sorry.... I'm so sorry." Nancy said, as Steve pushed me forward.

"She sacrificed herself so we could get back. We have to do that, for her." Steve urged.

I didn't want to leave her.

But I did. I did leave her.
Left her behind.

And I was never going to be able to forgive myself for it.

*************************************
Six months later

The funeral had been macabre, more than usual due to the glaringly obvious factor that we had watched an empty coffin be lowered into the ground.

Few of us knew this, her parents included.
But they, unlike us, didn't know the exact reason why.

We had done as she had promised; we'd won the fight.

And now my life just felt all the more empty. Without her and without purpose.

I was just ambling through, barely keeping it together.

I watched our friends pick up the pieces of their broken lives and start to move forward.

I envied them, because without her I had no idea how to move on.

And moving on without her, just wasn't fair.
It didn't seem right; it wasn't right.

"How are you doin' kid?"

A familiar voice in my ear, a familiar rough hand on my shoulder.

"Fine." I lied, as he sighed softly.

"There isn't a time limit on this you know. But you have to let whatever you feel, out." Hopper said.

"How did you do it?" I asked, as I crushed my cigarette out under my foot.

"Well I tried to drink and smoke myself to death, and pushed everyone around me away. Lost my wife. Threw myself into work, but I'll be honest I wasn't really focused as much as I tried. I was angry for a long time, and distant. I knew everyone was walking on eggshells around me, but I didn't care. I've made my peace with it now, a little too late perhaps. But like I said, there's no time limit on grief." Hopper said.

"I can't make my peace with leaving her there." I admitted.

"We had a job to do. More of us would be in the ground, if you hadn't gotten out when you did. She knew that." Hopper said.